Orson Scott Card and R-Rated Movies

I'm reprinting this with no one's permission. I think it raises some fascinating points.

Is There an R-rated Movie Commandment?
by Orson Scott Card
May 15, 2004

It saddens me, but does not surprise me, that most of responses I've received from LDS readers about my review of Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ were devoted to chastising me for "defying the prophets" by counseling people to see an R-rated movie while "scoffing at those who are obedient."

I never scoff at those who are obedient to the prophets.

But yes, I do have a low opinion of those who take a piece of wise counsel completely out of context, turn it into a general rule that was never intended, and then use it to persecute others for being less righteous than they are.

This past Sunday, for instance, which was a testimony meeting in some wards, one sister (who later wrote to me) stood up and bore her testimony about how seeing The Passion had brought new awareness to her of the meaning of the sacrament.

At the end of the meeting, the bishop's counselor, in an obvious rebuke, told the members, "I would just like to say that our church does not condone going to see R-rated movies based on their violence, graphic and sexual content."

Then, at the end of a joint priesthood/Relief Society meeting that same day, a member of the stake presidency "challenged" members not to go to see The Passion of the Christ.

So here we had two local leaders of the Church, specifically charging their members not to go see the very movie that the world was condemning because it was too Christian -- and all because they apparently believed there is a Church commandment forbidding members ever, under any circumstances, to go to an R-rated movie.

But what is the truth? (You remember, the thing that will set you free, if you take the trouble to find out what it is.)

Only one President of the Church has made an official statement that mentioned R-rated movies. On three occasions, President Ezra Taft Benson, when speaking specifically to the youth of the Church, mentioned films so rated.

Here is an actual quotation, in its context. I know it will be a lot of trouble for some people to read what the prophet actually said instead of merely repeating a rumor of it as a means of condemning other Saints -- but now and then it's worth it, don't you think?

Remember, President Benson is speaking to the young men of the Church when he says:

"Consider carefully the words of the prophet Alma to his errant son, Corianton, 'Forsake your sins, and go no more after the lusts of your eyes.' (Alma 39:9.)

"'The lusts of your eyes.' In our day, what does that expression mean?

"Movies, television programs, and video recordings that are both suggestive and lewd.

"Magazines and books that are obscene and pornographic.

"We counsel you, young men, not to pollute your minds with such degrading matter, for the mind through which this filth passes is never the same afterwards. Don't see R-rated movies or vulgar videos or participate in any entertainment that is immoral, suggestive, or pornographic. Don't listen to music that is degrading" (Ensign, May 1986, p 43).

The mention of R-rated movies is clearly linked to a specific goal -- keeping one's mind free of entertainment that is "immoral, suggestive, or pornographic." The purpose of the Prophet's wise counsel is to keep us from entertainment that will excite sexual lust in an inappropriate context.

That is absolutely true counsel. I can affirm it from my own regretted experience. The summer before my mission, I was working in a theatre company, and at a party one night, somebody brought out a Swedish porn film (this was before videos -- yes, I'm that old) that some clown had brought home from his mission. Nobody dared to admit they were too righteous to watch it. But it was unpleasant, ugly, disgusting. I vowed never to see another, or anything like it.

Despite my immediate regret and repentance, guess what came to my mind a few months later, as I went through the temple for the first time? It took a lot of prayer to get that out of my head.

When President Benson says, "the mind through which this filth passes is never the same afterwards," he's absolutely right. I knew I shouldn't watch it before I did; what I didn't know was that it would never go away. I hope the prophet's words can keep others from making similar mistakes.

But what does any of this have to do with a beautiful, faith-based film like The Passion of the Christ? How does President Benson's counsel even remotely apply to this work of Christian art? There is nothing in this film that appeals to the "lusts of your eyes"; there is nothing "lewd" or "obscene" or "immoral, suggestive, or pornographic."

Quite the contrary. This film inspires you to feel gratitude to the Savior and love for those that he loved and who loved him. It inspires you with a dread of and revulsion for Satan and all his ways. It leaves you with a broken heart and a contrite spirit.

In my review, I specifically said that this film was not for children. The R-rating is exactly appropriate -- unless parents are sure their children are mature enough to deal with powerful scenes of the unspeakable things done to the Savior's body, and accompany them to see it, those children should not be permitted inside the theater.

But perhaps you think the words of other General Authorities justify publicly rebuking other Saints for seeing this film, or "challenging" members of a stake to specifically avoid a movie about the suffering of Christ.

Here are the words of Elder Joe J. Christensen: "It is a concern that some of our young Latter-day Saints, as well as their parents, regularly watch R-rated and other inappropriate movies and videos. One more reason why the 'devil laugheth, and his angels rejoice' (3 Ne. 9:2)" (Gen. Conf. Oct. 1996).

Well, of course it's a concern when members regularly see inappropriate movies. I agree that seeing R-rated movies should be extremely rare. Perhaps one should obey Elder Christensen's counsel by seeing such films only when they faithfully depict the sacrifice of the Savior.

What about the counsel of Elder H. Burke Peterson: "Again I say, leave it alone. Turn it off, walk away from it, burn it, erase it, destroy it. I know it is hard counsel we give when we say movies that are R-rated, and many with PG-13 ratings, are produced by satanic influences. Our standards should not be dictated by the rating system. I repeat, because of what they really represent, these types of movies, music, tapes, etc. serve the purposes of the author of all darkness" (Gen. Conf. Oct. 1993).

I affirm to you here and now that The Passion of the Christ is definitely not produced by satanic influences. In fact, the very people who do create films with satanic influences were arrayed against this film, to try to suppress it or keep it from being released. This is a film that is specifically meant to bless the lives of Christians -- and others -- with a living awareness of the sacrifice of Christ and his unfathomable love for us. Does anyone really think this was the kind of film Elder Peterson was warning us against?

You who take quotes out of context: When Elder Peterson says "our standards should not be dictated by the rating system," why not take that as the principle to guide us?

If you and your family decide never to see R-rated or PG-13 movies, without exception, then by all means, I won't condemn you for doing so. But it is outrageous when you condemn others for reaching a different decision about a particular movie.

