From: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (aml-list-digest) To: aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: aml-list-digest V1 #175 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 Friday, October 20 2000 Volume 01 : Number 175 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 00:25:31 -0600 From: "D. Michael Martindale" Subject: Re: [AML] Proverb Query Christopher Bigelow wrote: > Does anyone know where the saying, "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts," > comes from? I'm not positive it's "Greeks," but it will work for me > only if it is. I don't know who coined it, but the phrase refers to the Trojan horse, and "Greeks" is correct. - -- 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, 19 Oct 2000 10:28:48 -0400 From: Tony Markham Subject: Re: [AML] Proverb Query mjames_laurel wrote: > . I'm not doing my best > thinking right now--potty training two little boys and trying to keep the > rest of my crew under control... Beware of diapers bearing gifts! Tony Markham - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 07:50:00 -0200 From: "renatorigo" Subject: [AML] American Movies American produces a lot of films a year...Maybe United States is the greatest producer of films in the world... What abaout the quality of these works? Do you think Titanic was good? Do you think Ghost was good? Most of american films have trivial themes with obvious end.Of course we have a lot of epic or historic movies that are really a good work...But I really think american could produce better movies with a better social context... There are a lot of tecnology ...but, and the context??? Renato Rigo Brazil renatorigo@ig.com.br __________________________________________________________________________ Todo brasileiro tem direito a um e-mail gr=E1tis http://www.bol.com.br - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 21:46:53 -0700 From: Jeff Needle Subject: [AML] Richard EYRE, _Life Before Life_ (Review) Review ====== Richard Eyre,. "Life Before Life" 2000, Shadow Mountain (imprint of Deseret Book) Hardback, 180 pages, $18.95 Reviewed by Jeffrey Needle "Life Before Life" might be titled, "Pre-existence For Dummies." Not to say the book isn't well-written, nor is it to say that it doesn't offer some very good information. Only to say that someone completely unfamiliar with the idea of a pre-life can pick this book up and understand its concepts. The book is divided into three sections, with the middle section a long and leisurely account of Eyre's journey to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro. His journey into the rarefied air of this climber's dream brought to his mind so many reasons why such a book should be written. Having toyed with the idea for some time, the insights he gained on this climb convinced him beyond doubt that this book was needed. Eyre begins by showing how the concept of the pre-existence is both rational and historical. He cites pre- and post- Socratic philosophers, as well as (admittedly discounted) Church fathers. He also ventures out into what is called the "New Age" movement to demonstrate the variations (reincarnation, etc.) found there. His basic thesis is that belief in, and understanding of, the pre-existence can guide and motivate us into living better lives. It provides a sense of continuity missing in those who do not accept the concept. It also fosters a sense of belonging, a relatedness to all of humankind, all of us offspring of the same Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother. It also can give life a sense of purpose. Now, let it be said that there are certain words which are nowhere used in this book. Among them are: Mormon, Latter- day Saint, Restoration, etc. In fact, there is no reference to the Church at all in this book, except for a brief notice at the beginning that Eyre is a member of a Church that believes in the idea of a pre-existence. He does give a short summation of the ideas of the pre-mortal Council, the role of Lucifer (although not mentioned by name), and other ideas from the Pearl of Great Price. But nowhere does he acknowledge the source of these ideas. And I wondered if an understanding of the pre-existence, in isolation from the rest of the Gospel, can really accomplish all that he envisions. The book is written in the style of a self-help, motivational book, rather than a religious/doctrinal tome. His final word acknowledges that he hasn't revealed his denominational affiliation, but supplies a New York-based P.O. Box for those who wish to obtain further information. I would love to know what he sends in response to requests. I assume he will forward more complete information to them; I would love to know what kind of response he gets. I haven't seen the book in secular bookstores the erstwhile goal of the Shadow Mountain imprint my copy was purchased at Deseret Book. Eyre is a management consultant, and his writing style is consistent with this. "Life Before Life" is a fast and pleasant read, and may be helpful to Latter-day Saints who want a fresh and contemporary way to present this interesting concept to their non-Mormon friends. - --------------- Jeff Needle jeff.needle@general.com - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 11:05:17 -0600 From: Jacob Proffitt Subject: Re: [AML] Mormon Music On Wed, 18 Oct 2000 15:31:40 -0700 (PDT), Darlene Young wrote: >I have to mention my favorite CD of gospel music, >Brett Raymond's "Primarily for Grown-Ups." All the >tracks are primary songs with interesting, sometimes >very touching and sometimes just fun arrangements.