From: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (aml-list-digest) To: aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: aml-list-digest V1 #452 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 Monday, September 17 2001 Volume 01 : Number 452 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 22:22:30 -0700 From: harlowclark@juno.com Subject: Re: [AML] Suspicion of Art On Wed, 12 Sep 2001 11:36:32 "Todd Petersen" writes: > Jacob Proffit wrote: > > there is nothing inherently virtuous about 'art' > > Eric Samuelsen replied: > > And here I must differ. Art is not just communication. Art is an attempt > to communicate the deepest and most essential parts of the human condition, > to in some measure tell a truth that we may or may not find palateable. > And therefore, it remains, for me and my house, a privileged communication, > inherently and automatically virtuous and important and treasured, unless > an enormous preponderance of evidence suggests that this one piece of art, > unlike all others, is in fact damaging. I still maintain that actual bad > art, actually damaging art is something very rare. > ___________________________________ > > I am afraid I must side with Jacob. Art becomes the kind of communication > Eric mentions because of the reader/viewer/audience. It's not inherent in > the work itself, which is why some things like Moby Dick or the work of > Van Gogh can be overlooked and scorned for so long. Were this virtue > an essential part of the work of art, wouldn't people get it right off the bat? > -- > Todd Robert Petersen (Before getting down to a comment, let me get up on my soapbox and ask why both Eric and Todd used the word _must_? Who requires Eric to disagree with Jacob? Who requires Todd to side with Jacob? Aren't you both moral agents capable of making your own choices? Why, then do you use the rhetorical construction that suggests you have no choice in the matter but to say what you're about to say? I've raised this issue before in less detail and no one's answered. Do I have to use Gae Lyn Henderson's strategy from a year ago and demand an answer to get someone to engage me on this point?) Hmm, Todd's question is a pretty good paraphrase of a question people used to ask me on my mission, "If this Book of the Mormons is the word of God how come I've never heard of it?" "That's what we're here for." "If it was the word of God I would have heard of it." (Hey, I've got to put that into my missionary play.) That someone doesn't recognize a quality inherent in something hardly means it doesn't inhere. It only means that you can't recognize certain qualities in scripture or art without opening yourself up to them. For example, if our society chooses to repudiate Joseph Smith's admonitions about renouncing war and proclaiming piece and warning our enemies in the name of the Lord and allowing them to repent before doing them violence, does that lack of recognition mean the admonitions aren't inherent in D&C 98? I mean, if they were inherent wouldn't people get them right off the bat? Harlow Clark ________________________________________________________________ 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: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 00:55:34 -0600 From: "D. Michael Martindale" Subject: Re: [AML] An Iconography of Our Own Jerry Tyner wrote: > It is just interesting how some people feel about dress and > facial hair (my mother wouldn't allow me to kiss her if she were alive > today). It is just funny sometimes to see who will get upset if you do > something out of the "norm". The scene in _Brigham City_ comes to mind where someone coments on the bishop/sheriff's moustache, and he replies, "Just trying to be more like Jesus." It comes to mind as a possible response to those who like to comment on facial hair. And it comes to mind as something to wonder about--what did Dutcher have in mind by including the moustache and that scene? Why did he want his bishop/sheriff to have a moustache? And why the scene with the comment and retort? Just a cute in-joke? A subtle jab at those who judge by facial hair? Or an attempt to appease those who would be offended by a bishop with a moustache? - -- 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: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 02:46:08 -0600 From: "D. Michael Martindale" Subject: [AML] WOLVERTON, _The Runelords_ (Review) THE RUNELORDS by Dave Wolverton (as David Farland) July 1999, Tor Books Paperback, 613 pages "Six Flags Viper in Print" A day at Six Flags Magic Mountain amusement park in Southern California is a day full of wild roller coaster rides. In particular, a towering structure of daunting metal called the Viper twists and contorts in ways that makes a pretzel look like a crow's flightpath. Seconds after being strapped