From: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (aml-list-digest) To: aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: aml-list-digest V1 #77 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 Thursday, June 22 2000 Volume 01 : Number 077 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2000 12:02:29 -0600 From: "Clark Goble" Subject: RE: [AML] Race and Culture in LDS Lit. ___ Jason ___ | When we talk about literature that "deals with race and culture," | somehow we automatically assume that that means all things NOT | WHITE. ___ I don't necessarily think that is true. Even within white culture there is a lot of extreme variety. And the culture of a black American is closer to white America than it is to blacks living in Africa. Within white culture (oh how I hate these inevitable references to color) we have poor whites living in trailer homes in the rural south, rich whites living in $10,000 a month apartments in New York City, and so forth. There is a lot of variety. I think I probably could write about the life of either of those types of whites about as well as I could a black American growing up in suburbia. There have been some interesting novels dealing with culture in Mormonism. My favorite is Card's _Folk of the Fringe_. Of course the genre (SF) makes that task much easier. Still he does an interesting job of portraying the culture clash between Mormons and non-Mormons, albeit in an unrealistic setting. He addresses black LDS culture in that collection as well, albeit in passing with minor characters. His suggestion is that there was a large gap. I'm not sure that is fair, based upon my mission in the south. But it was an interesting play off the racist issue as blacks started significantly joining the church in the late 80's. Anyway, I think the culture and race issue really is just saying, "it's hard to write what you don't understand." Race is one of those things I think ought to be assigned to the waste heap myself. Race has become too complex as intermarriages increase. Likewise race is usually reduced to a stereotype about culture - a stereotype that is usually wrong. Still it is often an easy shorthand for culture, even if it is often misleading. (Most stereotypes make nice short hands - witness the insistence of some on the liahona / iron rod stereotype) - -- Clark Goble --- d.c.g@att.net ----------------------------------- - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2000 12:35:47 -0600 From: "Richard R. Hopkins" Subject: Re: [AML] Multiple POV (Linking back into LDS Pulitzer) - -----Original Message----- From: Todd Robert Petersen To: aml-list@lists.xmission.com Date: Tuesday, June 20, 2000 12:37 PM Subject: Re: [AML] Multiple POV (Linking back into LDS Pulitzer) >In literary history, as soon as someone said the novel is "x," it changed. >What Defoe and Swift and Rabelais wrote is different than what Crane, >Dickens, and Melville wrote. > >One of the thing that stifles LDS literature is its insistance upon being >realistic literature. Most of the LDS writing I have read pretends that the >20th century hasn't even taken place. I believe I see what Todd is getting at here, and I need to clarify what I said in my earlier post. I was speaking of technical rules by which we exercise our craft. I think Todd is speaking of rules that relate or impact in some way on our creativity. I agree with him that we must be very cautious about letting societal or other rules impact on our creativity. I think we still need to look objectively at our creation afterward and ask if it is what we wanted. For example, I remember Lukas Foss at UCLA telling us about a composition student of his who came in with a piece for him to look at. The whole thing was discordant and last chord was one of those ghastly modernist off-key things. Lukas looked carefully at the music and made an awful noise on the piano, then asked the student if that was really the way he wanted to end the piece. The student said, "Yes, absolutely." To which Lukas replied, "Well, you'd better fix it then, because I didn't play the chord at all like you wrote it." Richard Hopkins - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2000 13:07:20 -0600 From: "Richard R. Hopkins" Subject: Re: [AML] BLUTH/GOLDMAN, _Titan A.E._ I was curious to read in this article of the Utah origin and raising of Don Bluth. I'm curious if there is a different Don Bluth in the animation business than the one I grew up with in Santa Monica Stake, California. Don and Fred Bluth were great entertainers in our Stake and formed the Bluth Bros. Theater there, in which my wife, the then Cherry (short for Cherilyn) Baker, and her cousin, the then Tamara Fowler, participated extensively. Don, who then did all the sets, went on to animation at Disney, I thought, and is the Don Bluth of current animation fame, but as far as I know, he was raised in So Cal, not Utah. Does anybody know what the deal is? Richard Hopkins - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2000 14:51:23 -0400 From: Tony