We have laws and rules in our church that are adamant: No coffee. No tea. No alcohol, tobacco, or dangerous drugs. That's a commandment.

No dating -- not even group dating -- before age sixteen. That's a rule, and I salute parents who insist, as we did, on following it even when other parents decide their child is "mature" enough to be the exception. (If your kid is so mature, I always wonder, then why isn't he or she mature enough to want to follow clear, longstanding Church rules?)

But there are other rules that the Church leadership specifically resists interpreting for us. Keeping the sabbath day holy, for instance -- we are expected to decide in our own family precisely how we go about obeying that commandment, and people draw the line in different places. For instance, nobody that I know of has ever been disciplined by Church leaders because their employment requires Sunday work -- or how could any Saints work at the Church's own tv and radio stations?

Tithing is another law about which we are taught the correct principle, and then govern ourselves. President Hinckley in particular has tried to get us to make wise decisions about such things on our own, refusing to get roped into giving us specific regulations that allow us to turn off our own consciences.

Yet there are always Latter-day Saints who want to live in a pharisaical church.

The Pharisees had a pious goal: Because they wanted to avoid disobeying the law even by accident, they decided to "build a fence around the law," surrounding the deep principles of Torah with a lot of small, specific regulations, so that by obeying those little rules, the Lord's people could be sure they wouldn't accidentally stray from the great law.

The problem is that such a "fence around the law" can give us a false sense of safety. It's so easy to obey such laws and yet join the category of "fools" and "hypocrites" that Jesus repeatedly rebuked. You condemn your brother for the mote in his eye, Jesus said, but don't see the beam in your own. The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath.

Paul called them whited sepulchers, those hyper-obedient souls who went to extraordinary lengths to defend the law -- and broke it repeatedly with their pride and their persecution of others.

Surely we can recognize that Jesus was not being lax or careless with the law when he resisted the Pharisees.

On the contrary. Jesus was teaching us that you can't build a fence around the law, and then feel safe. Instead you have to take the law into your heart and embrace it so that you understand and obey its purpose.

Isn't that what Jesus was talking about when he warned us that merely avoiding adultery wasn't enough, that merely refraining from killing people wasn't enough. If in your heart you're a lawbreaker, then how can you be considered clean in the eyes of God?

Maybe I'm completely wrong. Maybe the Savior really means to have local leaders of the Church rebuke someone for bearing a testimony of what they learned about the Savior from watching a beautiful film created by faithful artists who love him. Maybe the prophet and General Authorities who urged us to avoid lewd and obscene and suggestive films meant for us to use this as a reason for not seeing a powerful, moving film that was rated R in order to warn parents that it might be too powerful for their children.

But I don't think I'm wrong. I'm reasonably confident that the goal of the prophet and General Authorities who urged us (particularly the youth) to avoid R-rated films was to keep us from seeing sexually provocative films that would seduce us into following the "lust of our eyes."

I don't think they intended for us to so blindly obey that we couldn't tell the difference when a movie was given an R because it absolutely, strictly, literally followed a very painful portion of the scriptures.

There's another exceptional movie coming out soon. It's called Saints and Soldiers, and may well be the best war movie ever made -- and there have been some very fine movies that attempted to explore the moral and human dimensions of war.

This film has been given a preliminary R-rating. I find this almost laughable, because I've seen more violence in movies like the Jim Carrey Grinch. And there is absolutely nothing lewd, suggestive, obscene, or immoral in this film.

The movie was made by talented Mormons who were determined to examine important moral issues at a time when our own country is at war and these issues are not just academic. It is ironic that because the MPAA, in its madness, has slapped an R on this film, many Mormons will self-righteously condemn this movie.

Maybe what we need is for all of us Latter-day Saints to take the words of our leaders in their proper context, and with a full sense of our personal responsibility for making moral judgments instead of blindly following rules even in situations that clearly were not intended.

For instance, President Benson's remarks quoted above were part of a sermon urging young Mormons to read the Book of Mormon and take its lessons to heart. Alma 31 might make interesting reading for those who condemn others for having a different view of what the gospel requires them to do. Sometimes those who are most sure they are right -- so sure that they would rebuke a fellow saint in testimony meeting -- are the ones who have actually got it wrong.

But I'm not optimistic. Even as I get pilloried by the PC Left for publicly defending marriage in an essay a couple of weeks ago, I get mail just as hate-filled and virulent from Mormons, because I dared to suggest that the advice about R-rated movies should not be construed as applying to Mel Gibson's Christ-loving film.

And I confidently predict that this essay will provoke even more angry letters assuring me, in a spirit of brotherhood, that I'm obviously a servant of Satan.

Meanwhile, as American Christians embrace this great movie about the Savior, a significant percentage of Mormons are boycotting it -- because they have turned their consciences over to Hollywood.
________________________________

Card's essay does raise the question, what about films that are R-rated but don't depict anything overtly religious? Can there be useful, uplifting films that don't have anything to do with Christ or church or those sorts of things but are also rated R?

Random Ephemera -- the best kind of ephemera there is!

4 things that I am passionate about:
1. Spending time with my wife and kids.
2. Movies.
3. Bookarts and book design.
4. Kwame Kilpatrick resigning.



4 things I want to do before I die:
1. Visit Europe, specifically Suzanne's mission in the Czech Republic.
2. See U2 live in concert.
3. Publish a book.
4. See my kids become happy, secure adults.



4 books that I have read recently:
1. My Name Is Asher Lev.
2. The Gift of Asher Lev.
3. Vernal Promises.
4. Lobster Johnson: The Iron Prometheus.



4 things I often say:
1. One person speaks at a time and right now that person is me.
2. Your attention please?
3. You're a spazzy, little monkey.
4. What the freak-daddy almighty!?

4 things that attract me to friends:
1. Intelligence.
2. Generosity/compassion.
3. Wit.
4. Them thinking that I'm awesome.

4 songs or albums that I could listen to over and over again:
1. Flathead by The Fratelli's.
2. Love Roller Coaster (cover) by Red Hot Chili Peppers.
3. Rebel Rebel by David Bowie.
4. Float On by Modest Mouse.



