From: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (aml-list-digest) To: aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: aml-list-digest V1 #390 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, July 11 2001 Volume 01 : Number 390 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 8 Jul 2001 19:15:18 +0800 From: "Eric D. Snider" Subject: Re: [AML] Realistic Newspaper Reporters Rex Goode: >I have one character who is a newspaper reporter, but I know nothing >about newspaper reporting. I don't want to make him cliche, because >there is much about him that is not at all stereotypical. The >interesting things about him not related to his job I can handle, >but when I show him doing his job, how do I make it believable >without making him a caricature of every other newspaper reporter >I've ever read about in a novel? > >Any newspaper reporter here want to give me an assist? I can answer based on my experience working with reporters, and occasionally being one myself. The main thing fiction usually gets wrong about reporters is making them too hardened. Granted, being surrounded by the cold realities of the news all day tends to make one a little world-weary. But reporters are, for the most part, still human beings. The cliche of shoving other reporters out of the way, rushing up to a person whose house has just burned down, and saying, "How do you feel right now?" rings more false than true. Reporters who have to get difficult stories like that usually have to take a deep breath, gather their nerves, and then plunge ahead, as discreetly and inobtrusively as possible. We don't like hounding people anymore than the average person would. Our job requires is sometimes, though, and so we do it. Reporters, like anyone who works with words, tend to be erudite and well-spoken. They generally enjoy reading. The best reporters have news in their blood. It's just an in-born passion for finding information and telling the stories. As a result, they tend to be nosy, too: Newsroom gossip is the fastest-traveling substance known to man. If your reporter works in a newsroom, he will almost certainly be up on what's going on among his coworkers. And yet, since reporters are not usually particularly extroverted, they tend to be private people, too. I don't know if your character is LDS or not. In the real world, reporters tend to swear a lot and drink endless amount of coffee. They are not snappy dressers by any stretch of the imagination. They are usually high-school nerds who have gotten smart enough to realize they're nerds and take some measures to overcome it. Even in Utah, and even among the LDS, reporters swear and drink coffee, though perhaps not as much as elsewhere. They also do tend to be liberal and Democrats -- that stereotype is true. (Almost every Democrat I've met in Utah has been through working for a newspaper.) Reporters usually get passionate about the beat they cover. They develop intense rivalries with whomever covers the same beat for the rival newspaper, if there is one. (There almost always is). If they cover city council meetings, they know all the council members personally and have a love-hate relationship with them: Love because they give them good stories, and hate because they're politicians. One more thing. Reporters are way underpaid. See what you can do about that, will you? 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 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Jul 2001 23:20:37 -0500 From: Larry Jackson Subject: [AML] re: Fiction in Church Mags Melissa Proffit: ... stories that really happened are more valuable than the made-up kind. Annette Lyon: ... there was something in it [the handbook] about ... _______________ Church Handbook of Instructions, p. 239: "Make-Believe in Primary Children should know that they learn the truth in Primary. If a person uses a make-believe story or situation to teach a gospel principle, he or she should explain that the story is make-believe." _____ I see the wisdom in this policy. I also see some practicallity here. There is a lot to be covered in Primary and other Church classes that is true. I have found there is little time for other things, as interesting or nice or fun as they might be. (I make brief exceptions for quality humor.) Someone mentioned the Steeds in a gospel doctrine class. The response was, "Who?" Larry Jackson ________________________________________________________________ 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, 10 Jul 2001 19:55:26 -0500 From: Jonathan Langford Subject: Re: [AML] (Andrew's Poll) Church-Sponsored Art (comp) >From ThomDuncan@prodigy.net Mon Jul 09 10:56:37 2001 Andrew Hall wrote: > All this talk about instiutional art tells me that we should have a poll on > the subject of the best and worst in art sponsored by the Church. > > So, tell us your favorite piece(s) of instituional Mormon art, as well as > your least favorite(s), and why. What makes them good or bad? > > I was thinking of just Church-made movies at first, from the ones in the > early 50s up to The Testaments. But I guess you could also include Church > sponsored pagents and plays, architecture, and art commisioned for chapels > and temples. Let's stay away from hymns for now, we'll save that for > another