From: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (aml-list-digest) To: aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: aml-list-digest V1 #134 Reply-To: aml-list Sender: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk aml-list-digest Thursday, August 17 2000 Volume 01 : Number 134 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2000 11:39:31 -0600 (MDT) From: Ivan Angus Wolfe Subject: [AML] _The Mission_ (was: Nudity) > replied to David Hansen's comment: > > _The Mission_. The Catholic Church is threatening the existence of a > > rainforest tribe in Brazil. Lots of religion bashing, but the nudity is > > the natural, > Harlow S. Clark Now I'm going out on a tangent NOT related to nudity, but what I see as a common misinterpretaion of one of the best movies to deal with religion I have ever seen. I know Micahel Medved, a man whom I usually agree with, does not see it this way, but I find the church rather sympathetically portrayed. The Church does not threaten the rainforest tribe in Brazil. The church would like to protect the tribes. In fact, it is the secular government that is threatening the tribes. The cardinal who represents the church proper is constantly making statements about how the church would protect the tribes, IF it had any power. Unfortunately, the secular governments back in Europe have started to ignore the church's pronouncements. The Church has lost all power to protect it's own. There are hints of governments raiding churches for their gold and other treasures. The tribes that have become converted are being captured and sold as slaves despite what the church tries to do to protect them. The Cardinal realizes this and in an attempt to salvage something from thsi horrible mess, orders the Franciscan priests to abandon the tribe. Somewhat cowardly, but the Cardinal explains that if the priests are found to be helping the tribe, it would provide the secular governments with the perfect excuse to attack the church directly and eliminate it. By the Cadinal's narration throughout the film and his ending comments, neither he nor the church were happy about this. It was basically a choice between two evils, and it was not clear which was the lesser. There is no real religion bashing in the film, IMHO. Instead what I see is the bashing of secuar governments who refuse to give the church some leeway in handling its own converts (many of whom had started up monasteries and missions and so should have been untouchable). Okay - rant over. - --Ivan Wolfe - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2000 11:55:26 PDT From: "Jason Steed" Subject: Re: [AML] Teaching in Art I think it is only the current aesthetic (and by current, I mean the last 100 years or so) that takes an anti-didactic stance. In other words, our culture has changed in myriad ways over time, and it is a relatively recent development that our culture's sense of literary aesthetic disdains the didactic. In fact, there have been many periods in which (by today's standards) the literature of the time was heavily didactic, because the aesthetics of the time did not disdain didacticism as it does today. Todd's examples of Horace and Sidney are good--and certainly we can add writers like Pope to the list of "great" writers who believed literature was (at least in part) meant to instruct. The Modernists (who might very well be responsible for the anti-didactic mentality) were reacting against the Victorians, many of whom wrote with a "moral" to their tale--they specifically took pot-shots at Tennyson for his "sentimentality", which might be reinterpreted as a penchant for morals or didacticism. But even in the 20th cen. there have been those who felt the function of literature was "moral" and (at least in part) to teach. D.H. Lawrence believed in a didacticism of a sort--the sort of didacticism that "changes the blood" and not the mind, changing the blood first, the mind following after (this is a paraphrase of an actual statement). My two cents on this "teaching in art" thread: Outright or overt didacticism is frowned upon, and should be avoided. But characters in a story always provide examples of something (good examples, bad examples, etc.)--and ANY time you have an example, you have a teacher. Thus, literature ALWAYS has the capacity to teach, and in fact (IMO) always teaches. This does not mean the "lesson" is blatant or flagrant; but it is there. Changing the blood, while the mind goes often unaware. As LDS writers, we need to be in tune with this teaching capacity of literature, and careful that it isn't misused or abused. That is the key (IMO) to writing "moral literature", without necessarily succumbing to the much lower form of literature-with-a-moral. Jason ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2000 14:07:34 -0700 From: harlowclark@juno.com Subject: [AML] Poetry Reading with David Messineo at the Read Leaf Margy Layton, who used to adjunct with me at UVSC in my former life, before she and her husband opened a bookstore in Springville, called to tell me that David Messineo, editor of a new magazine called Sensations, is