in, you begin to ask yourself why you ever got on the thing, as it climbs and climbs in that clickety-clack rhythm common to all roller coasters. After it climbs and climbs for what seems an eternity, it climbs and climbs some more, and you wonder when you'll ever reach the top. As that fateful moment arrives, when the clickety-clack ends, and you're suspended in an instant of silence as you crest--so high you can pick out the serial numbers of geostationary communication satellites--the ride truly begins. You stare down at a drop that has to be a thousand percent grade. You speak a word you would never speak in the presence of your bishop. You don't know if you'll survive the dizzying drop. Then you plummet. And scream. Hurricane forces rush past your cheeks. The track whirls you about in impossible directions. You dip and twist and loop upside down and sideways and inside out in ways that make absolutely no sense, and probably pass through several time warps in the process. You lose five IQ points as your brain thrashes about in your skull. Finally the cars ease to a lumbering undulation as momentum dissipates. You sigh as the thrill dies away. You jerk to a stop without warning, your spine is in the shape of a Moebius strip, and you feel like Indiana Jones used your neck to swing over a bottomless pit. You catch your breath and climb out. And look around for the next roller coaster to ride. That's what reading Dave Wolverton's _Runelords_ is like. It took me two tries to get into it. Wolverton is a master of description, painting a lush, detailed portrait of life in his fantasy world around Castle Sylvarresta. The only problem is, on page one, I don't care. I don't care about the Earth King effigies, or how the first day of Hofenfest is celebrated, or whether the eels were currently migrating up the River Wye. I just wanted to know, when is something going to _happen_? Two pages. That's how much I had to read before the rich description gave way to a discernable character actually doing something. I was amazed when I looked back to find out it had only been two pages. It seemed like half a chapter when I first read it. Finally a character appears, a Sergeant Dreys of the King's Guard, gets in a scuffle with an assassin in a back alley in the wee hours of the morning--and dies. Chapter two. Again with the rich description laid on thick, and a second character presented as if he were the protagonist. Again only about two pages, but it seemed interminable. Happily, this character, Prince Gaborn, doesn't die and actually does becomes the protagonist. Clickety-clack, clickety-clack, we climb and climb and climb and wonder when this ride is going to start. But before the second chapter ends, we've reached the pinnacle and are staring down at the abyss. We plummet. We scream. The ride has begun, and it's a doozy. Every so often, a science fiction or fantasy author creates an original, archetypical concept that excites the imagination. Larry Niven fashioned the Ringworld, Isaac Asimov dreamed up the positronic brain and the laws of robotics, Frank Herbert spawned enormous sandworms, Orson Scott Card invented the zero-g battle training room, Robert Heinlein conceived grokking, and J.R.R. Tolkien forged the One Ring to rule them all and in the darkness bind them. Wolverton gave us Runelords. Scattered throughout the land are deposits of a strange thing called blood metal which, when fashioned into something called a "forcible," can extract a characteristic from one human being and endow another with it. Facilitators must study and research for a long time to figure out what rune to place on the end of a forcible shaft to extract the characteristic that he wants. Brawn, wit, glamour, metabolism, stamina are some of the possible traits that can be transferred. The transfer is completed with flashing, vivid imagery, causing the giver pain and the recipient great pleasure. When completed, the giver, called a Dedicate, has lost all of that trait. If it was glamour, the Dedicate is ugly beyond belief. If brawn, the Dedicate is hopelessly weak. If sight, the Dedicate is blind; if hearing, deaf. The recipient, on the other hand, who becomes a Runelord, receives greater brawn, or sight, or intelligence, depending on the rune. The transfer is permanent--it can't be reversed until one or the other dies. If the Dedicate dies, the "endowment," as it's called, is lost to the Runelord. If the Runelord dies, the Dedicate receives the trait back and becomes normal again. Wolverton does a wonderful job extrapolating what type of society would result from such an ability, including why anyone would allow themselves to be a Dedicate in the first place. He populates his world with Runelord nobility who have many endowments from their subjects so they can protect them from dangers in the