time. Remember, keep it to things sponsored by the Church itself. > > I look forward to everyone's participation. Favorite: Everything painted by Minerva Teichert. BY sent her to France to study with the masters. As an Impressionist, she didn't paint to tell a story, but to make you feel what was going on, which she did with wonderful mastery. Also, she lived a lifestyle that was about as Bohemian as a Mormon in good standing could get. Also, I like the Church's PSAs. They are short and moving and very well-made. I can't think of a Church-sponsored play that I've ever liked, or a Church sponsored film, for that matter. Thom [Duncan] - -------------------------------------- >From Paynecabin@aol.com Mon Jul 09 11:01:20 2001 The talking plastic heads inside the big plywood golden plates at the 1972 World Expo in Spokane. The absolute worst. I think my comment on the exit poll was "Nightmarish." Marvin Payne - -------------------------------------- >From marianne_hales_harding@hotmail.com Mon Jul 09 12:11:01 2001 Well, you have to love "Johnny Lingo" and those seminary films turned to video (The name escapes me but I remember the theme song vividly--"Walkin' walkin' together and talkin' oooh talkin' together and wondering wondering whether the good times we share will always be there..." Sing with me!) simply because it is a right of passage for all LDS youth. Not exactly the most glorious of films, but who has the mental capacity for great art at the crack of dawn??? Also, I liked Mr. Kruegger's Christmas on video but not when viewed on Temple Square because the showing at Temple Square ends with a little "the moral of this story is..." As I recall, the video itself is not so overtly preachy though it is sappy (luckily I like sap). And what's the one where the guy from MASH plays the Home Teaching Supervisor? That was a nice one. My husband can't stand "The Mailbox" because he says that what you learn from the story is that you shouldn't send old people letters or you'll kill them. :-) All time fave of this group, though, is the one where the kid who has a hard time waking up for chores gets up early to do chores on Christmas morning so his Dad can watch the kids open presents. It's just sweet. And simple. Gets in, tells the story, gets out. Doesn't have a voice over at the end that says, "And so we see...." Marianne Hales Harding - ------------------------------------- >From tlaulusa@core.com Tue Jul 10 08:06:52 2001 Here is my ignorance rearing its ugly head again. How do you know if something is 'church sponsored? I know the films from the church are. Are all the pageants church sponsored? And what about pictures? I have know idea how to tell if a picture was sponsored (do you mean commissioned/) by the church or if an artist just painted it and the church liked it and bought it and so forth. Like all those pictures by the guy whose name I should remember and don't that show all the Nephites/Lamanites as Incredible Hulks. Tracie Laulusa - ---------------------------------- >From ersamuel@byugate.byu.edu Tue Jul 10 08:38:56 2001 Best institutional Mormon art: Man's Search For Happiness: Really quite a remarkable piece of didactic = filmmaking. =20 I'm not a big fan of the Hill Cumorah pageant, but that's mostly because I = don't much like pageants; as a piece of outdoor theatre, it's considered = very good. My non-LDS colleagues like it much better than I do, oddly = enough. Marvin Carlson, my old mentor and perhaps the finest theatre = scholar in the country, wrote a very positive account of Hill Cumorah in = his book Theatre Semiotics: Signs of Life. Worst insitutional Mormon art: Johnny Lingo is very disturbing. But it can't hold a candle to Tom = Trails. Tom Trails was so awful, it was excellent (give that word the = proper high school enthusiasm.) In seminary, growing up, we couldn't wait = to see the new Tom Trails. Not, I regret to say, for any of the right = reasons; we gave it something of an LDS MST3K treatment. I remember = fondly snorting with laughter in the back row with the bishop's daughter, = while our more straitlaced friends shushed us. Eric Samuelsen - ------------------------------------- - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Jul 2001 22:58:46 -0500 From: Larry Jackson Subject: [AML] MN Coke Newell's "Latter Days" Tells LDS Story: Deseret News From: Kent Larsen To: Mormon News Date: Mon, 9 Jul 2001 10:00:00 -0400 Subject: MN Coke Newell's "Latter Days" Tells LDS Story: Deseret News 30Jun01 US UT SLC A2 [From Mormon-News] Coke Newell's "Latter Days" Tells LDS Story SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH -- "Latter Days," a re-telling of Latter-Day Saint history by convert Coke Newell of the LDS Public Affairs Department has done well for St. Martin's Press. It's done so well that it's been picked up by Sam's Club and the New York publisher is releasing it in paperback. "I suppose I tell the story as I wish I would have heard it," says Newell. "In the church we constantly preach to the choir. I'm fairly outrageous in my thinking, but Don LeFevre in Public Affairs helped me learn to temper and control my writing. Learning to tell the Latter-day Saint story to an audience is what I do on the job every day. I hope the book is an extension of what I've learned." As