doing a tour to promote his books and scare up talent for the magazine. He'll be doing a reading for about 30 minutes on August 26, 7:30., then open mike for about 1/2 hour. Messineo will read from his collection, _Suburban Gothic_. He also wrote _The Hundredth Anniversary of Coney Island Amusement Parks_ a collection of photos. The Read Leaf is at 164 S. Main Street in, Springville (which, for all you poor souls out in the hinterland who never get to attend these events, is the next town south of Provo, which is midway through the state that's kind of southwest of Idaho). Take the first or 2nd Springville exit. They both come out on Main Street. For more information you can call Margy at (801) 489-1390, or e-mail info@readleaf.com. If you can't make it there (and I hope I can arrange my work schedule to get there) you could e-mail a poem you want read to someone like me. (Though if you do, there's no guarantee the poetry editor of Irreantum won't snatch it up.) Feel free to pass this on to others who might be interested. Harlow S. Clark - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2000 13:08:19 -0700 From: harlowclark@juno.com Subject: Re: [AML] Good Writing On Sat, 5 Aug 2000 11:45:57 Melinda Ambrose writes: > Part of the reason I've never made a serious effort to support myself > financially solely by writing is because I have a pragmatic streak a > mile wide (inherited from my father, who, while very intelligent and > creative, said of literary work, "You can't eat it."). He ate and drank the precious words His spirit grew robust He knew no more that he was poor Or that his soul was dust I typed that from memory, read in my father's freshman English text _About Language_ when I was 12. I haven't checked Emily D's punctuation, but I love the image. > Society in the United States has become wealthy enough and > technologically advanced enough to financially support many, > many artists, entertainers, writers, and philosophers. But in > many other societies, if you want to write full time you'll have > to starve. How about a for instance here. In many non-industrialized cultures the poet or artist is revered--though I wonder sometimes if that's just a stereotype. > Your physical and mental labor in those societies is more needed > to support life directly, not to just encourage life. > > With this in mind, I have difficulty justifying spending full time > writing, though I would love to do so. It seems an intangible way > to work, yet I love to read and to watch movies and listen to music. I'm not sure what you mean by intangible. Huge portions of our economy are devoted to intangibles, as attested by a term like 'intellectual property' and the number of lawyers litigating over it. The stock market is no more tangible than writing. What do you own when you own a share of some company? The only tangible thing you can point to is a piece of paper that says you own stock in a company. Of course, a piece of paper is also what you point to when someone asks for tangible evidence of your writing. Further, creating that piece of paper generates a certain amount of economic activity. Getting my name in print each week not only generates income for me, but for the paper manufacturer, the printer, the film company, Albertson's (if I happen to have color film that week, which NewUtah! doesn't develop in-house), UTA--because I have to drop the film off, gas stations, the boy or girl who delivers the paper to subscribers, and a host of others like the companies that manufacture the printer's ink and the darkroom chemicals, and, of course, the electric utility. > Have you ever met this difficulty? How do you answer it? A couple of observations. Much as many LDS disagree with Marxists, Marxist theory probably has a more humane understanding than capitalism as we practice it of an artist's role in society. Marxist theory sees an artist as a producer, just like all other producers in a society. Capitalists tend to see artists in the kinds of terms Socrates uses in Plato's Ion, "For the poet is an airy thing, a winged and a holy thing; and he cannot make poetry until he becomes inspired and goes out of his senses and no mind is left to him" (_Great Dialogues of Plato_ tr. W. H. D. Rouse, New York: New American Library, Mentor Books, 1956, p. 19 (Verse 533c or 534c, for those conversant with the Platonic numbering, which I'm not)). Socrates goes on to explain that this means poets are inherently economically untrustworthy since you never know when inspiration will strike, and you can't predict their output. You can't depend on a poet to produce anything on their own, and in a society whose mores depend on each person producing this makes the poet morally unfit, though inspired, to be a member of the society. I like Alan Bean's answer to that argument. He sees it as a marketing ploy, a way of making art seem scarce, therefore more valuable. In an NPR Weekend Edition interview Sunday October 25, 1998, where Liane Hansen referred to him in the teaser as "the only artist to walk on the moon," Bean said, "Actually being a real artist, a professional artist, is