Still geeky after all these years.

You can mock me (go for it, Emily), but I still love Rick Steves. And this is why.

He proves that any 100% whole-grain boy scout can be an informed and curious world traveler. (Or the geeky, socially backward teenaged me, sitting home most Friday nights watching his "Europe Through the Back Door" TV series and dreaming of all the places I would one day go.)

He's as interested in knowing people as places, and his interactions are genuine, warm, and humble. For all his slouchy, bespectacled dorkiness he never makes me embarrassed to be an American/Westerner as do so many other travel show hosts.

He has special dispensation to make fun of Mormons because his first post-parents European traveling companion was his LDS high school buddy: two teen prudes, 70 days, backpacks, hostels, and a shoestring budget (they did it on $7.35 per day, after airfare!) Take that, hippie gypsies: the dork boys are movin' in! (It's a great read -- you really should click on it.)

He focuses on how to cut out empty expenditure and concentrate your pesos on the richest travel experiences. (Unfortunately, wearing drip-dry wrinkle-proof baggy khakis every day is a part of this frugal vision, but other than that....)

His travel business headquarters is in a Washington town where my grandparents lived, and it has gargoyles over the entrance. Inside is a free library of travel books and videos, open to any and all. Nice fella, that Rick.

He speaks the local languages as much as he can, even though he delivers everything from German to Italian in his nasal and abominably accented tenor.

He's filmed some shows with his wife and kids, demonstrating how families can travel together sanely, economically, and without hating each other by the end of the trip.

He has neither that snotty I-only-do-high-culture attitude nor that obnoxious I-only-go-where-other-tourists-don't attitude that characterizes just about every other travel show host I know of. Any adventure is fair game for the mighty Rick.

His recent travel show about Iran ignored politics, focusing on culture, history, and people. At the same time he managed to provide in easy-to-swallow form what scholars on the Middle East have failed to convince U.S. policy-makers of -- that Iran's population is overwhelmingly pro-Western, educated, empowering of women, and rich in the kinds of "civil society" associations that are a necessary precursor to a truly democratic society. He reminds his audience that the negative turn in our relations with this place is a direct result of our upholding oppressive pro-Western regimes and quashing democracy in order to feed our lust for oil.

Oh dear. I swear this didn't start out as a political rant -- it really was supposed to be about Mr. Steves. I'm still a big fan, Rick! If you ever need an extra person on your travel crew to....iron your drip-dry wrinkle-proof baggy khakis?....I'd be happy to step in.

Will work for exotic cheeses and good, wholesome adventure.

Stale movie reviews (or: don't ask too much of me in February).

I've been noting how long this blog had sat untouched. The world is doubtless a better place without my binary babble, but I can't help but feel that the blog feels neglected. (Yes, I assign consciousness to my blog and I talk to my cat.)

However, I'm sick and my brain's in a fog and writing something new would surely cause cranial combustion. So I'm posting this short collection of movie/TV reviews that I wrote two Decembers ago. The shows are fourteen months older now than they were then, but I love them just as much.* There, little blog. I hope you feel loved.


********************************

[Written December 2008]

Yeah, yeah, I know. You've got a list of must-read books and must-finish chores and must-eat vegetables and must-run marathons a mile (26 miles?) long and you really don't have time to hear How Fantastic my latest cinematic discoveries are. So just stop reading, Dude. No one's forcing you.

1) PBS! (Yes! I'm a dork!) Two recent science shows on PBS have rocked my world, and if you check your local listings you might be able to find one or both of them in an encore presentation. One was a National Geographic special on stress, and the other was a Nova special on the epigenome. Just when you thought you knew how you were supposed to navigate the universe, public television comes along and plays merry hell with your equilibrium. I love it.

2) An Inconvenient Truth. Yes, I know I'm the second-to-last person on the planet to see this one, and after winning the Nobel Prize, does Mr. Gore really need an obscure Utah blogger to give him one more thumbs-up? But just in case you happen to be that very last person on the planet who's not yet seen it, you should. Even though we all seem to be coming to acknowledge the changes in the winds and what they mean, the movie explains things more clearly and coherently than I'd heard before. Even if you're already converted, see it for the handy factoids that will help you convert others. (Warning: be sure to walk or bike or mass-transit to the video store to decrease your post-movie self loathing.)

