I haven't written for a couple of weeks.
I've been in Oz.
Just as with Dorothy (in the MGM film, not in L. Frank Baum's books), I've been in a dreamland of my own making.
When I was a little boy--along with millions of other little American kids--I watched The Wizard of Oz once a year on television. It was a family event, bigger and more important than the Super Bowl.
Then, for the next six months or so (as long as the weather permitted), I would force the neighbor children to act out the film in my backyard, with different parts of the yard designated as different parts of the land of Oz. Munchkinland was by the garden; the scarecrow was near the swing set; the lion lived in the lilacs. The little girl across the street played Dorothy, and I played every male part that wasn't covered by some boy in the neighborhood. Sometimes I played the Wicked Witch, too, I suppose; I must have--nobody else wanted to.
Fifty years later, I did the same thing. This time, though, I staged the show in the Woodrow Wilson Multiple Purpose Room (a little larger than my back yard). I didn't play a part in the show--I covered parts in the orchestra.
And the show was a dream come true. The kids were terrific; the costumes were beautiful (thanks to my wife and daughter); the sets were gorgeous (thanks to art classes and another daughter); even the sound was good (thanks to my son).
So, a little worn out from age but lightened by nostalgia, I emerge from the cyclone trip home, glad to be here, and even happy to be back in the traces again.
Because, after all, there's no place like home.
Monday, April 14, 2014
Sunday, March 9, 2014
"The Wizard of Oz" and its right to endure
Wilson High School, where I teach, is preparing a production of The Wizard of Oz, which is--I think--the greatest live-action children's movie in history.
Every morning my wife and I wake up singing the songs, and every morning we comment on how we are not tired of the songs yet--a sign that the songs are very good.
The play is based on the 1939 MGM film, with some portions of the script that were cut from the film, and some additional post-modern schtick. (The play version was written in 1987 for the Royal Shakespeare Company, too soon to benefit from the death of post-modernism and the playwright's need to answer all those nagging questions like, "What happened to Miss Gultch?" and "Where did the Winkies come from and why do they sing that song?") The music utilizes not only the Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg songs from the film, but the thematic elements from Herbert Stothart's masterful score. (What would Oz be without the witch's theme? I ask you.)
I have had a couple of opportunities lately to talk to my students about why I think the Oz music is so good, and part of my answer is that it doesn't dumb itself down at all for the sensibilities of little children. It is adult, sophisticated, and accessible to children all at once.
Think of "Over the Rainbow." The melody covers an octave and a third; so many of today's melodies are simple diatonic chants--if there are melodies at all in modern popular music. The harmonies of the A portion of the chorus change tonic three times, and are full of rich harmonic extensions and dissonant suspensions, finally resolving on a 6th (for the unmusical among you, that's halfway between major and minor; or, in other words, halfway between happy and sad).
The lyrics are brilliant in their combination of childhood simplicity and adult complexity: "Some day I"ll wish upon a star [an oft-repeated childhood phrase] and wake up where the clouds are far behind me [an ambiguous idea that could be anything from the safety of heaven to death]." The verse (usually omitted) speaks of "clouds...darken[ing] up the skyway," which is possible in the best of times, but takes on additional significance when one realizes that two Jews wrote it in 1938. It is practically a national lament, "If happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow, why, oh, why can't I?"
I personally love the playful rhymes of the triptych "If I Only Had a Brain/Heart/Nerve": "I would not be just a nuffin,/ My head all full of stuffin'," "When a man's an empty kettle,/ He should be on his mettle" (how often do you get puns like that--the "metal" man should be on his "mettle," or show his worth/courage--in lyrics nowadays?), and "I would show the dinosaurus/ Who's king around the fores'."
"The Jitterbug" was cut from the film to save time and because it was too much of its age for timeless Oz. Now, 75 years later, it fits perfectly, and that's good. It is loud, dissonant, big-band jazz at its best.
When children's theater or children's films succeed today, they succeed on the same terms, I think. First, they are not dumbed down. Second, they do not stint in quality simply because they are made for a younger audience. And, third, they are understood on multiple levels that continue to enrich the viewer throughout adulthood.
Every morning my wife and I wake up singing the songs, and every morning we comment on how we are not tired of the songs yet--a sign that the songs are very good.
The play is based on the 1939 MGM film, with some portions of the script that were cut from the film, and some additional post-modern schtick. (The play version was written in 1987 for the Royal Shakespeare Company, too soon to benefit from the death of post-modernism and the playwright's need to answer all those nagging questions like, "What happened to Miss Gultch?" and "Where did the Winkies come from and why do they sing that song?") The music utilizes not only the Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg songs from the film, but the thematic elements from Herbert Stothart's masterful score. (What would Oz be without the witch's theme? I ask you.)
I have had a couple of opportunities lately to talk to my students about why I think the Oz music is so good, and part of my answer is that it doesn't dumb itself down at all for the sensibilities of little children. It is adult, sophisticated, and accessible to children all at once.