so different from the mythology of being an artist, and most of the mythology of being an artist wasn't presented by artists themselves, but presented by dealers who were trying to sell their art, so what occurs is they say, 'Well these are scatter-brained people and they live in a world of their own and they're completely right-brained and they don't--they're not systematic,' and all those things, you know the stories, and 'they just do--this is very relaxing to them.' Well first of all, none of that is true. To be a good artist you've to be as organized as to be a good radio announcer, to be a good accountant." I agree with Bean. Writing is hard work, but it's a skill you can learn. He talks about his decision to be an artist and his development over the last 17 years, the skills and techniques he's learned--things that parallel any professional's development in any profession. (He also has an interesting comment relating to Thom Duncan's assertion that art needs to capture the spirit of a moment, not the historical accuracy. Hansen asked him about a painting called something like "Lunar High-Five." He explained that you can't show exuberance through facial expression in a space suit--can't see the face--so he had to choose a body movement that would convey the exuberance.) Melinda also said, in a separate post, same thread: "Art in general is great but not, as a separate subject, vital. The real art is the way we live every day." I agree with the second sentence for much the same reason I agree with Eric Samuelsen's repeated testimony that art is good: The art that we create helps us, or ought to help us, if we will let it, be better people. Which is why I disagree with the first sentence. Listen to the number of stories you tell in a day. Try to get through a day without telling a single story, or a night's sleep. It can't be done. We are narrative creatures. When Reynolds Price wanted to increase his resources as a storyteller he turned to the source of great story in his life, the Bible, and decided that if he was going to understand how Bible stories achieved a power that held him and millions more in "helpless belief" he would have to translate the stories. When he brought out a volume of those translations, _A Palpable God_, he included "A Single Meaning: Notes on the Origins and Life of Narrative." It begins, "A need to tell and hear stories is essential to the species _Homo sapiens_--second in necessity apparently after nourishment and before love and shelter. Millions survive without love or home, almost none in silence; the opposite of silence leads quickly to narrative, and the sound of story is the dominant sound of our lives, from the small accounts of our days' events to the vast incommunicable constructs of psychopaths." I outlined this post on August 8 and I was going to end with the following paragraph, just to tie things up: Surely we do ourselves a disservice if we say that the work which sustains our minds and spirits is less important, even less tangible, than the work which supports our bodies. But after I had turned off the computer I had an interesting thought (though I'm not sure if Islam observes a sabbath): Even if the artist produces only intangibles, it is worth noting that the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition is built around the idea that the highest honor we can pay God is to structure our days around a recurring day in which we produce nothing, resting from our labors. Harlow Soderborg Clark ________________________________________________________________ YOU'RE PAYING TOO MUCH FOR THE INTERNET! Juno now offers FREE Internet Access! Try it today - there's no risk! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2000 16:58:34 -0400 From: debbro@voyager.net Subject: [AML] Deseret Book Well! I finally got Linda Adam's book _Thy Kingdon Come_ from Deseret today. I will probably think twice about ordering from them again, and its not because of the $3.95 shipping fee. That's standard from the on-line ordering I have done in the past. No, what will make me think twice is how long it took to get here. I ordered the book on the 2nd of August, and although the website said it would be available for shipping in one business day, I learned that it was packed on the 3rd, and shipped on the 4th. It was shipped bookrate. It took twelve days to get here. I have shipped things to Utah using bookrate, and it was in Utah within 7 days, tops. So why can Amazon or Barnes and Noble, charging the same shipping fee, get it to me faster? Hmmmmm? (and yes, that was the only item I ordered) I am happy to have it in my hands now, just have to figure out when I can start reading it, dang it! I leave Sunday to go to a fine arts camp in Michigan for a week of playing and learning chamber music (I play violin) and since I want to give Linda's book my full attention it may have to wait till I get back, on the 26th. :-( I will say though, that $14.95 for 517 pages with small print, is a good value. The only other better book value I have gotten this year was my Harry Potter book or 732 pages for $12.50 from Sam's