4 things you might not know about me:
1. I once got detention in junior high for punching out a kid who was making fun of me.
2. I lived in Mississippi and Louisiana for two years and never once tried grits or chitlins.
3. I sometimes write fan letters to authors and filmmakers I like.
4. I once held seven of the ten best scores on the Area 51 video game in the Idaho State University student union building.

Diary of a Country ZZZZZZZZZZZ

When it comes to boring movies, I think I have a pretty high tolerance. A slow pace doesn't bother me as long as there is purpose to it. Minutia and quotidian detail are interesting to me so movies that linger on something simple and every day are okay. I remember in high school watching all six and a half hours of The Fortunes of War, a BBC miniseries with Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson, and being proud of myself for having the ability to sit through a Saharan amount of British dryness.

However, either I'm losing some of my youthful powers or French director Robert Bresson's ability to put me to sleep is more powerful than BBC filmmaking. I'm trying to watch Bresson's Diary of a Country Priest which, supposedly, is this great masterpiece of spiritual filmmaking. It was made in 1950 in France -- consequently, it is both in black and white and in French. Again, this is the sort of thing that I have a high tolerance for. I'm not a guy who falls asleep at the first sign of a subtitle.

But something about this movie is positively narcotic -- as in Ambien or Lunesta. Two nights in a row I've tried to finish it after Suzanne went to bed. Two nights in a row I've ended up passed out on the couch, fully dressed, with the DVD menu playing because the whole movie played and then returned to start. The first night I woke up at midnight and went to bed. Last night, it was three a.m. before I came back to the world of the living.

So now I have my portable DVD player here at work and I'm trying to pound out the last twenty minutes or so. The problem is this: it's boring. Immensely, soul-killingly boring. Yeah, I get that it has all these profound themes and meaningful imagery. Oooh, he feels imprisoned and so we constantly see him from behind the bars of gates. Got it. Fine. All the actor who plays the titular priest does is furrow his brow and look stricken. For two hours. Black and white Frenchiness and stricken looks. For two hours of my life. Ah well. I knew what I was getting into when I signed up for this whole Film Studies business so I guess I should stop complaining and start watching.

A Few Pictures

The day before Christmas break, the girls and I took a box full of gift bags to my work and delivered them to my students. The bags had an orange, some candy, and other little goodies. We wanted the girls to feel that Christmas was about more than just getting that coveted Hannah Montana doll. So they were my little elves and it turned out to be a really rewarding experience. While we were handing out stuff at the school, Raymond Abramson, the math teacher, pulled out his camera and took a couple of photos. It's nice having really photogenic children.



This photo, obviously, is from my work's annual Thanksgiving feast. One of my students brought his little niece and everyone fawned over her because she was so cute. I'm a sucker for little kids and so I spent some time with her. I didn't have much to entertain her with so I let her go through my wallet and look at the pictures and pretty credit cards. She was a sweetheart.

Detroit? Isn't that the city that's always on fire?

I defend Detroit. I defend it against my suburban neighbors and ward members who look at me with pity and fear when I tell them I teach downtown. I defended it against my mother who, for the first year I lived here, was convinced I was going to be knifed and/or shot at any given moment. I defend it here on my blog, trying to give the sense that it’s a conflicted but interesting place to be and not worthy of the derision it gets in the national media.

(For the record, that brawl in the stands at the Pistons game that took place a couple of years ago? That happened in Auburn Hills, not Detroit. Auburn Hills is so white that if the Pistons didn’t play there, there wouldn’t be any black people in that city at all.)

Anyway, even though I take pride in my messed-up adopted city, there are times there’s nothing I can do, no way I can speak up for it. By now, if you’ve been watching the news, you already know about our Mayor’s problems. There are plenty of lessons we can learn such as don’t cheat on your spouse, don’t send personal text messages on a device owned and paid for by the city, and, very importantly, don’t lie under oath on the stand in a case that already makes you look like a completely corrupt idiot. These are lessons we can learn – but sadly, I don’t think Kwame learned them in time. (By the way, I’m counting the seconds until some future-Pulitzer-Prize-winning genius dubs this whole mess something original like “Text-gate.”)



So there’s that but, additionally, I had an experience yesterday that just sort of soured me on this city.

At lunchtime, I walked outside to run an errand. In the parking lot of our school, I saw Gil’s (one of our construction trainers) van parked off to the side with some of our students parked nearby and one student on his back, reaching under the vehicle. It was strange but I didn’t think too much of it. Until, that is, I got close enough to realize that the guys around Gil’s van weren’t our students. In fact, I didn’t recognize them at all. They saw me see them and the guy under the van casually got up, brushed himself off, got in the car that was waiting nearby, and they all drove off together. Something was clearly up so I memorized the license plate number and called Gil.

It turns out that these guys were trying to cut the catalytic converter right out from underneath the van. Apparently, there’s a substance inside called palladium that thieves can pull out and sell for a hundred dollars an ounce. So in broad daylight, beside a busy street, in a private parking lot, a gang of thieves was using a saw to steal from my co-worker. According to Gil, I walked up just in time. The converter was still there, hanging on by a thread more or less. He took it to a buddy who welded it back together and called the cops to file a report.



Sigh. Detroit, I try to give you the benefit of doubt. I try to persuade people that you’re not composed of criminals and pimps. I try to persuade them that much of what is thought, said, and written about this city isn’t true. I try to believe it myself. But some days, days when our Mayor is (once again or still, depending on how you look at it) mired in scandal, days when crime is committed right in front of me for nothing more than a couple hundred bucks, some days it’s harder than others to convince myself that this place wouldn’t be improved by being scraped down to the dirt and rebuilt from the ground up.

P.S. The title of this post comes from a school friend. When she told her mom she was moving here, her mom thought for a moment and then, as though she'd suddenly placed the city on her internal map, said, "Detroit? Isn't that the city that's always on fire?"

I Thought I Didn't Have Anything To Say

The more familiar I become with the blogosphere (a word I thought I would never use with a straight face), the more I become a believer in daily postings as much as possible. I know that posting EVERY day isn't realistic, especially for people who have lives, children, spouses, pets, jobs, hobbies, a love of sunshine and social interaction, and that sort of thing.

