From: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (aml-list-digest) To: aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: aml-list-digest V1 #656 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 Friday, March 22 2002 Volume 01 : Number 656 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2002 08:29:17 -0700 From: "Sharlee Glenn" Subject: Re: [AML] Short Replies > > Did you know that a woman's brain literally shrinks during pregnancy? It's > > true! I read it in a reputable medical journal. Explains a lot, doesn't > > it? :-) D. Michael Martindale wrote, in response to the above: > I assume the woman never recovers from the shrinkage, which explains the > increasingly psychotic nature of a woman's thought processes as her > offspring expand. (It usually takes about two kids for the effect to > become pronounced.) Actually, the brain does recover, generally within six months. The psychotic behavior of a woman with two or more children, then, is probably attributable to brain overload, not brain shrinkage. :-) Sharlee Glenn glennsj@inet-1.com - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2002 09:31:56 -0700 From: "K.D. Enos" Subject: Re: [AML] Mormons and Soldiers I want to support statements that every ward has their own personallity. I've lived in alot of wards in the nearly 24 years since I joined the church, and some of them were heavily populated with military personel. (My husband was in the Navy when we married.) Some were friendly and accepting others were not. I could write volumes on the way wards, individuals and bishops can make people feel unwanted at church. Most of it I've experienced myself. It's the reason I finally gave in and overcame my fear of driving. Konnie Enos - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2002 11:43:19 -0500 From: Tony Markham Subject: Re: [AML] Neil Labute Interview "Eric R. Samuelsen" wrote: > I'm going to be interviewing Neil Labute presently. Do any of you have questions you'd like me to ask him? You're welcome to respond to me privately. Ask Neil if he will discuss Tad Danielewski's influence on his writing and career. Tony Markham - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2002 07:17:32 -0800 From: Julie Kirk Subject: Re: [AML] Trauma and Good Writing >Susan Malmrose wrote: > >> Do >> > you have to have experienced a lot of emotional trauma to be a good >> writer? > I spent my BFA years as an artist at a fairly prestigious (translated = EXPENSIVE) art school here in southern California. This means that I was surrounded by a variety of people, and a great deal of them were rich kids without much experience in the reality *I* had to live to get through school. They were by no means all rich, but I'll never forget the experience of having one class go to Rodeo Dr. for inspiration on a fashion illustration assignment we had - only to have some of the girls whip out dad's credit card and start shopping. And there I was, just trying to figure out if I had enough change to cover both parking and buying lunch. Anyhow, my experience at that school, and other experiences I have had, have lead me to believe that yes, trauma is a necessary thing to our growth as artists. Now, let me proceed to qualify that a bit - I've had a bit of rockiness in my life so far. I won't go into the details of all that happened, but I can tell you that by the age of 25 I had 5 kids and was married to a recovering alcoholic/addict. Hey, I grew up in Orange County, it was traumatic. When I finally got to art school, this is some of what I was dealing with. Some of my counterparts were dealing with the trauma of how to drag themselves out of bed just to make it to classes - they had no jobs, they had no responsibilities, they lived 2 blocks from school. I think I took what I was doing at school quite a bit more seriously then alot of them. I also noticed that the things they were making were not tempered by reality - they were responding to conditions and politics that had not personally affected them. they were guessing at what it meant to suffer, and it was pretty interesting to see what their guesses were and to also see how false the work often felt. On the flip side of this coin, I have one friend who has grown up never wanting for anything. Her parents were well off, she had a balanced family life and outside friends and activities. She is also one of the most empathetic, generous people I have ever met. She is one of the few people I know who has not had to experience the woes of this world to a great degree, but still responds to them genuinely, grateful for what she has. I might not be quite conveying this in words as my medium is visual, but I don't run across this type of person very often, someone who has learned these qualities without the benefit of