From: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (aml-list-digest) To: aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: aml-list-digest V1 #551 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, December 19 2001 Volume 01 : Number 551 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2001 15:35:37 -0800 From: "Richard R. Hopkins" Subject: Re: [AML] A Curious Letter from Horizon? Jerry, et al. I appreciate your advice regarding Brent and Larry. I intend to send them a composite of your emails that will help them to understand what they are doing wrong and how they might repair the damage and do things right. I hope others who feel the same way about this conduct will help me with this and post some explanatory comments along with suggestions for how this might be done in a more professional manner. If you want to rant, that's fine too. I think these well-meaning but misguided folk need to understand just how it makes authors feel to do what they are doing. Thanks very much. Richard Hopkins - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2001 17:20:54 -0600 From: Linda Adams Subject: Re: [AML] Contacting Authors I agree with Jonathan on all points. In this particular case, Horizon unfortunately *already* has a fairly lousy reputation to start with. Can they afford to make it worse by allowing this behavior to continue? It makes them look bad. Worse. Whatever. If the person in question had permission from Horizon, that would change my attitude somewhat towards the person's behavior, but it would additionally make me, as an author, leery of the professionalism of the company. (Have you all seen the Earthlink TV commercial where the guy in the bar gets the girl's phone number, two other guys ask for it, and he sells it to them for $5? Same idea.) Linda Linda Adams adamszoo@sprintmail.com http://home.sprintmail.com/~adamszoo - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2001 16:31:12 -0700 From: Barbara Hume Subject: Re: [AML] Do We Have to Like Our Characters? At 10:04 PM 12/15/01, you wrote: >There is a character that I see this way, though others may not: Elizabeth >Peters' Amelia Peabody is certainly someone who "never realizes how >clueless she is" as she goes about trying to solve the mysteries on which >each novel is based. > >The fact that I see her this way has contributed to my unwillingness to >continue reading her adventures, so I don't really know if others (who must >continue to buy and read the books, since they continue to do well in the >market) perceive her in this way or not. Amelia is clueless about many things, and she doesn't always recognize the contradictions between what she says and what she does. But she isn't despicable, and she and the other characters are interesting, and the stories are fun, and the good guys win. I love those books. (The scene in which Emerson bursts his bonds and, muscles rippling, hurls that spear completely through the child-killer--ah! The scene in which Emerson and Amelia await death in the burial chamber of the Black Pyramid and then hear, in the Stygian darkness, "Good evening, Mama. Good evening, Papa." Tee-hee!) I listen to them on tape, in order, quite often. I don't care beans about the mysteries--I just like to watch the characters. I especially like the way Ramses develops into an Indy Jones-type hero. (I think Ioan Gruffudd could play the adult Ramses---that would make a fun movie to watch.) I wouldn't like to read Crime and Punishment over and over, however, or spend much time with the narrator of "My Last Duchess." Barbara R. Hume Provo, Utah - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2001 17:24:09 -0700 From: Thom Duncan Subject: Re: [AML] Contacting Authors (was: Curious Letter from Horizon) Jonathan Langford [actually, Richard Hopkins] wrote: > Thanks for you help on this. BTW, why do you think it's unprofessional to > look through a publisher's discards for good projects that could use some > editorial help? That is not meant to be an argumentative question. I'm > curious about your perspective on the issue I think it skirts the edge of ethical. Here's why: editing is not an exact science. I've been a professional editor/writer for some 20 years, and I've yet to see an article that couldn't be re-edited to make it, if not better, than at least different. I could take a perfectly well written story, edit it, and still have it emerge as a perfectly well-written story no better than the first. I could then tell the beginning writer all kinds of gobbledegook so as to sound as if I've done them a real service. Thom Duncan - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2001 16:41:56 -0700 From: "Paris Anderson" Subject: [AML] Paris ANDERSON, _Recollections of Private Seth Jackson_ I'm very happy to announce that my book, The Recollections of Private = Seth Jackson, Mormon Battalion, Company D, has just been accepted for = distribution by Granite Publishing and Distribution. That means it will = soon be in an LDS bookstore near you! (--I hope!) It is also availible = through LDSFICTION.NET. Paris Anderson - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2001 18:07:02 -0700 From: "D. Michael Martindale" Subject: Re: [AML] Story Beginnings Annette Lyon wrote: > > Jumping into the > middle of a dramatic moment is always the pat advice, but somehow I think > that works better for thrillers and other action-driven stories, rather than > character-driven ones. Any ideas? I think that's a fair assessment. "Grabbing" beginnings don't have to be action-packed beginnings. They just have to have some kind of hook in them to make me want to read on. With a character story, that's likely to be something about the character. A "dramatic" moment doesn't have to be your _most_ dramatic moment. - -- 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 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2001 19:02:04 -0600 From: "DCHuls" Subject: [AML] _Spy Game_ (was: Do We Have to Like Our Characters?) [MOD: I'd rather not turn this into a swapping of opinions pro/con about this movie, which after all doesn't really qualify as "Mormon Lit." If anyone wants to comment further on this, can you make a tie-in either to the original question of sympathetic/non-sympathetic characters or to some other aspect of Mormon lit?] I have not seen Ocean's 11. I thought the original to be more of a comedy. This one sounds intense. I think many of us would go to see if the crooks can steal succesfully from the crooks who do succeed every day! [The Casinos being what they are.] However, saturday I broke a movie fast and went and saw "Spy Game" and I am still chuckling over what I perceive to be a great shot across the bow of the Government Security Agencies. I am doubtful if what took place in the finale could take place but I want to promise you that the writer(s) had a ball and I left with definite feelings about all the characters. I applaud the writers for being sure I, at least, took sides. Before the movie was half over I was wanting to go home and get my 9 mm and go help get the job done! I haven't felt that way since some of the Old Westerns that are now playing on AMC My female companion and I are both in our 60's and both either laughing or cheering like we used to 50 years ago when Roy Rogers or the Lone Ranger rushed in to save the day. I won't spoil it ,for you that have not seen it, I just say that the characterization and the casting was well done. I have not been a Brad Pitt fan, I am after this one! Redfords character whom I loathed in the beginning won me over at the end big time! Craig Huls - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2001 18:29:23 -0700 From: "D. Michael Martindale" Subject: Re: [AML] Acceptance of Mormon Lit robert lauer wrote: > How much better off we might be if we just threw out the Church vs. the > world paradigm and immersed ourselves in creating works that embrace our > unique beliefs, customs and cultures; works built on the foundational > concept that we ARE a peculiar people--DIFFERENT from others--and that we're > perfectly okay--even happy--about it. I'm with you, Robert! I approached my recently completed novel, which must remain unnamed, with this philosophy. When I presented it to my writers group (not WorLDSmiths), their reaction was, "Who's the audience for this book?" It was too edgy for Mormons, they figured, but too Mormon for non-Mormons. I just wrote it like I would write any other book, treating both the Mormonism and the foibles of the characters as I would plot and character elements of any kind in any book. I never thought about my audience--that's something I'd worry about later. It was just a story I wanted to write. Maybe it will be liked by Mormons after all, in spite of the edginess. Maybe it will be liked by Jack Mormons and ex-Mormons and Mormon watchers. Maybe it will be liked by a mainstream audience who are fascinated by a glimpse into an unfamiliar culture. Or maybe no one will like it because I didn't write it good enough. I do know that members of two writers groups have been more critical of the book from an audience or Gospel faithfulness standpoint than regular LDS readers, who have mostly liked it. (One relatively conservative member's