So, Uh, Nevermind: An Alternative

Yesterday I hastily put Reading Until Dawn on the backburner, stating (in not so many words) that the project's not worthy of prioritizing in my increasingly full intellectual life. But I realized something this morning on my run---two somethings actually (one's just come to me as I write this):

1) I need to narrow the project's focus. In "Saturday's Werewolf," Theric comments,

Reflecting on the phenomenal success of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight books, Caitlin Flanagan observed in The Atlantic that “the author [being] a practicing Mormon is a fact every reviewer has mentioned, although none knows what to do with it, and certainly none can relate it to the novel.” Some dismissively call her “a young Mormon girl who had to sublimate like mad with thoughts of vampires” while others imagine her Mormon identity must somehow now be lost, saying “she was a 29-year-old Mormon housewife;” and while most agree that “her beliefs are key to understanding her singular talent,” few outside blogdom have tried to connect her faith to her work in a meaningful way.

Then he says this before jumping into the bulk of his insightful discussion on Twilight's connection to what he calls "the premortal romance": "The parsing of Twilight’s Mormonness has just begun." This encapsulates where I've wanted to position RUD from the beginning: as a space in which to critically engage how Meyer's work reflects her Mormonism. So I'm going to narrow RUD's editorial focus.

2) I've just realized that putting the project on the backburner is just another way of dismissing Meyer's work as something unworthy of a real intellectual engagement, something that really frustrates me when I see others do it. And I don't want to be that guy, especially when I've taken the time (with William's help) to put this together. So I'm rethinking ways I can continue my engagement with Meyer's work. I've got a few in mind, but one is that I'm going to start viewing it more as part of my engagement with the field of Mormon letters. This should be obvious, but I've separated the two for some reason up to this point. Maybe I've viewed the project, however unconsciously, as something of a gimmick. Whatever the case, I've committed myself to taking it more seriously in hopes that my efforts will help RUD succeed.

But that's enough for now. School's calling and I've got a long day of classes ahead.

Pocatello Part V: Ch-ch-ch-changes

Here's a rundown on what's going down in my world:

1) I'm back in school---no surprise there; it is, after all, that time of year---with a full load of interesting classes:

COMM g537 Rhetorical Theory. 3 credits. Principal rhetorical theories from the Greeks through the 18th century and contemporary American theorists. Writings of Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Quintilian, Campbell, Blair, Whately, and Burke are stressed.

Books: Boxing Plato's Shadow, The History and Theory of Rhetoric

ENGL g555 Studies in a National Literature. 3 credits. Studies in important literatures and cultures not otherwise covered in the curriculum. Will include literatures in translation and literature written in English outside of America and the British Isles. [This semester we'll be reading Gabriel García Márquez.]

Books: The Autumn of the Patriarch, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Collected Stories, News of a Kidnapping, Of Love & Other Demons, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Strange Pilgrims

ENGL 627 Seminar in Major Literary Figure(s). 3 credits. Intensive study of the writings of one or two major authors. Critical and biographical topics and historical significance may be considered. May be repeated once with permission of the department. [This semester's focus: The Senecan Legacy in Shakespeare and Renaissance Drama. Ooo, I know.]

Books: Seneca, Four Tragedies and Octavia; Elizabeth Cary, Tragedy of Mariam; Thomas Kyd, The Spanish Tragedy; Shakespeare, Richard III, Titus Andronicus, Hamlet, Macbeth; John Edward Zimmerman, The Dictionary of Classical Mythology.

2) I'm working as an editorial assistant for Lynn Worsham, editor of jac: rhetoric, writing, culture, politics. She's just moved to ISU from another ISU (Illinois State) and has brought the journal with her. Should be a great experience. Plus, I have my own office now. And it's a corner office with windows---in the basement of the liberal arts building and the windows are only on the top third or so of the wall; but it's an office nonetheless.

3) For the first time in our married life, I'm working more hours than my bride---outside the home, that is, in a job that (nominally) brings in money. And I'm pretty sure she likes that. I think I do, too, though it's only been a few days.

4) Daughter #1 starts first grade Monday. I'm not sure how I feel about that, especially since I'll be gone most of the time she's at school. Mostly, I just can't believe I have a six-year-old. Still shocked at that, really.

5) Jess and I have been called as Marriage and Family Relations instructors in our ward (in addition to my EQ secretarying). Finally, I'll get to teach again!