Club. (Though they have now raised the price to $13.48. I bought one yesterday for my VT's birthday). The cover looks real good. Debbie Brown - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2000 15:40:03 -0600 From: "Alan Mitchell" Subject: Re: [AML] Nudity Cut-off Warning Nudity is like the weather...everybody talks about it but nobody does anything. Since neither Martindale nor anybody addressed my question regarding the place for Nudity in Mormon Art, (and I mean real nudity, not just talking about it in the shower, but real Picasso type stuff), I'll have to assume that no such thing will exist in the near future. Shucks, I wanted someone on the list to be the first AML streaker. Alan Mitchell - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2000 22:26:03 -0500 From: "Todd Robert Petersen" Subject: Re: [AML] Teaching in Art D. Michael Martindale observed that Thom Duncan wrote: >> Art, however, is art. Totally different rules apply. The ultimate goal >> is different, too. It is not to teach, never, never to teach. And then D. Michael said: > I don't think Thom really means art shouldn't or can't teach, but that > the artist shouldn't be _trying_ to teach. Rather art should be an > exploration of truth for both the reader and artist, without any > preconceived notions where that exploration will end up. I reference the above as a response. > It [art's job] is not to teach, never, never to teach. Not, never and never all give me a pretty clear indication that Thom isn't trying to hedge. Thom, if you did mean something lighter, please chime in. Todd Robert Petersen - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2000 00:46:22 EDT From: Larry Jackson Subject: [AML] Lindsey Phillip DEW, _The Trial_ (Review) Jeff Needle: As long as we're on the subject, I was a bit surprised at the depiction of a Mormon small town made up primarily of people who would turn against their home-town lawyer because he defended an unpopular cause. It was a surprisingly homogenous view -- the town seemed to act in concert -- turning their back on John as if in an orchestrated move. I wondered whether small Mormon towns really are this one-minded about things. _______________ At the risk of offending citizens of small Mormon towns everywhere, let me just say that ... I have no comment! In the book, I'm not sure they turned against their home-town lawyer as much as they turned on their bishop who, in their minds, should have known that "Thou shalt not kill." One of the strengths of the book was that, inspite of what everyone seemed to want to do, he was the one who held out for what was right, even though it was not popular. It probably had to be a small home-town to be that conflicting and one-minded. Had the book been set in a large metropolis (SLC, for example), the reaction would probably have been ho-hum, and I believe the story would have lost its power. Besides, there had to be some place up the road for ... oops, I told myself not to do that, didn't I? Larry Jackson ________________________________________________________________ YOU'RE PAYING TOO MUCH FOR THE INTERNET! Juno now offers FREE Internet Access! Try it today - there's no risk! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2000 00:46:22 EDT From: Larry Jackson Subject: [AML] MN LDS Impresario's Shakespearean Vision Honored: New York Times From: Kent Larsen To: Mormon News Subject: MN LDS Impresario's Shakespearean Vision Honored: New York Times 30Jul00 A4 Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2000 11:30:00 -0400 [From Mormon-News] LDS Impresario's's Shakespearean Vision Honored CEDAR CITY, UTAH -- The 2000 Tony Awards have validated the vision of LDS Church member Fred C. Adams, the founder and executive producer of the Utah Shakespearean Festival. The Festival was given the Tony Award for the Best Regional Theatre in June, drawing the attention of the theatre world to Cedar City, Utah, including a rather lengthy article recently in the New York Times. Adams grew up in central Utah, yearning to be an actor. An LDS returned missionary, Adams also reportedly served in the US Army before going to New York City, where he tried to start a career as an actor. While he managed to work in a few Broadway shows, including as an understudy in the 1953 production of Cole Porter's "Can-Can," he eventually gave up and returned to Utah, landing a position at what is now Southern Utah University, then a junior college, and asked to set up a drama department. While Adams felt that the community needed him, the situation was still difficult, "The community was going through a real letdown. The iron mines had closed. The economy was shattered. At that point I said to the mayor and the city council that I wanted to start a Shakespeare festival. They thought I was crazy. The idea of Shakespeare didn't seem to impress any of them." But Adams persisted, visiting the Oregon Shakespearean Festival for inspiration and persuading the local Lions Club to support the first season in 1962. The first season was a success, both on the stage and in the pocketbook, as the community came out not only to