=20 >"Book of Mormon Stories" in the style of Sting and >"'Give,' Said the Little Stream" in the style of James >Taylor are especially fun. Just all-around delightful >music. We like this one at our house, too. He sounds a *lot* like Sting and I think he takes advantage of that. It's like hearing Sting sing Primary Songs. It helps that we're big Sting fans at our house (I hate the Radio and Video mix for Desert Rose. Gotta listen to that one on CD to get the full layering with his co-singer). Jacob Proffitt - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 12:07:15 -0600 From: "D. Michael Martindale" Subject: Re: [AML] American Movies renatorigo wrote: > Most of american films have trivial themes with obvious > end.Of course we have a lot of epic or historic movies > that are really a good work...But I really think american > could produce better movies with a better social > context... You don't need to be from Brazil to think that! A lot of people are spending a lot of brain power trying to figure out how to reform Hollywood or do an end run around it in the independent film arena. Richard Dutcher with _God's Army_ is one who succeeded with the end run thing. If movies didn't cost so dang much to produce and distribute, it'd be a lot easier. - -- 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, 19 Oct 2000 14:06:29 -0700 (PDT) From: Darlene Young Subject: [AML] Signaturi (was: Alliances) Rex Goode says, "But Thom, wouldn't that make me one of the Signaturi? :)" And many others make similar hints occasionally. Forgive my ignorance. I am new (newer than I thought, I'm discovering) to the Mormon literature community. But I have a question about something that everyone else seems to already understand but never states out loud: what does "being published by Signature" mean? I had thought of Signature as just like any other publisher (except those which are obviously Church-oriented such as Deseret Book and Covenant): simply an independent press, one that may publish things of which I do not approve or even which I think are critical of my beliefs, but also which publishes things that support my beliefs. I am sensing, however, that there more to Signature's reputation than just being independent. There seems to be a label that is applied when a person publishes with Signature. Is such a choice symbolic of a person's "throwing in" with some sort of a political camp or admitting to considering him- or herself on the "outside" of Mormon culture? As someone who hopes to be working within the LDS publishing community at some point in my life, I need to be aware of any connotations that come with a certain name. Please, someone, be brave and state it straight out. I catch the hints but I'd like to hear it straight. ===== Darlene Young __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Messenger - Talk while you surf! It's FREE. http://im.yahoo.com/ - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 00:20:26 EDT From: Larry Jackson Subject: [AML] Re: Mormon Music Shirley Hatfield : My very favorite hymn was "How Firm a Foundation." ... the killer was the chorus of that verse that goes "You who unto Jesus"...well, when Grandma and some of the other old ladies in the congregation started yodeling "YooHoooooo unto Jesus"... Does the song even have that chorus any more? _______________ They changed the words in the 1985 hymnbook in order to cut down on Yoo Hooing in sacrament meeting. The verse now goes, "... who unto the Savior." I always enjoyed "Have I Done Any Good (in the world today?)." In the Air Force, a drone is a remotely piloted vehicle, that is, an airplane flown by remote control. They were used for important research projects, or sometimes as targets so other fighter pilots could practice shooting them down. I used to enjoy sitting in the congregation with the head of the drone program for the Air Force as we all sang the end of the 2nd verse, "... the world has no use for the drone." This line has also been changed: "To God each good work will be known." (And the Air Force had nothing to do with it, I'm sure.) Some of the new hymns are very beautiful. Many of the old hymns were more exciting and fun to sing. Then again, sometimes it just depended on how well the organist could play. 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: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 07:55:27 -0200 From: "renatorigo" Subject: [AML] Mormon Music What do you mean about Mormon music? Is there any special difference between Mormon Music and the others? Rythm? Musical Instruments? Organs? The Context? Is there any Mormon music movement in The US, similar to Gospel Music? Is there anybody to explain clearly what Mormon music exactly is? Renato Rigo __________________________________________________________________________ Todo brasileiro tem direito a um e-mail gr=E1tis http://www.bol.com.br - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 09:14:43 -0500 From: "Todd Robert Petersen" Subject: Re: [AML] Mormon Music There's a T-shirt peddled by the Onion that reads: "Your Favorite Hymn Sucks." Designed to incite riots, I assume. I think that it's funny and horrible at the same time, like saying someone's children are ugly. Nevertheless, my main concern with LDS music has little to do with my taste, but with something else that I think is more insidious, and is not mentioned often enough in disussions of the Church and its influence. Namely, it is that we not only proclaim the gospel with our missionary efforts, but we act like sanctimonious cultural imperialists, by insisting on Western middle-class norms. This happens in clothing, in the narrative styles of church videos, the content of the homes represented therein, the depiction of the characters, etc. But in nothing do we show our imperial stripe more clearly than in our music. "Good music" to a significant body of the church is what they hear in church, or on the spoken word, or during conference. Our hymns DO have some fine lyrics, but the music is generally horrible except for the tunes which we have lifted from the folk traditions of other countries, which are European. And it is these hymns that we foist off on other cultures. Why, for example, do we, in the States never hear hymns based on the folk melodies of Ghana, or the Hopi, or the Central and South Americans? I'll tell you why? Because it would creep most middle-class Americans out. They wouldn't know