From: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (aml-list-digest) To: aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: aml-list-digest V1 #264 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 Wednesday, February 21 2001 Volume 01 : Number 264 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 12:31:28 -0700 (MST) From: Ivan Angus Wolfe Subject: Re: [AML] _The Straight Story_ > When I got it, I thought it was too slow. I > understood WHY it was slow, but I thought it lost much dramatic impact by > making the same effect repeatedly. I know it's hard to create a bunch of > new images to create such an effect, but artistically that seems to be what > would make that movie really good. > > > Cathy (Gileadi) Wilson Oh, well - can't please everyone. After reading so many people dig into the Straight Story, I'll add my voice: I thought it was one of the few masterpieces of cinema I have ever seen. Absolutely wonderful. One of the few movies I can claim have actually made an impact on my life. I loved it and I reccomend it to everyone I can. Eric Samulesen has already extoleld its virtues more eloquently than I can, but I wills ay that the pace was perfect, IMHO. But others disagree - but they aren't me and if they didn't like it, that's fine by me. - -Ivan - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 15:39:30 -0700 From: "Christopher Bigelow" Subject: [AML] Irreantum Testimonials (Urgent Plea) Pretty please, could a few of you provide the AML with a testimonial blurb about why you like Irreantum, why it's unique, how it's contributing to Mormon culture, how it compares with other Mormon or nat'l publications, etc.? We're looking for fresh, compelling, personal viewpoints that will help others get interested in the magazine. We didn't receive any AML-List responses to my earlier request, but 4-6 good blurbs would REALLY help strengthen the AML's marketing brochure. Please send your blurb to chrisb@enrich.com. (Include your name, hometown, and title, even if just "subscriber.") Chris Bigelow - -------- For a sample copy of IRREANTUM, a Mormon literary quarterly, send $4 to the Association for Mormon Letters, 262 S. Main St., Springville, UT 84663. - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 15:40:51 -0700 From: Gideon Burton Subject: [AML] Apocalyptic LDS Lit I'm brainstorming LDS literature titles that have dealt with end-of-the-world, apocalyptic, last days, millennial, or second-coming scenarios. Marny Parkin gave me the following list (thanks!). Can anyone add to this or comment on which of these have been more prominent? (Card's work has obviously had more national attention. Which have been more popular among LDS?) Thanks Gideon Burton Adams, Linda. _Prodigal Journey_. Cornerstone, 2000. (first of series) Anderson, Glenn L. _The Millennium File_. Horizon, 1986. Blackwell. Pamela. _Ephriam's Seed_. Salt Lake City: Onyx Press, 1996. (first of series) Tarr, Kenneth R. _The Last Days: The Gathering Storm_. Cedar Fort. (first of a series) These titles are post-nuclear holocaust stories, not last days: Card, Orson Scott. _The Folk of the Fringe_. West Bloomfield, Mich.: Phantasia Press, 1989. (short stories) Lund, Gerald. _The Alliance_. Deseret Book, 1983. Others: Belnap, Joseph E. _The Coin's Edge_. Granite Publishers, 1998. Hunter, Wayne. _Millennial Run: An LDS Novel to Celebrate the Year 2000_. Richard Maher Sales, 2000. Marcum, Robert. _Angel of Armageddon_. Bookcraft, 1992. (sequel to the following) Marcum, Robert. _Dominions of the Gadiantons_. Bookcraft, 1991. - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 22:46:00 +0000 From: maryjanejones@att.net Subject: Re: [AML] DUTCHER, _Brigham City_ Eric D. Snider wrote: > I haven't seen the new "BC" trailer, but I'm told it's > different from the one that was attached to the "GA" > video. That one was a rush job -- the movie was only > about half-filmed when they made it -- and was dreadful > and embarrassing. I assume the new one is better. I think the new trailer is better than the one Eric D. didn't like. You can download versions of the unembarrassing trailer here: http://www.brighamcitymovie.com/trailers.html FYI, I work for Excel Entertainment Group (which is distributing Brigham City). I saw a rough cut, and can enthusiastically say that this is a very, very good movie. It kept me thoroughly entertained, intrigued and challenged all the way to the end. And they don't pay me to say that either. Mary Jane Jones - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 17:34:34 -0800 (PST) From: "R.W. Rasband" Subject: Re: [AML] _The Straight Story_ "The