From: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (aml-list-digest) To: aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: aml-list-digest V1 #360 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, June 15 2001 Volume 01 : Number 360 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2001 17:35:51 -0600 From: "J. Scott Bronson" Subject: Re: [AML] _The Testaments of One Fold and One Shepherd_ (Review) On Thu, 14 Jun 2001 09:55:57 EDT ViKimball@aol.com writes: > "Where was Emma?" Excellent question. It seems to be a tradition in the church to minimize her contribution to the building of the kingdom almost to the point of complete exclusion. Yet, I wonder how able Joseph would have been without her. Lucy Mack Smith said of her daughter-in-law: "I have never seen a woman in my life who would endure every species of fatigue and hardship from month to month and from year to year with that unflinching courage, zeal and patience which she has ever done ... she has been tossed upon the ocean of uncertainty -- she has breasted the storms of persecution, and buffeted the rage of men and devils, which would have borne down almost any other woman." Joseph himself had this to say of her on an occasion when he was in hiding and she came to see him: " ... what unspeakable delight, and what transports of joy swelled my bosom, when I took by the hand, on that night, my beloved Emma ... Many were the reverberations of my mind when I contemplated for a moment the many scenes we had been called to pass through, the fatigues and the toils, the sorrows and sufferings, and the joys and consolations, from time to time, which had strewed our paths and crowned our board. Oh what a commingling of thought filled my mind for the moment, again she is here, even in the seventh trouble -- undaunted, firm, and unwavering -- unchangeable affectionate Emma!" I fear that Brigham Young's opinion of her has lasted through the years and we have adopted it as doctrine. That's rather shameful I think. I hope she gets her due in Richard's new project. I really do. J. Scott Bronson Member of Playwrights Circle "An Organization of Professionals" www.playwrightscircle.com - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2001 19:59:05 -0500 From: Larry Jackson Subject: [AML] MN News Briefs: Kent Larsen 13Jun1 X1 [I am forwarding this excerpt from Kent Larson's Mormon News list. It appears to be serious. However, my antenna has gone up. I can't access the SLTrib right now, but the names Rolly and Wells seem to trigger a repressed memory of humor deep in the past. Is this really serious, or is something extra going on here? In either event, it seems related to Mormon Letters ... :-> Larry Jackson.] From: Kent Larsen To: Mormon News Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2001 23:30:00 -0500 Subject: MN News Briefs: Kent Larsen 13Jun1 X1 News Briefs In the News Today: LDS Church Magazines to have More Articles from GAs: Salt Lake Tribune 13Jun01 N1 LDS Church Magazines to have More Articles from GAs SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH -- A recent memo to the editors of the LDS Church magazines, including the Ensign, New Era and Friend, establishes quotas for the portion of their content that is written by General Authorities. According to the Salt Lake Tribune's Rolly & Wells, a memo from editorial director Richard M. Romney specifies that at least 50% of each magazine will be written by General Authorities, including at least one from a member of the First Presidency, another from a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, one or two from a member of one of the Quorums of the Seventy, and a "classic" article from previous members of the First Presidency or Quorum of the Twelve. ROLLY & WELLS: Old Elms Get The Ax in a Power Play Salt Lake Tribune 13Jun01 N1 http://www.sltrib.com/06132001/utah/105306.htm By JoAnn Jacobsen-Wells and Paul Rolly >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: Fri, 15 Jun 2001 01:21:09 -0600 From: "D. Michael Martindale" Subject: Re: [AML] My First Novel Jeff Needle wrote: > > And yet you tell us nothing of what's in this book. Given the exceptional > quality of your reviews, we expect something great. Please, details!!! I'm pleased you care. But I won't be giving any details for the time being, because I'm entering the Marilyn Brown contest, so I need to remain as anonymous to those judges as possible, whoever they might be. If I give out details, they may be able to tell which book is mine. But it's not that good anyway. Don't get your hopes up. It's pretty mediocre actually. Come to think of it, it's downright pathetic. (It's better for the reader to come to the book with low expectations and be pleasantly surprised than to come with high expectations and be unpleasantly disappointed.) - -- 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, 14 Jun 2001 19:55:33 -0700 (PDT) From: William Morris Subject: Re: [AML] Mormon Literature as Distinct? > >From thj5@columbia.edu Sat Jun 09 21:50:27 2001 > Cryptographic texts might work best with temple > topics. It wouldn't be too > difficult to get a point across about the temple by > way of indirection, the > sort of thing that would set Mormon heads > a-spinning, but leave non-Mormons > clueless. But what's the appeal of that kind of > literature? Sounds like > Jewish kabbalism. Which I'm fine with, sure, but I > don't see why it would > make for great literature. More like great puzzles. > Have you read Kafka's > _Penal Colony_ or "the bridge" or "the emperor"? > These seem like highly > coded texts to me. Give me an example of what you > had in mind. I have read those Kafka works and do think that Mormonism could add to what I call the 'parabolic' genre. But what I more had in mind wasn't cryptic in the sense of number games or kabbalistic symbols (which are more emblems than symbols), but rather form, dialogue, and terms that are highly specific to certain Mormon communities. Insider fiction. And yet as I write this, I can't come up with any great examples, so I guess that's probably indicative of the limitations of such a project, as you've already pointed out. > If I remember correctly, in that Evenson-Marcus > interview, Evenson was > explaining that the Church didn't factor much into > his writing; it just > wasn't the kind of thing that came out in his prose. > So, is _Tongue_ > considered Mormon literature? Just because the > Church or the doctrine of the > Church or Church themes aren't in there does not > mean it's not Mormon. > Otherwise it would be like Mormon writers were > self-obsessed with their own > religion and their selves in it, like they were > always writing about > themselves. Sure our lives are "supposed" to revolve > around our faith, and > not the other way around, but that doesn't always > work out, and that's not > what literature is always about. I am still of the > opinion that, just as > there is no "Mormon science" or "Mormon physiology" > or "Mormon mathematics," > if there is a "Mormon literature" it should contain > all the good, true, and > beautiful--and not simply all elements of Mormonism. > To do the latter is to > deny what Mormonism is all about. However, you've > argued quite a bit for the > other pov, and I can see where you're coming from. > There is no "African > Mathematics" but there is an "African Literature." > Exactly what, then, are > the elements that identify a work as Mormon > literature? Actually there is a movement towards 'ethnic mathematics' (including an African Math) in certain academic circles. I don't know enough about it to evaluate the merits of such a movement (I would imagine that such projects would be rather limited---like it or not, certain 'western' concepts dominant academic, public and popular discourse). Besides to speak of a Mormon physiology or science is to make a bit of a false analogy. Literature is a different beast. There is a Mormon philosophy just like there is a Jewish one. Both branches are obviously sub-genres of the larger philosophic enterprise, and certainly many have made the case against ethnic-religious-gender based disciplines, but they persist nonetheless. Literature is an even stranger thing because, as you point out with your Evenson example, it's very difficult to categorize many authors. Comparative literature has challenged the notion of national literatures as some pure thing, and I think that trying to define Mormon literature as some pure thing is incredibly tricky. All Mormon writers have different relationships with the institutional church, with the Mormon publishing scene, with the academic world, with western regionalism (Mormon lit. is often seen as a sub-genre of this category). I haven't read enough Mormon literature to truly know if one can develop a list of elements that make it so. In many ways, Mormon literature is literature that defines itself, in some way, either textually or in its outer context (author's statement, critical treatment, etc.) as Mormon. I'm still working my way through this one Tom. But to borrow from my comp lit roots----we know the elements of Mormon literature by looking at the anthologies, journals and marketing efforts that are trying to create a canon of Mormon lit. > I'm sorry here. I came to the list a bit late, and > have missed out on all > these discussions. I know there's an archive of > posts somewhere, but I'm not > sure how to access them. No reason to be sorry. The archive can be found at the AML Web site, but it is not organized by topic so it's difficult to find exact discussions. There is a somewhat cyclical nature to the list and those members who have been around for awhile and don't feel a need to contribute to a discussion they've already had generally sit back and let the 'younger' ones go at it. I'd