Rihanna covers René

Walking into my office today, I passed a student waiting at the front door of our building, listening to his cell phone as though it were a stereo.  The song that met me as I moved through the breezeway was Rihanna’s Rude Boy.  One line in the chorus caught my attention, and I reflected on the increasing frequency with which I now hear pop culture adopt Girardian views of human interaction:

I wa-wa-want what you wa-wa-want.

The door closed and I didn’t hear the rest, but in my mind I began to turn over thoughts of imitation, rivalry, contagion, violence, and the sacred.  Easter is almost here.