From: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (aml-list-digest) To: aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: aml-list-digest V1 #426 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 Thursday, August 16 2001 Volume 01 : Number 426 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2001 18:01:19 -0400 From: "Debra L. Brown" Subject: [AML] Fw: MN Deseret News' Dean Photo Editing Makes Worldwide News: Editor & Deseret News' Dean Photo Editing Makes Worldwide News SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH -- A single cigarette is world famous. In a recent edition of the Deseret News, owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, actor James Dean's photograph appeared without his customary cigarette. The manipulation violated newspaper policy against changing photographs, said managing editor Rick Hall and a clarification ran the following week, but news reports of the error have appeared in hundreds of newspapers around the world, even as far away as Malaysia, and, to the News' embarrassment, made the trade publication Editor & Publisher. The picture, which fills nearly a quarter of the front page of the August 3 Weekend section, accompanied a story on a television movie about Dean's life. Hall said he and editor John Hughes were concerned that the cigarette projecting from Dean's mouth into the story's text was too striking a focal point and asked the staff to do something about it, thinking they would find a tobacco-free photo. Either due to a misunderstanding or tight deadline, the photo was digitally altered. "Our policy is very firm. We don't mess around with the content of pictures, and this went against that. There's no two ways around that," Hall said. Source: 'Deseret News' Nixes Dean's Cigarette Editor & Publisher (AP) 10Aug01 B3 >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/ - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2001 22:42:56 -0600 From: "mjames_laurel" Subject: Re: [AML] Introductions: Paul Bishop Okay, I'm going to have to chime in with my favorite missionary twosome - Elder Crook and Elder Treasure. Late 1960's, New England Mission. Laurel Brady - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 05:01:34 -0500 From: Ronn Blankenship Subject: [AML] Cliches in Science Fiction (was: _Titan AE_) At 01:13 AM 8/14/01, Jacob Proffitt wrote: >SF as a genre is barely large enough to have clich=E9s at all, No? How about: (1) Two space travelers crash-land on a deserted planet, and in the very=20 last paragraph, we learn that their names are . . . . . . Adam= =20 and Eve. (2) The brave, handsome spaceship captain who flies around the Galaxy=20 righting wrongs (and romancing females of any species). (3) The time traveler who goes back in time to kill his own grandfather. (4) The time traveler who goes back in time to save President Kennedy from= =20 being assassinated. (Forty years ago, the exact same story, but with=20 President Lincoln.) (5) "The last man on Earth sat in a room alone. There was a knock at the= =20 door . . . " Anyone have any others to add? - --Ronn! :) - --------------------------------------------------------- I always knew that I would see the first man on the Moon. I never dreamed that I would see the last. --Dr. Jerry Pournelle - --------------------------------------------------------- - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2001 23:41:27 -0600 From: "Bill Willson" Subject: Re: [AML] Editing Literature Terry L Jeffress writes: [...] >I also look at editing books and movies as some sort of >justification -- trying to make something pure out of >something impure. >Sure, we spend our entire lives trying to rid ourselves of >the impure, but I don't think you can apply the same process >to a book or movie. >Even if you remove the "impure" scenes, those scenes still >exist >and we end up making excuses: "Well, I liked _Titanic_, but I >would only watch it after someone took out those naughty >scenes." I think that purity or impurity is the same as beauty, it is in the eye o= f the beholder. What may be pure to me may be impure to you. The censorsh= ip or editing, if you will, takes place in our own brain, and we all have= a safety switch at the end of our arm called a hand which is fully capab= le of flipping the switch, changing the channel, or if worse comes to wor= se, pulling us up out of our seat and leaving. If we happen to be reading= , then we can simply skip over the offensive parts or stop reading. The D= evil can't force us to say, do, or think anything we do not consent to. Bill Willson - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 00:03:30 -0600 From: "Jacob Proffitt" Subject: RE: [AML] Medved's Arguments - ---Original Message From: Thom Duncan > Jacob Proffitt wrote: > > >If they are so profitable, why isn't the movement the other > direction? > >I can think of a number of reasons, with Medved's argument > that it is > >due to Hollywood being evil as one of the least likely. > > Unless the film makers are entirely set on making money only, I suspect > there's an underlying feeling that they want to create "art." And, by > today's standards, "art" (the kinds of movies upon which critics tend to > lavish praise) is PG-13 and R. The "G" rated film that can pass for > good art nowadays are rare (_The Straight Story_ comes to mind and that > probably wouldn't have got the kudos it did if it hadn't been directed > by David Lynch, known for his weird, R-rated films mostly). > > Money is not