see the plays, but also to play roles on the makeshift stage. The festival managed to make a profit of $2,000 that year. Adams has said that Cedar City is a natural place for Shakespeare, claiming that the immigrants that Brigham Young sent to the area, often from Ireland and Wales, were natural entertainers. According to Adams, Cedar City initially had more entertainment than Salt Lake City. Since its founding, the festival has steadily grown, adding plays and facilities until today it attracts more than 150,000 ticket-holders to its two theatres over a ten-week season. And winning the Tony Award is a big boost to the festival, which plans further expansion, including an additional two theatres as part of a multi-block-long Renaissance center. The festival's reputation has also grown since 1962, as theatre audiences outside of Utah have started traveling to attend the shows. "I was dubious at first about Shakespeare in Utah -- and very reluctantly I went," said Kenneth Adelman, who has taught Shakespeare courses at Georgetown and George Washington universities. "And it blew me out of the water. This place is in the middle of nowhere. And what you get is extraordinary." Of course, because of the predominantly Mormon community in Cedar City and Utah, the festival does make some accommodations. The selection of non-Shakespeare plays is somewhat limited because of concerns over sex, blunt language or edgy themes, and while the festival has done plays like "Glass Menagerie" and "A Streetcar Named Desire," Tony Kushner's "Angels in America," which includes a gay Mormon as a character, would probably not be considered. The festival says, "We don't restrict ourselves because of the content of plays but rather because of whether the audience would go. So we wouldn't do 'Angels in America' because we probably wouldn't get an audience to watch it." But many plays also touch Mormon sensibilities. "The Merchant of Venice," part of this year's festival, has always been popular with Mormon audiences, according to Adams, "They see the victim in Shylock. Having been victimized themselves in their history, Mormons take great comfort in seeing this portrayal of humanity victimized by people who profess to be Christians." And this year's production is particularly sympathetic to Shylock, playing up the anti-semeticism of the Christians in the play, and even including dramatic elements that echo the holocaust. Winning the Tony Award now gives the festival visibility it hasn't had, and validates its decisions, perhaps even its slight accommodation to Mormons. Adams expects audiences and fund-raising to surge as a result of the award. And, it also gives him a sweet triumph, "At long last," he said. "We've been recognized!" Source: Far Out in the Land Of Shakespeare New York Times pg5 30Jul00 A6 By Bernard Weinraub Utah Shakespearean Festival Website http://www.barg.org/ [I haven't tested this website, but just offhand I'd say if it doesn't work, try "bard". I just send 'em as I get 'em. Larry] >From Mormon-News: Mormon News and Events Forwarding is permitted as long as this footer is included Mormon News items may not be posted to the World Wide Web sites without permission. Please link to our pages instead. For more information see http://www.MormonsToday.com/ Send join and remove commands to: majordomo@MormonsToday.com Put appropriate commands in body of the message: To join: subscribe mormon-news To leave: unsubscribe mormon-news To join digest: subscribe mormon-news-digest - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2000 23:26:21 -0600 From: "D. Michael Martindale" Subject: Re: [AML] National Geographic Nudity Harlow S. Clark wrote: > Everyone knows, of course, that National Geographic isn't banned from > school libraries because the nudity is non-sexual, but several years ago > a friend said, "Why are the naked people in National Geographic always > African?" > I got some thoughtful responses to that question, generally that the > people in those photos were in their natural cultural setting. But, I > would ask, how often do you see photos in National Geographic of nude > French beaches? That's their culture. But France is also a first-world > country. Let's see. Nudity on the beach is the culture in France. Nudity in the jungle is the culture in Africa. The nudity in France is nonsexual. The nudity in Africa is nonsexual. The French people look a lot like most Americans, including their technological development. The African people look different than most Americans, including their technological development. It _looks_ like a form of bigotry. The Africans don't quite count, so their nudity doesn't quite count. Or is it just that the Africans don't know any better, but the French should? Is it that the Africans are heathens, and the French Christians? No, it still doesn't seem to be rising above the level of bigotry. > I don't suppose the photographers and editors of National Geographic are > thinking about horny junior high boys when they put together their > issues--though many of them were horny junior high boys who went to > National Geographic for