The Erotic in LDS Lit: Part II: Jorgensen's Take

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If you fear, fear not. If you fear not, fear.
---J. Reuben Clark (molaq)

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Last week we cut off Mr Jorgensen just as he was about to get going. Let's revisit what he left us with: "We are frequently, duly, and properly warned, over the pulpit in general conference, against the evil of pornography --- an attitude Levi and I share, though we both also value and wish to allow a place for the erotic."

So the question is, how do we do this? Part of my adult life is recognizing that not all of the hyperprudery I started with is helpful or particularly good for me. When we sacrifice trust in ourselves as readers, in our ability to discern between truth and falsity, light and darkness, we sacrifice our own agency, one of the greatest gifts of God. As Mr J says, ". . . reading is an act of consciousness, a work of the spirit, a free act of a free agent; its consequences are not deterministically predictable . . . . [to say] I may 'ingest,' by reading, [is] a false analogy . . . I may 'eat' error. Yet I do not necessarily become erroneous; I can analyze and judge and even use the error to get nearer to the truth."

Mr J despises the comparison of sexual writing to poison because, as he points out, poison follows a deterministic path, but the effect of reading upon us depends in great measure upon what effects we allow.

Who am I? What do I want when I decide to read Book XXX?

"I am obliged to try to know my motives and to choose my actions carefully. I cannot blame a book for what happens to me if I choose to read it for prurient reasons. What corrupts me comes out of my heart."

This is precisely why I write this essay from a state of Clarkian fear. What is my motivation for writing? Am I attempting to justify some future sin? If so, shame on me. If I'm honest with myself, I'll know if I'm reading a book for the benefit of my spirit or the pleasure of the moment.

Jorgensen: "I will say, too, that I think young Mormon students should evercise [sic] their right not to read, on the good and fairly clear moral ground that they may not be prepared to make the judgments that will help them avoid porn-reading habits."

Me: Right, right. I hope no one reads these essays and decides that I am excusing the reading of anything at anytime for anyreason, no matter how prurient or downright evil. Not so. What I'm saying is what I said here: Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man. This applies to books as well as food. Know thyself. And if knowing thyself means you can't read anything racier than Nancy Drew, then know thyself and read not. Hopefully someday you will develop more control over thyself, but till then, don't think I'm looking down at you. (And please don't look down on me.)

Jorgensen decides that in order for us to have a "pornographic event", we need "three elements: a porn author, a porn text, and a porn reader. In fact, it seems to me that the porn event seldom requires all three, though it always requires one: just a porn reader. Porn author and porn text make the event more likely but do not inevitably guarantee it." (This is true, as any teacher of teenagers can tell you: anything and everything can be turned pornographic by a certain type of reader. When I was in high school, I couldn't read Piers Anthony without becoming a porn reader, and finally had to swear him off. I still have a low opinion of the man. But that doesn't make Michael Collings, whom I respect, a porn reader. And I would be appalled if someone suggested as much.)

Let's let Mr J define his terms:

"A porn author is one who verbally represents sexual activity intending sexual arousal in readers, usually as an inducement to buy something (a whore's services, more porn, a deodorant)." (He's speaking in reference to pornography's etymology, viz. that porn is about selling something rather than an emotional or spiritual connection between beings. In other words, pornography reduces sex to a commodity without soul. Not good.)

"A porn text is any text which represents people engaged in sexual activity in such a way that they become mere outlines, collections of the names of body parts and secretions and function, become nothing more than words about sex, totally or largely abstracted from the full dimensions and mystery of human personality and connection." (We can all agree that this doesn't sound good either, right?)

"A porn reader is one who reads for sexual arousal or titillation."

"A porn text," writes Mr J, "necessarily implies an antecedent porn author. . . . And a porn text will tend to create a porn reader." And pretending these things do not have an inertia all their own is to be a fool. One cannot flirt with disaster and expect to escape unscathed. Remember last week's Parable of the Semi? I never said those who wanted to drive with half their wheels in the air were talking sense. Stay away from the edge.