comment: "I was scandalized, but I loved it.") Personally, I think fretting over how this or that audience will accept our work is dumb. If you have something to say, just write it. Like with Robert's plays, the audience it reaches may surprise you. But not if you don't write it, or worse yet, lobotomize it to fit some preconceived notion of an audience. (To paraphrase Robert Heinlein, lobotomize only at the request of an editor.) By the way, the most glowing critique of my first chapter came from a non-Mormon who knew very little of the LDS culture. He felt like he was reading a science fiction book with an alien culture, and it fascinated him. He was able to follow all the unexplained Mormon references with enough understanding to get the gist of what was going on. - -- 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 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2001 21:27:46 -0700 From: "Clark Draney" Subject: RE: [AML] Fw: MN Enoch Train Special Broadcast: KZION Press Release 28Nov01 US UT StG A2 >Here's how dumb I am.....I did not realize the Enoch Train was a musical >group, and thought it was the name of the sea voyage. Color me red! >Debbie Enoch Train is actually the name of a ship that brought a company of saints from Liverpool(?) to New York in about 1857(?). The musical group take their name from the ship. Clark D. - -------- "If I had more time, I would write a shorter story."--Mark Twain _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2001 21:59:29 -0700 From: rwilliams Subject: RE: [AML] Do We Have to Like Our Characters? Kathy Fowkes writes: >As a reader, if I start a book and the character is someone I feel >nothing but contempt for, I would throw the book across the room or into >the circular file. I've done it before and I'll continue doing it. I >don't have time to waste on fiction that leaves my heart out of the >story, or leads me to feel anger, contempt or disgust toward the main >character. I strive to remove these kinds of emotions from my heart on a >daily basis--I cannot imagine a piece of fiction so well written as to be >worth indulging in feelings I am constantly seeking to repent of in real >life. Why just throw? Why not BURN the book? I'm joking of course, but this is not the first reference to "throwing a book across the room" I have read on this list, and I'm a little puzzled by it. Isn't there some merit to reading a book precisely because it DOESN'T already reinforce your belief system? - --John Williams - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2001 22:07:58 -0700 From: "Nan McCulloch" Subject: Re: [AML] Do We Have to Like Our Characters? _Madame Bovary_ by Gustave Flaubert is a perfect example that is done very well. Flaubert portrays the banality of French bourgeois life in the late 1800's. He takes us inside the head of his characters, most of whom have absolutely no redeeming qualities. The writing is fabulous. Nan McCulloch Draper, UT - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2001 23:27:59 -0700 From: "Jacob Proffitt" Subject: RE: [AML] Contacting Authors (was: Curious Letter from Horizon) - ---Original Message From: Richard R. Hopkins > Thanks for you help on this. BTW, why do you think it's > unprofessional to look through a publisher's discards for > good projects that could use some editorial help? That is not > meant to be an argumentative question. I'm curious about your > perspective on the issue I'll answer this, though I'm not a publisher. I consider it unprofessional because none of the parties agreed to that use of the manuscripts. If nothing else, it would constitute a form of publishing. "Hi, I'm the publisher and while I don't like your manuscript myself, well, I've decided to pass it around to some friends of mine." Even if they don't ask you for money, they've still violated a trust and a creative enough lawyer could very well nail a copyright infringement onto that. As the copyright holder, the author determines what can happen to the manuscript. One of those rights is distribution. At least, that's how I'd come at the situation. If the author doesn't include a SASE for the return, I'd just as soon it were destroyed. I'm not sure anything else can ethically, and possibly legally, be done with it. Jacob Proffitt - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2001 15:35:25 -0700 From: "Morgan Adair" Subject: RE: [AML] Dyer's Talk >>> jerry.tyner@qlogic.com 12/14/01 03:11PM >>> > >What is the date of this particular talk by Dyer? Here's the BYU Library catalog entry for the talk: BX 8630 .A1a no.194a Dyer, Alvin R. (Alvin Rulon), 1903-1977. For what pupose? A talk given to the missionaries of the Norwegian Mission at Oslo, Norway on March 18, 1961. Revised with additional clarification and documentation, 1976. [Salt Lake City, s.n., 1976]. 