for "Latter Days," the style and tone of the book can be found in the first words of the prologue: He could have done something simple, like refuse to go to church or argue that the preacher was boring. After all, he was just a fourteen-year-old boy, and everyone would have understood. . . . But no, young Joseph Smith had to go and turn religion on its head, making claims no one had ever made, pushing buttons no one had ever pushed. Source: Volume on LDS history wins national readership Deseret News 30Jun01 A2 http://www.deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,295007721,00.html By Jerry Johnston: Deseret News staff writer >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: Tue, 10 Jul 2001 21:03:00 -0000 From: "Tami Miller" Subject: Re: [AML] _Ensign_ Article on Mormon Romance I just looked up this article online, here is the URL for all of you that are interested http://library.lds.org/library/lpext.dll?f=templates&fn=main-h.htm Enjoy! Tami Miller - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2001 00:41:24 -0600 From: "D. Michael Martindale" Subject: Re: [AML] Sex in Literature Frank Maxwell wrote: > For the record, Kathy does not live in Utah. She lives in the same > northern California city in which I live, though in a different ward. The > "current cultural climate" to which she refers is not the one that in which > most of the list members reside. Rather, it is one in which LDS teenagers > are a minority in their high school, in which non-Mormon mass media > influences predominate, in which modesty is not valued, and in which the > sanitized, euphemistic attitude that you decry has a negligible, if not > non-existent, effect. I don't think that makes much difference. We get the same mass media influence in Utah--it's national. And these girls are still growing up in the LDS subculture. There may be some difference, but I don't think it's a significant difference, certainly when the California MIA Maids are reacting in a way I can easily envision Utah MIA Maids reacting in. The rest of your post calls me to task for disagreeing with Kathy. I'm sorry if that's how my message came across. I was agreeing with her, and using her message to illustrate some points. > For the record, I'm the person who first referred to "voyeurism" in these > threads. But I did not do so in an accusatory way. I was, rather, talking > about general principles and phenomena. I'm sure you didn't think of yourself as accusing, but it's hard to take it any other way, especially when it's a blanket characterization toward a number of people you've never met. Perhaps suggesting that the only possible motive for placing sex scenes in literature is voyeurism isn't an accusation, but I don't think I'd be able to find another classification that's any more generous. - -- 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: Tue, 10 Jul 2001 02:07:28 -0600 From: "D. Michael Martindale" Subject: [AML] Kent HUFF, _Joseph Smith's United Order_ (Review) JOSEPH SMITH'S UNITED ORDER by Kent W. Huff October 1998, Cedar Fort, Inc. Hardback, 367 pages "The United Order Will Never Be the Same, Part One" I was part of the crowd of LDS members who dreamed wistfully of the day when we can live under the United Order again. It seemed the best economic system for artists to labor under. It would abolish poverty and allow us to fully live the law of consecration. It would defang our dog-eat-dog world and usher in a Zion society. In my early days as an AML-Lister, I argued strongly in favor of a Zion society as a distinct culture, within which the United Order would play a significant role. I now retract everything I said back then. I once envisioned writing a sweeping LDS science fiction novel that would dig deep into and explore the United Order. I started gathering up books to do research on the subject. Kent Huff's two books, _Joseph Smith's United Order_ and _Brigham Young's United Order_, were in the group. I started reading them first. They ruined my science fiction book and completely changed my outlook of the United Order. Huff's premise is that we have the United Order all wrong. It is not an eternal principle. It was not established by revelation. Our concept of the Order today is one of those folk doctrines we've accepted that, when looked into in depth, does not bear up to scrutiny. His proof is in two parts, and hence the two books to present it. I'll also review the two books separately, although they are inseparably connected, and one cannot be read without the other. This will also make my two reviews awkward, as I try to demarcate a single unifying concept into two pieces of writing. The first book attempts to demonstrate that the United Order of Joseph Smith's time was nothing like the United Order of Brigham Young's time, nor like how we envision it today. It was in fact a legal partnership set up to function in a way very similar to how the modern Corporation of the President functions. Huff calls it the precursor to the Corporation of the President. Since corporate law in America was in its infancy and not fully established in those days, a partnership was used. A common synonym employed in Joseph Smith's time for the United Order was "united firm." The original purpose for the united firm was to facilitate