like to see the entire archive ported to a web-searchable database one of these days, but I'm sure it would be a while before the AML board could consider such a project. > I haven't read Arlt. I did pick up a copy at the > library the other day, > though. With that last line of your post, > it makes it seem as if you are not American. But > your name (which is a > famous American name as well as the name of a > renowned literary agency) is > American. I'm an American and my name is as about as Anglo-Saxon as you can get, especially when you add in my middle name: Henry. I'm a Utah-CA hybrid currently living in the Bay Area. The reason I wasn't sure about the American reception of Robert Arlt's fiction is that I encountered him in a graduate course on Latin American fiction, and so only heard there how he was received in his native Argentina (in the 20's and 30's). - ----Plus, when I tried to find English-language criticism on him, I found very little, and the translation I read was fairly recently done and from a small publishing house, so I just assumed that he's not super well-known here in the states. ~~William Morris __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Spot the hottest trends in music, movies, and more. http://buzz.yahoo.com/ - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2001 08:59:38 -0600 From: Thom Duncan Subject: [AML] Play the New Game: "All Movies Have Happy Endings!" In another post by Craig Huls, he said he likes happy endings. I have long held the view that all movies and books have happy endings, though we may not perceive them as such. I'm going to go out on a limb here and put my opinion to the test. If the Moderator will allow, and you list members want to play along, please send me the title of any movie you've seen, or have heard of, that you think has an unhappy ending. I bet I can show you that the ending really is a happy one, and I'll explain why that is so. If I haven't seen the movie, I'll tell you that. If I can't find a happy ending to every movie you mention that I've also seen, I'll eat public crow on the list. So, come on, here's a chance to publicly humiliate that big blow-hard, Thom Duncan. Try me. Thom Duncan - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2001 19:44:54 -0500 From: Larry Jackson Subject: [AML] MN New Products: New and Old Novels, and a Martin Harris Biography: Kent Larsen From: Kent Larsen To: Mormon News Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2001 22:30:00 -0500 Subject: MN New Products: New and Old Novels, and a Martin Harris Biography: Kent Larsen 13Jun01 US NY NYC A4 [From Mormon-News] New and Old Novels, and a Martin Harris Biography NEW YORK, NEW YORK -- Recently published LDS books include a number of novels aimed at the LDS market and a biography of Martin Harris that the publisher says is the most complete account of his life. The novels include a new edition of an early Lee Nelson novel, the complete, unabridged version of Gerald Lund's most recent novel, and a novel based on the well-known poem, The Touch of the Master's Hand. The biography of Martin Harris was written by his brother's great-granddaughters who have spent years researching his life. Their account draws on rare correspondence and family information to present a portrait of a man who has been misunderstood by history. Cedar Fort has issued the new edition of Lee Nelson's "Wasatch Savage," one of Nelson's earliest novels, published in the 1970s by Liberty Press. Also new is a mystery from Covenant Communications called "Beneath the Surface," Robert Farrell Smith's latest novel, "Captain Matrimony" from Deseret Book, and the second book in Larry Barkdull's "Zion" series, which explores the development of a perfect society by Enoch. New and recent products: Beneath the Surface by Jeni Grossman Covenant Communications CD; LDS Publisher; Fiction; Mormon Author $14.95 Mystery. Two sons of a man killed in the suspicious flooding of a rock quarry are convinced their father was murdered and are looking for revenge and to bring the truth to light, no matter who gets hurt. Wasatch Savage by Lee Nelson Cedar Fort Book; LDS Publisher; Fiction; Mormon Author $17.95 A new edition of an early Lee Nelson novel that intertwines the lives of a feisty young woman who takes over her dead father's business, an athletic cowboy bull rider, a disillusioned inventor who disappears into the Wasatch Mountains and an Indian who sets a stolen calf loose on an uninhabited island in the Great Salt Lake. Kingdom and the Crown Vol 1: Fishers of Men by Gerald N. Lund Deseret Book Unabridged audio; LDS Publisher; Fiction; Mormon Author $39.95 Complete audio version of Lund's newest novel, the start of a series portraying the life of Christ. Captain Matrimony by Robert F. Smith Deseret Book Book; LDS Publisher; Fiction; Mormon Author & Subject $12.95 Romantic humor novel about an eastern Mormon, Andy