16 leaves. Xerox copy. Mormon doctrine. Race--(Theology). MBA - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2001 08:19:58 -0700 From: "Tyler Moulton" Subject: Re: [AML] Dyer's Talk I'm not certain of the details, but my (usually faulty) memory says it was = given at a mission zone conference in Oslo, Norway in 1964. Please feel = free to correct my memory if anyone has better information. I haven't seen a copy of the talk since my own mission, but it was passed = around as part of the underground gnosis (along with Skousen's talk tape = about the meaning of the atonement). Tyler Moulton >>> "Jerry Tyner" 12/14 3:11 PM >>> What is the date of this particular talk by Dyer? Jerry Tyner=20 - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2001 09:53:10 -0700 From: "Brown" Subject: Re: [AML] Acceptance of Mormon Lit I think Robert wrote something very profound. "Apologia can never be the foundation of high art. Apologia comes from a place of self-perceived weakness and inferiority. Art comes from a place of values being celebrated--not values being merely explained or defended." Very good, Robert! May I ask you where you now live? Marilyn Brown - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2001 11:52:46 -0700 From: "Cathy Wilson" Subject: Re: [AML] Contacting Authors I certainly agree that this under-the-table letter was unethical and sleazy. It is wearying to deal with people with this point of view. However, don't dismiss the idea of a freelance editor who can improve your work :). True, it's a for-money proposition, but I've done it for years and my clients and I agree that it's been a very positive thing. Cathy (Gileadi) Wilson Editing Etc. 1400 West 2060 North Helper UT 84526 - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2001 14:53:53 -0800 From: harlowclark@juno.com Subject: [AML] Alan Gerald CHERRY, _It's You and Me Lord_ (Review) "Don't worry Sarge, it's just an angel." A review of _It's You and Me Lord_, by Alan Gerald Cherry, Trilogy Arts, 1970, 64 p. Part I - Bussing Wodens Day Nov. 7, 2001 Went to Salt Lake for the Qual-Safe study group. On the way back, when I got on the 811 southbound, I noticed the driver's nametag, Alan. "Are you Alan Cherry?" "Yes." "You came to visit my Sunday School class a long time ago. I read part of your book and enjoyed it. I like the opening." Wonderful piece of serendipity, getting on Alan Cherry's bus. I went and sat down and read for a few minutes. That visit to our class would have been more than 25 years ago, maybe around 1974. He was an entertainer, funny and engaging. I don't remember what he said--maybe some fat girl jokes--but his personal warmth was more memorable, and when a copy of his book came through DI, I bought it. He was a minor celebrity in the early 70s, but I was always a little ashamed because I got the sense that the culture had latched onto him for his skin color, a way of saying, 'Yes, Blacks are welcome in the Church, despite that silly priesthood thing.' (No, that doesn't sound right. Alan Cherry is a person, someone who came to the Gospel from an intense search for thruth, and that paragraph makes him sound like a rhetorical function. I carry a deep wound over the priesthood issue, indeed over the whole question of race in the United States and in my religious culture. It's hard, looking back on the 60s and early 70s, not to feel that the occasional black church member functioned rhetorically within the culture. I remember a story Myron Horne told in an Institute class. He was walking across the UW campus one day in the early 70s and there was a crowd in front of the student union (why does the name of that building always escape me--I can remember Padelford Hall (that is the one that snakes around like the Great Wall of China, isn't it?) easily enough) and a student was standing on a second story ledge with a bullhorn urging everyone to march on the Mormon Institute building. Bro. Horne defused the situation by shouting, "Jump, Jump," and soon the crowd took up the chant. That kind of pressure on the Church made the few black members highly visible, and someone highly visible can hardly escape becoming an icon, a rhetorical function. That pains me. I remember a comment someone made (maybe in the Seattle 5th ward, maybe not) about a Relief Society sister introducing her as "My black sister." "But I don't want to be your black sister," she said. "I want to be your sister.") About the time we got to the turn off to the J-V outlet mall I got up the courage to go up and talk to him more. "Did you contribute to a sociology book of some sort?" "I don't remember." "I saw your name in a book, some kind of a study of African American Mormons." "I really don't remember." "I'll check the card catalog." I asked him if he was writing anything now. "I have a project I've been working on for 20 years and it's just about to bear fruit." Sounds interesting. "When I wrote, _It's You and Me, Lord!