I've seen stranger things happen before

The New Yorker's epic 25,000 word Lawrence Wright article about Paul Haggis's fight against the Church of Scientology offers hours of mind-bending, Tom Cruise-bashing fun.

   Carrying an empty, locked briefcase, Haggis went to the Advanced Organization building in Los Angeles, where the material was held. A supervisor then handed him a folder, which Haggis put in the briefcase. He entered a study room, where he finally got to examine the secret document—a couple of pages, in Hubbard’s bold scrawl. After a few minutes, he returned to the supervisor.

   “I don’t understand,” Haggis said.

   “Do you know the words?” the supervisor asked.

   “I know the words, I just don’t understand.”

   “Go back and read it again,” the supervisor suggested.

   Haggis did so. In a moment, he returned. “Is this a metaphor?” he asked the supervisor.

   “No,” the supervisor responded. “It is what it is. Do the actions that are required.”

   Maybe it’s an insanity test, Haggis thought—if you believe it, you’re automatically kicked out. “I sat with that for a while,” he says. But when he read it again he decided, “This is madness.”

Read:
THE APOSTATE

The new Bright Eyes album, (out since Tuesday) with its science fiction spoken word interludes and Rastafarian allusions, provides a suitably bizarro soundtrack.

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