the only thing that drives Hollywood. An Oscar on one's > shelf pretty much guarantees that you'll be working the rest of your > life. So you take it in the shorts financially for the shot at an > Academy award. It's insurance. Yes. My point exactly. The people in Hollywood are motivated by a lot of different things and I think that serving Satan (or even a war against decency as claimed by Medved) is probably one of the least common. Although, I think that your example of pursuit of an Oscar is really a slightly obscured instance of pursuit of financial gain. A studio benefits from an Oscar in ways that directly impact the pocket book (free marketing and extended shelf-life to name two). Interestingly, I think the (more accurate) perception that Hollywood is in blind pursuit of money is at the heart of much of our cultural conflict with regards to artists and affects LDS artists more than any hidden Hollywood agenda could. Since we disdain Hollywood and we know that blind pursuit of profit is immoral and wrong, we want assurance that our artists aren't, well, tainted. Since pursuit of money leads to Hollywood's excesses, we want to make sure that those forces won't taint our LDS literature. At least, this might be an explanation for why we hold our artists to higher standards than we hold the rest of our entertainment. Jacob Proffitt - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 02:06:46 -0600 From: "D. Michael Martindale" Subject: Re: [AML] Fw: MN Deseret News' Dean Photo Editing Makes Worldwide News: Editor & > Deseret News' Dean Photo Editing Makes Worldwide News > The picture, which fills nearly a quarter of the front page of the August 3 > Weekend section, accompanied a story on a television movie about Dean's > life. Hall said he and editor John Hughes were concerned that the cigarette > projecting from Dean's mouth into the story's text was too striking a focal > point and asked the staff to do something about it, thinking they would find > a tobacco-free photo. Either due to a misunderstanding or tight deadline, > the photo was digitally altered. "Our policy is very firm. We don't mess > around with the content of pictures, and this went against that. There's no > two ways around that," Hall said. Bean-counting morality comes back to bite the counters in the butt. - -- D. Michael Martindale dmichael@wwno.com ================================== Check out Worldsmiths, the new online LDS writers group, at http://www.wwno.com/worldsmiths Sponsored by Worlds Without Number http://www.wwno.com ================================== - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 01:34:07 -0600 From: "D. Michael Martindale" Subject: Re: [AML] _Titan AE_ Jacob Proffitt wrote: > SF as a genre is barely large enough to have clich=E9s at all, let alon= e > enough to put together a whole movie. I'm surprised at you, Jacob. I thought you and Melissa were SF fans. Science fiction is riddled with cliches. There's a whole website with a long, detailed list of science fiction cliches (http://enphilistor.users4.50megs.com/cliche.htm). The sub-subgenre Star Trek has developed cliches of its own. They have a big board in one of their story development rooms at Paramount studios filled with Star Trek cliches that spec scripts keep dredging up over and over again. Brent Spiner (Data) once suggested a story idea, and was marched in humiliation to the Star Trek cliche board where he personally marked another notch under the idea he suggested (a photograph was taken of the event). Science fiction is lousy with cliches. On the other hand, the cliches in Titan A.E. never bothered me. They were implemented in an original enough fashion that I thought the movie worked--not as a great movie, but as a pleasantly entertaining one. I even went in expecting to be bothered by a bunch of cliches from a review I read, but it didn't happen. If there was anything about the movie that bothered me, it was that the male protagonist's bare butt was shown, but when an equally plausible opportunity came along to show the female protagonist's bare butt, she was kept conveniently covered. Whatever happened to equality in the sexes? Why is a man's bare butt a joke, but a woman's bare butt would be a scandal, even if both circumstances are equally innocent? - --=20 D. Michael Martindale dmichael@wwno.com=20 =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Check out Worldsmiths, the new online LDS writers group, at http://www.wwno.com/worldsmiths=20 Sponsored by Worlds Without Number http://www.wwno.com=20 =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 01:10:44 -0700 From: "LauraMaery (Gold) Post" Subject: [AML] Re: Name of the Church >I hope I'm not misunderstanding what you say here (I missed the original >post), but if you are saying that there are only a couple of thousand >people who belong to a church called "Church of Christ," you're wrong. I >live in the heart of CoC territory, and there are tens of thousands of >members in north Alabama alone. Actually, I said (or at least, intended to say) "Church of Jesus Christ," the name the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has asked news organizations to use on second reference. "That which we call a rose..." - --lmg - --------- WHAT DO WE DO? We homeschool! Here's how: "Homeschool Your Child for Free." Order your copy today, from Amazon.com. - --------- . - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 05:12:02 -0500 From: Ronn Blankenship Subject: RE: [AML] Mormon