#holy rollers

TEMPLE OF THE LAMB

Whip It (2009)

An experiment in rollers ✨

Spiritually speaking, my mother was as unknowable to me as any of her gods. “And then after your mom was done singing in the choir,” Pernell said, “I saw your mom rolling in the aisle and speaking in tongues.” “No way,” I said. “She was probably just speaking Spokane.” My mother was one of the few tribal members who were still fluent in the old way of speaking Spokane. “It wasn’t Indian talk,” Pernell said. “It was her Jesus voice.” There were quite a few Spokane Indians who fell in love with Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity. I think it’s rather easy for a universally damaged people like Native Americans to believe wholeheartedly in miracles, in the supernatural. But I’d never thought of my mother as a Spokane who’d go that far. “I’m not lying,” Pernell said. “I believe you, Jack,” I said, though I hoped he was mistaken. When I got home from school, I immediately asked my mother if she’d been speaking in tongues. “Yes,” she said. “Weird,” I said, and walked downstairs to my room. I figured my mother was pretending to speak in tongues. She was just acting, I thought. It’s like a one-woman show, I guessed. My mother had always been so dramatic. And what’s more dramatic than an Indian woman rolling down the aisle of a little reservation church? I tried to put it out of my mind, to allow my mother to freely practice her religion as much as she allowed me to fully practice my nonreligion. But, a few weeks later, I crawled out of my Sunday-morning slumber and walked the mile to her church. And there she was, along with the white couple who led the church and a few dozen Spokane Indians, throwing books, magazines, and music albums onto a bonfire. My mother and her fellow indigenous Charismatics were chanting something about the Devil—about the evil of the secular world—about all the sin-soaked novels and porn magazines and rock music. I was grossed out. On opposite sides of the bonfire, my mother and I made eye contact. But I think she was so deeply entranced—so hypnotized and self-hypnotized—that she didn’t recognize me. I hurried home to make sure my small personal library of books and records was intact and unburned. And, yes, all was safe. Later that night, at the dinner table, I told my mother to leave my stuff alone or I’d burn down her church. “You’re a sinner,” she said, and pointed her fork at me. “And so are you,” I said, and pointed my fork right back at her. You Don't Have to Say You Love Me: A Memoir by Sherman Alexie

They think they’re so high and mighty just ‘cause they never got caught drivin’ without pants.

Bughouse

Holy Rollers (2010), dir. by Kevin Asch