numerous trials. To put it all in a nutshell, I think that the majority of us mature as people, and as artists, through the trials we experience. There is some truth to the adage of "with age comes wisdom" - hey, there has to be SOMETHING good about getting old! Part of the pleasure of growing older is seeing my vision as an artist mature and define itself. It wasn't just the passing of years that has done that. The trials we experience, and the trauma of just plain LIFE, mold us into what we are, plain and simple. Do I think this is necessary for our growth as artists? You bet I do. Would my paintings be what they are without what I have experienced? I can absolutely claim they would not as my experiences as a younger person are completely what define what I paint now. DO I think we need to paint (and write) about experiences that are a part of our lives, things we really understand? Oh yes. There is a built in falseness to my painting about things that I have no real connection to. As a last aside, just a thank you to everyone who defended Moulin Rouge to me. I watched, I bought the DVD, and the movie is now a daily experience in this household. I have a son who walks around singing Christian's parts, and as long as my daughter doesn't decide she wants to be Satine, I'm happy. Julie Kirk - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2002 10:14:12 -0800 From: "Susan Malmrose" Subject: Re: [AML] _We Were Soldiers_ > I do not admire people so sensitive, they couldn't sit through 20 > minutes of lifelike war recreations as presented in _Saving Private > Ryan_. I say to them: Young men, barely adults, of an earlier generation > lived through it--and died through it--to save the world from a terrible > evil. They didn't have the luxury of limiting it to 20 minutes; they > didn't have the luxury of leaving the theater when the going got too > rough. Many of them didn't even have the luxury of living through it at > all. If after the tremendous sacrifice they made for us, we can't honor > them by sitting through 20 minutes of reenactment to try to get a > glimpse of the magnitude of their sacrifice, then I say shame on us. I don't buy this at all. I don't have to sit through a movie to understand what they went through, or what has been sacrificed for us. And I get pretty irritated with the attitude that I do. (It's a pet peeve of mine.) In fact I tend to think the opposite: if you have to sit through 20 minutes of a re-enactment to have it mean something, then shame on you. :) Susan - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2002 13:46:16 EST From: AEParshall@aol.com Subject: Re: [AML] Mormons and Soldiers My childhood and teenage years were spent near a succession of military bases as my dad followed his civilian career of making motion picture studies of scientific and technical processes: Dugway Proving Grounds, Herlong Army Depot, Richards-Gebauer AFB, Nellis AFB. The geography of the Kansas City 3rd Ward was peculiar -- narrow and very, very long -- which resulted in a physical separation between the town kids and the military kids. There were times when I felt left out because the town kids assumed I was military and the military kids knew I was civilian. But with that single exception, I never noticed any problems of any kind between civilian and military, any inappropriate activity by the military, and "looking down" on the military by the civilian. None. Ever. While individual humans may behave bizarrely in isolated instances, I cannot accept the charge that there is any institutional or Mormon cultural bias against the military, nor any inappropriate military usurpation of ecclesiastical prerogatives. Not since the days of Johnson's Army, anyway. Ardis Parshall AEParshall@aol.com - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2002 13:46:16 EST From: AEParshall@aol.com Subject: Re: [AML] Mormons and Soldiers My childhood and teenage years were spent near a succession of military bases as my dad followed his civilian career of making motion picture studies of scientific and technical processes: Dugway Proving Grounds, Herlong Army Depot, Richards-Gebauer AFB, Nellis AFB. The geography of the Kansas City 3rd Ward was peculiar -- narrow and very, very long -- which resulted in a physical separation between the town kids and the military kids. There were times when I felt left out because the town kids assumed I was military and the military kids knew I was civilian. But with that single exception, I never noticed any problems of any kind between civilian and military, any inappropriate activity by the military, and "looking down" on the military by the civilian. None. Ever. While individual humans may behave bizarrely in isolated instances, I cannot accept the charge that there is any institutional or