Think of "Over the Rainbow." The melody covers an octave and a third; so many of today's melodies are simple diatonic chants--if there are melodies at all in modern popular music. The harmonies of the A portion of the chorus change tonic three times, and are full of rich harmonic extensions and dissonant suspensions, finally resolving on a 6th (for the unmusical among you, that's halfway between major and minor; or, in other words, halfway between happy and sad).
The lyrics are brilliant in their combination of childhood simplicity and adult complexity: "Some day I"ll wish upon a star [an oft-repeated childhood phrase] and wake up where the clouds are far behind me [an ambiguous idea that could be anything from the safety of heaven to death]." The verse (usually omitted) speaks of "clouds...darken[ing] up the skyway," which is possible in the best of times, but takes on additional significance when one realizes that two Jews wrote it in 1938. It is practically a national lament, "If happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow, why, oh, why can't I?"
I personally love the playful rhymes of the triptych "If I Only Had a Brain/Heart/Nerve": "I would not be just a nuffin,/ My head all full of stuffin'," "When a man's an empty kettle,/ He should be on his mettle" (how often do you get puns like that--the "metal" man should be on his "mettle," or show his worth/courage--in lyrics nowadays?), and "I would show the dinosaurus/ Who's king around the fores'."
"The Jitterbug" was cut from the film to save time and because it was too much of its age for timeless Oz. Now, 75 years later, it fits perfectly, and that's good. It is loud, dissonant, big-band jazz at its best.
When children's theater or children's films succeed today, they succeed on the same terms, I think. First, they are not dumbed down. Second, they do not stint in quality simply because they are made for a younger audience. And, third, they are understood on multiple levels that continue to enrich the viewer throughout adulthood.
Sunday, March 2, 2014
One Mormon's take on Arizona bill SB 1062 (the "anti-gay bill")
I finally read SB 1062, and I don't see what the fuss is about.
You may have heard of SB 1062. It's been in the news lately. It's usually characterized as a terrible piece of legislation that will allow for the reinstatement of "Jim Crow" laws under the guise of religious freedom. In headline after headline it's described as Arizona's "anti-gay law."
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has taken no position on it. A group of Latter-day Saints who support gay-marriage has publicly opposed it.
It's only about two pages long, and it clarifies the state's take on federal law that protects religious beliefs. The most far reaching part of it, to me, seems to be the redefining of "person" to include some businesses. It doesn't codify discrimination against homosexuals (it never mentions them), nor does it give businesses absolute freedom to do whatever they want. It merely says that the government must have a compelling interest in removing a person's ability to practice his or her religion, and now the "person" may also be a business.
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer vetoed the legislation, saying that it was "too broad." That may be so. Legislation that is too broadly written has created problems throughout the world. Read Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago for an example. It was one Soviet law, written very broadly, that allowed for the arrests that filled the gulags.
I'm not a legal expert, and I don't know the ramifications of the wording of SB 1062. It may actually be so broad that it would invite businesses to open up whites-only lunch-counters because the owner's religious convictions forbade the mingling of whites and non-whites. I don't think the market would stand for it; and I don't think such a business could withstand the onslaught of public disapproval and stay open. (This is not 1914, after all.) Still, if a law allowed such a thing, it would not be a desirable law.
As other states mull the same issue, I wonder if the law might have to be written very specifically. In certain small businesses, where alternate services are readily available, and where participation in some specific activities would violate the business owner's deeply-held religious convictions, the business owner ought to be exempt from lawsuits or government intervention if he or she chooses to follow his conscience rather than take the cash. The Arizona law lists such businesses (including, I noted, a theater). Maybe it included too many businesses.
It seems reasonable to me, for example, that a bakery should be required to serve all people who come into it, but could be allowed to refuse to make a cake that endorses gay marriage, just as it would be reasonable for the business to refuse to make an obscene cake.
It would not be right for that business to refuse all service to some people because they are overtly, covertly, or apparently gay. It would also not be right for anyone to force the bakery to inscribe messages that the bakery owner considered offensive.
Like Governor Brewer, though, I'm not exactly sure how the line can be drawn legislatively. A photographer should be given the same exemptions, I think, and so should a church-owned building. But what about a public theater or an apartment building? Should only non-believers work as county clerks, or should county clerks be allowed a religious exemption to refuse to perform a wedding?
I don't think the crafters of the Fourteenth Amendment intended all of this.
You may have heard of SB 1062. It's been in the news lately. It's usually characterized as a terrible piece of legislation that will allow for the reinstatement of "Jim Crow" laws under the guise of religious freedom. In headline after headline it's described as Arizona's "anti-gay law."
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has taken no position on it. A group of Latter-day Saints who support gay-marriage has publicly opposed it.
