From: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (aml-list-digest) To: aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: aml-list-digest V1 #418 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, August 8 2001 Volume 01 : Number 418 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 07 Aug 2001 09:15:50 -0600 From: Thom Duncan Subject: Re: [AML] Granite Publishing Query Granite is not a vanity press. Thom - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 07 Aug 2001 09:21:22 -0600 From: Thom Duncan Subject: [AML] Sanitized Art (was: Mission of Mormon Letters?) "D. Michael Martindale" wrote: > But to introduce a third alternative--sanitizing--is something to be > shunned. Normally, I agree with D. Mike on these subjects. But I think of a "sanitized" cop show (NYPD Blue) that is edgy but does not sacrifice its power, etc. Excluding the episodes where you see partial nudity, the show still has off-stage violence (the cops show up afterthe murder has been committed). They still have swear words, though they've invented new swear words that carry the same meaning but aren't offensive. It CAN be done, in other words. Thom - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 11:23:43 EDT From: BroHam000@aol.com Subject: Re: [AML] Fw: MN New AP Stylebook Still Recommends "Mormon Church": I think that what would be confusing to others doesn't really matter; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is The Church of Jesus Christ. If someone is confused about it, he can take his confusion to the Source, and get it cleared up! Linda Hyde Rosemark, TN - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 07 Aug 2001 09:34:40 -0600 From: Barbara Hume Subject: Re: [AML] Welcome to My Living Room At 09:47 AM 8/6/01 -0700, you wrote: >So, sorry if any of the messages I've sent have come across have been >offensive or seemed as if I were offended - I'm pretty thick skinned. And >thank you all for letting me sit with you in my living room! Well, it's kind of you to host us. Where are the refreshments? (The is what I use to try to keep people from taking offense. But since I tend to be forcefully opinionated, it doesn't always work! barbara hume - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 07 Aug 2001 10:57:40 -0400 From: Richard Johnson Subject: Re: [AML] Writing About "Good" Mormons D. Michael Martindale wrote: > > THIS JUST DOESN'T HAPPEN -*-*-*--VERY OFTEN-*-*-*--IN REAL LIFE! If there is one thing I have learned in my 67 years it is "THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO GENERALIZATION THAT DOESN'T HAVE A 'QUALIFYING' EXCEPTION" ;-> (Richard Johnson) > -- > D. Michael Martindale > dmichael@wwno.com > - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 07 Aug 2001 10:03:59 -0600 From: Chris Grant Subject: Re: [AML] Writing About "Good" Mormons D. Michael Martindale writes: [...] >Ever since making the above comment, everyone's been writing >in about exceptions to my rule. So I guess I have to qualify >it. In the real world of billions of people, all sorts of >bizarre things can and do happen. Apparently, even within the small world of (a few hundred?) AML-List subscribers things happen that you insist don't happen. In the same message in which you said that Weylandesque conversions don't happen in real life, you praised the Mad Max films. Do you think the things happening in the Mad Max movies are more plausible than those happening in Weyland's books? [...] >But for a boy in a romance situation to foist missionary >lessons on a brand new potential girlfriend days after meeting >her? Who are these weird people? I wouldn't have been so >crass in my youth. Talk about pushy! > >But that's precisely what happened over and over again in a >collection of Jack Weyland short stories I read a few months >ago. I've looked around a little bit, but haven't been able to figure out what collection you could be referring to. Do you remember its title? 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, 7 Aug 2001 09:36:13 -0700 (PDT) From: William Morris Subject: [AML] Mormo-American Culture (was: Utah Mormon Culture) - --- Terry L Jeffress wrote: > > I think that, at least in the United States, that we > share a much > larger culture of which our Mormonness only > comprises a small > portion. In other words, I beleive that Americans > in general have > much more in common as a whole, even when you > discount religion. > Or at least we do well at passing as 'American.' And by using that particular verb, I don't mean to diminish the experience of some African-Americans for whom passing was a very real, fraught, dangerous, practice. I don't doubt that we have much in common with other Americans, but I'm not sure how small of a portion our Mormonness is. For many folks, educated or not, urban or rural, religious or not, Mormons are strange cultists. In my experience, geeks, urban professionals, rednecks, and volvo liberals don't define themselves by their beliefs as strongly as Mormons do. I'm oversimplifying, but, it seems to me a lot of folks define themselves by personal interests and pursuits rather than by doctrines and religious community. Or perhaps this is something more particular to California. After all, the great majority of Californians are from elsewhere. They are transplants and so lack that strong identifications with a particular community. Here it is more acceptable to choose--beliefs, desires, sympathies. So I guess I'm not disputing what Terry writes. I'm qualifying his statement so that I can lead in to my real point: I think that part of the amazing yet weird challenge of Mormon literature is that we're a minority, religious-basaed culture that is fairly well-integrated in to the mainstream culture. Mormons are exotic but not really. I'm not sure what the implications of this obersvation are, but one is that Mormon writers are in a great position to critique (and riff off of) American culture because we're both outside