Markham Subject: Re: [AML] _The Real World_ > A twenty-year old BYU co-ed from Wisconsin will be on MTV's THE REAL WORLD > this coming season. She is outspoken in her Mormonism, to the extent that > she responded to questions of homosexuality be saying that it disgusts her. A good time for me to come out of lurkdom. Introduction: One of the few people who can claim to have collaborated with both Barbara Hume and Neil LaBute. Ah, BYU in the early 80s! I now teach in a small, upstate New York college and bang away at a keyboard, er, write. My contribution to Mormon literature was a novel The Jaxon Files (Amazon and Borders.com) which did not win a Pulitzer. Because I teach film, the most recent discussion on R ratings very nearly drew me out, but you all said everything so well. Why offer redundancies? One of the attractions to film and MTV for a working writer is to discover the kinds of images that exert a draw on the public's mind's eye. I'm enough of a Jungian to call them archetypal images for our current crop of audience, and enough of an LDS to believe these powerful, recurrent images are memories of the pre-existence trying to break through and find meaning. The Mormon girl on the Real World is a focus for both the editors and the rest of her housemates. She exerts a magnetism, a fascination for them. That in itself is fascinating. My favorite moment from the opening episode is actually a preview from a forthcoming episode. She has called her parents in show #1 and freaked them out by claiming to have a roommate named Matt. Ha-ha, big joke. But the preview reveals every bad joke to have its consequences. She is tearfully confronting her papa who has flown down from Milwaukee in order to drag her out of this den of iniquity. He (probably) unintentionally quotes Darth Vader during this hegemonic power play: Pop: I am you father! Princess: But it's MY Life! Reality programming, who can dream up this stuff? Tony Markham - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2000 13:43:42 -0600 From: Thom Duncan Subject: Re: [AML] BLUTH/GOLDMAN, _Titan A.E._ Linda Adams wrote: > > At 12:44 AM 6/21/00, you wrote: > >Apparently they forgot to screen it for nudity. The male character has > >full rear nudity in one scene. The female character _could_ have had > >full nudity in another scene, but they discreetly avoided it. This is an > >interesting phenomenon to me. Why is male nudity often considered > >humorous--and semi-harmless--while female nudity is generally considered > >scandalous? > > I disagree. Full frontal *male* nudity is a huge film rating no-no (I > believe it warrants NC-17? > if there's any camera time spent on it at all? No. R. > Not that I want to see films with full frontal nudity anyway, of either > sex. I'm just making a point that the rating system, again, is unfair and > seems traditionally more biased toward exploiting women's bodies, not the > other way around. (Then again, I didn't see "The Full Monty"--anyone know > if I'm wrong in my assessment here? Was it rated R or NC-17? Did it really > contain frontal male nudity? Anyone know the actual rating standards they > go by when rating nudity?) No frontal nudity in "Monty." I forget the rating, but it was definitely not NC-17. NC-17 is reserved for films of explicit sexual scenes, not just nudity per se. - -- Thom Duncan - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Read the further adventures of Moroni Smith, the LDS Indiana Jones! The long-awaited second episode in the Moroni Smith LDS adventure series, _Moroni Smith: In Search of the Gold Plates_ is now available as an e-book at the Zion's Fiction web page: http://www.zfiction.com - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2000 14:08:25 From: Marilyn Brown Subject: Re: [AML] TARR, _The Gathering Storm_ (Review) I appreciated Jeff Needle's careful review of THE GATHERING STORM. Just a question which seems related--has anyone in our group taken up the LEFT BEHIND series whose #7 book is now first on the New York Times bestseller list? It's supposed to be about prophecy. Maybe we've discussed it alread= y when I wasn't here? Anyway, if you do know about it, could you encapsuliz= e it and give your opinion for me? Jerry Jenkins and LaHey (sp?) are the authors. Thanks, if anybody knows. Marilyn Brown - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2000 13:14:03 PDT From: "Jason Steed" Subject: Re: [AML] _The Real World_ I admit I find this distressing. Of course a Mormon would draw ratings and viewers, for the reasons you mention (natural conflicts, etc). I am most distressed by what I think will be the almost inevitable attempts to "break her," as you say--I can only hope and pray she's strong enough to withstand it all. What is secondarily distressing is the way she will undoubtedly be portrayed (as evidenced by the brief description of her). They're already setting her up as someone who, largely due to her Mormonism, doesn't know much (hasn't experienced much of the world), and is about to learn. As for how we present