how to deal with it, sing along with it, and so forth. Which is a problem now since middle-clas Americans make up an increasingly smaller portion of the gospel pie. So if it is true that Americans would get creeped out by this strange music, why don't we recognize that other cultures might be creeped out by having to sing hymns generated primarily by 19th century American Pioneers? Of course, there are translations, but they are only of the content of the lyrics, not of the music. No real attempt is made to reach out to the world in that respect. I come from a very long line of musical people. My grandmother studied at the American conservatory in Fontainbleu just outside Paris in the mid-30s where she worked with Nadia Boulanger who was Aaron Copland and Astor Piazzola's composition teacher. My mother's choir in DC just won a Grammy for their recording of Brittan's War Requiem. They will be recording Verdi's Requiem this fall for Elektra/Nonesuch. Both have been involved in secular and church choirs for more than fifty combined years, so I have had a chance, in my life to hear what REAL church music is supposed to sound like, and I only hear it rarely at my church services, even when the Tabernacle Choir is signing, and it is not because of the MTC, but because of their material. We rely only on OUR hymns and don't make use of the rich tradition of Christian music that is already available to us via Bach, Faure, and others. But still, and here is where I get onto my particular hobbyhorse, one that is so common in my hobbyhorse repetoire that when I mentioned to a friend that this is a direction the thread had taken, he said, "Oh so now you're going to mention. . . . " And so I am. Christ did not listen to the music we do. The people he knew might not have liked our music at all, because it would have been very foreign to them. The music at Christ's time would have been highly rhythmic, perhaps even repetative, even ecstatic, coming in odd times, played on any number of drums and purcussive instruments, stringed instruments--in short, nothing at all like what we hear with piano and chorister. (See Peter Gabriel's PASSION SOURCES.) So when we, meaning the church, make decisions that formally-recognized and canonized classical music is what is righteous and faith-promoting, we are not simply asserting an issue of taste, but a cultural one as well and we're tying ot to spirituality, a distinction in which we diminish the official validity of other cultures and other times, one in which we, meaning the church, sometimes feel the license to comdemn. This is how the cultural imperialism happens. It is how we, without knowing it, behave more like a virus than a church. The gospel, of course, is true, I have no doubts about that. Middle-class Mormon culture, which hitches a ride on that truth like a flea or a head louse, is something of which I am less and less certain. - -- Todd Robert Petersen - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 17:59:29 -0600 From: David Hansen Subject: [AML] Introductions: Dave Hansen Perhaps this is a good time to introduce myself. I've been a member of the list for a few months and have posted several times, but my work keeps me from posting more regularly. You see, I'm a lawyer, and the presumption is that you have to at least look busy even if you aren't really working. (It gives great practice at that whole deception thing (is this why Ed Snow left?!?)) I work mostly with employee benefits law in downtown Salt Lake which keeps me sufficiently bored most of the time. Now that I've described myself as a lawyer (the stereotypes come fast and furious), I'll tell you who I really am. Last week my wife Kathy gave birth to our third child, James. Mother and son are doing splendidly. John David, 5, and Megan, 2 and 1/2 (the 1/2 is VERY important!), love having a new brother, and I love being a dad for the 3rd time. My artistic background, such as it is, is in music. For the past 8 years I have been a member of the Utah Chamber Artists. (SHAMELESS PLUG COMING) Utah Chamber Artists is a professional orchestra and choir which performs five concerts a year in the new Gardner Hall at the University of Utah. The first concert for the coming season is this Monday October 23, 2000, at 7:30 P.M. If you haven't seen (or heard) the new Gardner Hall it is a sight to behold. Besides being visually stunning, it accoustically rivals Abravanel Hall IMO (but obviously on a much smaller scale). Our director is Barlow Bradford who, along with Mack Wilberg are the new associate directors of the Tab Choir. Jerry Ottley will direct our Christmas Concert and major conductors from around the country are lining up to conduct us in the next few years. Most of the orchestra also plays with the Orchestra at Temple Square. I also have some ties with the Tabernacle Choir. I have read with interest the comments on church music and mostly agree with the general sentiment. Mack Wilberg is a fine addition to the choir, and their sound has definitely improved. Yet, IMO the revolution that the choir will undergo in the next five years will be related more to the Orchestra at Temple Square and Barlow Bradford than any one thing the choir will do. There are some very exciting things going on that cannot happen anyplace else. I don't have a strong literature background other than a love for reading, and particularly fiction. In the last year I have emersed myself in church arts, I've also had the opportunity to read quite a bit of the recent Mormon fiction, and am pleased that it is improving so much. (I just finished Dean Hughes, Children of the Promise, Vol 5, and would highly recommend the whole series. It was all set up for the cliched "happily ever-after" ending, but didn't do it. Whew!) [MOD: For purposes of keeping threads straight, I'm snipping the rest of this message and including it in a separate post.] Dave Hansen - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ End of aml-list-digest V1 #175 ******************************