Phillips, who comes to teach in the tiny Utah town of Mishap, where residents are scared because two young lovers disappeared while leaving for their honeymoon. The town now believes anyone who marries in town will find an unseemly and untimely end. But Phillips solves the mystery of the disappearance of the young lovers, gets the town to discount the curse, and finds the girl of his dream. The Touch of the Master's Hand by Larry Barkdull Maasai Publishing Book; LDS Publisher; Fiction; Mormon Author and Subject $6.95 A novel inspired by the famous poem, The Touch of the Master's Hand tells the story of a family trying to raise money to pay for the treatment of their young daughter. Their efforts are met with disappointment and betrayal, but the kindness of friends and the gift of a violin from a mysterious old man cause the miracle of healing. ZION -- The Long Road to Sanctification by Larry Barkdull Maasai Publishing Book; LDS Publisher; Fiction; Mormon Author and Subject $16.95 The second book in the Zion series, which tells the story of Enoch, the Seer as he tries to establish the most perfect society to exist on Earth. In this book Rabunel, on a mission of mercy, is captured by the secret Mahan society, wounded and left for dead. His brush with death sets off a series of events that resolve into a central question: "Is a Zion society the product of environment or individual choice?" Martin Harris Story by Madge Harris Tuckett and Belle Harris Wilson Maasai Publishing Book; LDS Publisher; Non-fiction; Mormon Author and Subject $12.95 The most complete and accurate account of Martin Harris' life, according to the publisher. The book includes detailed research, rare correspondence and many rare photographs. Written by his brother Emer's great-granddaughters. >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: Fri, 15 Jun 2001 12:28:29 -0600 From: Scott and Marny Parkin Subject: Re: [AML] Missionary Stories (pt 2 of 2) Tom Johnson wrote: >What did you think of Evenson's _Lies_? Would you say that it "rang true" to >the author's experience or not? Evenson certain goes against my experiences >with bishops (thank my lucky stars); is that why I thought the book was so >hollow? perhaps if I'd lived Evenson's byu ordeal, I'd hear bells bells >bells on every page. Didn't read it. After _Altmann's Tongue_ I decided that as much as I liked the kinds of things I think he did with his relentlessly amoral viewpoints, I just didn't find as much enjoyment or insight in the text as I had hoped for. So I had no incentive to read any of his other books. With your little non-recommendation added to my own apathy, I still fail to have a reason to break my existing torpor and rush out to buy the book. >But don't you think that rejecting a text that varies widely from your own >experience can do you more harm than good? It limits your aesthetical >acceptance to only those experiences you've had or half had. I'm not sure if >I believe this. I'll have to think about it for a while. First, I don't reject Mitchell's text--or at least not as a whole. I think I made it quite clear that I not only found much to appreciate, but that I *did* appreciate it despite quibbles with some of the particulars. I did find his tent-preachment and display before the judge scenes to be essentially absurd--at least relative to my own experience. I enjoyed them anyway and thought they accomplished something within the story. I not only never did anything even remotely similar, I can't imagine that I would. So yeah, inside my head I made a little evaluation that said "unlikely!" and read the scene as a purely fictional construct. My only concern with the details at that point were whether they were internally consistent within the scene, and whether they fit broadly within the novel frameworks established by the novel. I thought they did, so I was able to accept the scenes while still believing them to be complete fantasy. Whether they really are fantasy or not is irrelevant. I don't think we can turn off our own BS detectors when we read, and I don't think we should be asked to. But when you make a point of something in an otherwise realistic setting, you have to expect me to evaluate whether that something is equally realistic. If you tell me that inviolable police procedure in Santaquin, Utah is to make a thorough investigation and immediate arrests when someone shoots a deer in your neighbor's front yard at Christmas-time, I'm going to doubt the verity of the claim, because I have direct personal evidence that refutes it. Not only did my local police not arrest, they didn't investigate, despite the huge pool of blood in the middle of the street (I had blood stains on my driveway for weeks where I had driven through it, not knowing what it was). I thought it was pretty clear who both fired a gun within city limits (illegal) and who poached the deer out of season (illegal at the state level), and my cursory investigation pointed straight at one specific house where the drag marks ended and secondary pools of blood appeared. So I know from personal experience that even if a policy exists in Santaquin, Utah, to investigate and arrest on all weapons-fire, the Santaquin City police department doesn't hold that policy as inviolable. The specific fictional claim would be inaccurate, and I know it. Because I know it, I now want to know why the author made such a claim. I've been jarred out of the reading experience by a misplaced detail. Years ago I read a book (was it _The Stepford Wives_?)