ourselves, and how we appear... In this girl's case, it really won't matter HOW she presents herself. TV, like all forms of media (including novels, plays, movies, magazines, etc.), is a strictly _mediated_ mode of communication. They'll make her look the way they want her to look, not the way she presents herself. This is the problem not just with non-Mormon accounts of Mormons/Mormonism, but also Mormon accounts as well. We can't escape the mediating nature of what we do. This is why we're so strongly encouraged in the scriptures to "find out for ourselves"--it is very difficult to rely on what is conveyed by someone else, whether Mormon or non-Mormon. My concern, then, about the way this girl will be portrayed on _The Real World_ is that many of the "readers" of the show (like many of the readers of Kushner, Orgasmo, etc.) will take the portrayal for what it claims to be: namely, "The Real World." Jason ________________________________________________________________________ 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: Wed, 21 Jun 2000 13:16:54 PDT From: "Eric D. Snider" Subject: Re:[AML] Movie Ratings >Nice piece of research. However one point reagrding PG & PG13 films is not >covered and I believe it should be mentioned. > >Any motion picture in the Science Fiction or Fantasy genre which would have >been >rated G is always rated PG by the industry. PG because it contains >scientific >material which could possibly be true, but is probably not. Likewise, a >Sci-Fi >or Fantasy film which includes mild violence will be rated PG13 instead of >PG >just because it is Sci-Fi or Fantasy. Example of that not being true: "Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace" was a sci-fi/fantasy film that included mild violence that was rated PG. >One more little tidbit: A violent film that would have been rated PG13, >which >contains one or more "F---" words, is immediately reclassified as "R." > I guess it depends on your definition of "violent," but "Titanic" certainly had violence and death, had two F-words, and remained PG-13. You would know better than I would, since you were on the MPAA board at one point (how recently, out of curiosity?), but from an outsider's perspective, it seems like there are very few hard-and-fast rules that they follow. I'd be interested to know what, if any, set-in-stone rules they had when you served on the board, because I'd like to see if they always followed them. I suspect that whatever rigid guidelines they have, they disregard them fairly often, depending on the movie. Eric D. Snider ________________________________________________________________________ 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: Wed, 21 Jun 2000 15:54:36 -0400 From: debbro@voyager.net Subject: Re: [AML] LDS Church Magazines Are Going Online (fwd) What kind of curriculum support materials are they talking about? Is it going to cut down on the interesting material that is there now for the members who don't teach a class? I have a hard time reading the Ensign now all the way through. Debbie Brown - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2000 14:24:07 -0600 From: Neal Kramer Subject: Re: [AML] (Andrew's Poll) Best LDS Novel of the 1990s Todd Petersen wrote: >I'm sorry to sound disparaging or disheartening, but they're still saying, >for the most part, that they "don't publish novels because Mormons don't >read fiction." Of course, _The Work and the Glory_ and _The Children of the Promise_ belie such statements. Those books have mad Deseret and Bookcraft a nice chunk of change. > >Actually in conversations I had last summer with editors at Deseret and >Signature, the point came across that "Mormons who read fiction don't >generally like to read MORMON fiction." Also, Signature said that they're >putting a moratorium on fiction for a while because fiction always loses >money. > These people don't read exclusively Mormon fiction, but every Relief Society reading group out there reads one LDS book per year. The waiting lists at local libraries (in Utah) are sometimes hugely long. Signature faces a peculiarly difficult challenge. With the Utah stigma that they are an "anti" press, most LDS readers think what they publish will at least disparage their faith or might include distasteful sexuality, or something not up to their standards. >The people on this list are the exception which does not support the rule. The Yorgason brothers alone, who each publish at least one novel with Deseret every year, have published between them more twenty LDS novels. And no one on this list reads their books! :) Every holiday, Deseret Book advertises novels as gifts. They have a burgeoning fiction business. I could go into Deseret Book today and find thirty Mormon novels on the shelf. I'd find more mainstream American fiction. But that doesn't mean that Mormons don't like to read Mormon fiction. They just don't read it exclusively. Maybe all the gentiles are buying the Mormon fiction :) Neal Kramer - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2000 