Laity

laity







Y

[ley-i-tee]



D



–noun

1. the body of religious worshipers, as distinguished from the clergy.

2. the people outside of a particular profession, as distinguished from those belonging to it: the medical ignorance of the laity.





　

Mr. Bunuel caricatures St. Simon Stylites, who stood on a pillar in a Biblical desert in penance and worship. His Mexican-made film, beautifully photographed in stark black-and-white by Gilbert Figueroa, follows the satiric, surrealistic style that is the expatriate Spaniard's hallmark.



Circuitous and sharply abrupt in execution, the short subject jibes at the temptations thrust at his somewhat naive hero by both the [religious] and the [laity], and by Satan in the guise of a voluptuous Silvia Pinal. 



Miss Pinal and Claudio Brook, who looks like a black-bearded Charlton Heston-like Moses as St. Simon, play their roles broadly.



jibe

–verb (used without object)

1. to utter mocking or scoffing words; jeer.



Also, gibe, gybe, jib, jibb.





pontificate

papacy

papal

of or pertaining to the pope 

several parchment [documents], a few parades, a little papal [diplomacy]

oratorio

musical composition based upon a religious theme, without action, costume, or scenery

evensong

placebo

"placebo"

vesper

of or pertaining to evening

vesper [bell]

Finally there is his anguish as he dutifully rises to conduct vesper [services] in an empty church.

curfew

You're gonna get us busted for curfew.

I want a curfew. I want to be grounded for sleeping with a 35-year-old schizophrenic. I want rules and boundaries, because what I've learned is that, without them, all life is, is a series of surprises.

Hierophant