the settling of Kirtland and Missouri. Saints would come into Kirtland as others would leave for Missouri. The entire revelation in the Doctrine and Covenants that we think of as the defining revelation for the United Order (as we understand it today) was nothing more than a temporary process to handle this in- and outflux of settlers. We've construed it as divine instruction for the economic system of a permanent Zion society, when in fact it was nothing more than a God-directed pragmatic solution for a temporary situation in the history of the church. Obviously a review is the wrong place to present the evidence for Huff's assertions--that's what the book is for. My job is to talk about the book itself. Huff is making no attempt in his book to write marvelous prose. His job is to convince, and his book is geared toward that. The descriptive chapters are pleasant enough to read, but they are interspersed with chapters that are detailed with evidence and require a scholarly attitude while reading. If you are highly skeptical of his claims, the evidence is there for you to digest. If you just want to understand what his claims are and get a general, descriptive argument for them, you can skip over the detailed evidence. The book is demarcated fairly well that way. Although this book needs the second book to complete the argument, it accomplishes an important function: to demonstrate that there never was a United Order as we understand it under the leadership of Joseph Smith, and that the supposed scriptural foundation for the system is a misinterpretation of scripture taken completely out of historical context. The next book, _Brigham Young's United Order_, takes on the much larger task of accounting for the origin of the mystical economic system that we have come to accept today as the divinely appointed system of any Zion society. And my review of that book will go more in-depth on my conclusions about both books. - -- 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: Tue, 10 Jul 2001 14:16:29 -0000 From: "Tami Miller" Subject: RE: [AML] Movie Happy Endings [re: War of the Roses] I got the impression that Kathleen's character only grew into her selfishness as she and her husband succeeded and became rich. I vaguely remember some point in the story where they were living in squalor (something like squalor, anyway) and they earned enough money to buy him a new car for Christmas, and she was soooo excited about it. Anyway, they seemed alright to begin with, they just let money make them greedy and selfish. I hope I'm remembering this right, it's been years since I've seen this movie. I somehow got the impression that the point of the movie was what money and power can do to you if you let it overcome your life. Tami Miller - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2001 08:51:00 -0600 From: Chris Grant Subject: [AML] Morality and Art (was: Midstream Mormon Publisher) I appreciate Eric Samuelsen's responses to my questions. Here are some follow-up comments. Eric writes: [...] >General Authorities are not artists; they are not conversant >with the various discourses taking place in the worlds of >artists. There are exceptions, aren't there? For example, Elder Packer is an artist of sorts, and his essay/address that leads off the BYU Press publication _Arts and Inspiration_ suggests that as long ago as 1976 he was involved in discourses pertaining to morality and the arts. >They just know what they don't like. I wonder if that isn't selling their statements a little short. The way they frame many of their General Conference statements on the arts suggests to me that they feel they are talking about something objective and not just a matter of their own personal preference. [...] >Surely no one would say that the choice to compose a concerto >in D minor is less moral than the choice to compose it in E >major. So why would the choice to use the word on the top of >page 116 in your dictionary be less moral than the choice to >use the word on the top of page 311? Perhaps the difference between words is greater than the difference between musical keys. Perhaps the choice between words that aren't vulgar and those that are is more akin to the choice between performing a concerto at a normal volume and having it amplified to a volume that is literally deafening. >Words convey meaning only within a context, and it is the >combination of words, not the words themselves, that have a >moral impact. Certainly there are objects that are morally inert until acted upon by a moral agent, and many words fall into this category. Yet it seems to me that there are some words that we are discouraged from using in just about every context, and it's not clear that there is an exception made for artistic creations. Certainly President Kimball's description of his experience at a San Francisco theater suggests that he didn't think there was an exception when it came to using sacred words in vulgar contexts: ". . . the actors, unworthy to unloose the latchets of the Lord's sandals, were blaspheming his sacred name in their common, vulgar talk. They repeated words of a playwright, words profaning the holy name of their Creator. The people laughed and applauded, and as I thought of the writer, the players, and the