13:23:34 PDT From: "Eric D. Snider" Subject: Re: [AML] BLUTH/GOLDMAN, _Titan A.E._ >>Apparently they forgot to screen it for nudity. The male character has >>full rear nudity in one scene. The female character _could_ have had >>full nudity in another scene, but they discreetly avoided it. This is an >>interesting phenomenon to me. Why is male nudity often considered >>humorous--and semi-harmless--while female nudity is generally considered >>scandalous? > >I disagree. Full frontal *male* nudity is a huge film rating no-no (I >believe it warrants NC-17? if there's any camera time spent on it at all? >and few commercial films really want that rating.) Not true. Several R-rated films have contained frontal male nudity, even dwelled on it for a few seconds, and remained R. Some examples include "Any Given Sunday," "Wilde," "Monty Python's Life of Brian," "The Crying Game." >Apparently rear nudity for either sex rates a PG-13 (or is it >even PG now? I think I've seen such on TV). Hide it in shadows, and keep it fleeting, and make it non-sexual, and you can get away with a PG, generally. At least that seems to be the way things generally go. It definitely seems to be the case that if the nudity is non-sexual, that helps it avoid the R rating. The nudity in "Titan A.E." is intended to be humorous and is definitely non-sexual (plus, it's just a cartoon, and not real). This makes sense to me: Most people are not as offended when the characters are just naked, as opposed to when they're naked because they're having sex. Note the extended rear male nudity scenes in "Waking Ned Divine" - -- a PG-rated movie, even though you saw those old men's naked butts for a looooong time. Why? Not sexual, not titillating, and played for laughs. Eric D. Snider ________________________________________________________________________ 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: Wed, 21 Jun 2000 14:41:36 -0600 From: Margaret Young Subject: Re: [AML] Race and Culture in LDS Lit. If we're limited to fiction, then the list gets smaller than if it could include biographies and autobiographies. Pretty much everything Bishop Michael Fillerup writes deals--beautifully--with Native Americans (Navajos). Marilyn Brown's _Earthkeepers_ was mentioned. Virginia Sorensen had a story about a black man who everyone assumed (falsely) was costumed as a ghost at a Halloween party--but I forget the title. A bunch of my stories deal with African Americans and Mayan Indians. There is, clearly, quite a LACK of diversity in our fiction though, isn't there. Michael Fillerup and I once chatted about doing a collection of stories (various authors) from many cultures--but I suspect he's as busy as I am, so we haven't pursued that at all. Maybe someone else should catch that ball and run with it. - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2000 16:42:19 -0600 From: "J. Scott Bronson" Subject: Re: [AML] BLUTH/GOLDMAN, _Titan A.E._ Someone said: > > Why is male nudity often considered humorous--and > > semi-harmless--while female nudity is generally > > considered scandalous? To which Linda Adams replied: > I disagree. Full frontal *male* nudity is a huge film rating no-no > (I believe it warrants NC-17? if there's any camera time spent on > it at all? And now I have something to say: It all depends. Despite any statements by some that this particular image or that particular word garners an automatic G, or PG or PG13 or so on, it just ain't true. A friend of mine was on the MPAA ratings board before she moved to Texas and the theory behind the process is that every film is judged independantly of every other film. From what I can tell in watching movies, this idea bears out for the most part. How else do you explain the fact that "Basic Instinct" and "Last of the Mohicans" both have an R rating? "Basic Instinct" begins with a graphic sex scene; a nude woman rather aggressively engaged with a man who remains unseen. After a few minutes of this the woman begins stabbing the man with an ice pick and blood splashes onto her naked breasts. And that's just the beginning. This movie has several sex scenes that pretty much all give one the idea that sex is a violent act. Lots of swearing and killing and drinking and drug use going on throughout. On the other hand, "Last of the Mohicans" has no swearing, no sex (one kiss), no nudity at all, no drug abuse including drinking, but it does have violence. "Basic Instinct" has not one single positive image regarding family or religion, while "Last of the Mohicans" has several. Here's where we get into the sticky nature of this whole issue. The ratings are largely a product of the times. Currently, the ratings are hard on violence and easy on sex. And context has a lot to do with it too. My wife and I watched "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" the other night. Rated R for violence. Again, a movie with no, or very little sex, no nudity, no swearing, but plenty of violence; almost cartoonish in nature, but in keeping with the hysterical nature of a horror