It's only about two pages long, and it clarifies the state's take on federal law that protects religious beliefs. The most far reaching part of it, to me, seems to be the redefining of "person" to include some businesses. It doesn't codify discrimination against homosexuals (it never mentions them), nor does it give businesses absolute freedom to do whatever they want. It merely says that the government must have a compelling interest in removing a person's ability to practice his or her religion, and now the "person" may also be a business.
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer vetoed the legislation, saying that it was "too broad." That may be so. Legislation that is too broadly written has created problems throughout the world. Read Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago for an example. It was one Soviet law, written very broadly, that allowed for the arrests that filled the gulags.
I'm not a legal expert, and I don't know the ramifications of the wording of SB 1062. It may actually be so broad that it would invite businesses to open up whites-only lunch-counters because the owner's religious convictions forbade the mingling of whites and non-whites. I don't think the market would stand for it; and I don't think such a business could withstand the onslaught of public disapproval and stay open. (This is not 1914, after all.) Still, if a law allowed such a thing, it would not be a desirable law.
As other states mull the same issue, I wonder if the law might have to be written very specifically. In certain small businesses, where alternate services are readily available, and where participation in some specific activities would violate the business owner's deeply-held religious convictions, the business owner ought to be exempt from lawsuits or government intervention if he or she chooses to follow his conscience rather than take the cash. The Arizona law lists such businesses (including, I noted, a theater). Maybe it included too many businesses.
It seems reasonable to me, for example, that a bakery should be required to serve all people who come into it, but could be allowed to refuse to make a cake that endorses gay marriage, just as it would be reasonable for the business to refuse to make an obscene cake.
It would not be right for that business to refuse all service to some people because they are overtly, covertly, or apparently gay. It would also not be right for anyone to force the bakery to inscribe messages that the bakery owner considered offensive.
Like Governor Brewer, though, I'm not exactly sure how the line can be drawn legislatively. A photographer should be given the same exemptions, I think, and so should a church-owned building. But what about a public theater or an apartment building? Should only non-believers work as county clerks, or should county clerks be allowed a religious exemption to refuse to perform a wedding?
I don't think the crafters of the Fourteenth Amendment intended all of this.
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Another Mormon's take on Disney's "Frozen"
This week another Mormon blogger, Kathryn Skaggs, has taken some flack because she had the audacity to suggest that Disney's movie Frozen promoted the gay agenda.
I don't agree with her. I think Frozen covers issues that might be personal to gays, but I don't think the film promotes their agenda.
Still, I can completely understand where Skaggs is coming from.
I remember the first time I saw the film (I've seen it twice--because I wanted to see it, not because I was dragged to it by children), I sat with my hands clenched throughout the song "Let It Go" because I expected it to promote a gay viewpoint.
Why would I think such a thing?
Well, partly because it has been so common lately for films and television--especially children's films and television--to provide sometimes subtle, sometimes overt messages that bolster the argument that the only thing wrong with the practice of homosexuality is that society (particularly the evil religious fanatical part of society led by the evil religious fanatical Mormons) does not accept the behavior as normal. If we all just got together and recognized homophobia (with all its shifting meanings) as the greatest evil in the world today, and if we all recognized that bullying of homosexuals is the single greatest cause of death among all races and classes of adolescents, then we could defeat the evil religious fanatics and begin living in our sexual utopia, complete with free and legal marijuana.
Or something like that.
I feel a little bombarded by the message. So much so that I have come to expect it.
Why shouldn't I expect a gay agenda in Frozen? After all, the (straight, married) song-writing team for Frozen earned Tony Awards for The Book of Mormon, a musical whose first incarnations were intended to be a response to the Church's participation in Prop 8. The cute singing snowman was played by the actor who portrayed one of the idiotic Mormon missionaries, who blunders into doing good even though his religion is one of the stupider ones ever on earth. The singer who sings "Let it Go" is same one who sang Elfaba in Broadway's Wicked. (That's fodder for another blog, I suppose.) I liked Wicked, but I liked it understanding that the book it is based on is written by a gay man whose intent is clearly to suggest that what we thought was wrong is not wrong. (The musical is usually read as a tribute to the lonely, ugly, misunderstood girls growing up in a world in which the competition is weighted in favor of the beautiful and popular--a reason for its success among female 'tweens and adolescents.)
Add to that the fact that I have been presented with an almost unrelenting message from NBC that Russia is the most evil country in the modern world--even worse than the former Soviet Union--because they (name two or three things, then add) have anti-gay propaganda laws (then add some other evils, like force people out of their homes to build the stadium).
If you know too much backstory, it might be hard to see something like "Let it Go" and not see some subliminal pro-gay messages--even if they aren't really there.
Personally, I was very pleased with Disney's ability to focus the talents of those who did Frozen, and make a film that is so beautiful and so positive to all children. It is, after all, the Christ story--a story of personal sacrifice born of innocent, familial love. It is the most timeless, important story in the world, told either directly through scripture, or allegorically, through a retelling of Hans Christian Andersen.
I disagree with Skaggs.
But I understand where she's coming from.