their nudity--and if they are, I doubt there's > anything they can do to control how those boys use the magazine. Until the attitudes of Americans toward nudity changes, perhaps we should be grateful National Geographic exists. It gives those "horny" junior high boys a place to learn about the human body that is harmless and nonsexual. A whole lot better than something like Playboy, or the "wisdom" of their peers. > These two remind me of a comment Jamie Lee Curtis made about a movie > where she had brief frontal nudity. A friend called to tell her he was > throwing a party and had rented the video and frozen it on that shot. > Once a nude shot has been created it's available for anyone to use, > whatever the context or original intent. I would say this clearly illustrates the moral responsibility the audience has when receiving art. It is impossible to control how the audience will choose to react to one's art, and I don't think the artist should have to be responsible for it, as long as his intent is pure. I don't think he should have to worry about it at all. At least I think I think that. I could probably think of exceptions. Like Stephen King's book with the title I don't remember that talked about violence in a school. When a clear connection between that book and a real case of school violence came out, King refused to allow the book to be sold anymore. I think that was a reasonable action to take, even though I'm sure King's intent was never to encourage violence. But I also think it's an important distinction that it was a voluntary act on the part of the author to do so, not something imposed upom him from the outside. > And now for the "really, really strong connection to Mormon letters." > Nine or ten years ago I published a short novel in which nudity plays a > part. In some ways the story is a meditation on nudity. Better watch out, Harlow! People will start thinking you're as corrupt as Orson Scott Card! - -- D. Michael Martindale dmichael@wwno.com ================================== Check out Worldsmiths, the new online LDS writers group, at http://www.wwno.com/worldsmiths Sponsored by Worlds Without Number http://www.wwno.com ================================== - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2000 13:42:05 -0400 From: "Shawn and Melinda Ambrose" Subject: [AML] RE: Teaching in Art ." Chesterton's definition of literature may provide a useful frame of reference within which to consider your question: "Nothing is important except the fate of the soul; and literature is only redeemed from an utter triviality surpassing that of naughts and crosses by the fact that it describes not the world around us or things on the retina of the eye, or the enormous irrelevance of encyclopedias, but some condition to which the human spirit can come. All good writers express the state of their souls, even (as occurs in some cases of very good writers) if it is a state of nation." --Chesterton, as quoted by Simon Leys This was the best quote of several I gleaned from the article Sam Brunson pointed to in his post (http://www.calendarlive.com/books/lat_0813politics1.htm I found some interesting points and also I found I have to take what these authors said with several pounds of salt. The authors are all "political" authors, by which I mean respected, upstanding literate authors who are part of the establishment because they are best-sellers in American society (you know American society worships success). They do not, I gather, write all favorable accounts or even positive accounts of life in this and other countries. They were asked what novel(s) had the most profound effect on them. I learned quite a bit about myself this way; I have read none of these authors' works, not even one. I have read some of the same authors they cited, but only a couple of the same specific works they mentioned as influential. Many of the authors they considered the most influential I have not read at all, and do not plan to read unless forced to do so. I now understand somewhat more of the cynical nature of public discourse, if these authors are the ones our current "trendsetters" look up to. My own most influential political novel is the Book of Mormon. I gained most of the tenets of government and most of my attitude from it. However, I am at a loss as to what to do to apply what I think I know. I do try to be informed and I do vote, but it appears that more than this is called for. My husband and I are raising children; more and more I think I live in the ivory tower while my poor dear husband goes out to work in the big bad world. There must be some virtue, some valuable quality in raising righteous children that I haven't got a clear mental image of; perhaps it's a lack of eternal perspective. I could be writing fulltime and making money while defending truth, justice and the American way (in the Founding Fathers' sense) in the printed word, on screen and audiotape, but for some reason I stay here at home. I know it is the right thing for me to do at this time, but I am impatiently waiting for the day when I can be up and be doing in the