story. I told my wife that I saw just the same sort of things in GP rated movies (that tells you how old I am) like "Lawman" and "House of Dark Shadows" and "Night of the Living Dead" and so on back in the early seventies. "THX 1138" had a few occasions of female frontal nudity. There was some in "Valdez is Coming" and other movies as well. All rated GP. Nothing is "automatic." Speaking of context, I won't let my kids watch the "Home Alone" movies because the violence is mishandled in my opinion. This came home dramatically when I was explaining to my home teacher why I would let my ten-year-old watch "Last of the Mohicans" but not "Home Alone." I asked my son what happens when someone gets shot with an arrow, or beaten with an ax. Almost reverently he said, "They die." And what happens when someone gets a bucket of bricks dumped on his head? He giggled and said, "I don't know, but it's funny." He had seen "Home Alone" at a neighbor's house. What about male nudity? Again, it depends on the context. "A Room With a View" has a scene with three men cavorting nude in and around a pond which includes full frontal nudity. Rated PG-13. Yes, but that wasn't in a sexual context. Correct. Showing a nude man in a sexual context would probably require seeing him in a state of arousal and that's an automatic X or NC-17 ... unless it's in sillouette ("Broadcast News") or disembodied (The glow-in-the-dark profilactic fight scene in that silly John Ritter film that I can't remember the title of) and it must be funny. Laughing at sex can bring the rating down in some cases it seems. I get the feeling, too, that subject matter -- regardless of how intelligently or gently it is dealt with -- can hike the rating in some cases. Just some things kids shouldn't talk about apparently. Intensity of storytelling can be a factor as well; "Conspiracy Theory" is a good example of that. No "F" words at all, not much swearing besides, no sex, no nudity, some violence. In particlar, there is a torture scene that's pretty intense though almost completely bloodless. Getting back to the positive images of family or religion. That simply is not a factor in rating a film. It all seems to be based on content in certain contexts. The message of the movie is not a consideration. If it were, "The Little Mermaid" should be rated R. J. Scott Bronson--The Scotted Line "World peace begins in my home" - -------------------------------------------------------- We are not the acolytes of an abstruse god. We are here to entertain--Keith Lockhart - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2000 16:47:21 -0600 From: "Thom Duncan" Subject: RE: [AML] BLUTH/GOLDMAN, _Titan A.E._ > -----Original Message----- > From: owner-aml-list@lists.xmission.com > [mailto:owner-aml-list@lists.xmission.com]On Behalf Of Richard R. > Hopkins > Sent: Wednesday, June 21, 2000 1:07 PM > To: aml-list@lists.xmission.com > Subject: Re: [AML] BLUTH/GOLDMAN, _Titan A.E._ > > > I was curious to read in this article of the Utah origin and > raising of Don > Bluth. I'm curious if there is a different Don Bluth in the animation > business than the one I grew up with in Santa Monica Stake, > California. Don > and Fred Bluth were great entertainers in our Stake and formed the Bluth > Bros. Theater there, in which my wife, the then Cherry (short for > Cherilyn) > Baker, and her cousin, the then Tamara Fowler, participated extensively. > Don, who then did all the sets, went on to animation at Disney, I thought, > and is the Don Bluth of current animation fame, but as far as I > know, he was > raised in So Cal, not Utah. Does anybody know what the deal is? > > Richard Hopkins It's the same guy. I knew of him while living in So. Cal in the 60's and 70's. I was in the Torrance Stake, BTW, and we always thought the dances at the Santa Monica Stake were better than ours. Thom - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2000 16:52:53 -0600 From: Jacob Proffitt Subject: Re: [AML] BLUTH/GOLDMAN, _Titan A.E._ On Wed, 21 Jun 2000 13:43:42 -0600, Thom Duncan wrote: >> I disagree. Full frontal *male* nudity is a huge film rating no-no (I >> believe it warrants NC-17?=20 >> if there's any camera time spent on it at all? > >No. R.=20 > >> Not that I want to see films with full frontal nudity anyway, of = either >> sex. I'm just making a point that the rating system, again, is unfair = and >> seems traditionally more biased toward exploiting women's bodies, not = the >> other way around. (Then again, I didn't see "The Full Monty"--anyone = know >> if I'm wrong in my assessment here? Was it rated R or NC-17? Did it = really >> contain frontal male nudity? Anyone know the actual rating standards = they >> go by when rating nudity?) > >No frontal nudity in "Monty." I forget the rating, but it was >definitely not NC-17. > >NC-17 is reserved for films of explicit sexual scenes, not just nudity >per se. ANY frontal male nudity is an automatic NC-17. This became a huge issue when Bruce Willis wanted to do a scene in a recent movie (I wish I could remember