But we still haven't gotten into why we ought to read and write about sex at all? And now we get into my favorite part of Mr J's article in which he explains a common Biblical phrase with a simplicity and beauty I've never heard before:

"Perhaps the richest [Biblical] example is the first: 'Adam knew Eve his wife" (Gen. 4:1). We seriously distort this if we take knew as a translation of some sort of Hebraic euphemism. Further, if we try to make it more explicit, we reduce or vaporize its meaning. Adam 'lay with' Eve? Adam 'had intercourse with' Eve? Yes, but more than that. . . . 'Adam knew Eve': each knew the other as that single self God had blessed with body and breath; perhaps knew the other as that single self God had blessed with body and breath; perhaps knew in a holy and holistic way . . . knew reciprocally and unboundedly in ways possible only to whole persons intimately joined."

"It is a stunning paradox to find a word that seems not to say so much, actually saying more than could any word that seems to say what this word does not. There may be instruction here for writers . . . ."

"My be"? There is! Who can deny the beauty of Adam and Eve's relationship? (Okay, plenty of people can, but they lack the Mormon understanding of Adam and Eve, now don't they?) Who can deny that there is value for us in reading that Adam knew Eve? Who can deny that this is an exquisite intention for sexual relationships within holy matrimony?

Yes, pornography "is a severe threat to our deepest humanity and selfhood, which literature normally seeks to nourish and enrich, and to that godlikeness that scripture and modern revelation call us to." No one's arguing that. But ". . . to make something unmentionable is not to overcome it at all but to give it the eruptive force of a water polo ball held three feet under."

I love that image. And the disastrous pull of pornography and immorality may be much attributed to what Levi Peterson only last week called the "obverse sin of prudery . . . [which] forces the sexual impulse underground, banishes it to the territory of the abnormal and forbidden." Which is not where sex belongs.

Adam knew Eve.

Jorgensen observes that in most Mormon fiction "a married couple of course love one another. But purely. Which is to say that . . . they do not think of or delight in one another's bodies, or in the one body that in love they may graciously make." Which isn't just a shame. It may well be a sin. (You heard me.)

Many writers and readers seem to feel that "That secret [of married sex, in whatever form] must not be let out lest it corrupt the young, or those whose deficient reading skills might put their moral inclinations at the risk of erotic imagination." Consider that for a minute.

Is that right?

A few more quotations:

Sexuality is "a mystery that our theology suggests lies near the core of our being. And suppression may let it rage in its dirtied and demonic versions."

"Eros has a place, many places, in Mormon writing. Which is not at all to say, or even to suppose, that erotic writing might cure our sickness."

"I don't know; I suppose and I fear. As is appropriate before the taboos that guard either the vile or the holy."

I don't know all the answers (or even all the questions) either, Mr J, and I'm glad to see you fear too.

Next week, we'll look at one LDS writer who delved right in to sex and came out the other side alive.

(note: if you missed last week's part in this series, click on the lds-eros tag under this post)

Endlessly useful

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My new favorite website.

Thvlog VIII: I’m really bad at killing things. Specifically, I’m really bad at decapitating things.

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(Note: this video does not appear on YouTube because they threatened to cancel my account over it. I guess those 106 people in the first couple hours didn't like it.)

the leaving-the-petri-dish svithe

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The Big O went to a daycamp this week and, presumably, had a good time. (He asked to go again next year.) Yesterday he committed his first verbal monstrosity.

Lady Steed talked to him about it and later she told me. His first week and he's already picking up things from Outside the Home.

This is something small, of course, and he was innocent of any intentional wrong-doing, but it's a lesson to me of what's to come and how little control parents have over children's hours away.

I'm very much a libertarian and a teach-correct-principles-let-them-govern-themselves kind of guy, but now I realize what that means, to let your children go off alone into a new world where they will make mistakes and require a savior.

And it was only one week.

last week's svithe

Darling excerpt from a child's prayer

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"Thank Jesus for telling us how you make the bones."

Already?

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The moment this posts, I'm back to work, on the clock, a productive member of society.

The Erotic in LDS Lit Part I: Why?

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If you fear, fear not. If you fear not, fear.
---J. Reuben Clark

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Let me start by saying that I am afraid, very afraid. Now on we go.

When I wrote about May Swenson a few months ago, I mentioned Levi Peterson's article "In Defense of Mormon Erotica" and said I had once wanted to blog more completely on that article (and its companion piece by B.W. Jorgensen).

A couple people expressed regret that I hadn't done so immediately, and if two people want me to write on this topic I figure that there must be, worldwide, oh, seven? who want me to write about the erotic in Mormon art. And I seem to remember something in the Bible about seven people wanting something and getting destroyed, so maybe I play the angel in this drama.