6) In light of the demanding and worthy projects I've got on the table for the next year (plus, in some cases)---family, a new school year (my last, I hope, of degree coursework), work on jac, callings, my own writing (including Chasing---though I don't think I'll be posting as frequently), an anthology I'm co-editing (not Reading Until Dawn), blogging at AMV (I plan to do a post a month at this point), and doing dissertation research and various degree-related things (including getting ready for my presentation at RMMLA this October)---I'm officially putting Reading Until Dawn on the backburner, though I'll likely post my RMMLA paper there when I get it to an acceptable state.

I know, I know, you say, I haven't been plugging RUD for some time now, so what's going to change? Well, not much, I guess. I'll still be accepting submissions (*hm-hmm* MoJo), so don't let that hold anyone back. Having made my lack of activity "official," however, I'll feel less guilty about what I'm not doing to gather essays.

And there, as they say, you have it.

A Portrait of John Rackham as a Young Man (Poem)

Last week, Luisa posted a contest/challenge on her blog (the third of three she posted while on vacation): to write a 50-words-or-less story inspired by a photo she posted of a young man dressed as Jack Sparrow (of the Johnny Depp kind). Just for the heck of it, I started writing something and before I knew it, I'd been sucked into a meditation on John Rackham, nicknamed Calico Jack because he had a fetish for calico coats and britches (or so I read). I meant it more as a parody of Rackham than anything, especially because his life seemed such a parody of itself anyway, but I think it turned into something more, especially when I somehow finagled the marine scene from The Apotheosis of Washington into the poem.

You'll also notice that my narrative exceeds 50 words. But here's my caveat: each stanza is exactly 50 words long. I just couldn't fit the portrait into just 50 words. So here's 150 (plus the title).

Enjoy. Oh, and if you've any feedback, I'm okay with that, too, though I'm not sure if I'll do anything with this poem beyond this post.

* * * *

A Portrait of John Rackham as a Young Man, or The Apotheosis of Calico Jack

Boy, when you’ve plundered those deep iris pools, scarred and callused
skin smooth as Narcissus’s stare, squandered lips bowled so subtly girls
take it for love, and turned your youth obsessively out—into calico robes
technicolored as lust for the sea, self-anointing flagged cutlass and skull
on your secondhand mast;
                                     when the crew to your rear (women pooled
with the men) has helped you mutinize Neptune’s brazen advance and
the hallway you’re in has thawed to maritime swells, a spindrift-prismed
corridor hung like a lane of carnival mirrors skewing and eschewing your
soul in its regressive glance through the flesh;
                                                                 when you’re gibbeted, flown
like your black-masted flag—tarred, caged, hanged on your isle in God’s
alcove of irony: will the pitch let you slip from insatiate skin, pace the cay’s
farthest shore—its unquenchable surge—as you wait for dawn to spark
your calico lust into robes of apocalypse?

A Taste of Fruit at WIZ

Patricia's posted another of my poems, "Fruit," at Wilderness Interface Zone. Some facts about "Fruit":

1. It was the first poem I had published. Yay for me. Now a large part of my need to take poems public comes here. I should do something more with them, no?

2. The opening lines were drawn verbatim from an OB/GYN visit I went to with my wife after she'd been in a car accident (rear-ended by a high school girl who wasn't paying attention when my wife stopped at a school crossing). Trying to alleviate our concern over a damaged fetus, the doctor said: "She's like an apple in a water balloon." After I stopped chuckling and trying to figure out how I could possibly get an apple into a water balloon---you know, to prove her hypothesis---I felt better. That apple, now out of the balloon, is three point five years old.

3. Section two was inspired by a few hours spent picking apples on a cold day at my paternal grandparents.

4. The characters in section three were inspired by those same grandparents. Grandpa, a gardener and university-trained botanist, has since passed. Grandma is having a hard time with that.

Because I Think It's Funny

...and I wanted an easy post today after last week's heavy lifting.

I just came across this Axe Commercial (from 2007, I think) featuring a (slightly misinterpreted version of) a Mormon missionary. Though he's got no companion and the name tag's all wrong, Elder Spoof (I'm calling him) is pretty spot on, especially to anyone who's actually paid attention to the boy behind the suit: riding down the street like he's all that, showing off for the ladies (as 19-year-old Hormones are wont to do, even when they're wearing a suit, tie, and name badge), lugging around the trademark blue book, knocking doors in the middle of the day. In short, he's your (stereo)typical missionary. And an oh so funny commentary on certain idiosyncrasies of Mormon culture.

Enjoy.

Wayplace: Take Two

In April, I posted an earlier version of this poem and got some feedback that prompted this revision. The biggest difference, you'll see if you compare the two poems, comes beginning in stanza twelve where I've softened the image of hooking God's bowels from the sign (as in version one) to punctuating the sign, though I've left the type of punctuation ambiguous---period? comma? exclamation point? hyphen? question mark?---implying that this phrase, this choice point, could take me anywhere.