3) The Business of Being Born. Thank you, Netflix. This is Ricky Lake's labor (!) of love, an attempt to chip away at the modern American mindset toward childbirth that is robbing families of real choices and the best outcomes for mothers and babies. I watched this one two-and-a-half times before sending it back. Short path to my verdict: Fair-minded, yet passionate about its message. Moving and intimate, had me in tears several times. And it includes clips from one of my favorite Monty Python bits, so how can you go wrong? (Dudes weren't just funny -- they were truthtellers.) I think all potential parents should see the film. It's very good. I like it. Long, incoherent, tangential path to my verdict: Don't click here -- you'll regret it!

4) Almost Strangers. A BBC miniseries written and directed by Stephen Poliakoff. I have a longtime obsession with his earlier offering, Shooting the Past, and more recently learned about this one (thanks for the tip, Sharon!) Like Shooting the Past, I don't recommend it to just anyone. Poliakoff is obsessed with storylines that ferret out the tiny, lost dramas in the lives of everyday people's everyday ancestors, so if you've got any degree of genealogy-itis, you will love both of these films as I do. If not -- probably a three-hour yawn fest. I, for one, have decided that Poliakoff must be my long-lost bastard Jewish uncle and I'm off to England to hunt him down and give him a hug.

5) The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Everybody gushed: soooo goooood. But for a long time I couldn't get past the premise -- movie filmed from the viewpoint of a completely paralyzed man who can only blink his eyes. I'm fairly claustrophobic and this sounded like a feature-length panic attack in the making. But still they gushed, so I caved and moved it to the top of my Netflix queue. Now I have joined the gush -- loved it. The film does let you feel the claustrophobia pressing down on your lungs for a good while. And it lets you feel the despair and the anger and the regret, but it gradually gives way to imagination and humor and humanity and even a little redemption. Bless Jean-Do Bubeque for mustering enough hope to blink out his story letter by letter so that we can witness the remarkable journey he made while trapped inside his leaden body. Plenty of tears, but all of them earned.



* I decided to not post them at the time because of the childbirth movie review, which I thought might be a painful read for someone close to me, who had just survived an unnecessarily traumatic hospital birth with an oafish and irresponsible doctor (whose car tires I have slashed dozens of times in my fantasy world). But she's finally close to healed, so I hope she won't mind.....

Take this and swim with it.

I’ve dreamed up the best TV channel ever, and I’m offering my idea gratis to any entrepreneur out there looking to stake her claim in the Oprah vacuum. It’s a reality show -- but unedited, real-time, and more addictive than heroin. Here’s all you need:

1) one empty TV channel

2) one really long cord with a light and camera attached

3) one seaworthy boat from which to dangle said cord

You lower the camera into the dark, dark depths of the ocean and just leave it there. All day, every day. I promise you that millions will quit their jobs to stay home and wait for those fanged, transparent, glowing, deep-sea Satanic fish to swim by the camera. It may only happen once a week, but they will watch and they will wait. It will be the best horror flick ever: viewer as prey, waiting in a dark alien realm with no narrator or soundtrack warning him when the monster will strike -- just the maddening sound of his own pounding heart hour after hour. Buh-bum, buh-bum, buh-bum.

Or for a more lighthearted direction, you could interview the fishies backstage, learn their heartwarming backstories, do makeovers (lipstick on a lanternfish!), and have viewers vote them out of the ocean.

I'm the biggest cheapskate in creation and I don't like scary stuff, but I would actually pay for TV service if I could get the Evil Fish Uncut channel.

Come on – someone get on this, already.

Thanknesses III: return of a lame title.

All previous blessedness, plus:

Thanksgiving dinners with complimentary stomach pumping service. Ugh.

Repentance, from gluttony and other failings.

Text recognition software + old newspapers.

Temples, temples everywhere! Coming soon to Rome, and a city near you!