Haha.

(Fear.)

I heard the above quote from Brother Clark in regards to avoiding adultery (although whether or not that was its original context, I can't say), so it seems appropriate to start our discussion by applying this fearsome quote to our fearsome discussion, viz. are we too comfortable flirting with the edges? or, conversely, are we too worried about things we are not guilty of?

Do you know the parable of the semi truck? I think I first heard it as a deacon. The boss has a truck he regularly needs driven over a narrow mountain road and wants to determine the best driver to take this dangerous route. He asks Driver Number One how closely he can drive to the edge without falling over.

"Oh, I reckon I can get within three inches."

"How about you, Driver Number Two?"

"Oh, I reckon I can drive the whole way with half my tread hanging in the air."

"And you, Driver Number Three?"

"I would stay as far away from the edge of that cliff as I could, sir."

And Driver Number Three gets the job.

The problem with driving as far away from the edge as one can get, is that one is liable to crash into the mountain wall on the other side.

I actually think this story works better on foot:

"I would hug the wall and inch my way forward, sir."

"The wall that's twenty feet from the cliff?"

"I don't want to fall over!"

I think this incapacitating fear of falling over the cliff has been a great affliction in Mormon art --- literature specifically, which is my primary interest. The uproar over Angels Falling Softly would seem to illustrate this. (I can't comment on that specifically until my copy comes in the mail.) (And, you know, I read it.) (And form an opinion.) (And so forth.) So I think it might be helpful to talk about the erotic and its role in LDS literature. I'll start with the articles linked to above, but I have some of my own ideas that I will also bring up, some today, some later.

Perhaps we should start with some definitions:

Erotica is generally understood as giving a "positive" depiction of sex. So the Song of Solomon would count, but Ezekial 23 would not. It often may titillate and arouse, but that is not its sole purpose --- it also desires to be beautiful.

Pornography is the term our guests will focus on and they will alter the definition slightly as we go along, but let's start with D.H. Lawrence's definition: "Pornography is the attempt to insult sex, to do dirt on it." It is artless and ugly and serves just one purpose: to give your brain an unnatural (and unholy) injection of the sex drug.

Obscenity as I usually use it means something utterly without even pretended redeeming value. Peterson will use it in reference to profanity ("obscene" language), but I'm mostly glossing over those parts of his article. In fact, we will not be needing this term much today, but I want you to remember this word when we get to later parts of this series.

All three of the above terms I am, by implication, applying to works whose primary purpose is provoke a sexual response in its reader/viewer/consumer. And I want to say now that neither Peterson nor Jorgensen is promoting such art or "art."

Instead, returning to our cliff-road metaphor, sticking too close to the wall is what Peterson calls the "obverse sin of prudery . . . [which] forces the sexual impulse underground, banishes it to the territory of the abnormal and forbidden." And this is what we are talking about: not a prurient focus on sexuality, but a recognition of its central role in human life. And if you doubt its centrality, riddle me this: Where exactly did you come from?

Peterson has "difficulty believing that God has infused the human psyche with the powerful sexual impulse merely to sift the obedient from the disobedient, the self-controlled from the self-indulgent, the ascetic from the sensuous." And so do I. Sex wasn't given to people simply to speed along their damnation. Does that sound like the God you know?



LDS doctrine doesn't fit the above chart at all. Sex may not have gotten an explicit shoutout in the Proclamation, but you can only be told to love your spouse in so many ways before you have to be rather dense not to make the conceptual leap. I think we can safely assume Mormons have sex and even that Mormons should have sex. So long as it's within doctrinal bounds (ie, husband and wife), we can even assume enthusiastic approval on the part of deity. Still with me?

Peterson: "If God's people are sexual creatures . . . the literature which expresses God's people should reflect those facts. Literature should reflect life. Ultimately it should reflect all life. Nothing that people feel, nothing that they do, should be denied a place in literature."

This is an argument you can agree with or not as you like. Generally, I tend to agree with it. Granted, inclusion has, at times, been made a focus unto itself, thereby ceasing to be a virtue and just becoming a list of sketchy things to demonstrate a warped version of honesty --- not so good. But my goal here isn't to talk about how things can go awry, but to discuss the need for an erotic element in even LDS literature, as discussed by my guests.