Anyway. Feedback welcome. (And just because this is a later version of the poem, that doesn't mean I've closed the door on revisions. I'm always looking for better ways to say...)

* * * *

Wayplace

at the city’s limit,
straddling the hill
Elder Chris could

barely manage
without getting off
to walk. Not tourist.

Not sea-veined kiwi.
Something between.
Though standing

ten years distant
from this photo, I’d
call you foreign. Alien.

Vagrant from a self
Time surreptitiously
forgot. It’s not

the slacks, the tie,
the shirt sleeves. Not
the name badge, words

white on black on white,
or the bag straps heavy
as a parachute harness

on your shoulders.
Not even your unnatural
lean against the pole’s

lean, legs cropped at
the knee by the photo’s
edge, or the gestures

you’ve twisted around
each hand: right arm
square to the abdomen,

pinkie and thumb hung
loose from your fist,
left hand timid toward

sky, index finger raised,
set to punctuate
the Give Way sign overhead.

But how your smile of a pose
says anything but content.
How your paper-thin passions

betray the burn
of breaking in new skin.
How you eventually

carved “Body + Pushbike”
in the pole then pedaled
after cloudfire

until it seared your veins
like the opening phrase
of apocalypse.

The Choice Point: A Response to MoJo

Moriah's responses to "The Haunting 'I'" (here and here) have had me thinking about the intersection of psychopathology and agency, about the place of psychopaths (serial killers included) in the plan of happiness. As Moriah says, "I'm not sure sometimes why these people (psychopaths, serial killers, whatever) are here. I have theories and speculations." As do I. And they center in the complex interaction between an individual's biology, sociology, temperament, and agency, an interaction Moriah also seems to imply, or at least to consider, in her reference to the Prodigal Son as pattern for our eternal "coming home at last": the point where we finally turn and return to God as a result of life choices and circumstances that have taken us away from Him or from reaching for Him and through which we may have become bogged down in "riotous living" (though I could be completely off reading her comment this way. Forgive me, please, if that's the case, MoJo).

An acknowledgment of this complexity also seems to trouble the surface of this comment: "Most days I wonder what, if any, control these people actually have over their actions. If, once they make ONE CHOICE, they're doomed to follow that path." And while I'm not sure if one choice alone can be the determining factor in the development of certain psychopathological tendencies, I am fairly confident that our agency can be limited, our choices determined by forces beyond our control. Doing some Googling to the tune of "LDS + psychopathology" this morning, I dredged up this article in the July 1973 New Era by Allen E. Bergin, prominent Mormon psychologist and once professor at BYU, in which he advances toward a theory of human agency. (Like the mixed metaphors in that sentence---music and dredging?)

The first thing I thought when I read the article, which is based on Bergin's research findings, was (in a completely unrelated vein) how far the Church magazines have moved from essays of this complex bend. They've become far more simple (simplistic?) through the years, though my speculations as to why are the subject for another day. The second thing I considered was how Bergin's biases as a conservative Latter-day Saint and psychologist may have shaped his findings. I found this section especially telling in this regard:

[W]hile I do not look to psychology for my salvation or that of mankind, I do view it (together with the related behavioral sciences) as one of the most exciting and potentially useful fields of inquiry that exists. While some of its practitioners promote bizarre theories and engage in unethical behavior, the major thrust of the field is a positive and progressive one. I suggest in all candor and sincerity that psychology is as fundamental to the implementation of the principles of gospel living (the Christian life-style) as medical science is to the implementation of the Word of Wisdom. Just as biomedical research reveals to us the mechanisms underlying the principles of the Lord’s code of physical health and thereby provides us with a more positive control over the health of our bodies, so also, behavioral science informs us of the processes underlying revealed principles of living and provides us with improved power to promote the health of mind and spirit. Psychology is thus as basic to the study of living as biochemistry is to the study of life. It is, in my estimation, the most important secular subject matter for Latter-day Saints to know.

Interesting language: Psychology as "the most important subject matter" for us to know. Insightful, yes, and helpful when analyzing motives and searching for understanding of behavior; but the most important? Maybe. Maybe not.

Anyway, though I take exception with some of Bergin's language, biases, and assertions (I have my biases, too, so I won't take him to task today), I found these thoughts, found in the section titled "Determiners of Behavior at a Choice Point," especially enlightening in terms of present considerations:

All human acts are determined by multiple influences. We may identify six broad classes of influence as: (1) cultural, social, or environmental controls; (2) biological factors; (3) habits of response that have been conditioned, especially by childhood experiences; (4) feelings or emotions; (5) thoughts, ideas, or beliefs; and (6) spiritual inspiration.

