From: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (aml-list-digest) To: aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: aml-list-digest V1 #28 Reply-To: aml-list Sender: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk aml-list-digest Monday, May 1 2000 Volume 01 : Number 028 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 01 May 2000 09:56:56 -0500 From: Jonathan Langford Subject: [AML] test post #2 And here is another post to make sure I have the process for a moderator post down correctly. Again, it won't count against the day's totals. Jonathan Langford AML-List Moderator - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 01 May 2000 10:00:29 -0500 From: Jonathan Langford Subject: [AML] Inaugural message Greetings fellow AML-List (and AML-Mag) members, All of us have our own private images of heaven. One of my favorites is a group of friends sitting around a living room, sharing good food and good conversation. Topics range from the amusing to the profound. Discussion is comfortable, informal, yet thoughtful as well. Although the conversation sometimes grows warm with expressions of opinion, there's an underlying mutual respect that's rooted in the shared commitment that all present have to each other and to a few basic shared ideals. It's a place where we feel comfortable talking about some of the things that are most important to us--even if we see them in different ways. A place where we learn new things, spend time with old friends, find new friends as well. I can't claim that AML-List always fits this description. To the degree that it does, however--and from my experience, that's quite a bit--credit is owed, first and foremost, to Ben Parkinson, AML-List founder and longtime moderator. Since joining the List almost four years ago, I've admired his deft guidance of List discussions, his agile prompting of conversation topics, his gentle redirection when threads stray from List guidelines. He's helped to create a space for discussion of Mormon letters--a space which, as many have attested, has both enriched individual lives and opened up new possibilities for the realm of Mormon art. He's been a community builder. I also wish to salute the members of AML-List, past and present. The quality of the conversation on the List is truly a tribute to its participants. I appreciate the time, honesty, and thoughtful consideration many people devote to their activity on the List. This includes the large group of List "lurkers," whose posts may come seldom if ever but whose interested presence is itself a contribution to the ongoing discussion. Whoever you are, whatever your tastes, training, and perspective, I hope you will feel free to share what you think. The List is richer when many different points of view are expressed. I take on this responsibility with a certain degree of trepidation. Ben's set a high standard for reliability, sensitivity, and sensibleness. I'm sure there will be some lurches and shudders as I attempt to take over at the wheel. (Picture, if you will, a 14-year-old learning to drive a Dodge pickup in eastern Oregon, and you'll have some idea of the relevant memories and associations this brings to my mind.) Please believe, however, that my intentions are good (and we all know where good intentions lead...). I don't anticipate any major changes in how AML-List is run, certainly not in the immediate future, although I'm sure we'll continue to evolve over time. I've been working with several people to try to revive some of the regular List columns, and hope to bring you more news of that shortly. (If anyone's interested in helping out, please contact me.) Ben is still officially List owner (taking on the technical details of e-mail list running that I know nothing about), and continues to have a major voice in any policy issues that may arise. I also welcome comments from anyone who has ideas about ways the List can change for the better--either privately to me as moderator, or for posting over the List. (Any messages that you don't want posted, please put PRIVATE in the subject line.) Thanks again to Ben, and everyone. Let's get on with the conversation. Jonathan Langford AML-List Moderator - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2000 22:10:00 -0400 From: Kent Larsen Subject: [AML] MN Karl Sandberg [from Mormon-News; this article from St. Paul Pioneer Press] LDS French professor Karl Sandberg dies (Macalester French professor and prominent Mormon Karl C. Sandberg dies at 69) St Paul MN Pioneer 28Apr00 P2 http://www.pioneerplanet.com/seven-days/1/news/docs/022786.htm By Clark Morphew: Staff Writer ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA -- Prominent St. Paul LDS Church member and professor of French at St. Paul's Macalester College died Wednesday in St George, Utah