audience, the feeling came to me that all were party to the crime . . ." (_Improvement Era_, May 1953, p. 320.) [...] >These are television writers we're talking about here. >We're not talking about graphic depictions of sexual >activity or sexually provocative nudity. Right. I deliberately sought statements on television in order to eliminate the plausibility of explicating their remarks as only having application to hard core pornography. [...] >. . . authors are a kind of deity to their characters; that's >why we talk about 'limited omniscience' as a point of view, as >a writer's tool. But are authors' insights about individual's motivations only about the nonentities over which they have omniscience, or are they intended, as well, as insights about individuals in the real world? If the former, then I guess I don't understand all the talk about the edifying power of literature; why do I need insight into nonentities? If the latter, then authors are (indirectly) commenting on real persons' motivations. [...] >I cannot think of a single instance--not one--where an artist >created anything intending to do evil in the world. This struck me at first as a very bold statement: Out of the trillions of culpable acts committed by humans, none have been performed by artists in the creative process? But then if one pleads ignorance of others' motives, all this is is a statement about your own creations, isn't it? Still, that is impressive. More than one of the seven deadly sins played a role in the creation of the few (and utterly insignificant) works of art/ literature I produced in my younger days. Chris Grant grant@math.byu.edu - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2001 19:07:49 GMT From: cgileadi@emerytelcom.net Subject: Re: [AML] (On Stage) Provo Freedom Festival Parade This was a GREAT review of the Provo parade. I haven't been in a few years because now I live in a small town--Price--with very scaled-down parades. Here it's not unusual for one of the guys on a horse to stop for a minute and chat with you and there's so much throwing of salt-water taffy that every child can OD. What I really used to love about the Provo parades were the floats with Gospel singers--high energy--and, I blush to say, the Hare Krishna chanters/drummers. Why?--I think it is because it gave some cultural/artistic relief from the very thing that Eric noticed, the blow-by-blow float-by-float onslaught of Mormon cultural icons. Maybe that's why Eric loved the seagull-chasing car; it offered some relief. What I always hated the most were those floats with little girls dressed scanty doing hip-swinging BYU-cheerleader moves to blaring prerecorded music. For me that was ultimate vulgarity. But again I think it's a cultural thing, our barely-disguised fascination with skin and sublimated suggestiveness. This Fourth of July we climbed the bleachers at the Carbon County Fairgrounds and watched a short and sweet fireworks display, all of us sighing and shouting as it went. Great sense of community. We drove home, no traffic jams. It must a sign that I'm aging--every day I adore more small town living. Cathy Gileadi Wilson - --------------------------------------------- This message was sent using Endymion MailMan. http://www.endymion.com/products/mailman/ - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2001 12:37:16 -0700 (PDT) From: William Morris Subject: Re: [AML] (On Stage) Provo Freedom Festival Parade - --- "Eric R. Samuelsen" wrote: > ON STAGE > > The Freedom Festival Parade in Provo as an example > of Mormon Theatre. > > By Eric Samuelsen > [snip] >Finally, the Mormon arts angle. Because a parade in >Provo is, has to be, Mormon. Stakes sponsored many >of the floats, and Mormon iconography was >omnipresent; handcarts, golden plates, seagulls, >Moroni. I found myself wondering about context. Is >a parade an appropriate place to show Joseph >retrieving the plates from the Hill Cumorah? One >float showed this last year (I don't think I saw it >this year.) Some poor kid, dressed like Joseph, had >to pick up the plates, put 'em back, pick 'em up, >put 'em back, the whole two miles of the parade >route. And people worry about the appropriateness of >religious imagery in Richard Dutcher films? Wonderful column. What's great about a parade (and the Mormon-style parade has a lot in common with those found in small to mid-size communities in the mid-west and the south) is that even though there are certain forms that one must follow (the genre, if you will, which includes all of those elements Eric describes), because of the often slap-dashed together elements of the parade (especially the floats) things appear that are either intentionally or unintentionally subversive. But to move on to appropriate religious imagery. Stop me if I told this one before, but one of the stories I tell over and over again happened on a trip down the CA coast and to Tijuana I took with the priests from my ward when I was 18 (a fluent Spanish speaker, father of one of the participants, former bishop was our guide). We went in to one of the little shops in Tijuana to look at the black velvet portraits---we wanted to find Elvis, of course. But there, high up on the wall, right next to Janet Jackson and just above Madonna, was a portrait of Joseph Smith. I