Straight Story" is David Lynch's most extreme example of counter-cultural filmmaking, very much in the tradition of "Blue Velvet." That is, the culture has become so dominated in the '90's by sex and violence that it takes a movie so determinedly virtuous, so "straight" to shock people, to get their attention. Lynch is up to his old subversive tricks, this time from another stylistic direction. (NATIONAL REVIEW, William Buckley's conservative Catholic magazine, proclaimed in 1990 that Lynch was a great conservative director, and I tend to agree.) ===== R.W. Rasband Heber City, UT rrasband@yahoo.com __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Auctions - Buy the things you want at great prices! http://auctions.yahoo.com/ - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 19:53:23 -0600 From: Larry Jackson Subject: [AML] The Name of The Church (Deseret News) [From the Deseret News, Monday, February 19, 2001] LDS leaders aim for altered name The emphasis is urged on Christ and not Mormon By Gustav Niebuhr New York Times News Service The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which has long been concerned that it be understood as a distinctively Christian institution, will step up efforts to discourage use of the term Mormon Church and instead emphasize the name Jesus Christ in references to the church, Elder Dallin H. Oaks said in an interview Thursday. It will urge that the church be called first by its full name and then, in subsequent references, the Church of Jesus Christ. The church will also urge that it not be identified by two other labels common in Utah, the Latter-day Saints Church and LDS Church. The decision at a meeting of the church's top leadership, also taken with an eye to the international news media interest the church expects to attract during the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, will primarily affect how the church's officials refer to the institution, especially in dealings with the news media, and how missionaries refer to the church in their work overseas. But church leaders also hope to encourage members at large to do likewise. "I don't mind being called a Mormon, but I don't want it said that I belong to the Mormon Church," said Elder Oaks, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, which, together with the church's three-member First Presidency, exercise the highest level of authority within the 11 million- member church. Elder Oaks said the church would not discourage use of the term Mormon for church members, although he said it officially prefers that they be known as Latter-day Saints. Nor, he said, will the church seek to change names like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, the Mormon Trail and the Book of Mormon. The word Mormon is taken from the book, where it refers both to a geographical area and also to a prophet of that name. He said the decision, taken by the First Presidency and the Quorum of Twelve, but not yet announced to church members, needed to be seen in context, as a "deliberate reaffirmation" of a long effort in favor of wider use of the church's full title. "We haven't adopted a new name of the church," Elder Oaks said, noting that Mormons regard the full name as having been revealed by God to Mormonism's first prophet, Joseph Smith. "We have adopted a shorthand reference to the church that we think is more accurate." Jan Shipps, a non-Mormon expert on the church who is professor emeritus of history and religious studies at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, said efforts to discourage the use of the term Mormon Church represent "the desire of Latter-day Saints - and not just the leadership - to be understood as a Christian tradition." Although the church has always seen itself as Christian, she said, its image has been "cloaked" by distinctive practices - like building temples, as Mormons still do; referring to members as "the gathering of Israel," as church leaders once did; and, most controversially, sanctioning polygamy, which the church ended more than a century ago. In recent years, Shipps said, an evolution in language within the church has been under way, so that Mormon as a noun is being replaced by "an adjective, as in Mormon Christian." "That's a dramatic shift that's taking a very long time," said Shipps, the author of "Sojourner in the Promised Land: Forty Years Among the Mormons" (University of Illinois, 2000). Although the LDS Church members tend to be highly regarded among a wide public for their emphasis on family ties and personal rectitude, the church's teachings are viewed critically by other