Let's start by looking at these excerpts from Peterson, which will help us understand his distinction between a pornographic emphasis on sex and a healthy recognition of sex:

"Then how shall I distinguish between an acceptable expression of sexuality and pornography? It is a matter of proportion. Proportion . . . suggests a variety of elements standing in harmonious relationship with one another, none without due representation, each fitted to each, each shaped by the shape of the whole."

"It is gross disproportion that creates pornography. . . . [When things (sex, violence, &c) are] amassed, concentrated, enormously emphasized --- if they become the single end and purpose of the writing --- they are pornographic. But if they are intermittent in an action, if they mingle with other images and deeds, balancing proportionately, appearing as a part rather than the whole of life, then they are not pornographic."

Got that? Sex, as I hope you will agree, is an important and healthy and spiritually sound part of a full human life. But if someone were to spend all day and night seeking sex, that would not be good or healthy or sound. It would be sick and evil and wrong. So it is with literature. Literature for-by-and-about sex will be pornographic. Literature which recognizes the role of sex in life is merely honest and true and good. Or potentially so, at least.

Peterson also says that no writer is required to write such aspects of life, but that "Timid authors [do] fall into the error of incompleteness." A novel about a happy marriage without any indication that their home has a bedroom would not feel entirely honest.

A lot of what is and is not pornography has to do with who is reading it. No one has called "The Widower" pornographic, but if you're looking for sex, you'll find plenty.

Welcome to the good LDS marriage, sex included.

No one's accused the Queen or Silly of being pornographic for recognizing the role of marital congress in their marital relationships. Why would they?

Let me be clear: I'm not demanding constant sex scenes. I'm not even arguing that every reader should read about sex at all, let alone as part of a regular literary diet. I'll come back to this in Part IV, but, when I was a teenager, the briefest mention of sex could overwhelm my hormone-charged brain. Even "The Widower" might have been dangerous to me then. And I don't want to suggest that I know what's best for you. That would be wrong.

But you know the story about the laughing husband closing the bedroom door, right? How that scene made its book so terribly controversial in LDS circles? Have you heard about when Covenant took their bookstore managers to The Mayan for dinner and had several walked out, offended by the bare-chested men doing cliff dives? Can anyone pretend that this suggests a healthy relationship with sex?

I find such prudery bizarre for such a profamily religion, don't you? And these are our gatekeepers into the world of LDS literature!

(Note: I'm not trying to paint with too broad a brush. Dean Hughes's Children of the Promise books, for instance, dealt with sex directly and with maturity and intelligence.)

Sex is real and important in our world and it has real and important consequences that a mature literature will recognize.

As a Publishers Weekly reviewer said, "It is one of the tropes of pure pornography that events are without consequence. No babies, no STDs, no trauma, no memories best left unexamined." That is most assuredly not what I or either of my guests is suggesting.

But we're already waxing long, so let's hold off on Mr Jorgensen for now, except to say that he will start us us off with what I know you've been thinking from the beginning: "We are frequently, duly, and properly warned, over the pulpit in general conference, against the evil of pornography --- an attitude Levi and I share, though we both also value and wish to allow a place for the erotic."

How is this possible? We'll continue our discussion next time. Look for Part II of this series one week from today.

Nemesis, married off

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So Nemesis is married now, and she only had to listen to her father make 84 it's-about-time jokes at the luncheon before she and her new husband could escape to the south of France.

The bride was lovely, the food was delicious, et cetera. Very nice.

And I learned once and for all how people who knew me 1997-1999 will always remember me: as the guy who had long fingernails.

When Nem introduced me to her mother, she said, "You remember, he's the one who had the long fingernails?"

See, I was proud of those long fingernails---they were proof that I had finally kicked my biting and picking habits; they were trophies of self-improvement.

The first thing Lady Steed "improved" about me was shortening my fingernails. But do people say, "Curse that woman! She put him back on his disgusting habits!"? No. They say, "Thank you for getting him to cut his nails!" (Note: they ain't "cut," folks.)

Anyway, I'm not sure what changes Nemesis will work in her fresh husband, but I'm sure they'll be equally delightful.

I'm not posting pictures (you'll have to visit Nem's blog or my own dear wife's for those), but I will make the following blogger's dozen observations:

01. I don't think the husband-to-be recognized me when we bumped into each other in the temple's dressing room. Hey! It was me!