and inside. Certainly other minority cultures have a similar vantage point. However, I suspect that our vantage point(s)are unique in some way or another. ~~William Morris __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Make international calls for as low as $.04/minute with Yahoo! Messenger http://phonecard.yahoo.com/ - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 10:38:19 -0600 From: Terry L Jeffress Subject: Re: [AML] Granite Publishing Query On Fri, Aug 03, 2001 at 10:34:28PM -0700, Jeff Needle wrote: > Does anyone know if Granite Publishing in Salt Lake City is a vanity > publisher, or are they more like Deseret Book, publishing works for the > Church? >From the AML-List List of Publishers Granite Publishing and Distribution L.L.C. 868 N 1430 West Orem, UT 84057 phone: (801) 229-9023 phone: (800) 574-5779 fax: (801) 229-1924 Owner: David Ingram, Ron Garner, and Jeff Lambson Editor: John Jones email: graitepd@aol.com Jeff Lambson serves on the LDS Booksellers Association board. The ISBNs they use come from small blocks, so they probably do more distribution than actual publishing. (You can tell a lot from the ISBN. For example the ISBNs used by Deseret Book and Covenant come in blocks of 1000. R. R. Bowker, the issuing agency, only grants blocks of 1000 to publishers that have demonstrated some longevity and verifiable publishing history. If you get really big, then you can get a block of 10,000.) - -- Terry L Jeffress | It is a mistake to think that books have | come to stay. The human race did without | them for thousands of years and may | decide to do without them again. | -- E. M. Forster - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 11:52:57 -0600 From: Terry L Jeffress Subject: Re: [AML] Editing Literature On Sun, Aug 05, 2001 at 09:59:40PM -0600, John Williams wrote: > I'm confused about what you mean by "original creation." Could you > please clarify? . . . Again, my point: In the same way that people > are allowed (or at least not frowned upon) to "edit" recipes > according to their personal tastes and sensitivities, so should they > be allowed to edit their own movies/literature according to their > own tastes and sensitivities. That's it. The creator of a work has the right to determine who he will allow to make copies of his creation. Nothing stops someone from buying a movie and then modifying that film to fit the buyer's personal tastes. But the buyer cannot legally sell modified copies of a work without permission from the copyright holder. The editing services started to get in trouble becasue at first they were selling edited copies of the tapes. You could walk in the store and buy a pre-edited copy of a movie. This violated copyright law, because the editing service had modified a work without permission of the copyright holder. Now, the end user must purchase the work first and then engage the editing service to make changes to the tape for personal use. Although the end result seems the same, the law sees these cases differently. Another example. Say I buy a copy of Greg Olsen's "O, Jerusalem," but I dedide to hire someone to paint an image of New York City over Jerusalem. I can freely display this modified work, "O, Big Apple" or "Christ in New Jersery," in my home, but I cannot turn around and sell copies of this derivative work. On the other hand, if you somehow get Greg to sell you the original of "O, Jerusalom," then you would have the right to make whatever modifications you want to the work and to sell copies of those modifications. For example, when you see prints of an artist's work, you often see "Used by permission of the Houston Gallery of Art" and not "Use by permission of the artist." The owner of the original artwork has the right to determin how other can use representational images of that art. (Although these days when you buy an original from a gallery, you often have to sign a release stating that you have not purchased the copyright to that work -- thus the gallery can continue to make and sell prints, even though you might own the original.) Your food example actually doesn't fit well with these others because under U.S. Copyright law, you cannot copyright a list of ingredients. You can copyright the written procedure for combining those ingredients, but nothing stops you from copying a list of ingredients from an existing recipe, modifying that list to fit your own tastes, and publishing that list with a newly written procedure for combining those ingredients. You also have the right to reverse engineer a product and make a duplicate. You just cannot use the same name if you decide to market your product. For example, I could hire a labratory to analyze a sample of Coca-Cola, take the reverse-engineered formula, and develop a soda with the exact same ingredients as Coke. I can even mass produce and sell my immitation Coke as long as I do not try to sell my product as original Coka-Cola. Look at all the immitation perfumes on the market. In the case of immitation perfumes, the manufacturer claims you probably cannot tell the difference between its $5/bottle immitation and the $145/bottle original -- because no chemical difference exists. I don't think I really had a great dissagreement with anything John said. Maintly I wanted to point out that the movie industry looks at a sale as a sale and will use your money to make more of the same kinds of movies, especially since the movie industry has no way to know that you objected to some portion of its works. So go ahead, edit your tapes, paint on your prints, purge pepper from your pallate. I'll even come over for dinner, but I don't think I'll stay for the movie. - -- Terry L Jeffress | If you are out to describe the truth, | leave elegance to the tailor. | -- Albert Einstein - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 07 Aug 2001 15:25:22 -0700 From: "Christopher Bigelow" Subject: RE: [AML] Fw: MN New AP Stylebook Still Recommends "MormonChurch": The full