_ I had only been a member of the Church two years, and I didn't have the vocabulary to say what I wanted to say." He said that the Gospel gave him vocabulary to ask questions he had wanted to, but not known how to form. For example, We condemn people owning other people, but, "How often have you heard slavery condemned as a form of laziness?" Scripture condemns laziness, "The idler shall not eat the bread of the laborer," and here we have a whole economy built on people profiting off the labor of other people. Note the tense--have, not had--Cherry said, "Slavery was not an aberration. It's the normal pattern." (Dave Wolverton feels the same way: Our culture is set up to use the best attributes of one person--intelligence, wit, stamina, farsight--to make another person wealthy. Gaborn, the Earth-King in _The Runelords_, calls it "The shameful economy." "I will not participate in the shameful economy," he says, but ends up participating after he loses his Earth powers.) Cherry knows how to ask uncomfortable questions. He finds a connection between slavery/exploitation and deference to authority or hierarchy. He said the visiting Authority is likely to be the first person served at, say, a ward banquet. "Why? Did he set up the tables and chairs? Why not serve the teenagers first, who did." (In my ward the leaders are the ones you'll find behind the table, serving. Still, our rituals and traditions tend to separate authorities from their families. I remember the many times our neighbor would introduce herself in testimony meeting as the bishop's wife and say how the family had learned to rely upon the Savior because their bishop was never around. We have a new bishop now, but her husband still sits on the stand, since he's in the steak presidency (though he's an accountant, not a restauranteur).) The bus got to Smith's in American Fork, where I connect with the 850, the State St. bus, but, thanks to UTA's idiotic schedule the 811 arrives about two minutes after the 850 so I was looking at a half hour wait. I contemplated staying on the bus and talking with Cherry as he drove down the freeway and out to University Mall in Orem, then catching a northbound 850, but decided not to, and gave him my card. Lots to think about waiting for the 850. Cherry's question gave an ironic twist to President Kimball's (note the title in lieu of a first name) comment, "It's not me they love, it's the position I hold," meaning that people's love for him is not some kind of hero-worship, it's reverence for the calling of prophet. Or was it another prophet who made that comment? It's designed to be a generic comment, and I imagine whoever said it was well aware that our respect for a calling, a position, can turn into lusting after callings in general. That's part of the comment's rhetorical function, to remind us that the Lord can fill any position with any person, that a calling doesn't convey some special stature, but rather shows a willingness to serve. Still, if we defer to people only because of their callings, and not because of love for them as individuals, doesn't that suggest we value callings more than individuals? I'd like to discuss this all some time with Alan Cherry. Part II Rilke's Eyes Thors Day, Nov. 8, 2001 Went up to Salt Lake (West Jordan, really, but anything past the fast-disappearing-after-10,000-years-of-sitting-there-looking-lovely Point of the Mountain is Salt Lake.) Took _It's You and Me Lord_ to read. Of course, the 811 got to the Trax just as the train was pulling out and I had to wait 15 minutes for another and hope I could catch the connecting bus at 72nd South at the stoplight--but it was gone by the time I got there. Wondered if I could walk/run to Redwood Rd. on the nice new curving sidewalk before the southbound to 78th got there. I don't remember if I got to Redwood Rd in time or not (I'm writing this Dec. 12), but I got to the library ok. But only Lyle, the director of training, was there. Russ, the head of the company, was supposed to be doing the training. We went to Lyle's house and called him. Russ had been unaware of the