churches, especially by evangelical Protestants, who say much of LDS theology - dealing with God, the Trinity, salvation and the nature of the Christian church itself - falls outside orthodox Christianity. The church, for example, teaches that God has a physical body, that members may progress toward "deification" after death, and that in founding the church, Joseph Smith was "restoring" true Christianity. Three years ago, the Southern Baptists, holding their annual convention in Salt Lake City, began an effort to evangelize LDS Church members. On a more subtle level, the Presbyterian Church (USA) published a study guide in 1990 to show Presbyterians where Mormons part company theologically with Protestants. "At first glance, they seem to be like us," the guide stated, noting that the two churches use similar terms for theological concepts. "But we will see in this study they are not like us." In 1995, the church altered its logo so that "Jesus Christ" appears in larger letters. More recently, the church's public affairs office released a statement bluntly saying there was nothing officially called the Mormon Church. None of this controversy seems to have impeded the church's rapid growth, particularly overseas, where a majority of the world's 11 million Mormons live. (Utah claims 1.6 million Mormons, or about 15 percent of the total.) But the overseas growth has also put pressure on the church to pay closer attention to what it wants to be called. "And," said Elder Oaks, who is a former Utah State Supreme Court justice and, before that, was president of Brigham Young University, "this is brought to focus and given a kind of timeline by the Olympics, when we're going to have an invasion by your associates in the media the likes of which no continental Western city has ever had before." Church officials say they expect close to 10,000 journalists in Salt Lake City for the Olympics. Elder Oaks said church leaders decided it was possible to begin using the abbreviated name of Church of Jesus Christ because no other major Christian body in the United States had laid claim to it. (Some have come close, as in the Christian Church/Disciples of Christ, the Churches of Christ and the United Church of Christ.) He said it was possible that some churches might take exception to the Mormons using the abbreviated name. "This decision is right-oriented, not result-oriented," Elder Oaks said. "We're only trying to do what the Lord wants us to do." # # # ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! 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: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 18:05:33 -0800 (PST) From: "R.W. Rasband" Subject: Re: [AML] MN Is the University of Utah Anti-Mormon?: Deseret News 11Feb01 D2 I have mixed feelings about this. The University of Utah's theater department is a blessing to the state. Charles Morey is a very shrewd, talented director and Pioneer Memorial Theater is a delight. I also enjoy the more adventerous fare at the Babcock Theater downstairs (just saw their production of "Lulu", liked it but wondered how it escaped the notice of cultural commissars like the Eagle Forum.) And Ms. Axon-Flynn's complaints sound like she is confusing the depiction of evil with the endorsement of it, a common mistake among the close-minded. (And I don't think it's a coincidence that Tim Slover has recently been hired by the U.) On the other hand I do think there is an low-grade animus against the church there: not so much hatred as agressive indifference. Eugene England famously said 20 years ago that he was told in confidence that the English department would not hire an active LDS person. Today, you can search high and low for such a person in the humanities and liberal arts programs and come up pretty short. And don't tell me this is just because the U. recruits faculty nationally; every university takes steps to make sure they have good relations with the local community, and this may include hiring practices. ===== R.W. Rasband Heber City, UT rrasband@yahoo.com __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Auctions - Buy the things you want at great prices! http://auctions.yahoo.com/ - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 15:43:57 -0700 From: Gideon Burton Subject: [AML] LDS Thrillers Who can tell what the most popular or noteworthy titles in LDS publishing have been in the category of the thriller? I'm not talking about mystery thrillers nor necessarily about sci-fi, but page-turner action novels, perhaps with spies, international plots, technology--that sort of thing. I believe Gerald Lund's Alliance