However, I've gotten to feel a little. . . I don't know. . . proprietary about the blogs I read. I have my regular sites that I check every day such as the various Day sibling blogs, Pioneer Woman, Gideon Burton's LDS Film and Culture site, Late Shoes, A Person Named Eunice, etc. and, while I understand that typing a few random comments and going through the hassle of posting a picture or graphic isn't exactly priority number one on these writers' lists, I get a little bugged when they don't update their blog regularly. I go to these sites, expecting new information, new images, and some tiny insight into the lives of the people who write them. When there's nothing new, I start to get crabby.

My sister-in-law Shauna famously left a review of Dan In Real Life up for almost an entire month on her blog. Never mind that she has a husband, four kids, a dog, the Christmas season, and many, many things to do. After about the third or fourth day of seeing Steve Carrell's fat head in the pancakes (the Dan in Real Life poster image), I started saying things to Suzanne like, "Jeeze, what's up with Shauna? When's she gonna post again?" When bloggers don't post, it's like a very personal version of the Hollywood writers' strike -- nothing but reruns. Blogs are like fun serial fiction and when there's no new post, it's as though the latest installment got held up and we don't know if Flash Gordon and Dale Arden escaped Ming the Merciless or not.

I'm sure that seems silly and probably annoying but I think of it as a compliment to the blog writers. It's my way of saying, "I care about your life. I'm interested in who you are. I even want to know random, useless stuff that you fill out on pass-around surveys."

Having said all that, the original point of this post was that, even though I believe bloggers with any kind of readership ought to post as often as they feel they comfortably can, I understand that not every day is a blogging day. Not every day is a writing day.

I thought I was having a day like that, nothing to say, nothing to add to the world. (Apparently I had one or two things.) So I checked my favorite online comic strip, Toothpaste for Dinner, and cut and pasted today's entry for your enjoyment. What makes it perfect is that my last apartment complex did almost exactly this and tried to charge me $700.00 to replace carpet that had absolutely nothing wrong with it. I wrote them a well-worded letter and, thanks to the power of the pen (and the implication of legal action), they actually ended up sending me a check for $175.00.

Anyway, without further ado, I give you Toothpaste for Dinner:


toothpastefordinner.com

Customizer

I'm fascinated by the things we do to make something or someplace our own, by the ways we try to assert our identity in a given situation. It's on my mind because, as I type, this is what's on my desktop:



It's a still from the great Double Indemnity by Billy Wilder. On the left is the equally sexy and flinty Barbara Stanwyck and on the right, of course, is Fred MacMurray who was a hard-boiled low-life long before he was the father who knew best. It's from a scene that's been copied and parodied many times. The two of them are plotting to kill Stanwyck's husband and collect the insurance money but to avoid the possibility of detection, they stay away from each other at all costs so they won't be linked. To communicate, they meet in a store and pretend like they're both shopping while they whisper to each other. It's a terrific movie -- well worth seeing.

Anyway, that image is on my desktop for this week. Last week it was a photo of Idaho grain fields. Before that it was a panel from a Hellboy comic book and before that it was a turn of the century woodcut of a beehive. (That's right, a skep!)I change the image regularly because I'm a visual guy and I like to look at something new and interesting fairly often. But it's also a way of staking my territory -- this computer is mine. I do the same with the walls in whatever office or classroom I'm given. Right now on the east wall of my classroom/office there are reproduction vintage travel posters that I cut out of a calendar. If I taught somewhere other than here, I'd also have my Superman-breaking-chains statue nearby. It's just my way of making a place mine.

Whenever Suzanne and I have moved into a new place, she's not been comfortable until there was a place for everything. The storage had to be stored, the decorations placed, the pictures hung. It's how she establishes herself in a new place.

So what do you do? How do you assert yourself? Do you put book plate cards in the front of all your books? Do you hang one precious picture on the wall when you want to establish you're there for a while? Do you insist on fresh fruit on your desk at work? What is on your computer desktop? Do you have a special ringtone on your phone that you picked out? What do you do to make a place or thing your own?

Fave Photos

Here are a few pictures we've accumulated over the last few months that I think are great but that haven't made it onto a blog yet.

See a similarity?

Maryn's new nickname is Sharkie. A week or two ago, Suzanne noticed that she has a new tooth coming up behind her current row of front teeth. We told her to just keep wiggling the old tooth with her tongue and that it would come out sooner or later. She's terrified of her tooth coming out because "What if it drops onto the floor?" and "There will be blood in my mouth!" Consequently, I don't think she's doing much to get it out. Now, as you can see, she has a second tooth coming up and she officially has two rows -- just like a shark.

I remember being afraid to lose my teeth when I was a kid and my dad trying to convince me to let him tie fishing line around the loose one and jerk it out. I don't think I ever went for that. I do remember that, when I finally lost that first one, it wasn't a big deal. It didn't hurt or even bleed that much -- it just sort of popped out. I keep trying to convince Maryn of that but, little chicken that she is, she doesn't believe me. The dentist has said we can either let them come out on their own or we can have them pulled but, either way, the new ones will come in crooked. Sigh.

Ah well. Getting my braces tightened got me out of at least half a day of school every month in junior high so they weren't all bad. Mom was always a softie and, even though she knew I felt well enough to go back to school and function, she didn't always make me. My tightening appointments with the kind but secretly malicious Dr. Smith were usually around lunch time and so, once they were over, I only had a couple of hours of school left. I complained that my mouth hurt, which it did, and Mom didn't usually make me go back.

My teeth straightened up in record time. I only had them for a year and a half rather than the projected four years and, to this day, when I see Dr. Smith he still points out what a good job he did with me. (I'm not sure if that's a compliment about how good looking I am or how fabulously talented he is.)I remember one day in early high school during potato harvest, I was sitting on a hay bale waiting for the last truck of the day to roll into the cellar. All the workers were sitting around, dirt in our ears and up our noses, looking like we'd been dragged through the fields ourselves. April Summers, daughter of the boss, was there and at one point when we were talking she stared at me and said, "You have really pretty teeth." This was almost twenty years ago so obviously the fact that I remember it today means I took it as a pretty nice compliment. (April was really cute. Too young for me. Too bad too. Dad always advised me to find some rich farmer's daughter so I could be set for life.)

