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Abby Olcese

@abbyolcese.bsky.social

4.3K followers 790 following 3.8K posts

Film critic/writer at The Pitch, Paste, Sojourners, rogerebert.com, others. Author of FILMS FOR ALL SEASONS, out NOW from InterVarsity Press!

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Abby Olcese @abbyolcese.bsky.social · Oct 24

Since I have a big crop of new followers: Hi! I'm Abby! I write about movies and sometimes other things. I went viral once for posting a photo of an Abe Lincoln impersonator. I wrote a book that just came out, and you should read it!

Films for All Seasons: Experiencing the Church Year at the Movies a book by Abby Olcese and Josh Larsen

The Spiritual Practice of Watching MoviesWhat's your favorite Christmas movie? Easter movie? Pentecost movie? Casual viewers and movie buffs alike have favorite movies to watch at certain times of the...

bookshop.org

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Abby Olcese @abbyolcese.bsky.social · 13h

Damn.

D'Angelo and The Vanguard - 1000 Deaths (Audio)

YouTube video by DAngeloVEVO

youtu.be

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Abby Olcese @abbyolcese.bsky.social · 15h

It's great and, unfortunately for me, an earworm that is REALLY hard to get rid of.

Abby Olcese @abbyolcese.bsky.social · 15h

More like church of the HIP Shepherd, amirite?

Alexander Luckmann @aluckmann.bsky.social · 16h

#158: Karl Wilhelm Ochs, Church of the Good Shepherd, Gütersloh (1960-62)

A red-brick church phtograpged in bright fall light. The sanctuary building is to the left. Narrow wooden piers divide a window wall. To the right, a rectangular church tower has openings that start 2/3 of the way up. Photo via Evangelische Kirchengemeinde Gütersloh, https://www.ekgt.de/kirchen/zum-guten-hirten/.

A sanctuary with two rows of wooden pews either side of a central aisle. Light enters through a wall of clear windows on the far side. The ceiling is slightly curved, and made up of a grid of steel beams. The altar is simple and slightly raised. Photo by Subbass1 via Wikimedia Commons.

A view back from the laltar to the entrance. Similarly, a simple interior with whitewashed walls. Simple round black lights hang from the ceiling. Photo by Subbass1 via Wikimedia Commons.

Perspective sketch of church and interior by Ochs. From Architecture Museum of TU Berlin, https://architekturmuseum.ub.tu-berlin.de/.

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Reposted by Abby Olcese

elia ayoub 🌱 @ayoub.bsky.social · 17h

What better example of how we live in multiple worlds at the same time than a bunch of people living in the french catacombs together watching movies and eating couscous

the babahuck @tylerhuckabee.bsky.social · 2d

In 2004, Parisian police were conducting a training exercise in the french catacombs and found, after moving past a desk and a tape playing audio of snarling dogs, a fully functional movie theater and bar. When they returned 3 days later, the equipment was gone, with a note: “Do not try to find us.”

Members of the force's sports squad, responsible
- among other tasks - for policing the 170 miles of tunnels, caves, galleries and catacombs that underlie large parts of Paris, stumbled on the complex while on a training exercise beneath the Palais de Chaillot, across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower.
After entering the network through a drain next to the Trocadero, the officers came across a tarpaulin marked: Building site, No access.
Behind that, a tunnel held a desk and a closed-circuit TV camera set to automatically record images of anyone passing. The mechanism also triggered a tape of dogs barking, "clearly designed to frighten people off," the spokesman said.
Further along, the tunnel opened into a vast 400 sq metre cave some 18m underground, "like an underground amphitheatre, with terraces cut into the rock and chairs".

There the police found a full-sized cinema screen, projection equipment, and tapes of a wide variety of films, including 1950s film noir classics and more recent thrillers. None of the films were banned or even offensive, the spokesman said.
A smaller cave next door had been turned into an informal restaurant and bar. "There were bottles of whisky and other spirits behind a bar, tables and chairs, a pressure-cooker for making couscous," the spokesman said.
"The whole thing ran off a professionally installed electricity system and there were at least three phone lines down there."
Three days later, when the police returned accompanied by experts from the French electricity board to see where the power was coming from, the phone and electricity lines had been cut and a note was lying in the middle of the floor: "Do not," it said, "try to find us."

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Abby Olcese @abbyolcese.bsky.social · 1d

Sorry to "give me that" guy, "let me keep my wheelbarrow" guy is my new best friend now.

Abby Olcese @abbyolcese.bsky.social · 1d

85-90% for me. The other 10-15% is either news I'm just seeing, event/book/movie stuff I'm genuinely interested in, or networking and job opportunities. Maybe there's a funny thing that makes me happy.

Everything else is doomscrolling, void-yelling or thumb-twiddling.

Abby Olcese @abbyolcese.bsky.social · 1d

BLESS

Abby Olcese @abbyolcese.bsky.social · 1d

(Half is probably an exaggeration. But it is a LOT.)

Abby Olcese @abbyolcese.bsky.social · 1d

THIS THIS OH MAN THIS. Applies to non-fiction writing as well. I probably go over my own stuff about 15 times before I send it in, and every pass I delete about half the words. Readers want to know what your point is, not how pretty/smart you can make it sound.

G. Willow Wilson @gwillow.me · 1d

A lot of writers seem to think the more mannered and self-conscious their prose, the better. They add SO much fluff. But the real power of any book comes from the precision of its observations, not the purpleness of its prose. David Foster Wallace wrote like an 8th grade boy taking an English test.

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Abby Olcese @abbyolcese.bsky.social · 1d

Related: I started The Chair Company last night, and maybe my favorite thing about Tim Robinson projects (besides Robinson, obviously) is the use of normal-looking people in every scene reacting to him. I don't think his stuff works as well without that element.

drewtoothpaste @drewtoothpaste.bsky.social · 1d

movies should have regular looking people in them

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Reposted by Abby Olcese

Phil Lewis @phillewis.bsky.social · 1d

Government workers 👇🏾

Lunch is on the house:

Being in the heart of downtown DC, we love that so many of our Federal employees stop by during lunch for a Donburi at China Chilcano or a Fútbol Club at Jaleo. And just because the government is shut down doesn't mean you have to miss out on your favorite lunch spot- because this time, its on us!
Join us for lunch from 11:30 AM to 3:00 PM at any of our participating restaurants and enjoy a free lunch item when you present your government ID-you heard that right! Dine in with us Monday through Friday and choose your favorite: a sandwich at Jaleo, a donburi at China Chilcano, a wrap or pita at Zaytinya, or a torta at Oyamel.
We've always believed in serving our community with open arms and good food-no shutdown can stop that.

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Abby Olcese @abbyolcese.bsky.social · 1d

It is crazy-making.

Abby Olcese @abbyolcese.bsky.social · 1d

WTF saw me through college graduation, eight jobs, six cities, my first apartment, my current house, four election cycles and two pet adoptions (I have my own Buster Kitten). That's a lot of life. Thanks for everything, Marc!

Abby Olcese @abbyolcese.bsky.social · 1d

Easy! Chuck Olcese Day, where everyone celebrates the San Francisco Giants and does service projects supporting immigrants and refugees in their community. Seminars on immigration law offered all day. Ends with a vigil celebrating Buck O'Neil and Willie Mays and a Bob Dylan concert.