registered a milli-second of shock before collapsing into laughter. The prophet as popstar. It was fantastic. Of course John Paul III had his representation as well so it wasn't all that unique. Assuming that the proprietor wasn't Mormon and simply paying tribute to his icon, I have to imagine that such a portrait wouldn't exist without consumer demand. But where are these consumers? Have any of you seen a Joseph Smith painted on black velvet hanging in anyone's home? Now here's the real issue. I personally feel that, as tempting as it would be, it would not be appropriate for me to hang such a painting in my home because I wouldn't be using a proper context. I would be doing it as kitsch---simply to shock (or share a wry smile with)other Mormons. I imagine though that there may be other saints out there for whom this picture would be entirely in keeping with their aesthetic values. Their context would make it appropriate to display such a portrait. What I'm trying to say is that our aesthetic values have bearing on the appropriate use of imagery. This is a relativist stance, so I do want to make it clear that I do believe that there are some boundaries of taste that it is inappropriate to cross, but on the whole I think that often I'm too easily offended by the way in which other Mormons use LDS iconography. While I want to be discriminating in my own tastes, I need to be a little less elitist in my attitude towards those who don't share those tastes, my aesthetic preferences. Of course, that resolution doesn't stop me from trying to seek understanding and appreciation of my preferences in return. ~~William Morris __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2001 13:00:28 -0700 (PDT) From: William Morris Subject: RE: [AML] Sex in Literature - --- Christopher Bigelow wrote: > As far as religious tools go, they have typewriters, > we have computers. Yeah, you can get some similar > overlapping results using both tools, but the > computer is much more powerful and opens > revolutionary new horizons. People who can't > recognize that aren't bad, but they are generally > limited in their thinking and in their religious > imagination. It plays into what Pres. Hinckley often > says to members of other faiths, something like, > "Let us add to the good you already have." I'm > sorry, but I do pity people who continue using > typewriters when they could use a computer. > > I don't like fiction that exists mainly to > proselytize people into the Church, but on the other > hand I don't mind if things like this > typewriter/computer comparison come out, even > explicitly. Like in my own writing, it comes out in > the form of "Yeah, but even computers have a > downside and can be tiresome. . . " > This is the kind of literature I'm interested in at the moment. I want to understand the dangers of this computer/typewriter attitude. What does it mean to live in the messy mortal world with a firm (but perhaps not unwavering) testimony that you know what the goals of this existence are and the way to attain those goals? How does one handle the gap between the ideal and the real, the knowledge and the practice? But along with that I want to read about the payoffs. The moments where the ideal and the real converge, where a new understanding is gained, a testimony is illumined, a life is put back on track. This sounds a lot like the didactic literature that already exists but I don't know how quite to describe it...so yes, tiresome, but also sometimes incredibly fulfilling and thrilling and invigorating. Somebody show me the ecstatic in Mormon literature. ~~William Morris __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2001 14:12:05 -0600 From: Chris Grant Subject: Re: [AML] Sex in Literature D. Michael Martindale writes: >Beth, you must go back and look some more. Surely you missed >a quote somewhere where B.Y. says: "...except for sex--don't read >about that." Otherwise, these quotes seem to pretty much clinch >my side of the argument. Before we conclude that Brigham thought reading fiction was a good way to learn the truth about good and evil, perhaps we should take a look at _J of D_ 9:173 and 15:224, as well. (Not to mention the letter he wrote to his son Fera the week before he died.) And it's hard for me to picture the man who told the Saints to keep their private follies to themselves because he did "not want to know anything about it" reading a lot of sexually explicit fiction in order to enhance his grasp of the truth. [D. Michael again] >Is it a fair statement to say that the basic reason for >wanting sex kept "behind closed doors" is embarrassment? No, I don't think so. Doesn't Elder Holland address this in "Of Souls, Symbols, and Sacraments"? [D. Michael again] >Why else would people not want on-screen sex in their literature? I'm assuming that embarrassment isn't the only reason why you don't have sex in front of your children. Might some of these other reasons apply to on-screen sex in literature, as well? Amelia Parkin writes: [...] >Since when do Mormons have the Gospel and, let's say, Baptists do >not? Last time I checked, there were still more copies of the Bible >sold than any other book, worldwide. And if the Bible doesn't >contain the Gospel of Christ, what does? The angel of the Lord