I had a metal retainer band across the back of my teeth that was moored to my two lower canines. Dr. Smith said at the time that, without it, my mouth would begin to shift and go back to the way it was. I took him at his word and didn't think about it until we were living in Boise and I went in to get my teeth cleaned my new dentist acted like I had orthodontic equivalent to a Model T in my mouth. He was simultaneously charmed and horrified that I had dental technology that he thought was so archaic in my mouth. Suzanne insisted for years that it needed to come off but I stuck to my guns (gums?) and never bothered. Then, last year, fate and a really tough piece of candy settled the question. I was eating a Reisen chocolate in my kitchen and, all at once, something broke. I pulled the gooey glob of candy from my mouth to find one of the mooring bands and the retaining wire sticking out of it. That was it. I made an appointment, had the other band removed, and everything cleaned up and I've been ancient-retainer free for a year now. I realize mouths move pretty slowly but, so far, nothing major has shifted. I don't look like this guy:



Not yet anyway.

Hmm. Ever notice how I can start off talking about almost any subject in the world and it always ends up turning into some misty-eyed remembrance of my past? Maybe I need to change the name of this blog to Narcissist Penny Press.

34

Okay, so as of today, I'm officially in my mid-thirties, right? Thirty through thirty three is early, thirty four through thirty six is mid, and thirty seven and up is late. So I'm in my mid thirties. I don't feel any different. Fatter, maybe. But that's it.

So far, it's been an excellent birthday. Both girls were dead to the world this morning until I asked, "Does anyone know what day it is?" Avery, rising as though from the grave, sleepily raised her hand and said, "S'yer berfday," and she got up to give me a hug. Then, as my birthday surprise, they both got out of bed and dressed themselves without help and (more importantly) without complaining.

At work, I only had to teach one class and then Suzanne took me to lunch at the very busy but very tasty Loco's in Greektown. Now I get to leave early to go to Wayne State campus to talk over my directed study with Dr. Shaviro. Tonight, we'll take the girls out for dinner and I'll get my lovely, little gifties. I love presents. Yes, I do.

The presents are sitting on a table near the computer downstairs and the other night, naturally, I shook them, felt them, sniffed them, etc. So yesterday, when Maryn asked what I wanted for my birthday I said, "Well, maybe two or three movies on DVD, a CD, and maybe some books." Her bright, little face glowed and she said, "Well, I think you're going to be very happy tomorrow." I asked her why and she grinned and said, "I can't tell you!" It was pretty funny.

A birthday is a time for reflection, I suppose. There are plenty of things I want for this next year, hopes and goals I have, and there are things for me to learn by looking back on the past twelve months, of course. But more than anything, I guess I'm just really happy to have my wife and kids. Being with them and having them in my life are the best, most important parts of this last year. The presents I open tonight will be nice for sure but Suzanne, Maryn, and Avery are the best gift of all.

Hooky

Yup, that's right. There's a reason there was no post here yesterday. That reason involved sleeping until ten, not getting out of my pajamas, watching a movie in the middle of the day, and not leaving the house except to shovel a light layer of snow from the driveway. Was I sick? No, I felt as right as rain. Was it a snow day? Nope, the snow was light and probably didn't even stick to the main roads. Did I just have no desire whatsoever to get up and go to work? You bet.

At my work, we're given one personal day every month in addition to ten vacation days. The personal days can be banked up and used at our discretion. Unlike Suzanne's work, when I call in for a personal day, all I have to say is, "I'm taking my PD today," and my boss says, "Okay, see you tomorrow." (Suzanne's work practically requires a note from a doctor and a blood test every time she requires time off. Soon they'll be asking for first-born children and blood oaths.)

So anyway, home it was and it was nice.

Btw, does anyone know why it's called hooky?

Not What I Planned

I started a long, serious post about the different avenues of inspiration and the non-traditional forms edification can take.

But then I thought, "Nah."

I'm not in the mood to be all thoughtful and deep. I have essays to read and work to do. So instead, I'll share something short, sweet, and to the point: Ingrid Michaelson's "The Way I Am," two minutes and seventeen seconds of funky, cool tenderness.

The Kind I Like

As I mentioned, I read the first hundred or so pages of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell over Christmas break and liked what I read very much. I also read the first chapter of The Thirteenth Tale and was intrigued. But once school started, I set them both on my nightstand and there they sit, sad and unread. I want to read them. I'm curious about them. But I'm not feeling that irresistible draw that causes me to pull the book out at every spare moment, neglect other things in favor of reading, and just generally annoy my wife.

Something occurred to me last night, however, as I was reading the first two chapters of The Long Embrace by Judith Freeman. I kept pulling the book out and reading it even though I had other things to do. There was laundry to do, clothes to fold, Japanese movies to watch, Gray's Anatomy to watch while avoiding watching Japanese movies, etc. But I kept going back to the book. Why?

Well, the book is the non-fiction account of Judith Freeman (born and raised in Ogden, Utah and a former Mormon) and her curiosity about Raymond Chandler, the crime fiction writer, and his wife, Cissy. Chandler is one of the great noir writers and is responsible for The Big Sleep and The Long Goodbye among others. It's not a biography though it has some of the elements -- it's more like Freeman's record of trying to answer some questions about a topic that interests her. So rather than maintaining some kind of objective removal, Freeman writes about walking down the street in her L.A. neighborhood to an old house where Chandler lived in the 20s. It's personal and is driven by her curiosity. It dawned on me last night what a key element that individual inquisitiveness is for me when it comes to reading a book. I love fiction and good poetry -- but there's something really thrilling to me about following a real live author as he or she pursues answers to interesting questions. To me, it feels like a treasure hunt -- an author going out into the field, looking for clues, hoping for the big payoff.

I know that it's the quest element that I like the best because I've read books that focused on topics I knew absolutely nothing about but I was drawn to the idea of an author looking for answers.