of complications from diabetes. Sandberg, who taught at Duke, the University of Arizona and the University of Minnesota in addition to 24 years on the faculty of Macalester, was 69. While Sandberg had taken one or two French classes in high school, his life-long study of French started with a call to serve in the LDS Church's French mission in the years following World War II. He left France following his mission determined to know more about the language, culture and history of the country. Sandberg was also known for his love of ideas. His colleague, Macalester French professor Virginia Schubert says his interests were diverse, "He loved the movement of ideas, the great sweep of ideas and using those ideas to explain the relationship between God and man. He was engaged in the great questions that faced humanity but not in a doctrinaire way. And always, he taught with a lot of wit and humor.'' But Schubert adds that Sandberg brought his knowledge back to bear on the gospel. "Karl felt a need to ponder the gospel of Christ and to help others ponder it,'' said Steven Pusey, who was Sandberg's Bishop in St. Paul in the 1970s. "His contributions were great but not always public. He had a good Christian heart, a noble soul.'' But Sandberg did share his knowledge with other Mormons, writing several articles and reviews for Dialogue and participating at the Sunstone Symposium. His knowledge and teaching skill also made him a popular teacher among the LDS congregations in St Paul. Professionaly, Sandberg was known for his textbook "French for Reading: A Programmed Approach,'' a favorite among graduate students studying for their final exams. He also wrote "Le Nouveau Passe-Muraille,'' with Virginia Schubert, and more than 35 other books and articles. But throughout his professional success, he didn't neglect his family. His son David Sandberg says, "We had a remarkable childhood. Dad was very much involved with the family." >From Mormon-News: Mormon News and Events Forwarding is permitted as long as this footer is included Mormon News items may not be posted to the World Wide Web sites without permission. Please link to our pages instead. For more information see http://www.MormonsToday.com/ Send join and remove commands to: majordomo@MormonsToday.com Put appropriate commands in body of the message: To join: subscribe mormon-news To leave: unsubscribe mormon-news To join digest: subscribe mormon-news-digest - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 1 May 2000 09:35:54 -0600 From: owner-aml-list@lists.xmission.com Subject: [none] pbsmail1-eth-ext.hosting.prodigy.net (8.8.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id AAA16254 for ; Sun, 30 Apr 2000 00:47:54 -0400 From: "Devin Thorpe" To: Subject: RE: [AML] CARD, _Ender's Game_ Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 22:47:58 -0600 Message-ID: X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0) X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2919.6600 Importance: Normal In-Reply-To: <20000429.215601.4751.1.lajackson@juno.com> Sender: owner-aml-list@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: aml-list I'm sure that book is recognized by all on this list, but I just want to add my two cents. That is one of my favorite books of all time. Do most of you consider it, as I do, to be one of the high-water marks of Mormon arts and letters? ddt - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2000 05:57:51 -0600 From: "D. Michael Martindale" Subject: Re: [AML] CARD, _Ender's Game_ Larry Jackson: "On the last page in the May 2000 National Geographic, there is a photograph of a young boy in a small boat reading a book.... The book is Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game. The photograph is titled, 'Jake Lloyd reading ENDER'S GAME.' "I wonder if the photograph will have any effect on book sales?" That would be nice, but I hope the photograph also has an effect on getting the movie off and rolling, in which Jake Lloyd is supposed to star. - -- D. Michael Martindale dmichael@wwno.com Worlds Without Number http://www.wwno.com ================================== Read "How I as a crazy high school kid wrote an opera about Joseph Smith" at: http://www.wwno.com/gpjs/howi.htm ================================== - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 01 May 2000 13:33:56 GMT From: "Dallas Robbins" Subject: [AML] Ed Snow essay at Harvest Magazine To AML-List, Just wanted everyone to know that this week at Harvest Magazine, we have a wonderful essay by Edgar C. Snow Jr., a regular contributor to the AML, and essay editor for Irreantum. To read follow this link: http://www.harvestmagazine.com. Dallas Robbins editor@harvestmagazine.com [MOD: We are also planning to get Ed's column up and running again for AML-List. More details to follow...] ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2000 12:47:20 -0700 (PDT) From: Darlene Young Subject: Re: [AML] CARD, _Ender's Game_ [MOD: Does anyone on the List have up-to-date information on this?] Jake Lloyd is, I hear, the first choice of Card to play the part of Ender in the upcoming _Ender's Game_ movie. Was this photo part of publicity for the movie? Was the movie even mentioned? ===== Darlene Young __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Talk to your friends online and get email alerts with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com/ - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 1 May 2000 10:13:24 -0400 From: Shawn Ambrose Subject: RE: [AML] Comments? (Reading the Scriptures) In a message dated 00-04-29 22:03:10 EDT, Melinda writes: << If it is scripture, it can be taken literally in the Lord's time. >> I don't follow your meaning there, Melinda, but it's intriguing. Could you expand on it a little? Colin D. My meaning is that the scriptures are literally true, in the sense that what the Lord says, he means, no matter which writer is his voice at the time. Maybe an example will help: the scriptures say that during the creation, the earth was put together in one day, given water the next, plants the following day, and so on. We could insist on 24-hour days or on millions of years of development; doesn't matter to the Lord. He's in charge; whatever unit he chooses to call a day, is a day. Time is relative to him, anyway! He knows all things that have happened and that will happen on the earth, allowing for our free agency in his plan because he knows us so well that whatever we decide, he knows the decision beforehand. You said in your post of April 26th that "scripture is written by human beings in response to their experience with God, rather than dictated word-for-word..." The cool, neato thing about this is: God inspires prophets to write; he doesn't give them word for word unless they work for it. Joseph Smith had lots of practice listening to inspiration while translating the Book of Mormon. At first he was copying characters and learning how to listen to the Spirit. By the time he was done, he was giving revelations without pause or correction, revelations of many pages in length. It took work; it took experience; it took righteousness and diligence to the task at hand. My guess is that, even though Joseph Smith had never before prayed aloud when he went into the grove, he had studied and pondered the Bible and earnestly tried to understand for some time previous. It is true that to gain a complete understanding of the scriptures, it helps to understand the culture the Lord was speaking to when the passage was written. It also helps to realize that God made the rules that we work under. You can say, but the language we use is not the pure Adamic language, so therefore we cannot take the scriptures literally word for word because our words are different. It is true that our words are different; there are some things you cannot say in English, such as the difference between agape love and eros love. But the scriptures are literally true, word for word, never the less. It's the same principle as when the prophet (Joseph Smith?) said that if you spoke to an angel using perfect English, the angel would use perfect English, but if you used a double negative, the angel would immediately match his language to your understanding. (A backhanded way of saying, if the scriptures are obscure to us, it's our fault!) Hope this helps! Melinda [Ambrose?] - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2000 19:59:16 -0600 From: Matthew Hamby Subject: Re: [AML] CARD, _Ender's Game_ I just think that it's hillarious that Jake Lloyd (Darth Vader's young incarnation) is reading Ender's Game. That photographer has a fine sense of irony. Larry Jackson wrote: > On the last page in the May 2000 National Geographic, > there is a photograph of a young boy in a small boat > reading a book. The ad says, "Get caught reading" > and is by The Association of American Publishers. > The photograph is by Gregory Heisler. > > The title of the book is legible in the photograph and is > the thing that first caught my eye. The book is Orson > Scott Card's Ender's Game. The photograph is titled, > "Jake Lloyd reading ENDER'S GAME." > > I wonder if the photograph will have any effect on book sales? > > Larry Jackson > > > - > AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature > http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 1 May 2000 09:26:33 -0700 From: Julie Kirk Subject: Re: [AML] Julie KIRK (was Tooting my own horn) >This is so iinteresting, Julie. Can you tell us--you actually get down on >the sidewalk and paint the street? What scenes do you paint? Do you paint >the same ones