From: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (aml-list-digest) To: aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: aml-list-digest V2 #30 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, April 21 2003 Volume 02 : Number 030 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2003 23:55:52 -0700 From: Harlow S Clark Subject: [AML] Mormon Lit and Civil Rights (was: Value of _Chicago_) On Wed, 09 Apr 2003 10:33:54 Kim Madsen gives an interesting account of _Chicago_ as part of a genre of corruption musicals that include _Cabaret_ (and _Sweeney Todd_, certainly). Perhaps the granddaddy of corruption musicals is Kurt Weil and Bertolt Brecht's _The Threepenny Opera_, and of course, _The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagony_, one set in 17th or 18th century London the other in the American wild west, but both about the moral corruption of 1930's Berlin. > However, there is a subtle underlying message that none of > these people are happy, especially not our heroine, Roxy > Hart. She pushes away a solid, decent man who loves her to > pursue the fleeting honors of the world. Very much like Polly Peachum in The Threepenny Opera, describing how any time she met a good or wealthy man who knew how to treat a woman she'd say "Nein." (I love the way Lotte Lenya sings that.) But when she met Macheath, an evil man who didn't know how to treat a woman, "zu ihm sagte ich nicht 'Nein.'" This always puzzled me. I could understand the lyrics just fine, but I couldn't get to the meaning. Why would not say no to an abusive, evil man? I thought maybe there was some nuance to the German that I wasn't getting. (I'm really dense at times.) My freshman semester at BYU I took a German class from Alan Keele (while we were in the midst of reading some long excerpts from Manifest des Kommunistischen Partei ETB visited campus and said Marx and Engels were inspired by the devil, though I prefer Gunter Grass's rendering of I Korinther 13.1 "Wenn ich mit Marx-Engels zung redete and haette die liebe nicht so waere ich wie ein toenend erz oder ein klingende schell") and he talked about the Threepenny Opera one day and why Weil and Brecht had to flee for their lives. He said Polly's song was their way of telling their country, "You could have had decent leaders, but you pushed them away and chose Hitler instead." So I was supposed to be mystified by why Polly would push away good men. > That was a powerful, poignant moment in the show > and handled very nicely with the cutting between her high dive act, > dressed as a ballerina, and the reality of going to the gallows. > The film seems to say truly guilty go free, the innocent pay. Reminds me of that poignant moment in _The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagony_ where the residents of Mahagony kill Jakob Schmidt because he can't pay his bar bill. Back before my mission my cousin gave me his copy of The Lotte Lenya Album, which he had gotten as a thank you for a donation to KWHO AM, a commercial classical music station in Salt Lake in the 70s (maybe 60s too--I don't think it survived into the 80s as a classical station, though). He didn't appreciate the album much, but I love it. (It's one of my favorites, along with _Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris_, _Side By Side By Sondheim_, _Chorus Line_, _Pacific Overtures_, _Company_, Bernstein's _Mass_, and some others including the album for the late 70's(?) New York revival of _The Threepenny Opera_, set in the 19th century British Empire--"and when they came face to face with a fellow of a different race whose skin was black or yellow, they'd cut him up and make him into beefsteak tartare"--I prefer those lyrics to Eric Bentley's 1949 lyrics in the Grove Press translation) I listened to it over and over, but was always puzzled by the song from Mahagony where Lenya sings, "Ach bendenken sie, Herr Jakob Schmidt was dreissig dollar kaufen kann," (he's just said, "Dreissig dollar, dreck!") She's asking him to consider what thirty dollars can buy, only this and nothing else, but why? $30 is a lot of money, and why is he calling $30 dreck? Shortly after my mission I saw a production on PBS and finally understood that the character is a prostitute trying to convince Jakob Schmidt that her $30 price is nothing in a time of hyperinflation. Towards the end of the play the townspeople arrest, try and execute Jakob for not being able to pay a very small bar tab. Quite a moving and poignant moment, and rather unexpected. I think Brecht and Weil wanted to emphasize that for all its energy and all the great songs it produced, Mahagony really is an evil and corrupt city. > There are these subtle messages the author has woven into > the fabric of a musical about the "haves"--those with money, > power and the right lawyer--getting away with it while the > "have-nots" pay for things they didn't even do. Which