_ that opened with a scene of a Mormon woman taking a bath. The author (narrator) stated clearly that it was official church doctrine that Mormons should never lose contact with their garments and that the church had established a policy that all Mormons should tie their garments around their wrists when they bathed. This is knowably wrong as a general statement of official Mormon policy and belief, and I had to question the author's intent in presenting that inaccurate detail. I read the book anyway, but I also decided that the author was playing fast and loose with the details. Then again, _The Stepford Wives_ hardly claimed to be journalism so while I can be disappointed that the author didn't work for more verity in the details, I can't reject the whole story on the basis of a single detail (though I did end up rejecting it for a whole host of other reasons...). I believe that when an author includes a detail, they also invite you to evaluate its verity. Whether I reject the whole text or not doesn't revolve around a single detail, though consistent inaccuracy in a genre defined by accuracy does beg some questions. I published a short story in _Irreantum_ that featured an impossible disease, a cat that could absorb illness from people, and a narration from the cat's POV, all set in a split-entry house in American suburbia. I have the advantage of knowing that cats don't read _Irreantum_ on a regular basis (and that even fewer of them participate on the AML-List), so I can expect few readers to be able to refute the cat's voice or perspective or magical healing abilities as absolutely untrue. But I would be a little disappointed (and more than a little frightened) if anyone believed that the story was journalism (though about 75% of the details in the story were taken from my own experience). Of course those premises are untrue, and rejection of the story because it's obviously not factual on those points would be unfortunate, because that's not the basis on which I believe the story should be read. It's a fantasy, and pretty clearly defined as such within the first two paragraphs. Its conceit is a fantastic premise told by a fantastic narrator. Then again, the genre it claims demands a certain amount of fantastic creation. So the story is consistent within the conventions of its genre, and should be read differently than a story that claims absolute verity. I know an awful lot of Mormon readers skipped right over my story because it was fantasy. While I can be disappointed (I thought it was a pretty good story that succeeded on its own terms, and a not-terrible Christ-allegory, as well), I can't claim that those readers shouldn't have rejected the story. Whatever filters they use to determine readability are theirs to contend with. I made a choice not to write to people who would reject on those bases. But among those who have read it, the cat owners have tended to praise me for getting the sense of "catness" right. I take that as evidence that despite the obvious ludicrousness of the premise, I still got most of the details right, and created a sense of verity and consistency within the fantastic premise that made the story as real as it can be. I think that's part of my job as a writer, and I think I mostly succeeded within the broad requirements of my genre. As a primarily sf writer, I can never require that absolute verity be a requirement of good fiction. But if I claim specific knowledge, I better make sure I get the details right or my readers will skewer me. That's another convention of my genre. >I wonder if any missionary narratives have been written by people who did >not serve in that same mission. The forthcoming mindcore of Sister Fronk, >for example, will have to be set in LA--i hope the writer is not from LA. Am >I wrong in this assumption, that almost all fictional missionary stories >written take place in the areas the authors served in? I listened to the director's commentary on my _God's Army_ DVD last night, and Richard Dutcher comments that much of the story he tells reflects his own missionary experiences in Mexico, and that many of the points of characterization for Elder Allen were actually taken from his own personal experience. Obviously, this successful missionary story did not limit itself