It would be preferable if human beings acted upon the latter three factors primarily, but unfortunately their behavior is too often dominated by influences outside of their control. If we are to be wise, receive the truth, and take the Holy Spirit for our guide as suggested in D&C 45:57, we must learn to optimize the influence of higher processes in our actions. Otherwise, we lose our power of independent action and are “encircled about by the bands of death, and the chains of hell” (Alma 5:7) and then “are taken captive by the devil, and led by his will down to destruction.” (Alma 12:11)

He goes on to discuss the varying degrees of control we each exercise in our lives as a whole and at different moments therein, suggesting that, at any given "choice point" (I like that phrase), we still possess some sense of control, nominal as it may be in certain circumstances and for different people, including the sociopath.

And all of this, I think, is just a long way of responding to Moriah (I hope I haven't mutilated your comments!), of saying that human agency is a complex principle and that, by extension, it's a difficult thing to judge what degree of control an individual has at any given point in his or her life. If I had more time, I'd explore this in greater detail, but I think it's a beginning. Suffice it conclude, for now, that I thank God that we have in Him a Judge whose unique Being (fullness of justice, mercy, knowledge, love, etc.) allows him to consider all these things when determining our eternal fate---and that I won't be the one doing the doing the final judging.

It's on

"After the House Fell Silent: Of Speaking the Truth, Scapegoats, and Absorbing the Rhetoric of Blame," my review essay of Shattered Silence: The Untold Story of a Serial Killer's Daughter, is live at AMV. Come check it out.

The Haunting "I": Self-Singing, Ego-Stroking Rhetoric

In his recent reflections on the late Frank McCourt's influence on American memoir writers, poet, novelist, and critic Jay Parini observes that the memoir has "always been the central form of American literature." As evidence for this sweeping claim, he points to the writings of Governor Bradford (Of Plymouth Plantation), Benjamin Franklin (his "fabulous autobiography"), Henry David Thoreau (Walden), Mary Antin (Promised Land), and Booker T. Washington (Up From Slavery), as well as to "any of a thousand wonderful immigrant memoirs from the 19th and 20th centuries." "[T]his has been our most essential form," he continues, because, in his words, "the United States has always been about singing one's self, as Walt Whitman might say. The individual stands in for society. His or her story is rapidly taken as democratic."

Sometimes, though, this cultural tendency to sing the self is simply ego-stroking masquerading as life writing. Such is the case with Jack Olsen's "I": The Creation of a Serial Killer, the aptly titled, self-promoting, and disturbingly vivid biography of Keith Hunter Jesperson, a.k.a The Happy Face Killer, which I recently read (enough of it, anyway, to get a view of Jesperson that has been haunting me ever since) to get some background for my forthcoming review essay of Melissa G. Moore's Shattered Silence: The Untold Story of a Serial Killer's Daughter (which will be active on the other side of this link Monday morning).

The major problem I have with this book isn't necessarily its voyeuristic engagement with Jesperson's psychopathology, its visceral descriptions of his killings, or Olsen's fragmented and journalistic style (of which I am not a fan at all), though these are enough for me to tell you to stay away---far, far away---from the book, unless you're really that interested and just have to know more. No, the most chilling thing about it for me is Jesperson's complete disregard for anyone but himself, a characteristic reflected in his blame-bending, ego-stroking rhetoric. His language (which comes through sections of autobiographical writings layered between sections of Olsen's research-based narrative) refuses compassion and is all about justifying his increasingly twisted "I"---the paradoxically self-loving and self-loathing psychopathology that informs and affirms his animalistic version of the world.

By the time I'd skimmed my way through two-thirds of the book, I was sick of combatting his violent rhetoric, his rhetoric of violence, his ego-infused language, in my attempts to find some common rhetorical ground upon which I could exercise compassion toward him---and I closed the book because his words made me sick and, more so, it made me sick that I couldn't see his humanness struggling beneath those layers and layers of words. Sure, there's struggling involved in his story, though not with any sense of compassion or decency on Jesperson's part, but I'll spare you those strangling details.

In short, through my experience with this text, I caught wind of a rhetoric I don't have the language or the compassion to penetrate and diffuse right now, perhaps ever. And, I must admit, the prospect of this impenetrability, which I see reflected more deeply in Lucifer's persistent "I," has me chilled, at times, to the core.