I don't agree with her. I think Frozen covers issues that might be personal to gays, but I don't think the film promotes their agenda.
Still, I can completely understand where Skaggs is coming from.
I remember the first time I saw the film (I've seen it twice--because I wanted to see it, not because I was dragged to it by children), I sat with my hands clenched throughout the song "Let It Go" because I expected it to promote a gay viewpoint.
Why would I think such a thing?
Well, partly because it has been so common lately for films and television--especially children's films and television--to provide sometimes subtle, sometimes overt messages that bolster the argument that the only thing wrong with the practice of homosexuality is that society (particularly the evil religious fanatical part of society led by the evil religious fanatical Mormons) does not accept the behavior as normal. If we all just got together and recognized homophobia (with all its shifting meanings) as the greatest evil in the world today, and if we all recognized that bullying of homosexuals is the single greatest cause of death among all races and classes of adolescents, then we could defeat the evil religious fanatics and begin living in our sexual utopia, complete with free and legal marijuana.
Or something like that.
I feel a little bombarded by the message. So much so that I have come to expect it.
Why shouldn't I expect a gay agenda in Frozen? After all, the (straight, married) song-writing team for Frozen earned Tony Awards for The Book of Mormon, a musical whose first incarnations were intended to be a response to the Church's participation in Prop 8. The cute singing snowman was played by the actor who portrayed one of the idiotic Mormon missionaries, who blunders into doing good even though his religion is one of the stupider ones ever on earth. The singer who sings "Let it Go" is same one who sang Elfaba in Broadway's Wicked. (That's fodder for another blog, I suppose.) I liked Wicked, but I liked it understanding that the book it is based on is written by a gay man whose intent is clearly to suggest that what we thought was wrong is not wrong. (The musical is usually read as a tribute to the lonely, ugly, misunderstood girls growing up in a world in which the competition is weighted in favor of the beautiful and popular--a reason for its success among female 'tweens and adolescents.)
Add to that the fact that I have been presented with an almost unrelenting message from NBC that Russia is the most evil country in the modern world--even worse than the former Soviet Union--because they (name two or three things, then add) have anti-gay propaganda laws (then add some other evils, like force people out of their homes to build the stadium).
If you know too much backstory, it might be hard to see something like "Let it Go" and not see some subliminal pro-gay messages--even if they aren't really there.
Personally, I was very pleased with Disney's ability to focus the talents of those who did Frozen, and make a film that is so beautiful and so positive to all children. It is, after all, the Christ story--a story of personal sacrifice born of innocent, familial love. It is the most timeless, important story in the world, told either directly through scripture, or allegorically, through a retelling of Hans Christian Andersen.
I disagree with Skaggs.
But I understand where she's coming from.
Sunday, February 16, 2014
A front-page article in today's LA Times provides fodder for today's blog. The front-page headline is innocuous: "A bid to shake up Utah's liquor laws." On an interior page, blazing across all six columns: "Tearing down the Zion curtain?"
Now, the article is more balanced than the headlines would have one believe. In fact, if anything, it supports the current Utah liquor laws. It might be hard to see that, given the incendiary backpage headline and the article's continual reminder that the "politically powerful Mormon Church" controls things in Utah. But even if I weren't in support of Utah's liquor laws, it would be tough for me to rush to change them because (gasp) they "stymie Salt Lake City's otherwise flourishing culinary scene and slow the growth of the state's $7.4 billion tourism industry." Or, how about this: "'It's silly--ridiculous'" that a restauranteur has the aesthetic of his restaurant hurt, or that a bartender has to pour drinks out of view of his patrons.
OMIGOSH! LET'S TEAR DOWN THE ZION CURTAIN!!!!
Utah is being compared to the former Soviet bloc in a front-page article of the Times--and why? It's liquor laws are different from California's? And there is a sinister undertone in the "grandfatherly" voice of Apostle D. Todd Chistopherson because--why? The Mormon Church favors limiting alcohol consumption?
This one, I confess, is a little easier to follow than some others from this week. Hollywood has been in Utah for the Sundance Film Festival, and when Hollywood can't get its drinks the way it wants them, heads will roll. The Times is merely helping to roll the heads.
Along these same lines, I wonder why in the world I was led to believe that the Sochi Olympics were going to be the worst since Berlin in 1936. Or what is so political about climate variations? Or why, in the midst of the worst drought in 500 years, California doesn't just desalinate water from the largest ocean on earth? There's a reason for everything, and it usually has nothing at all to do with such mundane things as the Olympics or climate variation or water. It's usually tied in with someone's financial or emotional or political investments, and the only reason we are supposed to believe that contemporary Russia is worse than the former Soviet Union, or climate change means to vote for one candidate and not another, or there's something wrong with desalinated water (other than the tastelessness) is because somebody somewhere probably has a finger in some pot of money.