world. Warriors are loaded with brawn and metabolism and grace, watchmen with farsight from many endowments of vision, strategists with wit. The villain of the story, Raj Ahten the Wolf Lord, is a ruthless man who has gathered up thousands upon thousands of endowments through extortion and bribery. He has so much glamour, that to look upon him is to love him. So many endowments of voice that he merely needs to speak and people will obey him gladly. So much stamina that a knife wound in his heart will heal as the blade is pulled from his chest. He is a truly formidable enemy who is on a conquering rampage, with the assistance of a terrifying army of powerful Runelords and dreadful creatures from misty legend. Early on, he attacks the kingdom of Sylvarresta, and in a breathtaking surprise tactic, overcomes it in the blink of an eye. The Princess of Sylvarresta, whom our hero Gaborn was supposed to marry, is forced to give all her glamour to Raj Ahten and becomes hideous to look upon. King Sylvarresta must give up his wit and becomes a mindless child who can't even control his bodily functions. The Queen, who attempts to assasinate him, is killed. Gaborn, the visiting crown prince of a neighboring kingdom, barely escapes, and with the assistance of an Earth wizard, makes a pact with the Earth to serve it, and receives special powers from it. Wolverton doesn't pull any punches in the plot. The villain uses his vast powers to the fullest, and if that means good guys die, they die. The carnage in this book puts a Schwarzenegger bloodbath to shame. The hopes of the characters and the reader that a nick-of-time rescue will come along are often dashed. No Data-puts-the-Borg-to-sleep last minute vanquishing of an overwhelming adversary in this book. The overwhelming adversary in _Runelords_ overwhelms. Yet throughout the book is woven Dave's particular brand of morality. Without ever letting the characters get preachy or slip out of character, Wolverton causes the reader to think sharply about the morality of stealing abilities from other human beings, even if those abilities are given voluntarily and (usually) for the greater good of society. Because the motives of the Dedicates are believable, the moral question becomes a complex one, difficult to answer. The opportunity for metaphorical speculation on the meaning of the moral question for our society is ripe. But in spite of the cool Runelord concept, in spite of the capable extrapolation of a society based on rune magic, in spite of a powerful villain who is given his due, in spite of a thrilling, pyrotechnic plot spiced with moral subtext, I felt the directions the story went sometimes made no sense. It was like a roller coaster, zigging and zagging and loop-the-looping in a particular direction just for the heck of it. The advance of the plot didn't always feel inevitable to me. But wait, you may say. Isn't that a good thing? Isn't it good to have surprises in the plot? Sure, surprises are great, and you get plenty of them in _Runelords_. But a surprise nonetheless ought to feel inevitable once its sprung, even if it wasn't anticipated. Some of the twists of plot seemed to go in a certain direction for no compelling reason. But that won't distract you from the thrill of the ride. _Runelords_ takes a while to get going, and when it does, it twists and loops all over the place. The ending seems to wind down in a meandering way, like the last few anticlimactic humps in a roller coaster ride. But it _is_ the first book in a series, after all, not a standalone novel that should end with a bang. When you catch your breath and climb off, you're already looking around for the next ride: Runelords 2. - -- 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: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 03:40:57 -0600 From: "D. Michael Martindale" Subject: [AML] Eric SAMUELSEN, _Gadianton_ (Review) GADIANTON: A Play in Two Acts by Eric Samuelsen Published in the July 2001 issue of Sunstone Magazine "BYU Playwrite Speaks Softly and Carries a Very Big Stick" The format of the play _Gadianton_ starts dicey and stays dicey throughout. The audience (or in my case, reader) must remain on its toes, keeping track of the several deeply interwoven subplots as they run concurrently. The interlacing reaches all the way down to sentence level, where at least two scenes play out simultaneously the whole time. But it works. It keeps the audience alert, focused. Maybe it would be better if the audience were lulled into inattentiveness. Then the heavy-handed message pervading this play would have an easier time sneaking past the intellect. There's no question that _Gadianton_ is compelling. The stories of the various LDS characters living in St. George who try to deal with the ideals of their religion as they butt up against the realities