over and over again. Do you plan for them before you go? I >have never thought about this before, and I am so excited to find out >more! Sincerely, Marilyn Brown > >[MOD: Julie, don't you have a web page with some of your work? >Could you post the URL?] > > yes, I have a webpage...also pathetically out of date, I should add. I'll post the URL on the condition that everyone remembers this was a page I put together as my first page a few years back and it is pretty much completely out of date - the oil paintings on it are no more recent than three years ago (things have evolved and become much more cohesive in that time) and the most recent street painting is about 2 years old. I recently purchased a couple of domain names for my personal work and to put up a street painting page, and hope to get around to doing that this summer, but for the time being, this is it. that being said, the page is located at http://home1.gte.net/boju/ Marilyn, you asked about the type of work street painting is? there is a brief blurb about it on my page, but I'll give you the run down here too...it is basically a form of graffiti dating back to 15th or 16th century Italy, depending on who you ask. Pretty much like what you see now with street perfomers and musicians in downtown streets and parks, people would park themselves on a piece of pavement somewhere and do a painting with pastels. In return they were hoping for a bit of change to be tossed into the offered hat or on the painting itself. The painters usually painted pictures of the Madonna, and so they were given the name of "Madonnari". This form of work is still pretty popular in Europe and in the last 15 years or so has enjoyed a big surgence of poluarity in the US, mostly thanks to the fact that a certain painter from Santa Barbara, Kurt Wenner, traveled to Europe (where he now owns a castle in Italy...some people, I tell ya), and came back here, being part of the creation of the first big festival which is put on in Santa Barbara every year. From this festival, many more were inspired, and now there are a number of festivals up and down the coast in California, and a handful in other parts of the US, most of them spin-offs of the Santa Barbara event. what I really like about street painting is the fact that it IS temporary. I've done pieces for corporate reasons, etc which the people tend to want on prepared canvas, but to me the festivals are the heart of what is special about it. The pieces at the festival are done on the cement or asphalt (asphalt being preferred), and most of the festivals need to wash off the work within a day or so of the festival being finished. Santa Barbara is the exception to this, they just let them wear away with the sun and rain, and when I was up there a couple weeks ago, I could still see remnants of paintings here and there from a year ago - mostly the homemade pastel parts, as the other cheap pastels we use wear away right off. I use a combination of pastels I have made at home and the cheap ones they give you at the festivals - my preference is the handmade, they have good holding power because of the binder I use, a mixture of beeswax, soap, linseed oil, etc and they are pure pigment, no fillers, so the color is very rich and goes a long way. Street painting truly is something that is about the process of making art, not about a monetary value. I do make money at it now as I teach and get paid for going to events to do the featured piece, but I also work at festivals for free, just to do the paintings. for the first 6 or 7 years I made nothing, actually paid alot of money to travel to festivals, and that is the case with most of the artists - it is done for the love of the painting first and foremost. The most common question I am asked concerns the difficulty of having to leave it behind, and it really is not a problem for me, though I don't know if all of the artists feel the same - I would guess not, especially the newer artists, as I know how I felt just starting out. I've been street painting now for about 8 years or so. To me it is completely a perfomance art, and the pieces that have the most strength are the ones still in the process of being created - they are the "living" pieces in my mind, once the piece is finished, it's over. It is a really rare opportunity for alot of people to see visual art being made...think about it, the majority of visual artists work in the privacy of a studio so, unless we have the pleasure of perhaps seeing a mural go up or something of that sort, most people kind of look at a painting as some sort of miraculous thing that just happens. Well, street paintings go quicker than oil paintings, that is for sure, but they are also very physical. It is the crowd that helps you carry through, push through that "wall" when you have