02. Nemesis did an extraordinary job circulating the crowd and making all her visitors feel well taken care of. Nice job, Nem.

03. Going with the flowers in the hair (rather than a veil) was an excellent choice.

04. Liked the red shoes motif, too.

05. Once Spitfire got her hair curled, Nem and her sisters (and their mother) look astonishingly alike.

06. The cucumber things were brilliant, and that was the best chicken cordon bleu I've ever had. Raspberry sauce! Brilliant!

07. We (I) took a mostly empty bag of Doritos from the BBQ. They saved me from perishing in the airport on Sunday. (Thanks.)

08. L****'s downtown is a swell place to wander about. Great signage, great weather (summer only), cool old buildings, gushing torrents of waters running down the streets....

09. Great to meet Singin' in the Rain and her fam, though distressing to learn by their example that the Large S could have a younger sibling by now. (!) (It also occurred to me that, when a person has an astonishingly low tolerance to spicy foods, marrying a Korean is a rather peculiar eternal choice.)

10. I'm worried I somehow irritated Cicada's husband and now he won't let Cicada comment on my blog anymore. If she doesn't on this post, we'll know I'm right.

11. The chocolate cake was muy delicious, but, considering the geography, I'm appalled at the merely good raspberry. It should have been the best raspberry of my life! What gives?

12. I found it bewildering how Nemesis was the same person I've always known. For some reason, it seemed like she should be All New! or something, but she was still herself.

13. Beautiful too. When I met her, let's see, she was still a teenager. (Holy smokes.) But the only change I see in her is that she's an adult now. In other words, she looks the best she ever has. But I'm sure her husband's been telling her that all weekend.

14. Although she does now have a moderately hilarious last name. (So it goes.)

This svithe cannot defile you

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Hear, and understand: Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.

As I was recently reading in an article I will be blogging about later, the issue is choice. It is our choices that defile us (or exalt us), and as we are agents unto ourselves, we can't blame our friends, family, environment or luck for who we are.

For it's not what goeth into the that mouth defileth us, but that which cometh out of it.

For what cometh out of it is entirely up to us.

(Unless you have the rotavirus, I suppose, but I imagine that's an exception.)


last week's post

12:20 am

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(So that's why I'm tired.)

Suck it, losers

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I know, I know, I know. These things are silly and brand a blog as amateur, but hey--! If your awesome and you know it blog a meme (clap, clap).

118 As a 1930s husband, I am Very Superior Take the test!

Theric today, on A Motley Vision:

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This is going to be a post long enough that it risks breaking that tacit understanding between bloggers and readers: “This really won’t take you that long. I swear.”

In order to alleviate your sense of “This really might take that long,” I have chopped this post into sections and provided a table of contents wherewith you may click on ahead to the portions that interest you and comment thereupon. You should not feel you have to read the whole thing to start commenting. If you have lots to say about Mormon Superheros and couldn’t care less about who’s who in the funny papers, comment on Mormon Superheros and ignore the funnies entirely. Fair enough?

Let’s start with a couple definitions, then I’ll give you the ToC.

So. Comics. How do we define this term? The easy way: we do what everyone else does and agree with Scott McCloud’s definition of comics....(more)

I'm not into swimming, but I'm not going to lie: The last stretch of that relay was terribly exciting

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You know---writers never really get to experience this particular emotion....

My life, set to music

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I first saw this on Edgy's blog, but editorgirl reminded me. So, if anyone cares, this:

If your life was a movie, what would the soundtrack be?
1. Open your music library.
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don't lie and try to pretend you’re cool...just type it in, man!
7. (NEW!) Put available pieces into an Amazon Widget so people can listen along.




Opening Credits: "Don't Talk Back" by Kasey Chambers (I have no idea what this song's about [I often don't], but yes, I will happily rock out to this lovely voice as the names roll.)

Waking Up: "Merrymaking" by the San Francisco Symphony, conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas (from Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet) (Sounds like it's going to be a great day!)

First Day at School: "Fairweather Johnson" by Hootie and the Blowfish (Hahahaha! Don't know that this bodes well.....)

Falling in Love: "I Want It All" by the Eurythmics. (Hmmm. Not sure this is "true" love.)

Losing Virginity: "Violin" by They Might Be Giants (Okay. That's just weird. I guess if I get to choose, I would rather have the . . . violin? Over the hippo, mop, speck of dust, and George Washington's head, that is.)