Full beards: finally winning the holy war against goatees.*

The grand feeling of newly-waxed arms. (Don't ask.)

Good, good family. God will surely ask me why I failed to singlehandedly eradicate war and hunger, given my great advantages of birth. I love you, my genetically-similar dearies (and married-into-the-clan dearies).

A long procession of kind and funny and brilliant girlfriends from gradeschool to the present. Not one catty drama addict in the lot. I love you, genetically-dissimilar ladies.

Genetically-dissimilar menfolk, here and there. (Hoping will have more to say on this by next Thanksgiving.)

Bizarre immunity to insomnia. More of a superpower, really: Super Snoozer at your service. I make your problems disappear by teaching you to sleep through them!

Healthy enough to donate blood, but never yet needed any (knock on wood).**

David Brooks, the only newsman I would trust to tell me how to vote. I would also trust him with my infant and the keys to my yacht, if I had either an infant or a yacht.

Triumph, for brilliantly taking on my primary pet peeve, pun intended.

The last person I met at the Halloween party, who was also the first person who understood my costume. Thanks, dude. ***

Googling my friends and finding stuff like this. Yes, I've probably Googled you, too.

Lovely night, and mystic fields with stars bedight.****

* Goatees are the mullets of facial hair, my friends. I'm not saying that a goatee makes you a bad person, but I am saying that you must shave it off for the good of humanity.

** Bloodbanks get desperate during the holidays -- needs go up and donations go way down. Particularly platelet donations, which are only good for five days. So think about it, if you're less than busy this weekend...

*** "Well of COURSE I know what a Jabberwock is! Slithy toves and mome raths and all that. Do you take me for a complete Philistine?"

**** My favorite line from a Thanksgiving song I learned years ago.

In which Cousin Jennifer sends me a boxful of destiny.

It looks like ordinary beauty cream.

But no!

It is magical. Dangerous. It offers a Choice, and upon this Choice turns the fairy tale.

You all know that if you are walking through the woods and meet a warty old woman who asks for your last dry biscuit, you must ALWAYS give it to her, right? Of course you do -- you all passed Happy Endings 101. Well done.

Well, this enchanted youth cream is from another folk tale trope. In case you’re not familiar with it, it goes like this:

Plucky plebian opens the door of her humble hut and sees a peculiar package. In it are three thingies –

the elixir of youth,

a book of cursings,

and a book of rejoicings.

There is no note explaining the purpose of these three gifts, but no note is needed, for they were forged in the Cosmic Smithy and exist only to reveal the girl's character and assign her destiny.*

Three Paths diverge from the mysterious box.....

PATH THE FIRST: If the heroine ignores that liquid loveliness and reaches first for the book of cursings, if she chooses to giggle over descriptions of twitchy death-by-jimson-weed, she will thereafter hold the power to destroy her enemies in delightful ways. She will become the sadistic sorceress in a thousand bedtime stories.

But hope remains for her despite this dark decision, for one day her up-creeping ugliness might remind her of her mortality. She might have a witchy midlife crisis, pull that dusty box from under the jar of pickled newt spleens, open up the book of rejoicings, and let it transform her into a nice ugly witch. The sort of ugly witch that wanders into other people’s fairy tales, plants herself by the byway, and trades nifty dragon-proofed swords for lousy dry biscuits.

PATH THE SECOND: If she ignores the youth juice and reaches for the book of rejoicings, then she chooses to seek for beauty in the ugly, to wonder in her weakness, to linger lovingly over the shape of scissors and the browning of bread, and her hair will gray into silver and her face will line into labyrinths and she will become the Wise Woman in the Willows. Wannabe white knights, damselbound, will cheerfully drop $39.95 (plus their last dry biscuit) for her self-helpings in hardback.** She might even score her own Oprah spinoff show.

PATH THE THIRD: If she reaches for the seductive elixir of youth (oh, Wail! oh, Doom!), nothing thereafter can save her soul. No power over life nor death will move her, for she will no longer love life nor dread death – she will only prize praise.*** No waking death will frighten her, so long as it wears a lovely face. No tortured life will concern her, so long as its catwalk stride is strutty. The moment she touches the vial of vanity, she becomes a hollow shell.

