From: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (aml-list-digest) To: aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: aml-list-digest V1 #111 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, July 24 2000 Volume 01 : Number 111 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2000 23:01:39 EDT From: Larry Jackson Subject: [AML] BRADSHAW, _The Creative Mind_ Last Sunday's SL Trib article on LDS composer Merrill Bradshaw mentioned that he recently completed work on a book entitled, _The Creative Mind_. Is anyone familiar with this work? Larry Jackson ________________________________________________________________ YOU'RE PAYING TOO MUCH FOR THE INTERNET! Juno now offers FREE Internet Access! Try it today - there's no risk! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2000 21:32:09 -0600 From: "Gae Lyn Henderson" Subject: RE: [AML] Great Authors Tony Markham said: > > So if alienation and marginalization serve the same role in > elevating women > writers to greatness that being a blind, drunk, sorcerer served > for Milton, > Faulkner, and Yeats, then I'd say a few things here about women > (not just the > writers) and the Mormon Church if this were the kind of list that > allowed such > things to be said, which it isn't. So I won't. Tony, please phrase it so it will work on the list, but don't just frustrate us with your unsaid provocations. > > PS. This is a pretty great list. We've got Mormons who listen > to Tom Waits and > who start the day with an Oooom. Next thing, someone will > confess to chanting > Nam Myoho Renge Kyo to the tune of "O My Father." Doesn't everyone? I'm not confessing--yet, but I'm pretty interested in chanting. Anyone want to start a thread on this? It fits into the literary notion of "marked," "special," "distinctive" language--investing such words with transformative power--? Gae Lyn Henderson - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2000 23:01:39 EDT From: Larry Jackson Subject: [AML] The Onion Skewers Mormons The Onion is very strict about what it prints. It doesn't accept outside submissions at all, ... _______________ I vote not an insider, but it easily could have been. Maybe the miscapitalizing of the name of the Church and the crossing of the street to the temple for religious classes was just part of the skewering. I've written satire and intentionally changed things to make the piece funnier, or at least to pull the chain a little more firmly. I loved the names, especially the math teacher. And if the author wasn't LDS, then I vote he or she was Jewish ("the covenant people of the Lord!" and "heir to the ancient covenant between God and Abraham.") Larry Jackson ________________________________________________________________ YOU'RE PAYING TOO MUCH FOR THE INTERNET! Juno now offers FREE Internet Access! Try it today - there's no risk! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2000 23:14:57 -0600 From: Thom Duncan Subject: [AML] Re: Good Writing Eileen wrote: > > >I don't buy the whole romantic argument, personally. Writing is hard work. > >Research is very hard work. Writers DO have to know something; inspiration > >only comes after you've put in the grunt work. At least that's my > experience. > > >Eric Samuelsen > > Here! Here! I am in complete concord. The non-inspired always think that the inspired artist just sort of sits back and lets the words flow. This is the fallacy, not that there are no inspired artists. The reason the non-inspired think that is that the inspired artist makes it look so easy; he/she hides the hard work behind the scenes. - -- 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: Fri, 21 Jul 2000 23:29:31 -0600 From: Eileen Stringer Subject: Re: [AML] The Onion Skewers Mormons .> << (An insider wouldn't have said the Book of Helaman was boring, for > example. 2 Nephi, sure.) > > Eric Samuelsen >> > > Oh, Eric: Speak for yourself. I think much like Mark Twain that the entire > Book of Mormon is boring. > Violet Kimball Oh I don't know about the *whole* Book of Mormon.....I laughed right out loud at Ed's references in Alma asserting their was humor in the Book of Mormon - I have found some pretty decent drama as well....but I have been told I am unorthodox in my tastes for reading.... This Book has kept me awake during high council. If nothing else it can be a lesson in POV for - when is it Mormon and when is it not? :) Eileen eileens99@bigplanet.com - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2000 00:16:43 -0600 From: "D. Michael Martindale" Subject: Re: [AML] Genre Todd Robert Petersen wrote: > The reason I stopped reading Science > Fiction and fantasy is that it almost always relied on allegory of one kind > or another in order to make its thematic points... I think allegory is a bit strong of a word. Allegory is a specific literary form that is especially artificial and forced (and greatly disliked by the greatest fantasy writer of them all: J.R.R. Tolkien). I think you need a broader term here. > When I came to that conclusion, I thought to myself, "Why not cut out the > middle man and comment on culture directly?" To me it takes a little more > courage to, for example, castigate racism by talking about racism in the > world we live in than to make up some Sneetches or whatever and use them as > puppets for the culture. But will the ones who need to hear you listen, if you use a direct-on approach? - -- D. Michael Martindale dmichael@wwno.com ================================== Check out Worldsmiths, the new online LDS writers group, at http://www.wwno.com/worldsmiths Sponsored by Worlds Without Number http://www.wwno.com ================================== - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2000 02:09:46 PDT From: "Jason Steed" Subject: Re: [AML] Good Writing Regarding Plato and Harlow's long post: It's been some time since I've studied my Plato. But as I recall, it wasn't so much that art is merely imitation and can never achieve the realm of ideal/idea that made it undesirable for Plato; rather, it was that Plato had constructed a hierarchy of knowledge and the means for obtaining it. In that hierarchy, the realm of ideals/ideas rated the highest and provided the truest, purest knowledge. At the bottom of the scale was art, which was lower than the material world (a copy of the ideal) because it was the copy of a copy, and the best it could provide was conjecture (as opposed to true, pure knowledge). So it wasn't that art couldn't achieve the ideal, it was that it couldn't provide the highest form of knowledge. I, personally, have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I