world, too. Hmmm. What will I do when the opportunity comes? Melinda L. Ambrose - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2000 12:02:47 -0700 From: harlowclark@juno.com Subject: Re: [AML] (Andrew's Poll) Influential Teacher On Mon, 14 Aug 2000 21:33:09 Scott Parkin writes: > The teacher (teaching assistant, actually) who nearly knocked me out > of writing altogether is (I think) our own Harlow Clark. Or at least > the memory I have is populated by someone who looks suspiciously > like Harlow (as much of the memory as I haven't blotted out). If it > wasn't Harlow, I apologize for taking his name in vain. It may > have been Harlow's evil twin. This is ironic as Scott is one of the people I deeply admire as a working writer able to support his family from his writing, "one million words in print," I believe his signature once said. (BTW, as I was revising this this morning I started thinking about Scott's story, "Of Cats and Disease and Goodness" (_Irreantum,_ no. 4, Winter 1999/2000). Donna tends a 4-year-old with epilepsy and probably a degenerative disorder who may not live past adolescence. Jessie loves our cat, and Angel is very good about letting Jessie take her--arms out, palms up, like Yul Brynner carrying his dead son in The 10 Commandments--all over the house, though she occasionally hides, and Jessie has me find her. "I think she realizes Jessie is a special-needs child," Donna says.) > Back in the Spring of 1983, I took a fantasy short story into the > writing lab at the BYU library, got some perfunctory comments from > the TA on duty (who thought the story a bit juvenile for his tastes), > and suggested that I would be willing to "write down" to a younger > audience. He immediately responded that I didn't need to write down > to reach that audience; I was already there. While I am occasionally (a lot more occasionally than I would like) a big jerk, and while I was working in the English dept's writing lab in JKHB in the spring of 83, I doubt this was me. It doesn't sound like the way I would have approached someone's paper, and I very rarely got creative work. When I started working at the writing lab in 82 I had the disdain people who can do something well often have for people who can't. It took me about 5 minutes to realize that that wouldn't serve me well there, nor the people I was supposed to serve. People didn't need disdain or patronizing, they simply needed someone to help them write. If they could already write well they wouldn't need a teacher, and if they weren't interested in improving their writing they wouldn't seek one out. 83 would have been around the time I took Dean Hughes' writing for children class. I've always had great respect for children's and YA writers, and if I were a better writer I would try those genres more. (Same is true of science fiction and fantasy.) I was originally an elementary ed major. I wanted to teach children how to write, in somewhat the way Herbert Kohl described in _36 Children_ which I read the summer between 8th and 9th grade. So I don't think I would have dismissed something simply because I thought it was aimed at a young audience. I changed majors when I found out I didn't have any classroom management skills (still don't--one reason I no longer teach), but I have always tried to encourage other writers. I can imagine saying a story was too juvenile for my tastes, but more as a general comment than a comment on the story's (or writer's) worth. I can also imagine saying the story was already there, but meaning, 'That's not the problem I see with the story, there's something else we can do to improve it.' I get tongue-tied sometimes and find myself asking Donna to pass the, the, the, SOUP, just like my father. "What is it called?" she asks, even though she knows exactly what I'm asking for. I have to stop and think what it is that I'm looking at, perhaps even picture it in the garden before I can say 'zucchini, corn, cauliflower, broccoli, asparagus' (asperges is a word from the mass, I think it means cleanse). I've often wondered if this is what Walker Percy means when he describes a character as having an aphasia. So I sometimes get tongue tied and say things that don't well reflect what I'm thinking. Just after Christmas in 1988 Margaret Young asked via e-mail if I would be willing to read over her black pioneer novel. I wrote back that I would love to but I was working on an essay for the rest of the year. I simply meant, "this week" as it was the 52nd week of the year. But I phrased it the way I did partly for the irony of considering one week the rest of the year, and partly because not being able to do anything for the rest of the year makes you sound important. :) Margaret thought I was turning down her request, and I never did get to read the ms, and when I understood what had happened I was too embarrassed to say, "Margaret, did you think I was turning you down?" I often don't know how I come across to people. Walker Percy's statement (paraphrased), 'There is a lot of malice in my writing, but it's all impersonal, and I'm surprised when anyone takes it personally,' resonates