deeply offends our American optimism, our sense that we're good people and that right and justice triumph. Alan Keele wrote a paper called "The Terrible Toys," about the sports motif in post-war German fiction. He said that that generation, which includes Gunter Grass and Heinrich Bolle had to confront the evil their country had done, and try and figure out how a country and culture that had given the world Mozart, Schiller, Beethoven, Goethe, Kant, Hegel, and so much else had been able to systematically plan and carry out genocide against 6 million Jews (and six million assorted others, including Gypsies and homosexuals (Tim Slover told me once about a play he saw in London called _Bent_, a very rough play about homosexuals in an extermination camp. I would like to see it.)) Americans have never had to do that kind of soul-searching about our genocide. We won. That may be why I'm trying to read a lot of Native American Lit just now. (Justin Halverson noted how little international lit is on the bedside reading lists, but Native American groups are sovereign nations--(in my fashion, Cynara) does that count?) Of course we've never had to do much soul-searching about our treatment of the Mormons either. We won that, too. That forced exodus across the plains, that was just frontier America being itself. And for that 40 year struggle they put up trying to maintain their twin relic of barbarism, after the battle was clearly lost, those barbarians deserved everything the government did to them. OK, sorry for the heavy hand there. There _has_ been a fair amount of grappling with our nation's actions toward the First Nations. And it's fairly easy to get ahold of, though a good deal of the grappling has been done by the American Indians themselves (with some work by Anglos like Hal Borland, Michael Fillerup, A. E. Cannon and Sharlee Mullins Glenn). We still haven't really grappled as a nation with what we did to the Mormons. Yes, the Mormons have long made a case that their civil rights were violated--deeply violated, but you don't see that claim much in books published by national publishers. I had a pleasant surprise this afternoon. I'm reading a novel by a fellow who grew up in Arizona, not LDS but knew some LDS kids. The narrator is a 16 year old boy whose father fled to Arizona to escape the racism of the Mississippi delta--Got a PhD at Ole Miss after the War then got as far away as he could. Anyway, the narrator goes back because his grandfather has a stroke, and there's a scene where he watches the town bully torture a black kid, and he's so scared he doesn't do anything except yell at the bully to leave the black kid alone. Later he starts to think about his inaction, "Back in Arizona, I'd heard about how the Mormons had been chased out of most places they had lived until they'd finally settled in Utah, a desert nobody wanted. It was hard to believe that Americans could be that cruel to other people just because of religion, or race, or anything" (p. 96). Now that's the first New York published novel I've read since _The Giant Joshua_ that talks about Mormon history in terms of civil rights. The difference is that _Mississippi Trial, 1955_ is not an explicitly Mormon novel, so it feels like the link is coming from outside the culture, and that's probably something we need. (Chris Crowe doesn't do anything to hide his religion. Bio-note says he teaches at BYU and lives in Utah, and there's a wonderful passage where Hiram tells us the names of his brothers and sisters, Joseph, Emma, Eliza and Brigham. The part about growing up non-Mormon is Arizona I learned tonight from the bio-note for Two Roads, which I haven't read yet because Bookcraft's cover makes it sound horribly didactic.) I would like to see another novel that links the struggle to practice polygamy with the struggle for civil rights. It will be called _Seedtime and Harvest_, after Annie Elizabeth Waldron Clark's repeated (and according to her grandson increasingly bitter) comment that as a second, hidden, wife she only saw her husband at seedtime and harvest. (Assuming I can get enough of a grasp of how to write and create characters that I can actually write a novel. (I feel like that Gilbert & Sullivan character, "the very model of a modern major general," who can "tell you every detail of Caracticus's uniform and write you up a laundry list in Babylonic cuneiform," but is flustered to admit that "when I have a grasp of elemental strategy I'll be the greatest major general that ever [gropes around for a rhyme] sategy.") I think we could make some interesting fiction connecting Mormon history with the struggle for civil right. I think Sharlee Glenn could probably do it in the companion piece I hope she writes to Circle Dance, to expand on that wonderful passage where Britta asks Grandpa what happened to make Red Ant Colorow a drunk. "Let me tell you somethin', Britta-girl. One