spent several days in the heat on the ground and all you want to do is quit. the hardest paintings are the ones I do for corporate work, etc where I am isolated and have no interaction. For me it involves putting a piece of my heart out there on that pavement. The strength of the festival lies not just in what the public sees, but also in the spirit of comradary (sp?) between the artists and between the artist/pulic. It is a chance for the artist to share what they love with others, and there is something there at that festival for everyone, so many different themes and styles, so it is pretty overwhelming to see all of this work going down in one place. One of the other special things about it is that you will find people of all different backrounds and talent levels working - amateurs, professional artists, children and school groups, families - all of these side by side to create just a great atmosphere. My own work at the festivals tends to be that I paint master copies interspersed with my own designs. Street painting has given me a tremendous forum to learn technique, amongst other things, so I choose paintings to copy that mean something to me, then try to take what I learn from those copies and apply it to my own work, both oil paintings and street paintings. I am completely nuts about Caravaggio, so the majority of the paintings I have copied are his (I think maybe 3 of them have been someone else?). this last weekend I completed a 14'x18' painting of "The Madonna di Loreto" by Caravaggio. I *love* copying religious paintings - unless I am asked to do something different, that is what I paint. In some way it is also my opportunity to share my testimony, at least, I get that far into painting those people that that is how I feel and those are the thoughts running through my head. Last fall I did a copy of Judas kissing Christ in the garden and it was a pretty profound experience for me, all kinds of thoughts and images sweep through you if you allow the painting to touch you. I have only repeated the same piece one time, when I pretty much had no choice. The funny thing about picking paintings to copy is that I have to completely love that painting to get through copying it...and once I am done painting it, I am over it..still love it, but feel like I have taken from it what I needed to. This probably sounds completely nuts and kind of off kilter, but copying a painting I love is pretty much the most "intimate" relationship I can have with it, short of having been the person to create it personally. That's kind of how I think about it...I just want to soak it all up. anyhow, I ramble, sorry this got so long...one thing I can say is that it is definitely an event to be experienced firsthand. Pictures do not even begin to describe what happens in real life, they have no way of truly conveying the monumentality of the work being done, so I definitely recommend seeing a festival in person if you ever have the opportunity. Julie - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 01 May 2000 09:47:27 -0500 From: "Morgan Adair" (by way of Jonathan Langford Subject: [none] ) Subject: [AML] (Biblio) Karl Sandberg Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-aml-list@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: aml-list The Biblio File: Karl C. Sandberg by Morgan B. Adair Karl C. Sandberg, who passed away Wednesday April 26, 2000 at the age of 69, was a frequent writer and speaker on topics related to Mormon history and philosophy, and sometime poet. He was an associate professor of French literature at the University of Arizona, then worked for many years at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, as chairman of the French Department, Chairman of the Department of Linguistics/ESL, and professor of French and linguistics. Sandberg was often on the program at Sunstone Symposiums and meetings of the Mormon History Association and David Whitmer Historical Association. Though I don't remember him well, my parents considered him to be a friend when they lived in Minnesota in the 1960s and 70s, and remember him as a stalwart of the fledgling Minneapolis Minnesota Stake. If you have additions to this Biblio File, or memories of Karl you would like to share, please post them to AML-List. Thesis _A Study of the Modern Foreign Language Programs in Utah Public Schools, 1956-57_, M.A. Thesis, B.Y.U. Dept. of Modern and Classical Languages, 49 pp. Textbook _Creative English : the Basics for Comprehension and Expression_, (with Donald Steinmetz), Prentice-Hall, 1980. English language textbook for foreign speakers. Essays and Reviews "At the Crossroads of Faith and Reason; An Essay on Pierre Bayle" University of Arizona Press, 1966, 125 pp. Faith and reason in the writings of philosopher Pierre Bayle, 1647-1706. "Theology