2009 Of the nine plays I (originally) found that met my criteria, I think it’s no accident that almost half of them have premiered since 2008. Whatever the tensions were between the LDS Church and the gay and lesbian community before that year, the heated battle over California’s Proposition 8 has increased them exponentially. Whether [...]
1999 Banging the Bishop: Latter Day Prophecy, by Dustin B. Goltz Goltz was raised as a Reformed Jew, but became Mormon as a young man when missionaries came to his door. As a Mormon, he felt that he could be a good person who had a mission in life and divine potential. Also, he was [...]
Note: I originally intended to make this all one post, then realized that it was over 3,000 words long, so I’m splitting the topic into multiple posts. A few weeks ago, I learned that a friend of mine is raising money to stage a production of Melissa Leilani Larson’s Little Happy Secrets next year. The [...]
After a catastrophic experience last Christmas involving shopping cartfuls of books being lugged through snowbanks, I promised myself I would never check out more than 100 library books at a time again. But I don’t seem to have figured out what the happy medium is when it comes to reading. How many books can one [...]
This afternoon one of my students met with me about his next paper, which he wants to write refuting The Da Vinci Code and defending the divinity of Jesus Christ. I found myself struggling to explain to him why he can’t write such a paper to fulfill a university assignment. I tried to help him [...]
Okay, so I’m a little late, but the American Library Association’s Banned Books Week was the week before Conference. They have a list of 10 most challenged books for 2006, another of 10 most challenged books of 2000-2005, and another of 100 most challenged between 1990 and 2000. So which banned book is your favorite?
This semester I’m taking a course in French phonetics in mild defiance of my department’s new stricter graduation timelines; I’ve already fulfilled the language requirement, and I simply want to improve my pronunciation. It’s fascinating. As I told Lynnette enthusiastically over the phone last weekend, “We’re learning all about where in the mouth you say [...]
I just picked up Tyler Cowen’s Discover your Inner Economist, and found that he has some rather unorthodox suggestions for how to get the most enjoyment out of reading books and watching movies. He argues that when it comes to these experiences, the major limiting factor is the scarcity of our own attention. Cowen’s approach? [...]
There have been a number of posts and references around the bloggernacle recently about what constitutes a good book. The Wiz lamented the state of bestsellers, Heather O talked about what she thinks is a good story (and in doing so, referenced those she thought were bad), and Adam linked to A Reader’s Manifesto, which [...]
On my way out to Utah last week to attend my sister Melyngoch’s farewell and see her off on her mission to Sweden, my plane was delayed in Denver, and I violated the budget my husband and I agreed upon just hours before and bought the Atlantic’s summer fiction issue. (The Zelophehad family is not [...]
Lately I’ve been reading romantic thrillers (yes, this is my guilty secret after 25 years of reading more redeeming books I started reading romance novels). I’ve found a few authors I like, but I’ve read most of their books, so I’ve been looking for new authors I might like. I looked at some of the [...]
There are those who say that Mozart’s music, injected into your eardrums for a requisite period each day in therapeutic dosages, enhances your brain power. (Or not.) And if you can just painstakingly sludge through those timeless classics like the Iliad and The Way of All Flesh, you’ll generate beta waves and flex your cultural [...]
Fair is fair. Just as I guiltily relish certain forms of trash, some enumerated here, there are those high- and middlebrow pleasures appreciated by thoughtful, astute people but that try as I might, I can’t seem to appreciate myself. Here follows my partial list.
Dora’s post on the end of her affair with romance novels over at Exponent II got me thinking again about fluffy, escapist, trash art, and what role it plays, or ought to play, in our lives.
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