Now, the article is more balanced than the headlines would have one believe. In fact, if anything, it supports the current Utah liquor laws. It might be hard to see that, given the incendiary backpage headline and the article's continual reminder that the "politically powerful Mormon Church" controls things in Utah. But even if I weren't in support of Utah's liquor laws, it would be tough for me to rush to change them because (gasp) they "stymie Salt Lake City's otherwise flourishing culinary scene and slow the growth of the state's $7.4 billion tourism industry." Or, how about this: "'It's silly--ridiculous'" that a restauranteur has the aesthetic of his restaurant hurt, or that a bartender has to pour drinks out of view of his patrons.
OMIGOSH! LET'S TEAR DOWN THE ZION CURTAIN!!!!
Utah is being compared to the former Soviet bloc in a front-page article of the Times--and why? It's liquor laws are different from California's? And there is a sinister undertone in the "grandfatherly" voice of Apostle D. Todd Chistopherson because--why? The Mormon Church favors limiting alcohol consumption?
This one, I confess, is a little easier to follow than some others from this week. Hollywood has been in Utah for the Sundance Film Festival, and when Hollywood can't get its drinks the way it wants them, heads will roll. The Times is merely helping to roll the heads.
Along these same lines, I wonder why in the world I was led to believe that the Sochi Olympics were going to be the worst since Berlin in 1936. Or what is so political about climate variations? Or why, in the midst of the worst drought in 500 years, California doesn't just desalinate water from the largest ocean on earth? There's a reason for everything, and it usually has nothing at all to do with such mundane things as the Olympics or climate variation or water. It's usually tied in with someone's financial or emotional or political investments, and the only reason we are supposed to believe that contemporary Russia is worse than the former Soviet Union, or climate change means to vote for one candidate and not another, or there's something wrong with desalinated water (other than the tastelessness) is because somebody somewhere probably has a finger in some pot of money.
Thursday, February 13, 2014
Sonnet for Cindy, Number 17 (Valentine's Day, 2014)
If all I ever said was, "I love you,"
I think you'd smile at my lack of brains,
forgive me frankly, turn and love me, too.
I do so want to take the flailing reins
of all my blindly running thoughts and say
a sentence worthy of your heart.
And ev-
en when you let me have my simple say—
"I love you"—
and you're satisfied,
I grieve
that I don't know a way more worthy, more
like poetry to say what you evoke
in me.
I have too many words
—my store
perhaps too rich—
and maybe what I spoke
is all I need to say:
I love you.
How?
Forever. Mind and heart and body. Now.
I think you'd smile at my lack of brains,
forgive me frankly, turn and love me, too.
I do so want to take the flailing reins
of all my blindly running thoughts and say
a sentence worthy of your heart.
And ev-
en when you let me have my simple say—
"I love you"—
and you're satisfied,
I grieve
that I don't know a way more worthy, more
like poetry to say what you evoke
in me.
I have too many words
—my store
perhaps too rich—
and maybe what I spoke
is all I need to say:
I love you.
How?
Forever. Mind and heart and body. Now.
Sunday, February 9, 2014
Vives les Jeux Olympiques!
For some reason, it seems appropriate to praise the Olympics in French. If my spelling is wrong (it usually is in French, and increasingly in English), tell me soon. Or let it ride and make fun of me privately.
I love the Olympics. I have a special affection for the Winter Olympics, having grown up in Siberia--I mean Southeastern Idaho. We watched the Summer Olympics with a large dose of jealousy. We knew we could never compete in the summer games because we could never play summer sports long enough to get good at them.
But winter sports!
I mean, I played hockey outdoors. None of this wimpy, ice dancing in an indoor rink. Indoor ice was always soft and squishy and just a little wet. When outdoor ice got that way (sometime around May), we gave up hockey for our summer job of gaining weight for the coming winter.
Those of my friends who could ski (I never successfully did that on snow) could do it year-round in Idaho. When the snow turned to water, they water-skied (I did that successfully--once). Maybe that's why so many great skiers were born in Idaho (Picabo Street, Christin Cooper, Jeret "Speedy" Peterson,, and Sage Kotsenberg).
But for me, it's all about hockey. When the games were in Salt Lake City in 2002, I paid to send my daughter to watch obscure hockey games (the only ones we could afford) and made her report back to us so I could vicariously live the moment. When Russian hockey coach, Zinetula Bilyaletdinov, said that no other medals were as important to Russians as the gold in ice hockey, I thought I had truly found a kindred spirit. Idaho really is a part of Siberia. Idahoans and the Siberians truly understand each other. Yeah, figure skating is really nice, and last Olympics I really got into curling (there is a large part of my heart devoted to all things Canada), and I understand the hunting roots of the biathlon (see my last blog about Bambi's mom), but it's really all about hockey.
I mean if we're talking about the Olympics only in terms of sport.
But they're not really just sports are they? They are all sorts of things: cultural exchange, international love-fest, war-prevention strategy, travelogue, history lesson, geography lesson, foreign language lesson (isn't the Cyrillic alphabet fun? don't you love the idea that "Sochi" can be spelled c--o--upside-down h--backward n?). I think if I spent the rest of my life just learning every language in the world, I could die in the midst of a spree of fun (all right, I'm an admitted nerd anyway).