Mormon cultural bias against the military, nor any inappropriate military usurpation of ecclesiastical prerogatives. Not since the days of Johnston's Army, anyway. Ardis Parshall AEParshall@aol.com - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2002 12:14:46 -0700 From: Christopher Bigelow Subject: RE: [AML] Neil Labute Interview Is it correct that his only Mormon characters have been in his play _Bash_? Maybe ask him some questions about the motives and impulses behind that work. Beyond _Bash_, has he or does he ever feel tempted/prompted to write about Mormon characters and themes? In what ways, if any, does Mormonness manifest itself indirectly in his writing? Does he think more Mormon stories will break into the mainstream of film, drama, and fiction, and if so under what circumstances and conditions? What possibly successful approaches and experiments can he conceive of, or is the whole train of thought a dead end? Most newspaper profiles have included info about his Mormon status. What kinds of interpersonal feedback and vibes, if any, does he get about his Mormonness in L.A., New York, and London circles? On the flipside of the coin, what kinds of insider-Mormon feedback and vibes--if any--does he get as an edgy, dark storyteller? What motives are behind his writing, and what affect does he hope to have on his audience? Is it true that Gwyneth Paltrow has taken the missionary discussions and is seriously considering joining the Church? Of course we need to ask him questions about what's ahead for him, what projects he's working on, etc. [Chris Bigelow] - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2002 14:18:56 EST From: BroHam000@aol.com Subject: Re: [AML] Mormons and Soldiers This is confusing to me...I've grown up in the Church, and have never=20 experienced anything that remotely manifests a negative attitude toward the= =20 military. My husband was in Army ROTC at BYU, and served 3 1/2 years active= =20 duty at Ft. Hood Texas. For the past 14 years we have been members of a= ward=20 that includes a naval base. I have never noticed the kind of military=20 weirdness that you mention, nor have I heard of such. The only experience= =20 for me that comes even close is having rubbed shoulders with a former FBI= man=20 and some "good ol' boys" who have some pretty odd views on what it is to be= a=20 man, from my point of view, and who are very "into" military-type survival= =20 philosophies. My personal view of the military is this: to serve one's=20 country is honorable and often necessary; I would never try to dissuade my= =20 sons (of whom I have five ranging in age from 14 to 22) from military=20 service. However, in the past I have not taken steps to encourage military= =20 service, either; this has to do with having been close to the current=20 military lifestyle for several years, and having observed that the American= =20 military, like American society, is severely dysfunctional in some very=20 disturbing ways that have to do with ethics and morality. The principle of= =20 military service is good; there are many good people serving therein; but=20 frankly, I am watching the current military exercises with bated breath - I= =20 don't know if the majority of our servicemen and women have the character to= =20 really do the job. Ciao Linda Hyde - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2002 14:34:44 EST From: BroHam000@aol.com Subject: Re: [AML] _We Were Soldiers_ ...just leave out the blood-and-guts-for-the-sake-of-blood-and-guts. I truly wonder if watching "artificial" horror - enacted on a screen, for example - has any real benefit at all. I believe there is a line somewhere, after which vicariously experiencing others' pain becomes mind-numbing at best, and horror-inciting at worst. Linda Hyde - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2002 12:41:34 -0700 From: "Bill Willson" Subject: [AML] Re: Trauma and Good Writing I agree with Mr. Martindale >The "trauma-less" person will need to make a conscious >decision to explore and expand without the forced >unmooring of a traumatic experience. The trauma-less > writer will need to extrapolate more from his limited >emotional experiences to write convincingly about >horrific experiences, and perhaps do extra research >with people who have experienced horrific things. To quote one of the greats - How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live. -- Henry David Thoreau I think that is why some of the best writers seem to write better if they have started their writing later in life. Bill Willson - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2002 14:25:09 EST From: BroHam000@aol.com Subject: [AML] Re: Trauma and Good Writing Since it has been said that each one of us will have to suffer our own Gethsemane, I very