Of Mice and Pizza

I'm airing more rhetorical laundry at AMV today. Here's a little taste (oo, you say, mice and pizza: yum):

Since I’ve been thinking more lately about responsible rhetoric and what my language does once it leaves my mind and my mouth, I’ve noticed a number of Mormon cultural instances in which language has been used by leaders/teachers in what I consider reckless ways. Hence this series of Airing the Rhetorical Laundry posts, which I never intended to become a series (though who knows how long it will actually last) and which have become brief explorations of moments in LDS culture where I think language has been manipulated (knowingly or not) by individuals or groups of saints in their attempts to persuade fellow laborers to greater faithfulness.

Today, I’m taking on the faulty analogies often used to convince people away from movies or books that may be good, “except for one little part.” Notice, first off, that I don’t intend to deal with the idea of keeping our entertainment clean or with the varying degrees of readerly sensitivity, i.e., individuals’ varying capacities to endure evil in the fictions they frequent. Rather, I’m approaching the language itself and intend to judge its merits in purely rhetorical terms—that is, I’m more concerned with what work the language is actually doing than with what it’s intended to do or with whether or not we should watch this movie or read that book because of this steamy scene or that profane word.

And that's all you get here. Jump the link and come on over to get more.

"That there should be no schism in the body"

What follows are the notes I made while preparing to teach the Elders' Quorum this Sunday past. (Aside: Almost every week, I see a paper come through the quorum that says "Elder's Quorum." PET PEEVE!) While we discussed some of what's here, most of it only made it into my head and my notebook. So you, my friends, are privy to an insider's look!

* * * *

Primary texts of my pondering and for class discussion: D&C 20:53-55; 1 Cor. 12:25-27

Thoughts on my assignment (posted on AMV 28 July)

(Notes from 28 July)

Watch over—observe vigilantly—care for, be given care of

Care—nurturance—to care for another is to be aware of their needs—discernment—To care and be caring

1 Cor. 12:25—caring for the whole—precludes possibility for exclusion—using inclusionary language—the rhetoric of exclusion is language that excludes or privileges as it reaches into the world—Rhetoric of inclusion—inclusive rhetoric—language that cares, that supports the act of caring for others, for God’s Church—language that edifies—that builds others, builds the kingdom—“that there should be no schism in the body” of our language

BE WITH—counsel of similar linguistic construction to:

1 Cor. 12:26—suffer with, rejoice with

Mosiah 18:9—mourn with

To be inclusive emotionally, intellectually, rhetorically, physically—to help others feel included

* * * *

(Notes from the morning of 2 Aug.)

THAT THERE SHOULD BE NO SCHISM IN THE BODY

WATCH OVER—to have charge of—implies stewardship—to have charge of the Church, which is:

1) Institution/organization directed by God; includes people, programs, policies

2) for administering salvation through Gospel ordinances, covenants, principles, doctrines

3) to [an expansive group of] people; the Saints

[In Church] ongoing, big focus, high priority: teaching & learning. WHY?

“A man [or woman] is saved no faster than [s/]he gains knowledge.”

So: how best to watch over the Church—full and vigilant fellowship—always

*Discernment

To BE WITH the Church—support its organization—doesn’t mean blindly obeying

At least two other places w/similar grammatical construction:

mourn w/those that mourn—Mosiah 18

suffer w/ & rejoice w/—1 Cor. 12

also suffer w/Christ—Rom. 8:17

Entering the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings—Philippians 3:10

To strengthen w/our presence, our words (teachings), our faith, our prayers—[focus:] full fellowship & gospel instruction

ALWAYS: used in relation to at least 3 commandments:

1) Here [D&C 20:53]

2) Pray always

3) Always remember Christ

FELLOWSHIP (n)—community of interest, activity, feeling, or experience; a company of equals or friends (as in 1 Cor. 12:25)

[Fellowship] (v)—to join in fellowship—the action associated w/the above

BODY OF CHRIST—all have responsibility to endure it ([as] the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings), to keep it pure (word & deed) teaching by word & example, w/whole soul, whole-souledness

1) body (discipline)

2) mind (vision)

3) heart (passion)

4) spirit (conscience)

TO MINISTER—[elders are] standing ministers—D&C 84:111, 124:137

In Quorum, yes—to other elders—ALSO—to rest of ward, stake, church—ministry starts [with individual, in home], ripples outward from there

—Body—representative of our presence in the kingdom, in the world—serving others w/our presence (not in any “grace you w/my presence” sense) But in sense that, as we work to perfect ourselves, our discipleship—our influence/presence extends into the world—filling the gaps between bodies w/our influence—the influence of our presence, our fellowship, our faith, our words

[All of this] implies[/depends upon a] lifetime of discipleship—of full & vigilant fellowship w/Christ, his Gospel, his Saints—also responsibility to teach