As long as I can pause every once in awhile for the Stanley Cup and the Olympics.
I love the Olympics. I have a special affection for the Winter Olympics, having grown up in Siberia--I mean Southeastern Idaho. We watched the Summer Olympics with a large dose of jealousy. We knew we could never compete in the summer games because we could never play summer sports long enough to get good at them.
But winter sports!
I mean, I played hockey outdoors. None of this wimpy, ice dancing in an indoor rink. Indoor ice was always soft and squishy and just a little wet. When outdoor ice got that way (sometime around May), we gave up hockey for our summer job of gaining weight for the coming winter.
Those of my friends who could ski (I never successfully did that on snow) could do it year-round in Idaho. When the snow turned to water, they water-skied (I did that successfully--once). Maybe that's why so many great skiers were born in Idaho (Picabo Street, Christin Cooper, Jeret "Speedy" Peterson,, and Sage Kotsenberg).
But for me, it's all about hockey. When the games were in Salt Lake City in 2002, I paid to send my daughter to watch obscure hockey games (the only ones we could afford) and made her report back to us so I could vicariously live the moment. When Russian hockey coach, Zinetula Bilyaletdinov, said that no other medals were as important to Russians as the gold in ice hockey, I thought I had truly found a kindred spirit. Idaho really is a part of Siberia. Idahoans and the Siberians truly understand each other. Yeah, figure skating is really nice, and last Olympics I really got into curling (there is a large part of my heart devoted to all things Canada), and I understand the hunting roots of the biathlon (see my last blog about Bambi's mom), but it's really all about hockey.
I mean if we're talking about the Olympics only in terms of sport.
But they're not really just sports are they? They are all sorts of things: cultural exchange, international love-fest, war-prevention strategy, travelogue, history lesson, geography lesson, foreign language lesson (isn't the Cyrillic alphabet fun? don't you love the idea that "Sochi" can be spelled c--o--upside-down h--backward n?). I think if I spent the rest of my life just learning every language in the world, I could die in the midst of a spree of fun (all right, I'm an admitted nerd anyway).
As long as I can pause every once in awhile for the Stanley Cup and the Olympics.
Sunday, February 2, 2014
Disney and the teaching of America's children
First of all, I need to say that I have done no hard research on this topic.
Second, I need to say that I am making no moral judgement on Disney. "I like Disney" is the extent of my moral judgement.
Third, I would like to say that I think this would be a very productive avenue of research. I am only musing. If someone wants to offer me--an overqualified muser--an enormous grant to research this avenue further, I might take it, but I'd have to think about it first.
Having provided those disclaimers, I'll begin.
Disney released its fifth feature-length animated film, Bambi, in the summer of 1942 (that would make an interesting title for a book, wouldn't it? The Summer of '42--oh, wait, scratch that). I attended a re-release of Bambi in the 1960's that had a profound influence on me. After I saw the film, though I had grown up in a home and in the midst of a culture that revolved around the deer season, I could not bring myself to seriously hunt deer.
I do not object to hunting, and I love the taste of venison. Furthermore, my unwillingness to take a gun and go blasting away at Bambi's mother is born as much from my inability to see clearly (and the fear that I might blast my own father, let alone an errant doe) as it is the trauma of reliving this most traumatic childhood movie.
But I have wondered how many other people were influenced as I was by the film, and I've noticed a few correlations that may or may not be related.
The first modern federal gun control legislation (The Gun Control Act of 1968) was passed just two years after the US re-release of Bambi. PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) was founded in 1980, five years after a 1975 US re-release. Vegetarianism in the United States is said to have begun to become popular with the publication of Frances Moore Lappe's 1971 book, Diet for a Small Planet.
Of course, this may all be post-hoc ergo propter-hoc fallacy, but I suspect that there is at the very least a lurking guilt for the death of Bambi's mom in all of these things.
AFI lists "man" in Bambi as one of the worst film villains of all time.
I'm not suggesting at all that Disney consciously intended to propagandize against hunting. I think Walt found a good story that children would love, and he adapted it brilliantly. (I personally think the film is better than Felix Salten's book, or at least I did when I read the book in the sixth grade.) But there is no denying that the film is powerful and formative.
Why? Apart from the Disney skills at work, the film is addressed to children.
And that is something that interests me a lot.
Second, I need to say that I am making no moral judgement on Disney. "I like Disney" is the extent of my moral judgement.
Third, I would like to say that I think this would be a very productive avenue of research. I am only musing. If someone wants to offer me--an overqualified muser--an enormous grant to research this avenue further, I might take it, but I'd have to think about it first.
Having provided those disclaimers, I'll begin.