much doubt that any of us will experience a trauma-free life - indeed to be at ease in Zion, I suppose, is only to postpone and enlarge the trauma one will eventually experience. Anyone who is earnestly striving to live the Gospel in today's world, and to teach it to his children, and to serve his fellows, has conflict and agonizing aplenty. Linda Hyde - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2002 13:17:22 -0700 From: "Bill Willson" Subject: Re: [AML] Trauma and Good Writing > Paris Anderson wrote > Every one has had some sort of trauma. Every one I >know who had had big significant trauma in their lives >are either dead, insane, adicted to drugs or are >paralyzed from accidents. Others deliver mail, wait >tables, teach, driver truck or own stores. > >snip< >From these outcasts come many great writers, because after they experience life in its rawest form they sit down and write about it. >snip> Huge trauma does effect the personality. But, there are >many ways to apply the "thing gained through trauma, >whatever it is" to your life. Writing, though hugely >comforting, is probably one of the least productive. (I >know that last sentence goes a little far, but what is the >ratio between productive, meaning widely published >and esteemed, writers and between traumatized people >who write.) *Quoted from my unpublished manuscript* "Many of our greatest, most recognized writers were drunkards: Conrad Aiken, Raymond Carver, Hart Crane, William Faulkner, Dashiell Hammett, Ernest Hemingway, James Jones, Sinclair Lewis, Edna St. Vincent Millay, James O'Hara, Eugene O'Neill, Dorothy Parker, Edger Allan Poe, John Steinbeck, Dylan Thomas, and Thomas Wolfe. Five of these great writers shared the honor of the American Nobel Prize: Faulkner, Lewis, O'Neill, Hemingway, and Steinbeck. It has been estimated that one half to one third of the well-known American writers from the last century had problems with alcohol. Many of those who abused alcohol died at an early age. Many well-known writers have turned to hard drugs, and I'm sure many have used Marijuana. Unfortunately these forays into the darkness sometimes result in unspeakable loss. Some of these great writers were unable to emerge and leave the darkness behind. Some great writers for some unexplainable reason, known only to them, left their darkness by committing suicide: Hemingway, London, Plath, and Woolf, to name a few. These are the tragedies with which we must live, but from which we can learn. One out of ten Americans suffers from depression, but writers, artists, poets and other creative people, suffer more frequently from this debilitating disease. Recent studies have shown that creative people such as, poets and writers are four times more susceptible to depression than others. Dickinson, Elliot, and Poe were poets who suffered from depression. Writers such as Balzac, Dickens, Emerson, Fitzgerald, Ibsen, Melville, and Tolstoy also suffered from this illness." End quote I believe based on my own experiences that most people who have lived on the dark side of life, with drugs and alcohol, have done so because of trauma in their lives. In the case of our pioneer heritage, look at all the great literature the journals of the pioneers have brought to us. Do you honestly think these epics of hardship and struggle could have been produced without the journals, and could the journals been as inspired as they are if it were not for the hardship? Bill Willson - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2002 14:47:13 -0700 From: Barbara Hume Subject: Re: [AML] Mormons and Soldiers At 07:57 PM 3/19/02, you wrote: >Also, even though the military follows the chain of command, most military >personnel know enough to tell "bad officers" when they make a stupid >decision. H'mmmm -- instigates a story idea -- "Fragging the Bishop." Barbara R. Hume Provo, Utah - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2002 15:14:43 -0700 From: "Jacob Proffitt" Subject: RE: [AML] Good Mormon Lit - ---Original Message From: Ivan Angus Wolfe > This is an interesting dilemma for me. Once I wrote a song > called "Fleeing Heaven" -loosely based on three girls from my > high school - about a girl who "flees heaven" or leaves her > religous family behind to enter a world of drugs and whatnot. > A very somber song (usually my songs are happy jaunts about > first kisses, marriage proposals and the quirky and fun > people I meet everyday) it ends with her comitting suicide. > The point of the song was that she rejected all that was good > and deliberately walked down a pathe she knew would end badly. > > A few people caught that, but by and large most people who > heard it looked at me funny and asked me in all seriousness > if I needed counseling, and was I considering suicide? > > No, I