Some of the literary treasure hunts that I've enjoyed:



Chasing Che by Patrick Symmes.
Symmes is a travel journalist who was curious about the Argentine revolutionary, Che Guevara. He'd seen his face on t-shirts and buttons, knew that he helped Fidel Castro rise to power in Cuba, and was aware that the man had reached legendary status. Turns out that Che, before he was famous, before he was a violent guerilla figher, took a motorcycle trip with a buddy all across South and Central America. The two men were in their twenties and just wanted to get out and see the world. Symmes wondered what kind of effect a trip like that had on a young man who went on to help shape world politics and so he decided to take the trip himself. Using published diaries by Guevara and his traveling buddy, Alberto Granado, Symmes retraces their journey as closely as he can and writes about what he finds. It's part travelogue, part geopolitical history lesson, and, of course, part treasure hunt. It's exotic and exciting and a lot of fun to read.


The Island of Lost Maps by Miles Harvey.
Harvey, another journalist, comes across a news story about a man named Gilbert Bland who was arrested for stealing antique maps from rare book rooms in libraries across the country. Turns out, Bland was one of the most prolific and successful map thieves in history. Turns out also that there is a rich and fascinating history of map thievery. (Who knew?) Harvey is intrigued and so begins to research a little about the man and about the world of cartography. The chapters alternate between Harvey's present day efforts to uncover the enigma that is Gilbert Bland and the facts and stories he uncovers in researching the history of map making and map taking.
Unlike Chasing Che, the subject of which is dead, Maps had subject who was very much alive and so the whole book was fraught with the possibility of Harvey actually meeting up with Bland and being able to ask him questions. There was a lot more potential for payoff in this book than in most. I used it as a textbook in my 102 classes at BSU and CSI.



Girl Sleuth:Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her by Melanie Rehak
I've never read a Nancy Drew mystery, never saw the tv show, was never aware of her in any way other than as the female counterpart to the Hardy Boys mysteries my brother read. When I came across this book in the new non-fiction section of the Twin Falls library, my curiosity was piqued. Rehak asks the question, "Who really is responsible for this enduring pop culture icon?" Nancy Drew was originally conceived by a guy named Edward Stratemeyer. He was the literary equivalent of the boy-band impressarios who put together N'Sync and Backstreet Boys using a cold-hearted formula of what would appeal the most to the largest audience. Stratemeyer created the Hardy Boys, the Bobsey Twins, and Tom Swift. He'd come up with the ideas and then farm the actual work out to ghost writers. The book explores the different contributions made by Stratemeyer and the two women responsible for most of Nancy's lore, Mildred Wirt Benson and Harriet Stratemeyer Adams. There's less of the physical field research in this one and so it was a little less interesting in that sense. Nevertheless, despite the lack of the author-on-the-scene stuff that I like and my lack of connection to the subject, I still really enjoyed reading Rehak's attempts at unraveling the answers to her questions.

P.S. You will notice that each of these books have really attractive, eye-catching cover designs. My inclination toward pretty books continues.

Zen Laziness

Arrived late to work today. It was a morning when, for whatever reason, getting up and being on time just didn't seem that important. It might have been kind of a Zen thing or maybe an eternal perspective thing -- you know, "Not making it in on time will not affect your place in the Celestial Kingdom, grasshopper." Then again, maybe it was just sheer laziness. Suzanne has felt a little under the weather lately and I was up a little late watching an unexpectedly long Japanese film for class. Maybe it wasn't Zen -- maybe I just didn't want to drag my butt out of bed.

Either way, I got here a little before nine, all ready to teach at 9:20. But then I found out that for today the students were combined into one class. This means I went from teaching four times today to teaching once. When I figured that out, I closed my classroom door for a moment, did a little breakdance of joy, and then opened the door again. (Come on, who hasn't done a breakdance of joy in their life?)

Our math teacher has been on extended vacation in Florida. He takes all of Christmas break (two weeks) and then tacks on another week or so in order to spend time with his kids down in the land of Sunkist oranges. On top of that, he came back with pneumonia and was out on his first scheduled day back as well. So, Mr. Booker and I have been compensating for his absence by teaching half again as often as we normally would. Frankly, not only does it get old putting on my lion-tamer pith helmet and getting out the whip and the chair so regularly for these students, but it's not useful for the class. They need time to process the information that they get, but if they're constantly barraged with new stuff, there's no time for the old to settle in.

So, as a result of my happy schedule change, I'm sitting at my desk at 10 a.m. composing this post instead of explaining the differences between complex and compound sentences. Life is pretty good.

Last night I watched Ozu's Early Spring. It was long and not a lot happened in it. I have another one of his, Tokyo Story, left to watch. It's only 2 hours and 20 minutes but that can be an awful long time to watch black and white subtitles.


Even though my schedule has opened up, I still have e-mail to write, papers to grade, and at least one lesson plan to prepare. Don't cry for me. I'll find things to do.

Something to Make My Parents Freak

88% Barack Obama
87% John Edwards
87% Hillary Clinton
82% Chris Dodd
77% Joe Biden
76% Bill Richardson
57% Mike Gravel
57% Dennis Kucinich
53% Rudy Giuliani
51% John McCain
45% Mitt Romney
42% Tom Tancredo
38% Mike Huckabee
32% Fred Thompson
16% Ron Paul

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

Um... So I took this online quiz that asks a series of questions about my opinion on current events. Then it tells you which candidate supposedly matches with what you believe. As you can see, the results will undoubtedly make my parents feel sad and disappointed that their son has gone so far off the chosen path. Ah well. Dad doesn't read my blog and Mom only looks at it about once a month when I tell her there are photos of my daughters here. So chances are, neither of them will see this. (My in-laws will probably just keep their horror to themselves.)

The thing that surprises me is that I thought I answered in a more conservative fashion. I didn't think the three Democratic candidates would necessarily be my top three. I didn't think ol' Mitt would be so far down there. Of course, it is just an online survey -- we're not exactly talking about rocket science here.

Anyway, find out your secret, deep-dark Presidential candidate desires here.

Spiritual Film

I wrote yesterday that the Feminist Film Theory class was my last at WSU but that's not exactly true. I'm also doing a directed study with one of my professors centering around Paul Schrader's book Transcendental Style in Film. Schrader's whole idea is that filmmakers who make "spiritual" movies have developed a certain style that can be identified and analyzed. He focuses on Robert Bresson, Yasujiro Ozu, and Carl Dreyer so I'll be watching a couple films each by those guys plus a couple by Andrei Tarkovsky and the Dekalog by Krysztof Kieslowski. At the end, I've got The Last Temptation of Christ by Scorcese and The Passion of the Christ by Gibson.