Disney released its fifth feature-length animated film, Bambi, in the summer of 1942 (that would make an interesting title for a book, wouldn't it? The Summer of '42--oh, wait, scratch that). I attended a re-release of Bambi in the 1960's that had a profound influence on me. After I saw the film, though I had grown up in a home and in the midst of a culture that revolved around the deer season, I could not bring myself to seriously hunt deer.
I do not object to hunting, and I love the taste of venison. Furthermore, my unwillingness to take a gun and go blasting away at Bambi's mother is born as much from my inability to see clearly (and the fear that I might blast my own father, let alone an errant doe) as it is the trauma of reliving this most traumatic childhood movie.
But I have wondered how many other people were influenced as I was by the film, and I've noticed a few correlations that may or may not be related.
The first modern federal gun control legislation (The Gun Control Act of 1968) was passed just two years after the US re-release of Bambi. PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) was founded in 1980, five years after a 1975 US re-release. Vegetarianism in the United States is said to have begun to become popular with the publication of Frances Moore Lappe's 1971 book, Diet for a Small Planet.
Of course, this may all be post-hoc ergo propter-hoc fallacy, but I suspect that there is at the very least a lurking guilt for the death of Bambi's mom in all of these things.
AFI lists "man" in Bambi as one of the worst film villains of all time.
I'm not suggesting at all that Disney consciously intended to propagandize against hunting. I think Walt found a good story that children would love, and he adapted it brilliantly. (I personally think the film is better than Felix Salten's book, or at least I did when I read the book in the sixth grade.) But there is no denying that the film is powerful and formative.
Why? Apart from the Disney skills at work, the film is addressed to children.
And that is something that interests me a lot.
Sunday, January 26, 2014
Let's take Disney seriously
When I was in graduate school back in the mid-1990's, one of my professors and I got into--shall we say?--an argument about whether or not Disney was a valid subject of film study. "Disney is not film!" the professor insisted. "Disney is only a corporation selling things!"
This arose because I suggested at the time that such films as The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and The Lion King might represent a renaissance of musical film and theater. They were classic musicals, I asserted, and, if they were on the stage (they weren't at the time--wasn't I prescient?) they would be the sorts of shows that parents would take their children to, which would lead their children to learn to appreciate musicals in form, content, and symbology.
This was partly born out of my personal belief that ever since the late 1960's, and especially with the advent of Hair, musical theater has been much less family friendly, and that unfriendliness is part of the reason for a period of decline in the popularity of the form. I think that since the musical form is a difficult form to read, if children are not trained to read it, they will likely abandon it--which is almost exactly what happened until--guess when--Disney helped to establish the resurgence we are seeing today.
In order to consider such things as Disney's influence on the American musical--or the company's influence on any part of American culture--we must take Disney seriously as an artistic style, and not reject the company merely because it makes makes money. (Which American motion picture company does not try to make money? Even William Shakespeare made money--lots of it--and we take him seriously. If he could have sold little Hamlet dolls, I'm sure he would have without flinching.)
So, let's take Disney seriously. Walt, after all, won more Academy Awards than any other person in history. Disneyland, perhaps the best if not the first theme park, is an immersive theater experience, utilizing audience participation, environmental theater, street theater, improvisation, happenings, and shows within the show.
Before I start on any extended discussion of Disney and performing art, I want to make it clear that I do not work for the company. I never have, and I likely never will. I have no connection to Disney whatsoever except the connections of my own childhood and the connections of the Disneyphiles I raised.
This arose because I suggested at the time that such films as The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and The Lion King might represent a renaissance of musical film and theater. They were classic musicals, I asserted, and, if they were on the stage (they weren't at the time--wasn't I prescient?) they would be the sorts of shows that parents would take their children to, which would lead their children to learn to appreciate musicals in form, content, and symbology.
This was partly born out of my personal belief that ever since the late 1960's, and especially with the advent of Hair, musical theater has been much less family friendly, and that unfriendliness is part of the reason for a period of decline in the popularity of the form. I think that since the musical form is a difficult form to read, if children are not trained to read it, they will likely abandon it--which is almost exactly what happened until--guess when--Disney helped to establish the resurgence we are seeing today.
In order to consider such things as Disney's influence on the American musical--or the company's influence on any part of American culture--we must take Disney seriously as an artistic style, and not reject the company merely because it makes makes money. (Which American motion picture company does not try to make money? Even William Shakespeare made money--lots of it--and we take him seriously. If he could have sold little Hamlet dolls, I'm sure he would have without flinching.)
So, let's take Disney seriously. Walt, after all, won more Academy Awards than any other person in history. Disneyland, perhaps the best if not the first theme park, is an immersive theater experience, utilizing audience participation, environmental theater, street theater, improvisation, happenings, and shows within the show.
Before I start on any extended discussion of Disney and performing art, I want to make it clear that I do not work for the company. I never have, and I likely never will. I have no connection to Disney whatsoever except the connections of my own childhood and the connections of the Disneyphiles I raised.