only to the specific locations and contexts of his own experience. But it did successfully show realistic missionary experience--as taken from the author's own experience, even if set in a different time and place. It did successfully give a feel of parts of Los Angeles--at least partly because it was actually filmed there. The vignettes were true, regardless of time or place. They rose to a point of universality that transcended a specific setting. If Dutcher had shown me L.A, though, and claimed that he was showing me Mexico City, I would have had a problem. If he had shown me downtown Moscow and claimed he was showing me Los Angeles, then he would have strained my credulity. But Dutcher made no such claims. He could have put everyone in pressure suits, filmed it inside a coal mine, and claimed that the story was set in a Denebian asteroid colony and I wouldn't have questioned it because the details supported his claimed setting. But he does run the risk of some readers challenging those details if they have their own experience with Denebian (or any other) asteroid colony. (I grew up north of Chicago, so I find some of the visual details of the movie _The Matrix_ to be a little comical. It was filmed in Sydney, Australia even though it's allegedly set in Chicago. They use Chicago place names and streets, but the visuals are all Sydney. Some might reject the film because of that mismatch; I couldn't have cared less because it didn't matter to the story where it filmed, and the details had no impact on the plot. I grinned, too, at the scene at the opening of _Die Hard 2_ where Maclain is allegedly calling from the Dulles International Airport near Washington D.C. (I lived about twenty minutes away from there for three years) even though the payphone he's using clearly displays the words "Pacific Bell" etched into the metal faceplate. So what? I learned long ago that films are often made far away from their claimed locations, so those details don't destroy the story, though they do momentarily jar me out of the suspended disbelief of my viewer experience. I loved _Ferris Beuller's Day Off_, but some of the scene transitions are just plain impossible. The scene with the joy-riding parking lot attendants has them going up a slope in one place, catching air, then landing in a spot about fifteen miles away. There was one Arnold Shwarzenegger movie that featured a chase on Lower Wacker in Chicago that lasts for about five minutes. Lower Wacker is a maximum of a half-mile long, so to make their chase last as long as it did, they must have run over the same five-blocks' worth of street a half-dozen times. In _God's Army_ Dutcher talks about the scene where the elders push the bathroom door open and take snapshots of different folks sitting on the toilet. Cinematic magic allows the shots of the sitting elder to be taken in one bathroom while the shots of the camera-toting elders pushing the door open and snapping merrily away is shot in a completely different house thirty miles away. These facts don't harm the movie-watching experience for me, because they don't matter to the story.) > > He pays lip service to other experiences, but undermines all of them > > except Barry Monroe's. > >perhaps too solipsistic? like the world revolves around him? i'm not >entirely sure about this. But if I were to agree with you here, I'd say that >I too would rather see our protagonist revolve around the world instead. A little. For me. I think the novel would have been better if he had allowed for other valid experience on-camera. Not great tomes of alternate experience, just one other character who had a different, but still successful, conclusion to his experience. Maybe four or five paragraphs and/or one scene added in. Scott Parkin - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2001 13:39:13 -0600 From: "Gae Lyn Henderson" Subject: RE: [AML] SF X 5 (Review) Ivan rated the plays, and labeled a couple as the "best" of the bunch. I have my favorite too (different from his), but I think the point is not how they compare with each other, but how each individual piece worked. I saw good things about each production, but have some suggestions on how certain of them could be more effective. I attended last Friday night. After reading about the event on the list, I invited my husband's sister and her spouse to attend and they brought along their daughter and her boyfriend. We had a good time discussing the plays afterward, so I can give you the gist of the reactions. > "Youtahneeks" by James Arrington. The older four members of our group cracked up at Utah dialect pronunciations. The two young people sat there without laughing so I'm not sure if they got the jokes or not. I have to agree with what Ivan said about this play--very funny, not really a play, more a string of skits. My sister-in-law (former English teacher) said over and over that this would be a