for a New Age," review of _Honest to God_, by John A. T. Robinson, Bishop of Woolwich, Dialogue, Vol.1, no.2 (Summer 1966), p.112. "Pascal's Wager on the Mormon Roulette Wheel," Sunstone, Vol.11, no.1 (January 1987), p.14-19. Thoughts on faith and doubt. "Modes of Belief: David Whitmer, B. H. Roberts, Werner Heisenberg," Sunstone, September 1988, Vol. 12, no. 5, pp.10-18. A paper presented at the 1987 Washington Sunstone Symposium. Comparison of the roles of David Whitmer (the faithful witness), B.H. Roberts (the magnifying disciple), and Werner Heisenberg (the unfettered seeker). "Knowing Brother Joseph Again: The Book of Abraham, and Joseph Smith as Translator," Dialogue, Vol. 22, no. 4 (Winter 1989), pp.17-37. "Telling the Tales and Telling the Truth: Writing the History of Widtsoe," Dialogue, Vol. 26, no. 4 (Winter 1993), pp.93-105. An analysis of the interplay of folklore and history in Widtsoe, Utah. "Mormonism and the Puritan Connection: The Trials of Mrs. Anne Hutchinson and Several Persistent Questions Bearing on Church Governance," Sunstone. Vol. 16, no. 8 (Feb. 1994), pp. 20-32. Comparisons between Mormons and Puritans in their relationships between the organization and the individual. "To Find One's Voice," Sunstone. Vol. 17, no. 1 (June 1994), pp. 14-15. Moral and ethical aspects of public speaking. "Thinking About the Word of God in the Twenty-First Century," Dialogue, Vol. 29, no. 1 (Spring 1996), pp.58-79. Scripture and revelation in Mormonism and in light of world religions. "Getting Up a History of Monroe: The Long Shadow of the United Order," Sunstone. Vol. 19, no. 4 (Dec. 1996) pp. 37-45. Poetry "Sabbath," Dialogue, Vol. 5, no. 4 (Winter 1970), p. 77. "Silence," Dialogue, Vol. 5, no. 4 (Winter 1970), p. 78. "Scripture Lesson," Dialogue, Vol. 6, no. 3 & 4 (Autumn-Winter 1971), p.90 "From requiem for a town," Sunstone, Vol. 3, no. 3 (March-April, 1978), pp. 18-23. "The rabbit drive" Dialogue. Vol. 15, no. 1 (Spring, 1982), pp. 164-168. "The last speaker will give the interpretation of tongues" in _Poems for the natural and social worlds_, Clark, Dennis, also published in Sunstone, Vol. 11, no. 1 (January 1987), pp.20-25. "Autumn," Sunstone, September 1987, Vol. 11, no. 5, p.17. "The Soon-to-Hibernate Bear Addresses His Public," Dialogue, Vol. 29, no. 4 (Winter 1996), p.150 - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2000 09:06:56 -0700 (MST) From: AML Subject: [AML] Readings [From the Sunday Deseret News] [MOD: Terry Tempest Williams, Lisa Bickmore, and Alex Caldiero are LDS, and I am informed that Ann Chamberlin was raised LDS but may not consider herself so now. No information on the others.] TERRY TEMPEST WILLIAMS, noted local author with a national reputation, especially for "Refuge," will read from and sign copies of her new book, "Leap," Thursday, May 4, 7 p.m., Larimer Center, Rowland Hall-St. Mark's Middle School, 970 E. 800 South, sponsored by The King's English, and Friday, May 5, 7 p.m., Egyptian Theatre, 328 Main Street, Park City, sponsored by Books and Beyond, Midway. ANN CHAMBERLIN , author of historical novels, will discuss "How to Liven Up Your Writing with Great Dialogue," Wednesday, May 3, 7 p.m., Holladay Library, 2150 E. 4800 South. Sponsored by League of Utah Writers. For more information, call 942-4209. JEFFREY BERKE, LISA BICKMORE, PHIL BRAUNBERGER, ALEX CALDIERO, SARA CALDIERO, BILL COLES, JOAN COLES, BOB EBERTH, ANDREA JORDAN, JOEL LONG, BARBARA MURDOCK, PAT RUSSELL and NATASHA SAJE will do a collaborative reading as part of City Arts and Writers Live! Wednesday, May 3, 7 p.m., Salt Lake City Library, 209 E. 500 South. For more information, call 524-8200. - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 01 May 2000 09:04:09 -0700 (MST) From: aml@xmission.com Subject: [AML] Terry Tempest WILLIAMS, _Leap_ Sunday, April 30, 2000 Terry Tempest Williams Leaps Into a New Landscape BY MELINDA MILLER THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE Author Terry Tempest Williams is so deeply associated with the American West that, when it was time for her to move onto something new, she had to escape. She went to Spain. She decided she would write a book about Spain. Maybe a travel book, observations on a new landscape, a place that resembled her native Utah but wasn't Utah. At that time, in 1993, Williams was reconciling her life with the deaths of her mother and her grandmothers, and with the attention she received from her critically acclaimed book Refuge, about her family's struggles with cancer. She chose Spain, she says, partly because it is "a country that was not afraid of death." But she didn't write a book about Spain or about travel. In Leap, coming out this week from Pantheon Books, Williams takes a journey of the mind and spirit through "The Garden of Delights," an overtly