Obviously, all this is meant to help me in making my case for Mormon cinema as a academically viable research subject. I'm excited by it and really interested in it but it will also mean a heck of a lot of work -- about 2500 pages to read and close to 40 hours worth of movies to watch. Busy, busy, busy.

Cat Wake Up Call

Back to School

Yep, tonight at 6 p.m. I begin my final class at Wayne State (barring any unforeseen and highly unlikely administrative screw-ups). Feminist film theory with Dr. Cynthia Erb. I've had Dr. Erb before and, because this blog is set to private, I can freely say that her class was the least useful class I think I've ever had in school. If nothing else, her cheerful cluelessness gave me hope in the sense that, if she can get a PhD and publish books and get a good job at a respectable school, I can too!

Now, I have to get back to reading some essays about men "living out their phantasies (sic) and obsessions through linguistic command by imposing them in the silent image of woman still tied to her place as bearer of meaning, not maker of meaning." Exciting stuff right? Suffice it to say, this was the only film class offered this semester that took place in the evening. I wouldn't be taking it if there were anything else in the world to take.

But because I have to get back to work and because it's a dreary Monday (as if there was any other kind), I am posting a little video to cheer up up. I consider it is an homage to our dearly beloved cat, Jackie Joe Johnson. Click above.

Riffing on Suzanne's blog, I now present: Oh, the places I've been!

Burley, Idaho -- I was born when my family was living here on some land just outside the city limits. My earliest memories come from this point in my life. I think we moved when I was 3 or 4.

Rexburg, Idaho -- Dad got a promotion so we moved and lived here for a year or so. I went to preschool at Ricks College and was madly in love with two of my teachers. Looking back, I realize they were probably 18 or 19 years old, girls who would be my students now. Crazy.

Blackfoot, Idaho -- Another promotion. I attended kindergarten and part of first grade here. Our house was right across the street from the church. First best friend, Gavin Mikesell, lived a few blocks away.

American Falls, Idaho -- Another promotion (my, he was an upwardly mobile man.) We lived here for four years, the longest I'd been anywhere. We lived in a house at the crest of the highest hill in town and had a great view of the AF reservoir. I attended first through part of sixth grade here and went from being pre-baptism to being ordained a deacon the month before we moved back to...

Rexburg, Idaho -- Dad was promoted to branch manager and some kind of VP position. We moved in midway through my sixth grade year and, for those of you with kids contemplating a move any time soon, try to pick almost any time other than middle school/junior high to move your kids. Everyone has already formed their cliques and things are kind of set until high school. If you're a shy, nerdy type (as I was), moving at that age is pretty tough.

Jackson Hole, Wyoming -- Summer of 1991. One summer spent cleaning up after tourists. Tony and I thought we'd be all tough and independent but in reality we went scampering back to Rexburg every chance we got.

Mississippi, Jackson Mission -- Hattiesburg, MS; Hodge, LA; Shreveport, LA; Jackson, MS; Gautier, MS; Bossier City, LA; the open road. I won the shiny shoe contest as well as the starched shirt competition but never won the clean car award. Ah well. I left a six pack of diet Coke in the car for the Fleet Coordinator to find and was given an extra hundred miles anyway. Bribery works, people.

Provo, Utah -- I lived here for a month with Tony at the Riviera Apartments just prior to his marriage to Cassie. It was a blast.

Rexburg, Idaho -- I had to finish up at Ricks. I was on the three-year plan when it was still a two-year school. Ran into Suzanne here again.

Pocatello, Idaho -- Went to ISU after finishing at Ricks. Spent some time just being a pathetic mess but eventually started dating Suzanne who was in Logan at Utah State at the time. Things looked up. We got married and I graduated in 2000.

Boise, Idaho -- We spent three years in Boise while I pursued an MFA. Both our children were born here. I loved BSU, loved Boise. I'd happily go back any time. Do you hear that, Boise State University? Do you hear? Any. Time. I'm available. Very.

Twin Falls, Idaho -- My first full-time teaching job. We were there for three years. We had some good times as well as some monumentally bad times. Suzanne's entry for this part of our life made me laugh: "Mark taught at CSI, and I stayed home with my youngin’s off and on. I taught ESL to migrant workers in Kimberly, ID, babysat, proctored tests at CSI, freelanced edited bits & pieces of random writing here and there, but mostly sat on my driveway with a tin cup looking for handouts."

Metro Detroit, Michigan -- Never did I imagine I would live in Michigan and yet here I am. I've been here for a year and a half and I already know my way around downtown better than most of my suburban neighbors and ward members. I spend 80% of my day with the most frightening demographic in white America -- young, unemployed, black men with criminal records. Never thought I'd be here and yet, because I'm with my family, it's all good.

Important Knowledge to Have

18

Want to be a x-ray technician?

2008

Back again. It is almost as though I never left. Same desk, same computer, same noise out in the hallways -- and yet, I do feel more rested and less worn than I did two weeks ago. I feel pretty good. The holiday was lovely in many ways. Christmas was quiet and warm and satisfying -- the best in years actually. Everyone was happy with their gifts but no one really dwelt on them. We just enjoyed being together and spending time. I liked it a lot.

Now that I'm back, I have two posts to make:

1. A review of my goals for the holiday.

2. An offering of my incredibly important and generally infallible opinion of the movies we watched over break.

So here we go:

I'd like to translate a page a day of Harry Potter y la piedra filosofal.
Yes/No -- Definitely not. Not even a little. The closest I came was checking out an English language version of the book to check what I'd done so far. My work isn't terrible but it's really obviously a translation by an amateur, that's for sure.

I'd like to carve a few new linoleum blocks.
Yes/No -- Nope. Not even close.

I'd like to take the girls to the Detroit Institute of the Arts.
Yes/No -- Yep. In fact, we did that on the first day of break. Maryn almost put her hands directly on a Picasso. I about had a heart attack.