is one. Others? Gideon Burton - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 20:41:07 -0700 From: "Alan Rex Mitchell" Subject: Re: [AML] _The Straight Story_ > It is truly a David Lynch film. He has such a love for American weirdness, and loves to linger on oddball moments and images. But it's also a movie with great affection for its subjects. Maybe the fact that I love this movie so completely suggests that I'm not very hip. Or (shudder) that I'm getting old. > I don't think so, though. I just think it's a wonderful movie. And those of us who love it, are right. > Eric Samuelsen I'm puzzled by Eric, Ivan, AML and other critics who loved the show. All I can come up with is that these type A people encountered beauty and boredom for the first time--and beauty won! Myself, I have taken numerous soul-searching trips...one in a truck that broke down so many times that dozens of people on lawnmowers past me. I've noticed the seasons changing. I've known people like the character, people like the ones he met on the road. This is because I go hometeaching ocassionally. Maybe because the movie was so much like the life I have known, I understood it well. But it wasn't a "great" movie in my book. It was a PBS movie. I'd rate it slighty better than Swamp Thing. No wait--that had Adrianne Barbou... Alan Rex Mitchell - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 23:06:28 -0600 From: "Preston Hunter" Subject: [AML] Re: [AML-Mag] Apocalyptic LDS Lit You might find our page useful: "Science Fiction and Fantasy Books Published in the LDS Market" http://www.adherents.com/lit/sf_ldsmarket.html Marny and I work exchange info and make sure we don't duplicate work. She has an extensive bibliography, but doesn't have plot summaries, so I put some on this page. (And for fun, post-apocalyptic action in Salt Lake City written by a non-LDS author, check out Roger Zelazny's novel Damnation Alley.) Preston www.adherents.com - ---------- - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 22:10:22 -0600 From: Linda Adams Subject: Re: [AML] LDS Thrillers At 04:43 PM 2/20/01, you wrote: >I'm not talking about mystery >thrillers nor necessarily about sci-fi, but page-turner action novels, >perhaps with spies, international plots, technology--that sort of thing. I >believe Gerald Lund's Alliance is one. Others? Well , FWIW, my book has been described as "all of the above," in one way or another. I'm a bit low on international plots, but there are spies and secrets and technology and it's frequently described by others as "a page-turner." But I also emphasize character development, so maybe it doesn't quite fit... parts of it fit the description and other parts don't. Hm. You decide. Adams, Linda. _Prodigal Journey_. Cornerstone, 2000. (first of series) Linda Adams adamszoo@sprintmail.com http://home.sprintmail.com/~adamszoo - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 23:14:48 -0800 From: "Frank Maxwell" Subject: [AML] _Escape to Witch Mountain_? (was: Flashbacks) Thom wrote: > What I found disatisfying about Escape was its (to me) inappropriate > mixing of genres. What started off as a typical ghost story turned out, > in fact, to be a science fiction story. I'm not suggesting that those > genres shouldn't be mixed, but Escape did in a _deus ex machina_ way, so > that the sf ending seemd tacked on as the easiest way to explain what > had been going on. I would have like to have seen more foreshadowing of > the real ending, while still making it appear to be a ghost story, so > that when the real endings comes, I'm going back over events in the > movie and saying to mylelf, "Now, that makes sense." Are you sure, Thom, that you're describing "Escape to Witch Mountain"? I think you might be talking about another Disney film back in 1980, "Watcher in the Woods". It starred Bette Davis and David McCallum. Here's how it's described in the Internet Movie Database: http://us.imdb.com/Title?0081738 "When a normal American family moves into a beautiful old English house in a wooded area, strange, paranormal appearances befall them in this interesting twist to the well-known haunted-house tale. Their daughter Jan sees, and daughter Ellie hears, the voice of a young teenage girl who mysteriously disappeared during a total solar eclipse decades before... " IMDB lists "Watcher"'s genre as "Horror", but I remember there's a science-fiction explanation at the end of the flick. I also recall reading that the Disney folk had a hard time making this film work -- probably because of the mixture of genres that you describe. Regards, Frank Maxwell - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 02:17:26 -0700 From: "D. Michael Martindale" Subject: Re: [AML] LDS Thrillers Gideon Burton wrote: > Who can tell what the most popular or noteworthy titles in LDS publishing > have been in the category of the thriller? I'm not talking about mystery > thrillers nor necessarily about sci-fi, but page-turner action novels, > perhaps with spies, international plots, technology--that sort of thing. I > believe Gerald Lund's Alliance is one. Others? I think Michael Ritchey's _Disoriented_ tends in that direction. P.S. My 14-year-old daughter read _Disoriented_ and enjoyed it very much. I'm trying to talk her into writing a review of it. Only time will tell if I succeed. - -- 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: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 02:26:46 -0700 From: "D. Michael Martindale" Subject: Re: [AML] DUTCHER, _Brigham City_ "Eric D. Snider" wrote: > Feb. 14 was the original date for the film's release, but it has been pushed > back to April 6. April 6 is a Friday, which is the normal day for movie > releases, but of course April 6 is also a significant church date. If > Richard Dutcher chose it for that subtextual reason, I'm disappointed in > him. Why? I think cute little tricks like that are fun. - -- 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: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 10:34:14 -0700 From: Eric Eliason Subject: [AML] Re: [AML-Mag] Apocalyptic LDS Lit Gideon, Parley P. Pratt's "Angel of the Prairie" short story (the First Mormon Short Story btw, "JS and the Devil" was more of a mini-drama) provides a fairly detailed vision of the millennium as does Nephi Anderson's _Added Upon_. My sense is that earlier fiction was much more scarce but more focused on hope for millennial utopia rather than the horrors of the Last Days. In _Added Upon_ last days horrors are barely mentioned at all and in "Angel of the Prairies" they are skimmed over quickly to get to the hopeful vision. Blackwell, Lund, Marcum, and Card seem to focus on the plight of good people in a bad world situation, while Pratt and Anderson focus on good people in a good world situation. [Eric Eliason] - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 10:43:01 -0700 From: "Cory Maxwell" Subject: [AML] Re: [AML-Mag] LDS Thrillers Gideon: I can think of a few other titles Deseret Book and Bookcraft have done in the thriller genre, though I believe The Alliance is probably the most successful. Robert Marcum has done several action/adventure kinds of novels. I've not read them all, but he's published the following titles: Dominions of the Gadiantons Angel of Armageddon The Sting of the Scorpion (these three are essentially a series) Death of a Tsar The Orlov Legacy White Out Gerald Lund also did a novel entitled Leverage Point (with Roger Hendrix) that probably fits in this genre. Covenant probably has some titles that would be considered thrillers, but I'm not as familiar with their books. Cory Maxwell - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 11:43:38 -0700 From: "Eric D. Snider" Subject: Re: [AML] DUTCHER, _Brigham City_ >"Eric D. Snider" wrote: > >> Feb. 14 was the original date for the film's release, but it has been pushed >> back to April 6. April 6 is a Friday, which is the normal day for movie >> releases, but of course April 6 is also a significant church date. If >> Richard Dutcher chose it for that subtextual reason, I'm disappointed in >> him. > >Why? I think cute little tricks like that are fun. > Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but to me it seems like an attempt to produce subconscious affinity for the film, trying to get people to think (at least in the backs of their minds), "April 6 is an important date in the church. This movie, which has to do with Mormons, comes out on that day. This movie must be an important Mormon film." It lends more of an "official and church-sanctioned" air to the movie than it should have. But I'm perfectly willing to let it just be a coincidence, or even if it's not, to believe that Dutcher was just being playful or something. Perhaps Mary Jane Jones, of Excel Entertainment, can shed some light on why that date was chosen? I might add that about eight other movies are scheduled to be released that day, which makes it a very unwise choice from a marketing standpoint. Eric D. Snider - -- *************************************************** Eric D. Snider www.ericdsnider.com "Filling all your Eric D. Snider needs since 1974." - - 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 #264 ******************************