which one) where he has a brief frontal shot. His point was = that his female costar had a full frontal nudity scene that *was* sexual in nature, but he had a brief flash that wasn't even sexual, yet they had to cut *his* scene in order to get the R. They may make exceptions for = artsy stuff (Didn't "A Room with a View" have an R rating and show a skinny dipping scene?) but the issue with Bruce was recent and hit Entertainment Weekly. Count on Bruce Willis to make a scene about it (pun intended, = with apologies). Jacob [Proffitt] - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2000 16:56:09 -0600 From: "Thom Duncan" Subject: RE: [AML] Editing Ethics > Ok, true. Most writers accept suggestions and then take credit > for them. But > I think the spirit of this relationship (between the suggestion giver and > the suggestion taker) is such that this is ok--the suggestions > are _meant_ > to be taken (or not taken), and usually the giver doesn't expect > credit--though often there is some acknowledement made to those who help > with a piece (especially if it's a book, where there is space for an > acknowledgements page). > > What you're suggesting, though, Thom, is very disturbing to me. You're > flaunting a sense of dishonesty (which I'm not sure is intended--I don't > know you well enough). You don't seem to give any nod to the > notion that one > must give credit where credit is due; if the credit is good, you > want it In the context of producing a play or screenplay, collaboration with others is always a part of it. Often suggestions are made to change a line here or there. It is not required under those circumstances to give everyone who made a suggestion credit. On the other hand, my composer, Mark Gelter, while writing the music, made some changes to lyrics. So much so that I give him credit by saying Book and Lyrics by Thom Duncan, Music and Additional Lyrics by Mark Steven Gelter. The one entire scene he wrote was not enough, we agreed, to warrant giving him co-book credits. > --if > not, you don't (in fact you'll fight against it). What kind of > priciple are > you promoting? When the show was first produced, back at BYU, my director didn't like the way the show ended with the abrupt death of Joseph Smith, no finale, nothing. So, without consulting me, he forced the issue of having Joseph dress in white, and come out in a reprise, as if everything was hunky-dory. I protested this, but he was the director and the implicit agreement between writer and director was that he had the final word, so my protestations fell on deaf ears. When I staged the show again, I removed that ending. > How would you feel about Isaiah taking credit for what he wrote, > because it > was good, without acknowledging God? Well, I personally believe that Isaiah was written by two different individuals generations apart, both known as Isaish, so I guess I don't a problem with that. In fact, it was quite common in biblical times for authors of books to pretend to be someone else to lend their book credence. For example, there is some indications that Moses didn't actually write the books attributed to him. Thom - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2000 16:48:48 -0600 From: "Richard R. Hopkins" Subject: Re: [AML] _The Real World_ - -----Original Message----- From: Jason Steed To: aml-list@lists.xmission.com Date: Wednesday, June 21, 2000 4:27 PM Subject: Re: [AML] _The Real World_ >I admit I find this distressing. Of course a Mormon would draw ratings and >viewers, for the reasons you mention (natural conflicts, etc). I am most >distressed by what I think will be the almost inevitable attempts to "break >her," as you say--I can only hope and pray she's strong enough to withstand >it all. Not to fear Jason. From what I've read, the living period is over and has been fully filmed and the girl has stated unequivocally that she was faithful to her LDS beliefs throughout that time. Richard Hopkins - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 13:24:26 -0500 From: Edgar Snow (by way of Jonathan Langford ) Subject: [AML] (Curiouser & Curiouser) How I Became a Mormon Humor Apologist [MOD: Herewith we welcome back to AML-Mag Ed Snow's Mormon humor column, which he informs me will be coming out on a roughly every-two-weeks basis. Selections from Ed's earlier column, Of Curious Workmanship, have been published in a volume from Signature Books. It is to laugh--quite heartily, I might add.] Ed CURIOUSER & CURIOUSER: MORMON MUSINGS "How I Became a Mormon Humor Apologist" by Edgar C. Snow, Jr. Six months into my mission I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. Hugh Nibley. He knew everything, wrote with style, and through it all, bore a fervent testimony. I had learned that Brother Nibley read nearly every book in the Berkeley library, so upon returning to BYU after my mission, in order to imitate my hero, I decided to do the same, except on a more modest scale. I went to the "Mormon Studies" section of the BYU library and lifted every book on the shelves, took