I'd like to go on a Christmas day drive with the ladies in the afternoon.
Yes/No -- Yes. We took Ann Arbor Road all the way out. It was beautiful and we passed the famous Dixboro general store which I have never actually seen. The girls, sadly, hated the drive and were stone cold bored through the whole thing.

I'd like to go see Beowulf in IMAX 3-D with my brother-in-law, Ben.
Yes/No -- Yes. More on the film below. My favorite part of the experience had nothing to do with the movie though. It was my proudly germ-phobic brother-in-law asking if I thought the 3-D glasses we were given were disposable (they were not) and, if not, did they get sanitized between uses. I'm pretty sure they don't but Ben was a trooper and put them on anyway.

I'd like to read some non-school related stuff.
Yes/No -- Kinda. I read the first hundred pages or so of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell but that's it. School starts next week and it's a big book so I'm not sure when I'll get back to it.

Six goals. Three accomplished for sure, one kinda accomplished, and two definitely not. That's not a bad ratio, I think.

Now, for the movies.

I Am Legend -- Intense, occasionally outright frightening, and surprisingly well-made. Honestly, I can't figure out how they managed to convincingly stage some of the shots of a totally empty, overgrown, abandoned New York. The infected zombie people were just fake looking enough to keep me from being completely freaked out in a couple of scenes. I enjoyed it but it's not for people who don't enjoy being startled. I thought there were some interesting similarities to some other Apocalyptic, end-of-days movies that have come out recently, notably Alfonso Cuaron's Children of Men.

Waitress -- Cute and charming but ultimately more subversive than it appears. It's one of those "quirky" independent films that get a lot of praise at festivals but don't see a lot of mainstream success. Slow pace, B-list actors and tv stars trying for indie cred, a single-vision writer/director -- all the hallmarks of a Sundance-style film. Anyway, in the end, it's a feminist film that portrays men as cads, abusers, jerks, or misanthropes and the protagonist, Keri Russell, is only happy at the end when she is free from all men. She divorces her cartoonishly stupid and self-involved husband, rejects her adulterous lover, and her grumpy boss dies. She walks off into the sunset (literally) with her new daughter and all is well with the (all-female) world. I found it kind of heavy handed in that sense but the film wasn't bad. It had funny moments and, for being small budget, it looked great. It was beautifully shot and the lighting and set design are really wonderful.

Hairspray -- Fine. Ho hum. It was nice to see Michelle Pfeiffer singing again. It was interesting to see Troy doing something other than Troy. But overall, the movie didn't do much for me. Nothing wrong with it. Just not my cup of brightly colored, well choreographed tea.

Firewall -- Holy crap. When was the last time Harrison Ford did anything remotely interesting? It's been at least 15 years. The last decade and a half has been spent with him giving the same wooden, one-note, utterly boring performance in film after film. Seriously, it's like somewhere along the line he was joking around, acting really stiff and grimace-y, and he just got stuck that way. Like a kid crossing his eyes or something. He's been playing the same guy since he tragically took over Jack Ryan from Alec Baldwin in 1992. Gruff, reticent, not happy about it but definitely able to best the bad guys with his constitution of iron and jutting lower jaw of self-righteous indignation. Snooooooooze. Harrison Ford/Block of Wood guy aside, the movie is predictable and full of characters who serve no purpose other than to act as place holders. Imperiled daughter, cruel bad guy, nicer bad guy. Once again: snoooooze.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End -- If you didn't like my huffy, superior tone in the last bit, you'll just want to skip this entirely. Pirates 3 is a heavy helping of Hollywood spectacle served with a steaming bowl of "So What?" and a rich side of "Who Cares?" The only reason the first installment of this padded, sluggish, lugubrious, marketing juggernaut survived to begin with was Johnny Depp's performance as Judy Garland as a pirate. It was funny and fun to watch at first but only at first. By midway through the second installment, Captain Jack couldn't squeeze a giggle out of his swishing, swaying, slightly-sloshed act. It just wasn't worth sticking around for. Kiera Knightly and Orlando Bloom don't matter in this film any more than the nameless pirate with the wooden eye or British solider #3. Double crosses, triple crosses, double-half-gainer with a twist of lemon iron crosses. By the end, who could honestly say that Orlando Bloom's character ending up as the captain of the Flying Dutchman mattered in any way to them? These movies were remarkably empty and yet cost roughly the Gross National Product of Ireland to make. Don't get me wrong -- I'm a fan of vacuous entertainment. I just want it to be entertaining.

Beowulf -- I'm still not sure what to think about this one. Seeing anything in 3-D on an IMAX screen is pretty cool so it's hard to separate the movie from the experience. It was bloody and gross for sure. Grendel is shown as an oozing, pulsating, slimy, half-man/half-monster mix and, thanks to digital technology, it's all shown in bright, crystal clear detail. Kinda distasteful. Overall, the film is about the dangers of and the perpetual nature of man's pride. Each ruler/hero makes the same vain, destructive choices as the last and the people continue to be cursed for it. It's an interesting idea to pursue and some clever writer could make a lot out of the fact that the rulers kept creating monsters through greed, lust, and vanity rather than vanquishing them -- but I'm not that clever. If you like gore and men being men and Angelina Jolie wearing - uh - not much, Beowulf is for you. If you're anybody else at all, you probably won't like it.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix -- Much stronger than the fourth installment in terms of a comprehensible narrative and more fun to look at. All of the young actors really appear to be coming into their own and no one (with the possible exception of the girl who plays Luna Lovegood) needs a pass on their acting any more. It's taken five films but these kids have become characters that I care about and am interested in. The showdown at the end in the Department of Mysteries is exciting and fast-paced and I enjoyed the heck out of it. Imelda Staunon's character freaks me right out. The one distinct weak spot in the film is the unfortunate deus ex machina of Hagrid's giant half-brother. Not only does he serve no purpose other than as a convenient way to get rid of Delores Umbridge in the end but he's the worst looking special effect I've seen in these movies. Even the troll in the first film that was made seven years ago was better than what they did here. Other than that though, I thought it was terrific.

So there you have it. My movie pronouncements from high atop Mt. Snotty. Ah, the view here is clear, my friends, and the air is pure!