Fight Song: "Comfortably Numb" by Pink Floyd (I guess that's a good way to feel going into a fight....)

Breaking Up: "Seven Years" by Norah Jones (I heard something about a little girl being sad? I guess that's about right. Although I feel like adding that this movie is nothing like chronological.)

Prom: "Mary" by Sarah McLachlan (Okay. Whatever.)

Life: "New Orleans Instrumental No. 1" by R.E.M. (I really love how my whole "life" gets condensed down to one song. And why this one? I don't even know this song!)

Mental Breakdown: "March of the Celts" by Enya (Appropriate enough, I suppose.)

Driving: "Ice Cream" by Sarah McLachlan (Her again? And besides, this choice is dead wrong. Should have been the Moonps.)

Flashback: "White Wing Mercy" by Ferron (This is a weird choice for a flashback since I've never actually listened to this album before.)

Getting Back Together: "Back on Line" by INXS (Nice, upbeat, don't know what the lyrics say, but it seems appropriate. [Note: I almost never understand lyrics.])

Wedding: "Cartoon Plant Storybook: Little Helping Hands" by Zorak (Uh-oh.)

Birth of Child: "Only Happy When It Rains" by Garbage (You can see what kind of father I will be.)

Final Battle: "You Will Be Mine" by Faith Hill (I guess this works. I don't know if I've ever heard this song before, so it's a little hard to rally behind, but I'll do my best.)

Death Scene: "Grow Old With You" by Adam Sandler (Hey! Not bad, computer! That kind of makes sense. Timing's slightly off, but okay.)

Funeral Song: "If Blue Tears Were Silver" by Jon Randall (I don't think I've listened to this sampler in over ten years, but this song has tears and it is my funeral, so good enough.)

End Credits: "MLK" by U2 (Dibbitydibbitydibbitythatsallfolks.)

The “What’s this world coming to when a jazz musician can be made a bishop?” svithe

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. . . many in the community and even at the university
still dismissed jazz as, at best, an unsophisticated
art form and, at worst, an immoral and evil influence.

“Jazz has long been associated with evil environments and
evil lifestyles,” says Smith. But he has a different take . . . .

It has been a struggle, at times, to convince others. Smith
recalls a conversation between two BYU students after he
received a new church calling: “What’s this world coming
to when a jazz musician can be made a bishop?” But Smith
believes the Spirit can be conveyed through the toe-tapping
music. “In graduate school, I’d be sitting in the middle of
a jazz class, and I’d feel the burning of the Spirit so
powerfully and it would puzzle me,” Smith recalls. He later
found quotes by Brigham Young about the duty of the elders
of the Church to gather truth from whatever source and bring
it back to Zion. “I felt I had that mission to a certain
extent—to bring to Zion the wonderful aspects of jazz and
practice them in a wholesome lifestyle.”

. . . . “Ray has a profound faith, and he’s really a model
Christian . . . . He is able to very convincingly show that
the music’s got nothing to do with an unseemly lifestyle,
that the music stems from Heavenly Father, a manifestation of
all things good on the earth—passion and joy and power and
romance and heartbreak.”

The ward I grew up in just changed bishops and rumor has it our ward is about to undergo a change in leadership as well. The bishop in my parents' ward was called while we lived in the ward and I was in a position to watch him closely as he took on that mantle. He was a great example to me and his release makes me consider what I've done with my life since that time.

I think this is a true principle: Live worthy to be called to X position. Not because you will be called or you aspire to be called, but because if the Lord did call you, wouldn't you like to be ready?

(Sorry for the second person. As always, I'm just talking about myself.)

The article quoted above, which I only recently read, brought this to mind again. Here in Berkeley I can't imagine that what's-the-world-coming-to problem (yay, berkeley!), but I can imagine someone in a crazyheaded profession like jazz (or fiction) being the recipient of leery gazes in wards here and there.

Orson Scott Card has written about the responsibility of Mormon artists to try and fit in. And this is where I'm heading today: the need to be part of the community. Not necessarily for the individual's sake, but for the community's sake.

This is part of building Zion: being willing to sacrifice what we selfishly view as our "identity" in order to serve and be served.