a couple of notes, and started writing. By the time I finished my junior year, I submitted what I thought to be a groundbreaking paper to F.A.R.M.S. favorably comparing Meroitic Egyptian hieroglyphs to the Anthon transcript (recently discovered by Mark Hoffmann). In those halcyon days, every morning as I rolled out of bed I repeated to myself, "Happy is the man who finds his life's work," a quote I had memorized from Nietsche I think, or Proust, or Plato, or maybe Elvis, I can't remember now, but I was happy indeed. Happy, that is, until F.A.R.M.S. rejected my paper. I was stunned. When I complained to my roommate about my misfortune, he patted me on the shoulder and, to consol me said, "Ed, let's face it. You know a mere smattering of ancient history, even less about ancient languages, and you're not too smart. You're an English major, for crying out loud! No one is ever going to take you seriously. Get over it and go to law school." So I took his advice. During law school at the University of Tennessee, I managed to hang on to my dream to defend the faith by magnifying my church callings. I taught the 12-13 year old lessons during Sunday school, an experience in self-defense at any rate, and the elder's quorum lessons, a position akin to that of referee. And thanks to a kindly Institute Director, Bob Cloward, I was allowed, in spite of my sophomoric antics and outbursts, to teach at the LDS Institute on campus. But the urge to write something profound like Nibley and make an enduring contribution, not just to teach, itched inside. And the more I scratched, the more it itched. I decided to change genres after discovering a poetic vein in my wrists, attributable no doubt to my relation to Eliza R. Snow (our lines cross a generation before Adam). I let some blood flow into some very bad, moody Mormon poetry. After law school, I continued to write poetry as a young practicing attorney, finding that the "WHEREAS" clauses I wrote in contracts for bank clients actually helped my style for a while, made it more precise, more classical, or at least more Latinate. With my brow knotted as I brooded in verse at wee hours of the night, I felt very ... significant, until I read one day that more people actually write poetry than read it. For a time my cheeks burned with betrayal as I suffered like Job. My testimony was shaken. Why would an all powerful, all loving God make me suffer by instilling in me an overwhelming desire to write something that no one will ever read, not even my mother willingly? So then I turned to write short stories. I discovered I could write about people who, incidentally, were poets and apologists, combining my previous interests, and that way I could still write the poetry and theology I had struggled to write earlier, just under the pseudonym of one of my characters. And since the short story market was bigger than the poetry market, this seemed like the ideal vehicle. I was soon practicing law in Baltimore, married, and teaching gospel doctrine. I had even sent some stories, poetry, and stories with poetry in them, to independent Mormon journals, but preparing myself for those inevitable rejection letters that writing books warn you about, you know, with titles like: Write and Publish Your Own Novel in 10 Days, Or Your Money Back; Drawing On the Author Inside You and Plagarizing His Work; Using Verbs and Nouns to Make Your Writing Live; and Write Romance Novels While You Sleep. If I could only publish a few stories, I thought, it might justify the issuance of a short story collection and, before I knew it, I'd be on my way toward a best-selling novel in the yet to be recognized genre of Mormon apologist/poet action/mystery/thriller. Thankful that a stupor of thought was better than no thought at all, I continued writing away. At the same time, I began writing a personal essay column many of you will remember called "Of Curious Workmanship" for AML-List, thinking of my writing some non-fiction as a kind of cross-training exercise. My column consisted of ruminations over "outakes" from my gospel doctrine class at church. It just so happened that as I was researching faith-promoting materials for my class on the Doctrine and Covenants I'd consistently dig up some really curious materials that were hard to fit into my lessons, but which begged for publication and commentary. Here's an example of what I found, an item I included in my essay "The Gift of Tongues," which also features an anecdote about a newly-baptized sister on my mission serving me, appropriately, beef tongue, for dinner. I came across this odd item embedded in a conference report in the Times and Seasons (vol. 4, p. 70), while searching for materials for my upcoming New Testament class on the Pentecost portion of Acts: "Elder Snow then addressed the meeting, and stated the method they had adopted in the London conference of raising funds for the temple, which was by holding tea meetings, at which times anyone wishing to appropriate anything to this purpose had the opportunity. Elder