wasn't. The song was meant to be a diatribe of sorts > about the preils of ignoring what we know to be true, but > most people forgot the first 90% of the song and focused on > the last two lines. > > It's not a song I often perform now. My question is - how do > I avoid this type of reaction, or should I just shrug my > shoulders and realize that some topics are still taboo to > many Mormons? I've had an interesting experience that is similar. My family has a unique Christmas tradition started by my Mom a few years ago. Christmas presents were becoming quite a burden and the typical "drawing names" solution was kind of unbalanced. You see, I have ten brothers and sisters and seven of us are married and have relatively large families (min one child, max five children, and an average of three children). In addition, there is a huge range in material wealth among the siblings--from an Orthodontist making six figures to a struggling family where both parents really *do* have to work (one in the Air Force, the other a tile installation specialist). My Mom's solution is that we'll produce a family album each year. Each family produces a "page" for the album. The "page" can be a short story, a poem, a scrap-book page equivalent--essentially anything that can be put together in a bound volume (um, not book-bound, just copy-shop bound) that all can then receive. It's a wonderful tradition and much more valuable than most normal Christmas presents are or could be (we also do a "cousins' album" so that we can separate the children's offerings from the more serious sharing in the family album). This year, I had the, um, temerity/wild hair/guts to submit two of my poems arranged on a page with a short familial note added. One of the poems was "Garden's Heart" (http://www.jacob.proffitt.com/Heart.html). It is by far my darkest poem. I wrote it to illustrate how it feels to harbor a secret sin. I deliberately left it unresolved because when you are in that kind of state, any hint of salvation weakens the feeling of being in that state. The harboring of a secret sin (whether it is breaking marriage covenants or hiding a morning cup of coffee) is a tough spot to be in and I wanted to communicate that in all the horror/hard-heartedness it evokes (and *should* evoke). Now, I don't live near the rest of my family (they all live within five miles of each other in Mesa, AZ except for one brother on a mission in Florida) so I'm kind of separated from their support net. Since the Christmas Album, I've had two sisters approach me in private assuring me that they love me and that I need only ask if I need help. One sister (I have seven sisters so feedback is naturally disproportionately female) even gave me a copy of my poem that she had "finished" for me. Which was touching because she isn't really very literary and has no idea that it might be, um, something of a faux pas to do so. Her addition is not all that bad, but it is pretty much an attempt to reassure the reader that the atonement exists and that Christ will help weed the ole garden. Some of you will see how I deserve that kind of response because of my own lobbying for hope in LDS literature. In my defense, I have never claimed that all LDS works should be hope-full, only that an LDS work should have hope available. Since "Garden's Heart" is about the choices of an individual, I don't consider it violating the hope of our culture. As with Ivan's song, it is about a person who makes choices that carry consequences. The thing I find interesting is how there seems to be a natural reaction that writing about bad things must necessarily mean that we have experienced those things first hand. I think that most people don't understand that to write *anything* requires the ability to extrapolate personal experience into different situations--if only to extrapolate a personal experience into something others would understand. So I don't have to have a deep, dark sin in my past to understand what it feels like to harbor a secret sin. Feelings are very similar from one experience to another and, to put it in computer geek-speak, feelings scale well. If you know a little despair, you can generally extrapolate what it's like to feel a lot of despair. That's why "I know how you feel" is such a common phrase. Frankly, I don't know how to counter such a perception. On the one hand, the experiences and world-view of an author *does* color a work and I have no problem rejecting a work that I feel comes from a widely divergent framework from my own. But on the other, I don't think it is valid to make assumptions about life-experiences of an author just because we see certain life-experiences in their work. A man *can* write about what it feels like to be pregnant in a way that evokes memories in those who have