deeply with me, not because I have his delicious malicious wit, but because I am often shocked at how people interpret my actions. In some ways I'm quite self-absorbed. I think it has something to do with attention deficit disorder, but it gives me a certain identification with autistic people. When Donna and I inherited an 18-year-old mildly autistic foster son for a time, I saw a lot of myself in him. I've drawn two stories from that experience, and started a third. I know I'm going to have to enter deeply into the mind of the autistic character, Charley Hobbes. (The father figure's name, of course, is Calvin.) I had an experience 3 years ago that haunts me occasionally. We went to the Charles R. Clark family reunion (my great-grandfather) and I finally met Charley and Annie's last living child, Grandpa's brother Carlos, the one who sold his share of Clark Brothers to his two brothers (there was a fourth, Myral, that I didn't know about till around the time I met Carlos. I don't think Myral was ever part of Clark Brothers) and moved to California. He told the reunion that he was born in 1899 and planned to live till 2000 so he could live in 3 centuries and two millennia, but he died a year later. Del, his approximately 67-year-old Down syndrome son, told my Aunt Jean, "Mother said she would come and get him on her birthday." And she did. Anyway, by selling out to Wallace (Grandpa) and Lawrence, Carlos spared his family the 20-year battle between Wallace's children and Lawrence's about how to divide up Clark Brothers, between the dairy, the warehouse and the dryfarm. Only Wallace's youngest son stayed on the farm, and after Leon was killed under a bursting silo, the situation got worse. Likewise one of Lawrence's two sons, Rich, stayed on the farm. One day in the spring or early summer of 83 or 84 he stepped off his tractor out in the field and died, as his cousin Harlan would die a few years later in the temple there in South Africa (where he was president) almost immediately after performing a wedding--I originally heard it was during the ceremony. At Rich's funeral someone mentioned a saying of his, "I'm not raising cows, I'm raising boys." One of Rich's boys, Kenny, (another as well?) stayed on the farm and when I went to the reunion in 97 Kenny introduced me to his wife. I put out my hand and she told me she wouldn't shake with me because I had thrown her in the Weber river 20 years earlier and almost killed her. I thought, 'If I tell her I don't remember something that was obviously so traumatic for her, it will destroy any credibility I may have with her.' What an odd thought. I remember 2 MIA service projects / swimming parties (or was it only one?) at Bishop Scott Rees's ranch during one of the latter of 5 summers I worked on the farm. (Working on Grandpa's dryfarm was a 20+ year tradition with our generation of cousins. The exchange between Rachel Nunes and Neal Kramer on Doug Thayer's _Summer Fire_ brought a lot of memories to me.) I vaguely remember people throwing each other into the river, and I think I threw someone in who was protesting a lot. She was probably telling me she couldn't swim, and that didn't register with me, maybe because the river is slow and shallow through Rees's. I vaguely remember people shouting at me, probably telling me she couldn't swim. I suppose Kenny dived in and saved her. I don't know. What I remember from those 1 or 2 parties is a group of teenage girls who kept coming around the haystack spying on my cousins and me as we were putting our swim trunks on. So if I say I have a very good memory and no memory of the incident Scott describes, do I lose all credibility? Of course there may be an evil twin. :) One day at WordPerfect a woman called me and told me she was with Colorado Memory Systems and wanted to talk to me about a disparaging remark I had made about their product to a customer. I looked through my notebook and couldn't find any call with the customer she named, and nothing about a memory or storage unit problem, and told her so. "Well, you're the only Harlow there aren't you?" "No," and I transferred her to Harlo Park (who I found out about by answering a page for him the first few days I was there). Though I have no memory of it, if it was me I apologize profusely. Flannery O'Connor says, in one of those foolish opinions Eric Samuelsen says every writer eventually gets into print, that writers with no talent should be strongly discouraged (silenced, or hounded out of print, may be closer to her words). I don't believe that. People who are interested in writing ought to be encouraged, not disparaged, especially young writers. Every great writer at one time mangled language. I love Edward Dahlberg's comment in the Preface to _Bottom Dogs, From Flushing to Calvary, Those Who Perish, and hitherto unpublished and uncollected works_, "I have committed sundry moldy solecisms; yet I was not born to desecrate literature." Harlow Soderborg Clark ________________________________________________________________ YOU'RE PAYING TOO MUCH FOR THE INTERNET! 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