Monasticism At 11:50 AM 8/14/01, William Morris wrote: > > >In my original post, I wrote: > >I > > would > > > imagine the interesting thing to explore would be > > what > > > happens when home-schooled kids step out in to a > > > setting where they experience cultural attitudes > > that > > > are different from their own. [From a conservative LDS home-schooler on another list:] Home schooler: We are teaching our children at home. They have never been to public school. Skeptical neighbor: I'm not sure that is a good idea. What about their socialization? Home schooler: Oh, that's no problem. We've got a plan to take care of that. Skeptical neighbor: What's that? Home schooler: Every couple of weeks I take my boy into the bathroom, beat the snot out of him, and steal his lunch money. [MOD: Please note that this is not a slam on home schoolers, but on the public school system. No home schooling children were actually abused during the making of this joke...] - --Ronn! :) - --------------------------------------------------------- I always knew that I would see the first man on the Moon. I never dreamed that I would see the last. --Dr. Jerry Pournelle - --------------------------------------------------------- - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 06:24:10 -0700 (PDT) From: Darlene Young Subject: Re: [AML] Irreantum fiction contest winners DMichael said, "> Which story was critiqued by the fine members of > WorLDSmiths online LDS > writers group. Need I say more?" Yes, many thanks go to the members of Worldsmiths for their help. Actually, the contest has made me so very grateful to be a part of this online community. I was so excited to read the announcement yesterday and I've been telling everyone (bragging shamelessly) but, alas, the people around me are not readers and writers and, when I'm looking for congratulations, they smile indulgently and say they are glad I'm enjoying my "little hobby." I appreciate so much the chance to turn on the computer and feel like I'm among friends who understand me. Thanks, AML! ===== Darlene Young __________________________________________________ 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: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 10:11:11 -0600 (MDT) From: Ivan Angus Wolfe Subject: [AML] Home Schooling (was: Mormon Monasticism) [MOD: Let me preemptively point out that the entire discussion for this list should not (and won't be allowed to become) a discussion of the pros and cons of home schooling. What *is* appropriate to discuss, as everyone so far (including Ivan) has done, is what the Mormon home schooling experience is like, together with (versus?) how it is perceived, both within the Mormon community and in the larger American community. In other words, how we as readers and writers might want to consider it as we write/read about it. So far, I think the discussion's been pretty good that way. Let's all keep the focus on this literary aspect.] > Jacob Proffit writes: > > > Back to Home Schooling. One of the biggest > mis-perceptions of Home Schooling is this whole isolation thing. As a parent who decided to Home School their children, I'll tell you that my kids are far from isolated and won't experience any shock whatsoever when they experienceattitudes different from their own (disclaimer: *some* people HomeSchool in order to isolate their children, but they > are like Mormons who write GAs to get people > excommunicated--they are a small, vocal > population given more importance than they deserve). And it's far too often that this vocal minority shapes our views. I was home schooled for a year and hated it - my brother was home schooled for three years and loved it. None of my sisters even wanted to try it. I think it all depends on the kid in question. However - there were two other families in our ward who home schooled their children and woudl routinely get up in testimony meeting to talk about how more spirtual their kids were than teh rest of us whe were being tutored by the Satan run Public education system. If I ever talked about what was going on at school with on of their kids who was my age - they would shake their heads and tell me I was in teh devil's camp. Of course, both families eventually were arrested as income-tax evaders and have since moved on - no one is sure where - to go live off the land. I beleive they are still holed up, conviced that the Y2K bug will strike anytime soon - so they aren't the best representatives of home schoolers - unfortunately, they have colored my entire wards view of home schooling. - --ivan wolfe - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 08:54:41 -0600 (MDT) From: katie@aros.net Subject: [AML] Unusual Names (was: Introductions: Paul Bishop) We had a pair of sister missionaries in Oklahoma, early '90's, named Sister White and Sister Brown. Sister Brown was African-American and Sister White was caucasian. - --Katie Parker - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 10:00:23 -0600 (MDT) From: Ivan Angus Wolfe Subject: [AML] re: _Titan AE_ Jacob Proffitt wrote: > SF as a genre is barely large enough to have cliche=E9s at all, > > let alone enough to put together a whole movie. I'd have to take you up on that - SF as a genre is so large that much of it is composed of cliches. The worst writers use the same tropes over and over - make use of the same ideas, etc. Even the best of writers fall into it - With Arthur C. Clarke (one of the greats), his last solo written works (Such as