perfect show to require one's students to attend so that they could learn about dialects in a fun way. I didn't sense any serious intentions with this one, except perhaps to help us be more sensitive to language and as a culture to our own peculiarities (and to laugh at them), so I have no suggestions for improvement. > > Fata Morgana by Scott Bronson. This was the most difficult play for our group to understand and appreciate. My brother-in-law Brent said that he kept trying to figure out what it was about, then looked at the rest of our faces and saw we were engrossed, and felt that he must be not clever enough to get the symbolism. My husband was very intrigued though and mentioned what he got out of it was that the peasant girl just couldn't be happy, no matter what the situation, and also couldn't see, understand or value anything. (I felt he was making a subtle comment on his wife's (my) tendency to be dissatisfied with life and that he felt the play could teach me a lesson.) However, Brent said he just gave up trying to understand and started thinking about the Laker's/Phillie's game he could have been watching at home on TV. I asked him if he enjoyed watching the actress who played what Ivan Wolfe called "an obviously Hindu deity doing Yoga." This young woman was very physically attractive and, yes, Brent admitted that he was watching her very closely. I found myself doing the same, almost letting the dialogue slide by as I watched her strength and flexibility and positioning. (Perhaps a too much of a distraction from what Bronson was trying to get us to hear?) In addition, there was some mention made of the live chicken being carried across the stage by the farmer. Strangely two of us had seen it and two of us completely missed it. To do justice to this play, I would need to read it or see it again. I just didn't take it in very well on the first viewing. > "On the way out" by Shannyn Walters. > > "No dear, I'm still dead." Intriguing premise--if mother comes back after she is supposed to be dead what will happen? The tensions between family members come up again, the issue of independence arises for the children, and finally, do we ultimately stay with mother's apparent corpse or just walk away? The characters here walk away to live their own lives, perhaps a little more at peace. One daughter is still on the phone calling for advice--an eternal hanger-on I guess. Group reaction: interesting. I liked it more than anybody else did, mostly because it made me think about my own family and all the hidden tensions and strings that bind us to other people. > > Let the Memories Die." by Thom Duncan. > > "The fringe benefits are great." I'll let Ivan set this up again: > > A house > must be demolished to make way for some important building or > another, but the > old lady who lives there won't leave - at least not until she > sees her niece. > Her niece "Sunny" is a member of the "Star Corps" or something > like that (I > forget the exact name). > > The play at first seems odd, in that Sunny is narrating > everything as it happens > (she says, for > > example "She reached out to touch me" as the other actress > reaches out to touch > her). At first I found this annoying and began to wonder what > this play had to > do with anything really SF other than a few odd references here > and there, and > then an ending worthy of M. Night Shyamalan sneaked up on me and > redeemed the > entire piece. Very powerful short play! This play offered the mind expansion that I hope to find in science fiction. I couldn't understand, as Ivan mentions, the narrator character. Then when I found out why she was telling the story, rather than just acting it out for us, it was doubly effective because of the former sense of being disconcerted. (She turns out to be a true "alien." One who can do things a human being can't do, and who makes us then reconsider our own brand of existence and what it means.) My sister-in-law, Karen, said that the ending brought tears to her eyes (so it passes the emotion-evoking test we been talking about on the list lately). But more than that, Thom's play stimulated me to really think about ideas--ideas like what is memory, how we take it for granted, whether memory is good or bad, what memory means in terms of the way we live in the present, what memory means in terms of our relationships. It also evoked questions about what it means to age. What really is important at that point in life? Lots of good, juicy, thought-provoking meat. A worthy script, presented effectively. > > The M.A.K.E.R. by James Arrington > > "I pray." > > Absolutely hilarious, > it's also a fair Garden of Eden allegory that probably has deeper meanings > behind it, but I was too busy having fun to try to do any close > readings of the > play. Our group agreed that this play was enjoyable, with some fun moments. One thing we particularly liked was when