of the business world catches you quickly, getting good and personal. The software company ONTI is one of those flashy success stories in the computer industry where a couple of business-anti-savvy nerds create a piece of software that makes it big. The money starts rolling in, they are the darling of Wall Street, and the internal workings of the company are big on creativity and empowerment and short on practicality. Then Bill Gates and Windows rear their ugly heads, and the DOS-based product of ONTI becomes obsolete. The CEO was ready to retire and enjoy the fruits of his success, but his partners aren't willing to sell out to their prospective buyer at the depressed value of their stock. So they call in an expert to "rightsize" the company and get a much better price from their buyer. Bishop McKay Todd is a supervisor at ONTI, and has helped people in his ward by getting them jobs at good pay. Now he's faced with the prospect of having to lay them off. Brenda Burdett was an abused wife who left her husband and desperately needs the job Bishop Todd got for her at ONTI to survive. Fred Whitmore is the hatchet man the company brings in to analyze things and make recommendations. There's much food for thought in this play--would you expect less from Samuelsen? But the message is tainted. _Gadianton_ is a case study in message art that seems to confirm the philosophy that using art to preach is not such a good idea. The circumstances behind the downsizing of a company are generally complex, but Samuelsen tells the story of the downsizing of this company in very black-and-white terms. Being the accomplished playwrite that he is, he disguises this fact well. But not well enough. Its effect comes through in the end. You are caught up in the lives of the middle management and employee characters, empathizing with their dilemmas, but the heads of the company are painted clearly as bad guys with bad motives. The CEO and his partners are greedy, and Hatchet man Fred Whitmore is nothing more than a reincarnation of Michael Douglas' role in the film _Wall Street_, except meaner. The impact of the play is watered down substantially by the conscious sense of manipulation that you feel. If you haven't felt it by the end of Act 2, you will certainly get it as the Epilogue beats you over the head with the message. The disguise would be more effective if Samuelsen dropped the Epilogue altogether. There's also a half-developed subplot about the St. George downwinders and the cancer they are developing. This subplot doesn't go anywhere and has no significance to the main plot. One wonders why it's even there. Perhaps it's a distraction to keep you from noticing the big anti-business stick Samuelsen is wielding. Could I merely be misinterpreting Samuelsen's purpose for writing the play? Maybe I in my conservative zeal read more into it than was there. But there's a companion article in this issue of _Sunstone_ written by Samuelsen about his writing of the play that leaves no room for doubt. "I do believe layoffs are, in most cases, morally suspect," he writes. "That's why I wrote the play--to make that case." Indeed, he makes that case. And it comes through as a big stick to browbeat us with. _Gadianton_ is a fine play from an artistic point of view. But it would be much more effective if it weren't so message-oriented. If the "bad guys" were made real people with motives that the audience can empathize with, instead of standard-issue nasty business people, _Gadianton_ would be the thought-provoking, dilemma-inducing play Samuelsen probably wanted it to be in the first place. - -- 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, 12 Sep 2001 12:17:37 -0600 From: "Jacob Proffitt" Subject: RE: [AML] An Iconography of Our Own - ---Original Message From: Barbara Hume > At 03:58 PM 9/7/01 -0600, you wrote: > >In a recent PEC meeting, we received a message from our stake > >leadership that informality is becoming a problem. > > I don't understand why it's a "problem." It's a problem when it leads to people arguing with the presidency in the temple because they want to wear a non-white dress. The point is that there are certain situations where informality is wrong. Which is a statement I find it profoundly difficult to make because I personally *like* informality. But the fact remains that maintaining a degree of order requires a degree of formality. If your informality threatens your order, it's time to put some emphasis on formality. Informality is important, too--timely communication requires certain degrees of informality for example. The desired level of formality depends on your goals at the moment. And in our stake at least, we need more order and thus more formality. Jacob Proffitt - - 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 #452 ******************************