Songs of Distant Earth and Hammer of God) began to descend into cliches about Religion. Clarke feels there is a God, but that current Earths religions are dangerous - and over and over and over again mentions how much better society would be without it (he goes so far as to advocate censorship of anything related to religion if Songs of Distant Earth). For his later works (his earlier ones were much more ambiguous about it) religion is bad became a cliche. Orson Scott Card purposely created "buggers" (bug eyed monsters) as his "villains" in Ender's Game because of the SF cliches of Bug Eyed aliens. Another SF cliche - the brilliant scientist either has an assistant of meets an interested outsider who has no knowledge of the science involved in this brilliant device/theory/undertaking. So of course, the scientist has to spend time describing and explaining it to him. I could go on. Stephen King advocates that writers who aspire to write SF should read lots of it so they can be familiar with and avoid the numerous cliches the genre has spawned (in his Book "On Writing"). > And might I suggest that if you > watch SF for the dialogue that you redirect your efforts? No I don't watch for dialogue. But when I'm fifteen minutes into a movie and realize that I've heard every line so far in at least a dozen other places, met all of the character types (with no real changes) in another two dozen - and the situation only gets worse throughout - I feel I can complain about unoriginal dialogue that show the scriptwriter didn't try very hard to write something original. > Titan A.E.> was a bildungsroman that tied internal discovery to external > exploration. That story has been done to death in every genre > so I suppose if you wanted to find cliches there, you probably weren't disappointed. Nope - only I doubt that I would use such a academic term as bildungsroman for what I perceived to be pure drivel. It seemed to me it was - "If we put lots of cool special effects, SF fans will watch it no matter what - story and dialogue are secondary." - a flaw the recent Dungeons and Dragons movie also had. > I watched Titan A.E and was delighted by the action, the > growth of the hero as he found his purpose and grappled with > his abandonment, the interesting alien cultures (the psychic > > birds were just cool in their role as oracular guides and > discovering the motivations > and abilities of the bad guys was interesting in lots of ways), I could name several stories where all of those elements appeared and were handled better (for example - the psychic birds appeared in Planetfall by Scott Gier and Vision of the Future by Timothy Zahn - and in those books they were real characters - not merely superficial stereotypes that appeared only to look cool). The bad guys (Pure energy aliens) have appeared in various guises in Star Trek, Battlestar Galatica comic books, and a dozen other places. but you did hit the nail on the head with the word cool. The movie reeked of "coolness." In fact all it wanted to be was cool. For me it failed, especially since all that was really "cool" was the Special effects. > did I mention the action?, and the twist at the end where sacrifice brings redemption (cliched, but what a cliche) and the actions of the bad = > guys are used to destroy them in the act of creation they had tried so hard to prevent. Not exactly original ideas, any of them, but then, how many > original ideas are there, anyway and they hardly qualify as cliche. No - but those ideas deserve to be handled better. There may be only so many ideas - but there's an infinite number of ways to deal with them - and Titan AE merely handled them in a way they've been handled far too often before. - --Ivan Wolfe - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 08:31:40 -0700 From: Elizabeth Hatch Subject: [AML] Re: Writing About "Good" Mormons Ronn Blankenship wrote: "Having not read a lot (if any) of this type of fiction, I have a question: does Weyland (or someone else) ever write stories where it's a non-member guy who falls for a Mormon girl and converts, or is it always a male RM continuing his missionary work after returning home? If the latter, does anyone have any ideas why the other version is not used?" Yes, at least one of Jack Weyland's books has a Mormon girl converting a non-member guy. The cover flap on JAKE says: "Readers will fall in love with Jake and Andrea and yearn for them to find some common ground. But what can you do if you're a Mormon girl, brought up to believe in temple marriage, and the only boy you've ever loved is not only a nonmember but a selfish, chronic liar?" Beth Hatch - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 11:35:45 -0600 From: "Eric R. Samuelsen" Subject: [AML] Re: Unusual Names For some reason, my mission (Norway) ran very heavily towards fish names. = We had an Elder Salmon, an Elder Trout, an Elder Perch, a Sister Gill,an = Elder Fish and an Elder Fisk, which is Norwegian for fish. And the = reputation of 'Siste Dagers Hellige' (Norwegian for LDS) was, uh, not very = good. We also had an Elder Merkely, which is Norwegian for 'weird' and an = Elder Tosk, which is Norwegian for 'dummy.' They were companions. "Hi, = I'm Elder Weirdo and this is my companion, Elder Dummy, and we represent = the Church of Jesus Christ of Polygamist Kooks. . . " Our mission was last = in the world in baptisms. . . . Eric Samuelsen - - 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 #426 ******************************