tend to disagree with Plato because I think there are ways of knowing, and bits of knowledge, that I only obtain through art--knowledge that comes not by reason or rational (logos), but through the mythos and pathos art can provide. On the other hand, Plato's realm of ideals/ideas is divine in nature, and it seems one might relate a communion with that realm to a communion with the divine--a sort of revelation (that provides the truest knowledge). He may not have the details right, but part of me does understand how he might mistrust art--which can so easily be misinterpreted, misused, misguided, etc. (hence, the relegation of it to the realms of 'conjecture' rather than 'knowledge'). Take, for example, the scriptures. They are much, much closer to a work of art than a doctrinal, theological or philosophical treatise; they rely much more on mythos and pathos than logos, and in fact John replaces the Greek notion of logos (reason) with God, when he uses the Greek word (logos) to say that "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." In this passage, logos is translated as 'word' and equated with God. And this is not the elevation of logos to god-like status (the Greeks had already done this), but the replacement of logos with God--an abstraction, known not through reason but primarily through myth and emotion. On the one hand, as I was saying, art (such as the scriptures) provides a knowledge that cannot be had through mere reason--thus I would disagree with Plato's disdain for it. But on the other hand--well, look at the confusion that art like the scriptures has caused, or at least facilitated. In Plato's ideal state, the scriptures would not be allowed, because they can provide only conjecture--in and of themselves, they offer no true or pure knowledge. They be interpreted in myriad ways, to suit the fancy of the interpreter. It is only through direct communion with the divine (for us Mormons that means revelation, the Spirit--what Plato might call his realm of ideals/ideas) that true knowledge is gained. And though Plato, again, misses all the details, part of me says he was close--on the right track maybe. I think art is the attempt at some form of knowledge, and the quest for knowledge is always necessary and valuable; thus art is necessary and valuable, especially as a right-brained, mythical alternative to left-brained reason. But I do wonder how necessary art will be after this life. Is it possible that the Mormon version of Plato's Republic is the Millenium? (Instead of an ideal philosophical state with a philosopher-ruler, we'll have a theocracy--which seems a fair enough parallel.) And is it possible that in that state, wherein we will have direct access to the divine, to true and pure knowledge, through what I can only presume will be daily direct revelation--is it possible that in that state, the ambiguity and uncertainty of art will not only be no longer necessary, but no longer desirable? (Plato allowed poets into his ideal state, but only to sing praises to the state, etc.--can we imagine anything other than hymns of praise in the presence of Deity?) I don't know. I really don't know. Again, I'm of two minds on this. But I don't think Plato's as "out there" as some seem to believe... 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: Sat, 22 Jul 2000 01:27:07 PDT From: "Jason Steed" Subject: Re: [AML] Great Authors >Though Sharlee closed with a grin, I have given serious lawn-mowing thought >to >her list. I simply don't know much about George Eliot because the last >time a >teacher took her seriously enough to teach, it was after recess and we had >to >lay our heads on our desks while she read out loud. Sad but true. Don't >shoot >me, I'm only the messenger. Your teacher read Eliot to you in grade school? FYI (in case you weren't aware), Eliot is taken very seriously at the college level, and taught often. >Toni Morrison, a youngest child, all older brothers. She was "The Pretty >One." >And straight-A's. Her father adored her and doted on her and rained >favoritism >and one day her brothers were goofing with a BB gun and shot her in the >eye. >Big, blue cataract--blind. Grades plummeted, self-image plummeted, >alienated >and marginalized. The Bluest Eye. Actually, if I'm not mistaken, it was Alice Walker whose eye was put out. Toni Morrison still sees with both. _The Bluest Eye_ is her first novel, and I haven't read it; but if it's about losing an eye, it is not (again, as far as I know) autobiographical--at least with respect to eyesight. >So if alienation and marginalization serve the same role in elevating women >writers to greatness that being a blind, drunk, sorcerer served for Milton, >Faulkner, and Yeats, then I'd say a few things here about women (not just >the >writers) and the Mormon Church if this were the kind of list that allowed >such >things to be said, which it isn't. So I won't. How was Yeats a sorcerer? >My .02 is that both Woolf and O'Connor died too young to fully realize >their >greatness. Same with John Keats and Poe. O'Connor left an all-too-small >legacy >of short stories and only the one novel, "Wise Blood." I've loved her work >since the first time I read it and time has only made the pain of her early >death more acute. Ach! What we lost! She had a second novel: _The Violent Bear it Away_. I too am a great admirer of Keats and O'Connor, and lament their untimely deaths. But both seemed to know that death would come early, and I wonder if that didn't increase their greatness. IOW, perhaps they would not have been so great had they not been overshadowed by impending doom. Or perhaps, had they lived, they might have gone on, like Wordsworth or Emerson, to produce works that arguably lessened or compromised their greatness. >Toni Morrison, great initials! But it's too soon to tell about her >writing. A >person has to wait a bit for any lasting greatness to become apparent. >It's >great that she won the Nobel Prize. They don't just give those things >away. >Wait, yes they do. She could be, potentially, half as good as Milton. I'm not sure it's too early for Morrison. She's been around since the early '70s at least, and many felt the Pulitzer for _Beloved_ was LONG overdue. No, I think it's safe to proclaim her greatness. She's easily among the best novelists of the 20th century, at any rate. But Milton seems an odd comparison...I would hold her up against Faulkner. 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 ------------------------------ End of aml-list-digest V1 #111 ******************************