actually been pregnant. Just as Linda Adams can write about drug-use in a way that evokes personal memories from someone who has been there (or so I understand from what she has said on the list). Frankly, a good part of the gospel--comforting those in need of comfort--is primarily about developing the empathy to provide adequate comfort to those in need. And that might be a key. Maybe if we talked more about empathy and less about extrapolation, we'd make better progress. Empathy is easy to understand because a) it is a desirable trait and b) it is an emotional endeavor most people have attempted at some time. Extrapolation is a pretty dry, technical term and doesn't really represent the full emotional context involved. And frankly, extrapolation is a mainly intellectual exercise and I'm pretty sure that to really communicate well, the emotional investment involved is really much more akin to empathy, anyway. Jacob Proffitt - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2002 15:31:18 -0700 From: Christopher Bigelow Subject: RE: [AML] Neil Labute Interview Other questions I thought of: Have the works of any other literary artists with LDS ties and national reach made it onto your radar, and if so what do you think of them and what they're trying to do? (Brady Udall, Terry Tempest Williams, Walter Kirn, Judith Freeman, Brian Evenson, etc.) What about artists within the Mormon pale? Richard Dutcher, Eric Samuelsen, and others? How familiar are you with the new Mormon cinema movement, and what are your observations and comments regarding that phenomenon? Do you have any interest in making an independent film for the Mormon audience, and if not, why not? How important is writing in your career, as opposed to directing? Is there much creative overlap between the two, and if so how does that play out? What are the differences between directing your own written work and directing someone else's? Will anyone else ever direct your written scripts or screenplays? (Maybe they already have?) Tell us what and with whom you studied at BYU related to the literary arts and how those experiences helped shape you. Has any other formal education played an important role? Is it true your fellow BYU alum Aaron Eckhart is engaged to his _Erin Brockovitch_ costar Julia Roberts and they may get married in the temple? Chris Bigelow - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2002 14:57:25 -0800 (PST) From: "R.W. Rasband" Subject: Re: [AML] Neil Labute Interview Two rather obvious questions: Your work has been accused of lacking compassion. Certainly you have an objective, almost cold view of your characters. How do you reconcile this with the religious injunction to have charity? Mormons can be said to have two sides to their character: an optimistic, can-do, almost-Transcedentalist side; and a very conservative, censorious, almost-Puritan streak. You have a very pronounced sense of sin in your work. How do you see yourself fitting in? =20 =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D R.W. Rasband Heber City, UT rrasband@yahoo.com __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Movies - coverage of the 74th Academy Awards=AE http://movies.yahoo.com/ - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2002 16:27:47 -0700 From: "Ethan Skarstedt" Subject: RE: [AML] _We Were Soldiers_ On the subject of graphic violence in films, I have two things to say. First, I have a story. I was deployed with my unit to annual training as a counterintelligence agent when I first saw "Saving Private Ryan" I was profoundly moved, speechless even, as I exited the theater and returned to the hotel where we were staying. When I got back to my room, I flipped on the TV and there on screen was one of the cookie cutter action movies. It was near the end and the action was picking up. As I saw the parade of badguys fall with nary a scream and some of the good guys get it too, falling down and passing meekly and quietly into the night my mind compared it to the butchery I had just witnessed in Saving Private Ryan. I was sickened. The casual meaningless violence on the TV screen was horrifying to me, more so than it ever had been, and it stood out sharply in dark contrast to what I had just seen in the theater. I turned the TV off. I can no longer subscribe to the idea that "edited"/non-graphic violence is somehow morally better than the gritty realistic kind. I think we're dealing with truth here. What's better, trivializing death so that there is no shock value to offend the sensitive or telling the truth, that death is usually horrible, painful and disgustingly messy? The third option is, I guess, to not look at or talk about things that involve violence, like war or defending your family or enforcing the law. I reject that option out of