S[now] concluded his address by singing beautifully in tongues." Fascinating, isn't it? When was the last time you watched a General Conference speaker, his gaze shifting between the teleprompters, sing in tongues after he promoted tea parties as fundraisers? Just as Jack Welch himself at F.A.R.M.S. had found undiscovered chiastic Hebrew poetry hidden in the pages of the Book of Mormon, I felt I had found undiscovered veins of humor hidden in the pages of Mormon history, scripture and practice. I soon fancied myself a kind of Mormon humor archaeologist. My columns became defenses--as the Greeks called them "apologies"--for the existence of Mormon humor. I was now taking seriously the fact that no one took me seriously. I was turning my weakness into my strength! Following in the footsteps of earlier Mormon humor pioneers, I had finally found my life's work--to convince an unbelieving world that there was indeed something funny about Mormonism. I forgot about poetry, short stories or novels, and finally convinced Signature Books to gamble on a collection of my essays entitled Of Curious Workmanship: Musings on Things Mormon. My goal is to sell enough copies of my book to cover my tithing expenses. Don't laugh; it's entirely possible, if I can just get my income down to about $5,000 a year. And now, as if in confirmation of my new-found calling of Mormon Humor Apologist, Elder Faust up and writes a First Presidency Message titled "The Need for Balance in Our Lives," a message mainly about humor (Ensign, March 2000). Now you have to promise not to tell anyone, but I have heard from my secret source in Salt Lake City this article was written in order to prepare the church for two confidential forthcoming developments: (i) the establishment of the Strengthening the Members' Sense of Humor Committee, and (ii) the publication of a Mormon Humor Resource Manual. The Strengthening the Members' Sense of Humor Committee, among other things, will be responsible for keeping files on members without a sense of humor and reporting them to their Stake Presidents. One of the many blessings to be derived from the establishment of this Church Humor Committee is supposed to be the production of a manual for members that clearly sets forth the LDS doctrine of humor, a Mormon Humor Manual. The Humor Committee is entertaining the idea that a true sense of humor is perhaps nearly a gift of the Spirit, with some possessing the gift of laughter, others, the gift to make people laugh, although I fully expect the Humor Committee to reject the doctrines associated with the recent so-called "Toronto Blessing." The "Toronto Blessing" made the news a couple of years ago as a Christian "sacred laughter" movement. People would go to church--just for laughs, literally. In 1994, the Toronto Airport Vineyard Fellowship--I'm not making that name up--held some very unusual meetings in which the congregation was moved to laugh uncontrollably, as well as shake, rattle, roll, tremble, wail, cry, run in place, jump up and down, bark and buy Amway and other products from pyramid marketing companies. This was interpreted as a special dispensation of the Spirit, and is reminiscent of similar manifestations experienced by Mormons in the early Kirtland period and denounced by Joseph Smith. Now it's clear we're not supposed to act like that, but what I trust the Humor Committee will clarify for me is whether I'm allowed, morally speaking, to laugh at people who participate in these activities. The Humor Committee will also produce a video of wacky out-takes from church commercials, a kind of "Mormon Bloops, Bleeps and Blunders," that could be ordered, of course, from the Salt Lake distribution center. The Humor Committee might will also sponsor a "Mormonism's Funniest Family Home Evening Videos" on cable TV. The Humor Committee, through the issuance of the Mormon Humor Manual, will be promoting a lost doctrine previously taught by Brigham Young, and no doubt believed by President Hinckley, our own Prophet, Seer, Revelator, and (frequent) Humorist: "I sometimes think God must enjoy humor, and that he won't be strict in reckoning with a humorist" (The Essential Brigham Young, 241). Amen Brother Brigham, amen. And like Moses, I trust the Humor Committee will promote the following motto: "Would God that all the LORD's people were humorists, and that the LORD would put His sense of Humor in them." ===== My collection of humorous essays entitled _Of Curious Workmanship: Musings on Things Mormon_ has just been released and can be ordered from Signature Books at 1-800-356-5687, or from their website at http://www.signaturebooksinc.com/curious.htm or from Barnes & Noble at http://shop.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=5SLFMY1TYD&mscssid=HJW5QQU1SUS12HE1001PQJ9XJ7F17G3C&srefer=&isbn=1560851368 __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Send instant messages 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 ------------------------------ End of aml-list-digest V1 #77 *****************************