the magical MAKER machine created a Don Juan character and then a Zorro character for the protagonist who wanted to learn how to romance a beautiful woman. The resulting chaos was quite delightful. Don Juan and Zorro couldn't stop fighting and even pantomimed their fight once when they were admonished to be quiet. Some points of critique: slow beginning--needed to get moving more quickly. I also thought Arrington's symbolism was a bit heavy-handed. He had to repeat so we wouldn't miss it the not-very-masked reference to the Tree of Life admonition: It is given to you--nevertheless you may choose for yourself. This play though was easy to understand and provided some laughs as it delivered its not-subtle message. Gae Lyn Henderson - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2001 14:13:30 -0600 From: "Gae Lyn Henderson" Subject: RE: [AML] Value of Experience (was: Childbirth) > For some reason this seemed to cause problems with the male > audience. Why? > Is it that men don't want to think that women might know > something that they > don't? Or is it an insult to suggest that the woman might do a > better job at > something? > > I will be the first one to put up my hand and say that I don't > know how the > male mind thinks, what his sexual experience is, how giving a blessing > feels, what it's like to be able to write my name in the snow, why bodily > function contests are necessary when in groups of the same gender, or why > getting married means you don't have to dance anymore. > Funny here Anna! So in this continuing back and forth between Anna and the guys, we've had comments that feminists (or maybe women in general) want it both ways: to be "just as good as" and to be "special." I think that what Anna is talking about repeatedly in her posts is not whether men can write effectively about childbirth, but a larger issue: that women have a centuries-long sense of being the second sex, the one's who are not quite as important, who sit in the background, who have the lower-paying jobs, who do the back-up work for the big shots. Therefore, we do want to claim our own territory. If childbirth is the arena that is uniquely ours, then we will hang onto it and try to own it as exclusively as we can. Why do you think that huge rituals have developed around the childbirth experience in many cultures that exclude, exclude, exclude men? So that women, can, at least, have one little area in which they are valued and important! In which what they say matters! If you had sat in the audience all your life and watched the men conduct the meetings, then maybe you could understand this. We are the support people, and we sometimes have some strong reactions to territorializing our domain. But heck yes, men can write about childbirth and do a great job. Men are great. I love men. We just also want to be considered great by these talented and wonderful guys. and in response to D. Michael here is my birth story: D. Michael Martindale: > Now I have zero interest in trying to compare pain scores and see if my > cramps measure all the way up to childbirth cramps. That's not the > point. The point is I've felt excruciating pain in my abdomen that would > not go away until I passed something. If I ever need to write a scene of > childbirth from the POV of the mother, I can extrapolate from that night > of torture to describe at least part of the experience rather vividly. I > can add more understanding from research (e.g., a quote from Carol > Burnett that Bill Cosby incorporated into his act: the pain of > childbirth is like pulling your lower lip completely over your head You are bringing back some painful (and glorious) memories. Two of my six children were born via completely "natural" childbirth--no pain relief of any kind. And because I had four prior C-sections, the labors were long and slow--i pushed for over 3 hours. My legs are shaking with exhaustion. I can't get my breath. Dr. Parker tells me to push again. I try to lift my legs and hips up. They won't go. I can't hold up my legs. Everyone is prodding me, "Try, push harder, you can do it, don't quit!" I'm going to collapse. "Push, push, you can do it!" I scream. My body is ripping apart! "Keep pushing!" I can't rip apart my own body, but I have to, I have to!. "You did it, you did it." It's over. I did it. I gave birth. God helped me. Thanks Heavenly Father. My baby, my baby. Tears run down my face. I'm so happy. I've never been this happy. This is joy. Could a male author successfully describe a birth? Definitely. But please, male authors everywhere, just don't try to describe MY birth. Case in point, when my mother asked my husband about the birth, all he said was that HE was exhausted (which of course he was). But my mother felt he missed seeing the woman's point of view. Gae Lyn Henderson > - - 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 #360 ******************************