hand because it's not possible to maintain a realistic world view while exercising it. The world is not a safe place and it won't be until after the end times. Point two: It is possible to divide those who commit violence upon their fellow man into two groups, those that are justified in doing so and those that are not, sometimes just where that division lies is unclear to an outside observer, nevertheless it exists. For me this divides film violence into two categories, that which is performed by characters who are justified in it and that which is performed by characters who are not. =20 In large part soldiers are justified in the violence they commit on other soldiers (it matters not at all which side the soldiers are fighting for, they have little or no control over the governments that are sending them into battle and once there such considerations go out the window, the "other side" is intent on killing them and they are justified in stopping them by any means possible (if you don't agree with being sent to war by your government then you had darn well better make that decision and take that stand long before you hit the front, once you're there it's too late and it's your own fault)) therefore IMO "war violence" on film is justified whereas "gore/torture/Hannibal Lecter violence" is not. =20 In support I submit that "war violence" is something that can be committed by honorable, good people and therefore such people can be benefited by a clear knowledge of just what they might be called upon to do or experience someday. Good intelligence makes for good decisions. On the other hand I submit that "gore/torture/Hannibal Lecter violence" is not something that will ever be committed by honorable good people and therefore such people do not benefit from the gruesome details, and portraying it is not justified. - -Ethan Skarstedt - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2002 10:25:22 -0600 From: Jonathan Langford Subject: [AML] re: Not in Sunday School (Comp 3) [MOD: Another compilation post...] >From ftsrc@uaf.edu Wed Mar 20 01:10:04 2002 >>From cgileadi@emerytelcom.net Mon Mar 18 20:29:59 2002 > >You can't tell the real story of Judah and his daughter-in-law. In that >story, nobody censured Judah for having sex with a prostitute by the side of >the road--till it came out that she was his daughter-in-law. > This story was actually told at length in SS last Sunday. It included LOt and his daughters, Ruben, Onan (I quote the tounge tied teacher on Onan's sin, "he didn't get his brother's wife pregnant - on purpose!") and Judah. The moral of this incredibly complex story with all it's cultural, symbolic and spiritual ramifications? We need to teach our children to be chaste. Stephen Carter Fairbanks, Alaska - --------------------------------------- >From adamszoo@sprintmail.com Wed Mar 20 20:16:50 2002 Oh, but I LIKE thinking the earth was completely flooded and baptized by immersion; I LIKE thinking Jonah was really swallowed by a giant fish and that Balaam's ass really talked and Lot's wife was really turned into a pillar of salt. (I read a short story somewhere about an archaeologist who found a beautiful, perfect statue of a woman; while taking it home, it rained on the statue and it dissolved: it was made of SALT--he had discovered Lot's wife. I can't remember title or author but I loved it!) Anyway let me have my delusions, if they are delusions. They're more fun. >You can't say that Adam and Eve probably could have had children if Eve >hadn't partaken of the fruit and they'd stayed in the Garden of Eden. What Richard really means here is you can't say Adam and Eve were married and had *sex* in the Garden of Eden. Oh no. No sex till after they were kicked out. (To which I say, yeah, right. They were married there--and naked to boot--why the heck not?) You also can't say it's okay to run around naked. :-) (D. Michael...) That's all I can come up with right now, aside from what's been said. Linda Adams adamszoo@sprintmail.com http://home.sprintmail.com/~adamszoo - ------------------------------------------------ >From MADAIR@novell.com Wed Mar 20 23:37:34 2002 There's considerable variation in what you can say in church from one ward to the next. Utah County wards, *generally speaking,* tend to be more orthodox and conservative in the views that are permissible to express. A woman I sleep with told her Relief Society class about the remarks a temple president made at a wedding she attended recently (something about the meaning of the words "queen" and "priestess"). The bishop called her in a few days later and asked her not to say things that scare the other sisters. In another ward, her remarks wouldn't be at all controversial MBA (Morgan B. Adair) - ---------------------------------------- >From dmichael@wwno.com