Monday, January 20, 2014
Back in the Saddle Again
Well, I'm back. The haitus is over.
I want to start this foray into the blogosphere with a more overt expression of my current intentions. I read through my previous statement, and I don't necessarily want to amend that too much. I'm still interested in pop culture, and I like to flex the ol' PhD occasionally. I might even wax funny occasionally, if PhD's are actually allowed to do that without sucking all the moisture from the atmosphere.
But I am increasingly interested in having a voice in the national--check that: world--dialogue about religion and its place in the public sphere. I am also interested in both Mormon and general Christian apologetics
So, here is my intital salvo:
I am still an orthodox member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
I have a personal witness from direct experience that there is a God. I have faith that I am in the image of God, and that he looks human though I haven't seen Him.
I have direct personal experience--I might rather say "experiences"--that prove to me that God loves me. I have faith that He loves everyone.
I have direct personal experience--again, multiple experiences--that prove to my satisfaction that God does not lie. In all cases in which I have been able to personally test the veracity of what God has said (either through the LDS canon of scripture or through personal experience), I have discovered that God has spoken the truth. I have faith that He cannot and will not tell a lie. I have faith that cases which I have not been able to test--either because they have not happened yet, or because the test is otherwise not available to me--these cases will also prove that God speaks the truth. I have faith that things I do not currently know or understand will be knowable and understandable and will prove God's veracity.
A long time ago, I prayed to know if "the Mormon Church is true." The unequivocal answer was a resounding "Yes!" There can be no possible doubt for me that the answer came from God. I am reluctant to publish too much of my spiritual experiences, and indeed, I don't believe it's necessary for me to prove to the world that the experience I had on the first night I prayed, or experiences I have had since, are from God and not my own little brain. However, I feel a certain responsibility to be a witness, just as if I had received a subpoena to testify in court.
I have had innumerable spiritual witnesses that the Book of Mormon is a true, ancient document, and is the Word of God, equal to the Bible. I am perfectly willing to discuss the Book of Mormon at length. I love the book. Both as a scholar of literature and as a practicing Latter-day Saint, I confess that the Book of Mormon is my favorite book. If I were allowed only one book (and me a compulsive reader!), and if I were confirned to some limited space, I could find happiness in reading and studying and pondering the Book of Mormon--both as a literary and as a devotional text. The King James Bible, Shakespeare, and Mark Twain would be icing on the cake--but the cake alone would suffice.
So here I am. Back in the saddle again. Chafing at the bit. Champing in the gate.
And maybe I can finish that novel while I'm at it...
I want to start this foray into the blogosphere with a more overt expression of my current intentions. I read through my previous statement, and I don't necessarily want to amend that too much. I'm still interested in pop culture, and I like to flex the ol' PhD occasionally. I might even wax funny occasionally, if PhD's are actually allowed to do that without sucking all the moisture from the atmosphere.
But I am increasingly interested in having a voice in the national--check that: world--dialogue about religion and its place in the public sphere. I am also interested in both Mormon and general Christian apologetics
So, here is my intital salvo:
I am still an orthodox member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
I have a personal witness from direct experience that there is a God. I have faith that I am in the image of God, and that he looks human though I haven't seen Him.
I have direct personal experience--I might rather say "experiences"--that prove to me that God loves me. I have faith that He loves everyone.
I have direct personal experience--again, multiple experiences--that prove to my satisfaction that God does not lie. In all cases in which I have been able to personally test the veracity of what God has said (either through the LDS canon of scripture or through personal experience), I have discovered that God has spoken the truth. I have faith that He cannot and will not tell a lie. I have faith that cases which I have not been able to test--either because they have not happened yet, or because the test is otherwise not available to me--these cases will also prove that God speaks the truth. I have faith that things I do not currently know or understand will be knowable and understandable and will prove God's veracity.
A long time ago, I prayed to know if "the Mormon Church is true." The unequivocal answer was a resounding "Yes!" There can be no possible doubt for me that the answer came from God. I am reluctant to publish too much of my spiritual experiences, and indeed, I don't believe it's necessary for me to prove to the world that the experience I had on the first night I prayed, or experiences I have had since, are from God and not my own little brain. However, I feel a certain responsibility to be a witness, just as if I had received a subpoena to testify in court.
I have had innumerable spiritual witnesses that the Book of Mormon is a true, ancient document, and is the Word of God, equal to the Bible. I am perfectly willing to discuss the Book of Mormon at length. I love the book. Both as a scholar of literature and as a practicing Latter-day Saint, I confess that the Book of Mormon is my favorite book. If I were allowed only one book (and me a compulsive reader!), and if I were confirned to some limited space, I could find happiness in reading and studying and pondering the Book of Mormon--both as a literary and as a devotional text. The King James Bible, Shakespeare, and Mark Twain would be icing on the cake--but the cake alone would suffice.
So here I am. Back in the saddle again. Chafing at the bit. Champing in the gate.
And maybe I can finish that novel while I'm at it...
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