religious and sensual painting by Hieronymous Bosch. It was not an easy trip. She found the painting -- unexpectedly -- while being a tourist in the Museo del Prado in Madrid. It is a triptych, showing Paradise on one panel, Hell on the other side, with the two biblical landscapes framing a riotous image of the Garden of Earthly Delights. Paradise and Hell were familiar to the now-grown Mormon child of the West: Her grandmother had glossy copies of them hanging in the bedroom where Williams slept as a girl. She hadn't known the center panel existed, but she sees it as a metaphor of where the world is now and was then. "Bosch was painting on the cusp of the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation," Williams says. (He lived from 1450-1516.) "I think we are at a similar point of time today -- call it an ecological reformation." The painting was born 500 years ago, joining a family of exotic, alchemic works by the inventive painter. His images of the holy and hellish have, in the centuries since, baffled, intrigued and become the obsession of onlookers trying to decipher his cryptic symbolism. "The Garden of Delights" may have found one of its most engaged interpreters the day the wavy-haired woman from Utah walked into the Prado. A naturalist and advocate of wildness, she surveyed its landscape with the vision of a trained observer and eager seeker. (A pull-out full-color miniature of the painting is folded into the back of Leap, a necessary reference.) It was what she was looking for. "In many ways," Williams said, "art is what saves our lives -- it explains things." And so she watched "The Garden" and found among the thousand figures familiar things -- three dozen birds (she can name them), all manner of beasts and a framework for her writing. "At first I didn't even know it was a book," Williams said. She knew she would be traveling with Bosch; she didn't know where she would go. But it was a willing surrender. "Sometimes a story picks us and takes us along with it," she says. "The question is, do we dare to proceed without a blueprint, without a map?" She took the leap, with the other side of the chasm still shrouded, inspired in part by line from a favorite poem by W.H. Auden, "Leap before you look." Out of 50 journals came draft after draft of the book, many, many pages too long. She took the project to the Sundance Theatre Lab in Provo Canyon last summer, to try to turn it into a dramatic piece. It was written in the third person. Actress Elizabeth Marvel got up to read. She did a great job. But it was all wrong. "In five minutes my face was so red with embarrassment, I said 'Stop!'," Williams says, covering her face as she recalls the experience. "I knew then I had to go back to the first person. I realized I have to accept responsibility for what I have done." She is grateful for the support of Sundance founder Robert Redford. "He told me not to lose track of where the dramatic tension was coming from. 'You have to tell the truth. You have to go to the deeper place.' " The leaner, cleaner result is one of Williams' longest books yet - -- 266 pages, plus almost 90 more in notes and credits -- and she calls it her most significant piece since Refuge in 1991. It will also be her most controversial writing to date, maybe her most controversial ever. "Leap is a personal journey, but of the type many people wish to take," Williams says. She is eager to have readers understand, not misunderstand, what she is doing in the book. "It asks, How do we find a spiritual life that transcends authority?" Her path starts in her Mormon upbringing, but the reflections speak to anyone trying to reconcile the spiritual questions of a mature heart. She is nervous about how her probing and sometimes critical views will be received in her religious community and elsewhere. "I feel full of paradoxes: In one way I'm so excited that it's out there, that it's a book in the world and people will read it, and I've introduced them to Hieronymous Bosch. But," she says, "I'm also terrified about how it will be perceived." Bishop Carolyn Tanner Irish of the Episcopal Diocese of Utah is among the long list of people acknowledged in Leap for help and support. Irish is an advocate of the type of spiritual journaling that produced parts of Leap. She has not read the book, but looks forward to seeing where Williams went with it. "She's an eloquent speaker and writer, and a very deep soul," Irish said. She explained that, for the spiritual seeker, "The context of prayerful awareness is in openness to one's life, one's surroundings, one's truth." "Ultimately," she says, "the truth -- the whole truth -- is our security. I think it is courageous and wonderful that [Williams] is willing to do this." The book is full of questions: What do I believe? Did