meeting. Qual-Safe has been unable to get any contracts. Bad time to start a business. Got on an inbound bus. Stopped at SL Community College--someone had told me they needed reading teachers out at the prison. Personnel didn't know anything about it. More waiting for the next bus. More time to read. Somewhere in all this waiting and bussing and reading I remembered why I put the book down the first time I started reading it. "It all started because I was fat." In the army, at the post where Alan Cherry was stationed, there wasn't anything to do but eat. He finally decided to lose weight, and as he did he felt a growing personal power, which led him to a search for truth, but not just partial truth. >>>>> As I read each [philosopher's] works I posed one question, "What do you know about absolute truth?" There never seemed to be an affirmative answer. I didn't want only the portions they had to offer. I wanted the whole, and I couldn't afford to be led off the main stream into a tributary. I wanted to go straight to the truth. (25) <<<<< Which means there was no time for the army either. Cherry tried to get out but didn't know how to go about it and ended up in the stockade awaiting court martial. That's where I stopped reading the first time. I could tell something horrible was about to happen, and I wanted to have a little space around it, not read it on the bus as I was traveling around Chief Sealth's metathesized namesake. So I read it 10 years later on a bus driving all over a dry lake bed. The episode turned out better than I thought it would. I noticed something else about the book. It's very intense. For a 64 page book it's not easy to read in one day. Reminds me of Rilke's _Letters to a Young Poet_ which Stan Hall loaned me for a week in the aforementioned once heavily forested city. (I'm charmed by the idea of a member of the stake (made of good Norwegian wood--Ravi Shankar said George Harrison's sitar playing sounded nothing like Indian sitar playing) presidency (Dennis once said that all the guys he went to grad school with were stake presidents and bishops now because they hadn't come back to Utah) saying, "You haven't read _Letters to a Young Poet_ yet? Take this for a week." (Fascinating--dentist semi-retires early so he can study poetry writing, have to ask him for something for Irreantum--maybe his poem for Donna (killed herself by cancer when the state split up her family). Anyway, I couldn't finish _Letters to a Young Poet_ in a week. Too intense. Stephen Mitchell, the translator, tells about seeing a photograph of Rilke and having to turn away from it because the eyes were too intense. I suppose the intensity of _It's You and Me Lord_ comes from the deep need to say what you don't know how to say, don't even know what you need to say. Finally got downtown. Filled out an application at KSL (writer, or ass't producer of some sort) and ran over to the Trax station. There's a memorial there, a plaque, for the ancient Indian village they uncovered when putting the Trax in. Too painful to look at. I hate how we destroy our ancient treasures to facilitate (hey, Wolverton's word) our modern culture. Destroying an ancient village to put in rails--it haunts me. As the train was pulling out I realized I had left my coat at KSL. Got off at the next stop (which meant I would have to wait for the next 811 in Sandy) and ran back to get it. Finally got down to Sandy. Alan Cherry wasn't driving the 811 that night. Saturn Day Nov. 10, 2001 Went to the PG Library (A big-town library would add some charm to our small town) and looked Alan Cherry up in BYU Library's catalog. 202 entries besides _It's You and Me Lord_. That's where I'd seen his name, 202 interview for BYU's Charles Redd Center for Western Studies' LDS Afro-American Oral History Project, and LDS Polynesian American Oral History Project. Includes an interview with Catherine Stokes, the Chicago Leaf-a-Ciety president who spoke at BYU 10th anniversary symposium of the priesthood revelation in 1988. I wasn't there, but Bp. London (went to his house for a TR interview and was reading the titles of some books in my poorly pronounced Finnish and Kaisa said something like, "You wouldn't understand those, they're Finnish." "Oh, I've read Tuntematon Sotilas and Seitsaman Veljestaa, in English translations, and parts of the Kal--" "Oh, brother, *Clark.