of the most basic rights of any livin' being is the right to be who they are. That's what our Mormon pioneers left everything for back in 1847, left everything and trekked clear across the plains to the Salt Lake Valley. They did it for the right to be Mormon" (113). Grandpa pauses, then says something that makes his comment more than a little sermon on tolerance. "And it does powerful strange things to people when that basic right isn't respected" (114). However, anyone who wants to write about the polygamy persecutions as a civil rights issue has a problem because the culture has renounced polygamy, and even though we're 60 years removed from Joshua The Giant polygamy is still a touchy subject for someone to take up. Of course, there's always humor. I love hearing Johanne Perry's voice inviting, "Folks won't you come to Salt Lake City," and reassuring them, "Don't believe them when they warn you you could lose your life. At most you'd lose your wife." (And it just occurred to me that I'm listening to Julie De Azevedo ( _Dive Deep_ ) rather than _Polly_ as I write this.) Oh, well, it's late. Good night. Harlow S. Clark (still long-winded) - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Apr 2003 00:59:45 -0700 From: Harlow S Clark Subject: Re: [AML] Apologies I've been looking through my drafts folder and found a message from a month ago, that I started replying to, but didn't finish. I guess the tone of the original message is humorous, but it raises an interesting question, and I want to pursue it a bit. On Mon, 17 Mar 2003 21:01:04 -0700 Alan Rex Mitchell writes: > And I sense deep-down that I should be offended by Harlow, > but I'm not sure what he is saying, so I let it ride. Why do you sense you should be offended, Alan? Do you sense that I'm writing in bad faith, or that I intend for you to be offended, or that I write from a viewpoint that personally disparages your own? One of the consequences of my cognitive gift (Hyper-Attention Gift, or HAG--though DSM III-R calls my gift a disorder and my hyper-attention--my ability to attend to many things at once--a deficit of attention. Go figure. No, I should say go pun, since wordplay is the feature of language that allows us to bear hyper-attention on a word or phrase from several viewpoints at once, and to understand all of the viewpoints simultaneously) is that I often don't know how my words will affect people. So if you think you have a moral obligation (which is what should means as a modal of shall) to be offended at me please let me know so I can repent of the offense. Harlow S. Clark (recovering mattress police) ________________________________________________________________ The best thing to hit the internet in years - Juno SpeedBand! Surf the web up to FIVE TIMES FASTER! Only $14.95/ month - visit www.juno.com to sign up today! - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Apr 2003 08:09:37 -0600 From: Steve Perry Subject: Re: [AML] New Deseret Book Catalog On Wednesday, April 16, 2003, at 05:31 AM, Kent S. Larsen II wrote: > At 7:50 PM -0700 4/10/03, you wrote: > Does anyone know if they are charging the publishers for listings, > like the "books and things" catalog? Yes, they charge. Steve - -- skperry@mac.com - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Apr 2003 09:32:05 -0600 From: "Thom Duncan" Subject: RE: [AML] Escaping Faith? >-----Original Message----- >From: owner-aml-list@lists.xmission.com >[mailto:owner-aml-list@lists.xmission.com] On Behalf Of Margaret Young >never read a Duane Crowther book, and I don't know the >controversy that surrounded _Prophecy_ (but I'd like to). One of the biggest controversies was his use of something called "The White Horse Procphecy" (I believe that is its name) purportedly received by Joseph Smith. Its provenance, however, could not be proven, and appeared to have been written post the events it apparently specfically prophesied. The document was considered a fake by the ruling intelligentsia at the time. BTW, if you want to really be entertained, get your hands on an original copy of _Prophecy, Key to the Future_. Some claims for which Brother Crowther even gives dates have come and gone and nothing even remotely similar to what he mentions occurred. >I'll further confess that the whole premise of "life after >life" stories makes me nervous. The study group Bruce and I >belong to read a book describing in detail a "life after life" >experience. The group's response was pretty unanimous: "Why >would this guy not only share but MARKET something so personal >and sacred?" Though I personally think Betty Eadie's book to be a crock of bull, I find this attitude to be overly obsequious. My feeling has always been, that, unless told otherwise, one's own personal revelations ought to be told to anyone under as many circumstances as possible. You find the default all the scripture: tell the people unless