seems to have told Nephi that the Bible had many plain and precious parts of the Gospel of Christ taken away from it. [Amelia again] >There are people who will never, in this life time, be Mormon. And >they are every bit as good as you and me. And they have as much >access to the Gospel as they need in order to be good people. But couldn't the lost plain and precious parts make them better? [Amelia again] >I said I want the latitude to represent the actuality that joy and >sin can be conflated in the same act or set of acts. It seems to me that you have that latitude now. Of course, by the same token, others have latitude to criticize the resulting product if they think it's wrong. [Amelia again] >The fact that [sex] happens outside of the bonds of marriage may make >it sinful but it does not negate the fact that it is a loving act, >one which may and probably does bring joy. That creates a >whole new situation than that of the situation of depraved sexual >sin. Both President Kimball and President Hinckley have made strongly worded statements identifying sexual sin with lust and not love, even when that sin occurs within the context of what the world would consider normal, non-depraved relationships. Chris Grant grant@math.byu.edu - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2001 13:25:07 -0700 (PDT) From: William Morris Subject: Re: [AML] Realistic Newspaper Reporters - --- "Eric D. Snider" wrote in a response to Rex Goode's query about reporters: > The main thing fiction usually gets wrong about > reporters is making > them too hardened. Granted, being surrounded by the > cold realities of > the news all day tends to make one a little > world-weary. But > reporters are, for the most part, still human > beings. The cliche of > shoving other reporters out of the way, rushing up > to a person whose > house has just burned down, and saying, "How do you > feel right now?" > rings more false than true. Reporters who have to > get difficult > stories like that usually have to take a deep > breath, gather their > nerves, and then plunge ahead, as discreetly and > inobtrusively as > possible. We don't like hounding people anymore than > the average > person would. Our job requires is sometimes, though, > and so we do it. Now for the view from the dark side (public relations): Not that much different actually. I like most of the reporters I work with and yes, "world weary but not hardened" is a great decription. Often the hardened ones are the editors and so the reporters sometimes ask questions they'd prefer not to because they are being pushed by their editor. If you want to make your reporter a little more sympathetic you can foist the evil characteristics on to the editor (Although I'm sure Eric's editors aren't in the least bit evil). A major tension for the reporter is balancing his/her feelings of simpatico (or hiding dislike) with the subject/person(s) being reported on with the demands of the story. > > Reporters, like anyone who works with words, tend to > be erudite and > well-spoken. They generally enjoy reading. And witty. But always on point or at least when off point doing so in a way that puts their interviewees at ease. Their dialogue should be snappy. Reporters (the good ones) are charmers but they also have to manipulate conversations to get the info. they need for the story. In a way, they follow the missionary commitment pattern. Build a relationship of trust, find common ground (by exhibiting what they already know about the specific story or the background/context for the story), and then get to the point (the central questions). > > Reporters usually get passionate about the beat they > cover. They > develop intense rivalries with whomever covers the > same beat for the > rival newspaper, if there is one. (There almost > always is). If they > cover city council meetings, they know all the > council members > personally and have a love-hate relationship with > them: Love because > they give them good stories, and hate because > they're politicians. Yes. Passionate about their beats is a must for any literary representation of a reporter if he/she is a minor character. The sincerely believe that by reporting the news that they do (whether their beat is education, business or city hall), they are doing a public service. One caveat: Often because they are so passionate about their beats they develop certain prejudices about the topics they cover which means in any interview they will focus in on the topics and attitudes that will fit their prejudices (which they often consider to be simply the beliefs and concerns of their average readers). What this means in depicting a scene of a conversation between a reporter and a source is that often what the source thinks is crucial to the story, the reporter will see as a minor point and want to focus on other aspects of the story. > One more thing. Reporters are way underpaid. See > what you can do > about that, will you? No comment. ~~William Morris (Actually reporters are underpaid-- although I hear Eric makes the big bucks. Didn't you just buy a nice house right next door to Stephen Covey's large, white, night-lighted manse-trosity?) __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! 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