name on first reference followed by the generic "Church of Jesus = Christ" is about as useful as saying "M&M" on first reference and then = "candy" on subsequent references--and it reflects about the same level of = institutional ego. In the missionary memoir I'm writing, I'm trying to = avoid the use of the term "Mormon Church," but I am using "LDS Church." = I'm not sure how often I just say "the church," but when I do I'm still = conditioned to capitalize "Church" from my days as an Ensign editor. Chris Bigelow - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 07 Aug 2001 15:59:39 -0600 From: Barbara Hume Subject: Re: [AML] Mission of Mormon Letters? At 09:36 PM 8/3/01 -0600, you wrote: >I want to see more stories that are edgy, literary, and faithful. I'd like to see some writers' definitions of "edgy." So far, most writings I've looked into that were described as "edgy" were not things that I liked. Perhaps it's because they disturb my comfort level, but I think it's because they are often mean-spirited and depressing. I also wonder what you mean by more stories that are "literary"--do you mean stories with a higher quality of writing, or are you positioning literary fiction as more valuable in this venue than genre fiction? barbara hume - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 07 Aug 2001 17:42:02 -0500 From: Craig Huls Subject: Re: [AML] Welcome to My Living Room Barbara Hume wrote: > At 09:47 AM 8/6/01 -0700, you wrote: > >So, sorry if any of the messages I've sent have come across have been > >offensive or seemed as if I were offended - I'm pretty thick skinned. And > >thank you all for letting me sit with you in my living room! > > Well, it's kind of you to host us. Where are the refreshments? > > (The is what I use to try to keep people from taking offense. But > since I tend to be forcefully opinionated, it doesn't always work! > > barbara hume > > - As if you are the only one on this list with an opinion! Trying to make us feel bad! I am a shorttimer here but I have decided that I am amongst siblings the way the fur flies at times! It seems that we let it all hang out but we do come back in the spirit of love. Actually we are siblings come to think of it! I enjoy ya'll! Craig Huls - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 17:27:15 -0600 From: "Ethan Skarstedt" Subject: RE: [AML] Writing About "Good" Mormons >In the same message in which you said that Weylandesque >conversions don't happen in real life, you praised the Mad Max >films. Do you think the things happening in the Mad Max movies >are more plausible than those happening in Weyland's books? Chris's response to D. is a little unfair. I think it obvious that D. was speaking of the inner-conflicts in the character Mad Max rather than the actual events in the story (whether the actual events were believable or not is another discussion). He was making the point that Jack Weylandesque inner conflicts (which lead to the conversions) were less believable than those in Mad Max. I happen to agree with him. I'm sorry, D. if I stepped on your toes here. To continue with my own response to the thread so far: I think there are two operational mediums being discussed here. Inner conflict and Physical conflict, Man Vs. Self vs. all the other kinds of conflict. In stories where there are no physical conflicts, man against nature, man against man, etc... there remains only inner conflict, man against self; these stories are boring when the single real conflict, man against self, is unbelievable, idealized, whatever you want to call it. They're just not interesting, they're empty. When the inner conflict is well-drawn, however, they can be fascinating. This is not to say that stories with Physical conflict in them can get by with no Inner conflict, these tend to be boring as well; although they can be fun reads, they are usually not filling. =20 My point? A reiteration of the balance idea. A 'good' story usually has both kinds of conflict and both are drawn realistically. =20 Ethan Skarstedt - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 14:50:34 -0700 From: "Jeff Needle" Subject: Re: [AML] Granite Publishing Query Thank you! I'll look forward to hearing from them. I appreciate the information. - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 08 Aug 2001 00:47:56 From: "R.W. Rasband" Subject: [AML] THE GUESS WHO, _The Concert_ Many PBS television stations are holding pledge drives this time of year, and one show being featured is "The Concert", a show produced by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation featuring the reunion of Canada's biggest ever rock group, The Guess Who. (It is showing on KUED in Salt Lake.) It was filmed in Winnipeg, Manitoba, home town of the band, and includes original LDS rock-and-roller Randy Bachman on lead guitar. I liked their music as a kid, then went on my mission to Winnipeg, where I spent 16 months all told. Never met Randy, but got to know Tim Bachman and his family a little bit (Tim is Randy's brother who played in Bachman-Turner Overdrive. He lived on one of the Winnipeg wards in the North End I was assigned to.) The Guess Who was EVIL HARD ROCK when I was growing up, but now their music seems poignantly innocent compared to what is popular now (they sang about love, not rage, and you can actually discern a melody.) Got all nostalgic from the glimpses of Winnipeg shown before the concert. When Burton Cunmmings shouts "You are smack dab in the middle of the greatest country in the world" my heart swelled up with second-hand patriotism. (According to rumor Cummings left the band in the '70's because of Bachman's clean-living ways, but it appears the two have reconciled.) Highly recommended for grizzled old classic-rock aficianados like me. R.W. Rasband Heber City, UT rrasband@hotmail.com _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp - - 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 #418 ******************************