God says otherwise. And the idea of marketing sacred things. Let's not forget that early copies of the Book of Mormon were marketed, and the proceeds used by early missionaries as living expenses. Thom Duncan - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Apr 2003 11:27:20 -0600 From: "Bill Willson" Subject: Re: [AML] Mapletree Publishing Company Thank you William Morris for introducing a great resource. I'm excited about this website after only a few minute visit. It's already bookmarked on my favorites list. Bill Willson, writer bmdblu2@atbi.com http://www.laterdaybard.com And here's another new website where you can sell your goods or services, and its FREE! Check it out at: http://www.minutemall.com - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Apr 2003 16:11:50 -0500 (CDT) From: Rich Hammett Subject: [AML] NAIFEH, _Mormon Murders_ Review Available? Does anybody know of a good, critical review of "The Mormon Murders..." by Naifeh? I mean one that examines factual problems, etc? It's being recommended to some friends of mine for its accurate portrayal of mormonism. I looked in the AML archives, but it's not there. rich - -- \ Rich Hammett http://home.hiwaay.net/~rhammett / rhammett@HiWAAY.net To announce that there must be no \ criticism of the President, or that we are to / stand by the President, right or wrong, is not \ only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally / treasonable to the American public. \ -T Roosevelt - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Apr 2003 17:08:43 -0600 From: "D. Michael Martindale" Subject: Re: [AML] Mapletree Publishing Company William Morris wrote: > But I came across this Web site through an > unrelated google search: > > http://www.mapletreepublishing.com/ > > The company claims to be an LDS publishing > company that is not an "LDS publishing company." > The company is located in Iowa, but intends to > reach both national markets and LDS bookstores. Looks interesting, but I have a couple concerns. First of all, I would definitely negotiate on the contract. There are a few things I'd need changed. (Is it now customary for all publishers to pay royalties on the wholesale price? I could have sworn it was retail.) I'm glad to see they ask for first right of refusal only on the next book you write. That's reasonable. Second of all, I still see that nasty word "uplifting" to describe what they'll print. They seem to be trying to do something about the limited LDS market and removing the stranglehold the existing companies have on helpless authors businesswise, but are they still only going to publish Deseret-Book-worthy stuff? I'm glad it'll ostensibly be of higher quality, but I want more variety too. Just how Deseret-Bookish does my manuscript have to be? - -- 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 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Apr 2003 19:27:37 EDT From: gkeystone@aol.com Subject: Re: [AML] Artists' Personal Lives It seems to me that art, even great art, can come from either emotional extreme or from a more middle ground. Although it is often stronger emotion that motivates one to create at all. Maybe that is why God would have us be "hot or cold". Lukewarm water is neither fun to drink or bath in, at least for me. Give me hot or cold anyday. Don't artists create out of a desire to share and make the world a better place to live, even if only their own world? I know writing, speaking, playing my trumpet, or other artistic expressions at least help me to understand my self and give me joy. It seems as one begins a writting project of any size or type, even a personal journal for example, that thoughts and feelings one was often only vagely aware of become stronger and more focused. The ideal, for personal growth and joy, it would seem would be to write or do other art in a way that sanctifies self and shares light and truth with others who experience it. "A testimony", we've been taught, "is to be found in the bearing of it". Isn't art, any art, even the art of living, an exercise or discipline of finding greater fulfillment in everyday things. Everyone I've met in my 57 years seems to have sufficient positive and negative experiences to create from, regardless of the medium they choose to become skilled at, or not. Glen Sudbury - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Apr 2003 17:17:07 EDT From: Derek1966@aol.com Subject: Re: [AML] New Deseret Book Catalog In a message dated 4/17/03 06:35:56 PM, klarsen@mormonstoday.com writes: << Does anyone know if they are charging the publishers for listings, like the "books and things" catalog? >> Yes, they are....I don't have the most recent charge list, but you pay for the size of the ad. They send out emails with the rates occasionally. John Perry Provo - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ End of aml-list-digest V2 #30 *****************************