Thu Mar 21 00:15:12 2002 You can't say that lessons or speeches in church are boring, because if you come with the right spirit, you'd get something out of the meetings. I guess this means it's my responsibility to make someone else's lesson or speech interesting, not theirs. D. Michael Martindale dmichael@wwno.com - ---------------------------------------- - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2002 01:08:19 -0700 From: "D. Michael Martindale" Subject: [AML] BJ ROWLEY, _16 In No Time_ (Review) 16 IN NO TIME by BJ Rowley 2001, Golden Wings Trade paperback, 236 pages 0-9700103-7-0 $14.95 Reviewed by Natalie Martindale Overall I really liked the book. Especially since I'm almost 16 myself. I feel like I can relate more to the characters. I liked how the prom was a major crisis in the story. Only a silly dance in high school would seem so important to two teenagers. Most adults probably think that it's a lot of trouble for nothing. The story begins with Celinda getting asked to the prom by _the_ most popular guy in school, Travis Foxx. It sounds like things are going just great for her, right? Well there is this one tiny detail: Celinda's parents won't let her date until she's 16. The real problem is that Celinda doesn't turn 16 until Saturday, the day after the dance. Her parents refuse to let her go. Now let me just say that I am very thankful that I don't have parents like Celinda's. I mean, one lousy day isn't going to make that much of a difference. Apparently this is how Celinda feels too. Plus she is going with Travis, a once in a life time opportunity. Celinda decides that she will stop at nothing to convince her parents that she should be allowed to go. Her friend Mandy tells her that she should just give up. Mandy isn't desperate to go (her parents have the same 16 rule) because she doesn't have a date anyway. She wants to go with an already-taken guy named Shawn O'Neill. Celinda tries everything to get her parents to let her go, but it's useless. Then on Friday, a week from the prom, a weird boy in one of her classes keeps staring at her. He finally says something to her and gives her a book which is titled, _The Power of Positive Wishing_. Celinda thinks the kid is weird and doesn't look in it until the next day. The book says that making a wish is like baking a cake and timing is everything. And the best time to make a wish is the next day, Sunday, at 4:00. Celinda reads through the rest of the book and calls Mandy. She gets Mandy to come over on Sunday. They sit in Celinda's room and at 4:00, start wishing. This is the beginning of Celinda and Mandy's extraordinary adventure. They have found themselves frozen in time and aging four whole days in just four minutes. This way they will be old enough to go to the dance. The only problem is, how are they going to get anyone to believe them? They are moving at about a thousand miles per hour when it seems to them that they are just walking. This begins the girls' dilemma with trying to prove that they are really turning "16 In No Time" and experiencing their super high speed. They also have to deal with disasters that they cause as well as prevent. The only things that I didn't like about the story was that once in a while the girls would act ditzy. They seemed intelligent and brave but sometimes they would come out of that character and act like a couple of blondes (no real offence meant to blonde people). Another thing was that the popular guy turned out to be the jerk again. That cliche has been done many times before. The popular guy isn't what he seems and the girl that was going to go out with him finds out what a jerk he is and dumps him. One other thing that bothered me was how easily Celinda believed in the whole wishing thing. She just reads the book once and is _totally_ convinced that her wishes really could come true. Most teens are skeptical. I know I am. So why was it so easy for Celinda to believe what the book told her? Besides those three points, I think the book was very enjoyable and interesting. It tells a story with a subject that not many people think about too often. It is explanatory enough on how the whole time thing works so you don't wonder so much about how they did it. It tells about situations that wouldn't usually be a big deal to adults or little kids but very important to teens. I think that's one of the reasons why I like this book so much is because it's directed toward teens, like me. I'm sure adults will like this story too because it lets them get an idea of what teens consider problems, and maybe even go back and visit some of their own teen memories similar to this. Well, maybe not _that_ similar. - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ End of aml-list-digest V1 #656 ******************************