It's not just jazz musicians and semen svithers who can come off strange, everyone is weird--just some people live lives that don't emphasize that fact so much. But if we cherish our weirdness more than gospel, we will never arrive at the feet of Christ.

This is a lesson I'm constantly trying to teach myself. Believe me, I find it very easy to be peculiar. But I'm still capable of minimizing that peculiarity to be part of the peculiar people. Which is where I want to be.

Because I believe in Jesus Christ. And I believe he's anxious to redeem me from my sins. And that's a heckuvalot more important than being outrageous.

The good news is the two aren't mutually exclusive.

Winkwink.



last week's svithe

I'm pretty bright for my age

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Perhaps the reason we're embarrassed when our genitals are exposed is because when we were young, whenever our parents took off our diaper, they would take one look, make a horrible face, and yell, "OH, GROSS!!!!!"

I do love me some hypocrisy!

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Dang! I keep forgetting to post this!

Well, it's not too late, thankfully.

This spread appeared in The Nation two months ago. Below it are links to the article (about how evil it is that nice vacations are only for rich people) and the costs of the cruise for The Nation's favored few advertised on the same page.

Enjoy!



"This Land Is Their Land" by Barbara Ehrenreich
Interestingly, the most expensive berths are already sold out.

14th5of2008

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070) The Blot by Tom Neely, finished August 6

Look around the internet. Everyone is perplexed by this book. I've read it twice and, well, I'm mystified. But that lack of intellectual slapdown means I appreciate the book more as a painting than a story. I get that the woman is some sort of godlike creature and arriving at happiness requires passage through suffering, but questions of sin and love and community are not easily parsed. I recommend the book with only one reservation: cartoon nudity. Consider yourself advised. a very short time indeed

069) Strange Stories for Strange Kids edited by Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly, finished August 6

The Big O gave this book to me and it's great. A little clubbish maybe, but good. A good set of comics for us to read together. Just as soon as he gets back from the mountains. (And I really need to find some more of Crockett Johnson's Barnaby.....) three days

068) Survival Rates by Mary Clyde, finished July 30

I read the first half of this book until 3am on a night I couldn't sleep. It was good. The first few stories built a beautiful box, then opened it, but the stories ended before I got to see what was inside. Frustrating. "Victor's Funeral Urn" broke that pattern and with it my attitude towards the stories changes. The collection in similar in theme and intimacy to Jhumpa Lahiri's Pulitzer Prize-winner. Only instead of starring Indian-Americans it features Southwestern Americans, including some Mormons. (Clyde is LDS herself.) I started Lahiri's book after Survival Rates, but it went back to the library before I could finish it. Too bad. Good book. Anyway, Clyde's book is good stuff. Not precisely of my taste, but an excellent example of its type. If you, like me, have a chance to grab it for fifty cents, do it. maybe two weeks

067) A Week in October by Elizabeth Subercaseaux, translated by Marina Harss, finished July 29

This book was not good. It wasn't bad either. The best thing is that my review copy had a much better cover than the hardcover:



Good thing:
Interesting form (chapters alternate between an autobiographical account written by a dying woman and her husband as he reads it and wonders how true it is)
Bad thing:
The reading sections are horribly dull--some consist entirely of the husband having a sudden urge to wake up his wife and ask if it's all true. Over and over again.
I try to make allowances for books in translation, but the fact is that sometimes the problems are plainly not the translator's fault, while the things I liked best about the book could be her doing. Which isn't to say the book is terrible. But it has a cheap trick ending (which, by virtue of its existence, was not surprising) and is filled with that weird modern nihilism which makes things so little fun to read. Which isn't too say I didn't like it (though I didn't). Which isn't to I do like it (though I do). I am whelmed with ambivalence. I wish the list of good things and the list of bad things would tip one direction or the other, but I can't care enough to write it out. For what it's worth. couple weeks

066) Lehi in the Desert & The World of the Jaredites by Hugh Nibley, Ph. D., finished July 29

I've been wanting to read the Jaredite portion of the books for years and years and years, but I have to say the Lehi half was much more interesting and compelling. I don't know how well Nibley's research has held up (one if his own tenets is that constant discoveries require constant reappraisals) but this was a fascinating read and well worth the time spent with it. Go find a copy. (There's one in our ward library if you're local.) eight months

Previously:

065) A Son Is Forever by various, finished July 29 064) Good ol' Snoopy by Charles M. Schultz, finished July 13 063) Embroideries by Marjane Satrapi, finished July 13 062) A Doré Treasury edited by James Stevens, finished July 12? 061) Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.; finished July 8 060) The Enoch Letters by Neal A. Maxwell, finished July 059) Sock Monkey: The Inches Incident by Tony Millionaire, finished July 3 058) The Number 73304-23-4153-6-96-8 by Thomas Ott, finished July 2 057) Chicken with Plums by Marjane Satrapi, finished July 1 056) 300 by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley, finished June 16 055) Fox Bunny Funny by Andy Hartzell, finished June 16 054) Where Did I Leave My Glasses?: The What, When, and Why of Normal Memory Loss by Martha Weinman Lear, finished June 15 053) The Mystery Guest by Grégoire Bouillier, trans. Lorin Stein, finished June 14 052) The Legend of Spud Murphy by Eoin Colfer, finished June 10 051) Good Bones and Simple Murders by Margaret Atwood, finished June 10 050) Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans: The Best of McSweeney's, Humor Category edited by D. Eggers, K. Shay, L. Epstein, J. Warner and S. Kleid, finished June 9 049) Bikeman by Thomas F. Flynn, finished June 5 048) Fool Moon by Jim Butcher, finished June 5 047) The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick, finished June 2 046) Sixty Poems by Charles Simic, finished May 30 045) Replay by Ken Grimwood, finished May 28 044) The Age of the Conglomerates: A Novel of the Future by Thomas Nevins, finished May 27 043) W;t by Margaret Edson, finished April 19 042) Halo and Sprocket Volume 1: Welcome to Humanity by Kerry Cullen, finished May 17 041) Storm Front by Jim Butcher, finished May 16> 040) 20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill, finished May 9 039) I Am the President of Ice Cream by Geoff Sebesta, finished May 4 038) On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan, finished May 3 037) The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester, finished May Day 036) The Drifting Classroom Vol. 1 by Kazuo Umezu, finished April 30 035) The Complete Peanuts 1965 - 1966 by Charles M. Schulz, finished April 29 034) Nextwave: Agents Of H.A.T.E Volume 1: This Is What They Want by Warren Ellis et Stuart Immonen et al, finished April 29 033) Batman: Hush, Vol. 2 by Jeph Loeb et al, finished April 29 032) Batman: Hush, Vol. 1 by Jeph Loeb et al, finished April 28 031) Chéri by Colette, finished April 17 030) Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett, finished April 13 029) Animal Farm by George Orwell, finished April 8 028) Macbeth by William Shakespeare, finished April 7 027) On the Road to Heaven by Coke Newell, finished April 4 026) The Great American Citizenship Quiz: Can You Pass Your Own Country's Citizenship Test? by Solomon M. Skolnick, finished March 23 025) Long After Dark by Todd Robert Petersen, finished March 23 024) The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch, finished March 21 023) Robot Dreams by Sara Varon, finished March 10 022) The Complete Peanuts 1963-1964 by Charles M. Schulz, finished March 9 021) Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters, finished March 7 020) Unorthodox Practices by Marissa Piesman, finished March 5 019) Happy Hour at Casa Dracula by Marta Acosta, finished March 4 018) A War of Gifts: An Ender Story by Orson Scott Card, finished Leap Day 017) Watership Down by Richard Adams, finished February 26 016) Old Boy Volume One by Garon Tsuchiya and Nobuaki Minegishi, finished February 25 015) Case Histories by Kate Atkinson, finished February 18 014) Ultimate Spider-Man: Ultimate Collection, Vol. 1 by Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley, finished February 15 013) Trusting Jesus by Jeffrey R. Holland, finished February 11 012) Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall by Bill Willingham et al., finished February 11 011) Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife by Mary Roach, finished February 4 010) The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, finished February 3 009) American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang, finished LDotFMotNY 008) Zombification: Stories from National Public Radio by Andrei Codrescu, finished January 22 007) Marriage Lines: Notes of a Student Husband by Ogden Nash, finished January 22 006) Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen, finished January 20 005) The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time by Douglas Adams, finished January 14 004) Lord of the Flies by William Golding, finished January 10 003) Rising Sun by Michael Crichton, finished January 7 002) The Marketing of Sister B by Linda Hoffman Kimball, finished January 2 001) Animal Farm by George Orwell, finished January 1
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