Hieronymous Bosch pray? And lists of what Bosch put in the painting and what he wanted people to take out of it. But what may be singled out by the curious and those looking to applaud or condemn the work are more "real-life" events, such as Williams' description of the dawn when she and her husband, Brooke, married more than 25 years ago in the Salt Lake Temple, burned the parchment of their marriage certificate on the shore of Great Salt Lake. She writes, I watch it curl with a single flame, the burning theology of my childhood. . . . Emotion swells inside me. This piece of paper mattered. Taken out of context, stopping right there, the scene could easily be interpreted as a burning of bridges. But it is not; it is part of Williams' vision from Bosch's panel of Hell. When studying the panel, she says, "There were times when I felt I cannot survive the grief I feel. Sometimes it seemed Hell was the real world, more than the Garden." Back to Earth, to the center panel, Williams returns to the roots of her faith, to Joseph Smith in his own garden, in the Sacred Grove, "eyes open focused on the Earth, watching the Earth, eyes closed, focused on the Heart, listening to the Heart." "Mormonism is magic," she writes. It is not the faith but the religion that pains her. We are honest, earnest, hardworking people, not people prone to roaming naked in gardens, plucking fruit . . . or searching for water with two quivering sticks. Now, we can the fruit. The pragmatism of Brigham Young is our religion now. . . . There is little mystical about us. That observation, she says, can apply to many of society's institutions, from schools meant to teach that don't allow certain subjects to be taught, to a government founded in freedom that approves politically expedient bombings, to her own religion that, she says, "tells us 'Honor your vision.' Leap hangs on the paradox of free agency and obedience." Thoughtful minds in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints won't necessarily agree with Williams' characterizations. Paul Smith, an instructor of church history at the LDS Institute of Religion at the University of Utah, has not read Leap, but was willing to remark on some of the observations. In Williams' description of Joseph Smith as a "mystic, diviner, restorer, a Man of Signs," compared with Brigham Young as the man who led his people to the Promised Land, "to organize, proselytize, and grow," Smith points out that the church itself would probably choose other ways to describe its founders. "But I understand what she is trying to say," he added. Joseph Smith, he said, "is supreme [in the faith] -- you can't compare anyone else to his role in the church," with Brigham Young being the more "practical" leader. But, Smith points out, the church teaches that Joseph visited Brigham five times after his death, guiding him as spiritual counsel. As the faith became a religion, Smith said, there were times when the leadership tended to circle the wagons against the rest of the world. But, he said, that is changing. "I think today the church is swinging back after years of persecution and prosecution, and struggling to survive," he said. And, just as Williams describes her dream of a more inclusive faith, Smith sees that happening today. He cites recent instances of church members being encouraged to seek their own revelation -- "the church is getting less and less dependent on its top leaders," he says, a deliberate effort --and of the church reaching out more to other communities of faiths. Williams sees this kind of change as mandatory for survival -- of the individual, the community and the new time of planetary awareness. "We are in a society now where our institutions no longer feed us," she said. Change, she believes, is inevitable. "It will require a complete overhaul of our institutions. I do see it happening; it's not happening without a great deal of resistance." Without giving too much away, in the end of Leap, Williams and Bosch enjoy their own forms of restoration. She thanks the artist for inviting her to seek; she thanks Joseph Smith for teaching her where to seek truth. Faith is not about finding meaning in the world, she writes, there may be no such thing -- Faith is the belief in our capacity to create meaningful lives. Read, Sign Terry Tempest Williams will read from and sign her new book, Leap, Thursday at 7 p.m. at the Larimer Center on the campus of Rowland Hall-St. Mark's, 970 E. 800 South, Salt Lake City. On Friday, also at 7 p.m., she will read from and sign her book in Park City at the Egyptian Theatre, 328 Main St., in an event sponsored by Midway's Books & Beyond bookstore. Copyright 2000, The Salt Lake Tribune - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ End of aml-list-digest V1 #28 *****************************