* You're Dennis's brother! We were in library science school together.") played part of the video one day in a special Sunny Schoodle class designed to foster better awareness of race issues. (We also had a sister congregation, The Bright and Morning Star Baptist Church, and my homely teaching companion was a liaison to the gay community, and the contingent of gay Mormons hiding out on Capitol Hill.) I found Catherine Stokes' talk moving, and was moved later when I read Lavina Fielding Anderson's (she was part of that group of grad students that included Dennis and Stan Hall and Gary and Kaisa London and Dean ("The University 2nd Ward was the most left-wing in the Church. We used to sing, 'Choose the Left'") Hughes) comment that Catherine changed her life when she said she had made a gift of her skin color to God, consecrated her differences to help build the Kingdom. Son Day, Nov ___ 2001 I was clearing some boxes ("I don't know how you can even fit in that room," Donna says) away from my bookshelves in the corner so I could shift books around and shelve some rather than having them piled on top of others, and found another copy of _It's You and Me Lord_, bought May 9, '86 at the DI on 179th and Aurora for a dime. Fourth printing with $3.25 inside the dustjacket. I would have been working there at the time--cleaning buildings by night and running past Seattle Center at 1:14 a.m. to catch 1:15 bus a couple blocks away then staggering a mile home, (missed that last bus a few times, walked twelve miles once from downtown, slept more than once in the newspaper recycle bin at the Queen Anne Safeway, and one February night curled up on the banks of Green Lake beneath a pine tree in my trench coat)--then, whenever I woke up walking the mile or so from 15th Ave NE to DI on Aurora. I got the other copy (the one I read) at the same place for 80 cents on 10/17/90. It was a second printing for $2.95. I love the story of Trilogy Arts. A woman, her husband and artist friend go up in the mountains one day, spread her poems and his drawings out and arrange them. The woman and her husband sell their refrigerator to print the book and take a few copies to the local college bookstore, which sells them all immediately. They make so much money from the book, then books, that they start a publishing company--all in a culture that doesn't read poetry, and a smaller culture that doesn't even read the poetry that doesn't get read in the larger non-poetry-reading culture. This is not the only time I've rejoiced to find a book at DI, then gotten home and found a copy I got from DI before, like Gary Zukav's _Dancing Wu Li Masters_. Haven't read it, but I love the sound. Alan Cherry is a dancer. "Have you got your woo for the night, Clark?" Ty Little asked my father nearly 70 years ago. Shocked my grandmother, but it was just their slang for _date_. I suppose this book is a way of wooing. "You can always tell a Lee," my father-in-law used to say (he was my grandfather's age and died about 10 years before I met Donna). "But you can't tell 'em much." Masters. >>>>> For three hundred years we had been here, and I, along with a lot of my other black contemporaries, had wondered about Christianity. Was it some hoax; was it a farce? It didn't do what you expected it to do. When you really thought about it the very same religions that we embrace today we received from our overlords. How could a man with a whip in one hand give you the Bible with the other? Especially when you read in those same pages admonitions for every man to love his brother as himself. I knew that I had discovered a truth with a built-in hurdle [priesthood]. I could see how by reason alone it would be impossible for many people to see any value in what I had done. But whatever the future was bound to bring me I was intent on not remaining silent, but with a loud voice sharing what I had found. I knew that this was something of great value that everyone needed to get a hold of. (44-5) <<<<< I love that loud sharing voice, and I hope that twenty year project bears fruit soon, and that it tastes good, as good as that wonderful comforting sentence that ends the 2nd paragraph on page 61: "Until the priesthood bearers are pure and finer vessels, it seems impossible to anticipate any stopping of wars, any stopping of hatred, any cessation of hostilities and petty grievances that grip our nation." Harlow Soderborg 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/web/. - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2001 09:52:33 -0700 From: margaret young Subject: Re: [AML] Do We Have to Like Our Characters? Nellie seems to have contempt for Heathcliffe in Bronte's _Wuthering Heights_, but the reader imagines something beyod the borders Nellie provides. - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ End of aml-list-digest V1 #551 ******************************