Nay, worse: a shadowy shell, shallow, sure to shatter.

So I stare into this wondrous box that appeared on my doorstep.

What will I reach for first? What will be my fateful fate? Will my ending be Disney or the grimmest Grimm?

Buzz off, ye Joseph Campbellites! I will not be your cautionary Everychick! This morality tale is going offline til further notice!

Must consult the Oprah^TM Omniscient Oracle Object**** I scored with my last dry biscuit.

Oprah will have the answer. And if not Oprah, then one of her many minions.

Oz?

* And were mailed to her by her sweet and classy cousin who apparently is actually a sweet and classy double agent, hired by the nosy gods to sift her very soul. Why, Cousin Jennifer? Why? I’m She's not ready for the truth, and you know it!

** Popular titles include Melt Monsters with the Power of Positive Thinking, French Knights Don't Get Fat, Passive-Resistant Dragonslaying for Dummies...

*** She might also adore alliteration. Just a jot.

**** In Ostentatious Onyx -- collect all five fabulous finishes!

I prithee.

Do I have a rich reader out there? A rich reader who wants to do a very good deed? Please buy several hundred cases of Richard Paul Evans's new Christmas treacle-lit.

I don't recommend you actually read it.*

Perhaps if we can come together as a church and make his day job sufficiently lucrative, he'll stop hocking laser eye surgery and nutritional gimmicks between General Conference sessions. Really kills my spiritual high.

* Terrific campfire kindling, if it's anything like his prior offerings.

Pioneer Day: spookier and spookier.

I love blogging even though I know that most of my posts are read by just a couple dozen people at most. But there's something about these annual Pioneer Day posts -- both my 2007 and 2008 entries have brought unexpected wondrousness raining down on my head, blessings from Good Mother Internet and (I believe) my dear departed deadfolk. I've already blogged about the genealogical adventure in California triggered by the 2007 posting -- here's a little taste of what I received from last year's posting:

Eight months after Pioneer Day a historian named Mr. Calow, who lives in my ancestors' village of Sapcote, England Googled the words "Sapcote" + "almshouse" to see what he could find for a research project. When he clicked "search," up popped my 2008 Pioneer Day post. He emailed me, asking for more information about my ancestors to supplement his research, and I sent him all that I had available. In return for this small contribution to his project he used his expertise on Sapcote history to dig through the local resources at his disposal for anything and everything on my ancestors.

Now, we Mormons are incurable family history nuts (though I'm nuttier than most). Long before my time my family had gathered a lot of information on the Sapcote ancestral branch and I have been very familiar with all of it from childhood: records of major life events, letters and histories written by the more recent generations, and even some wonderful photos. But of course there was more out there waiting to be found, and Mr. Calow found it, and it was delightful. I was giddy for days.

My great-grandfather, Amos Brown Jr (subject of last year's Pioneer Day post), converted to the Mormon church in 1901 and less than a month later emigrated with his wife and child from England to the U.S. One thing that is clear from the letters and history in my family's possession is that Amos loved music more than just about anything. He was an exceptional singer from childhood, learned to play his father's accordion and, though poor, used the money he earned working in the stone quarries to purchase a violin. He then taught himself to play the violin as well and he and a friend became founding members of a string band that played at public events in Sapcote. So imagine how poignant it was to see this 1901 newspaper notice magically appear in my inbox:

April 1901
Bath Street, Sapcote.

J & W Harrold have received instruction from Mr Amos Brown who is leaving Sapcote and going abroad, to sell by Auction on Saturday next, April 6th 1901. A portion of the Household furniture and bedroom furniture, Kitchen and scullery Requisites. Violin and Bow, 3 octave organ, Accordian and other effects.

Far greater sacrifices have been made in the history of the world, but picturing him trading for his new faith the instruments that brought him such joy -- pretty powerful stuff.


That friend with whom Amos founded the Sapcote village band was named Reuben Seal, and decades after the young Amos moved to America, Reuben and Amos still consistently inquired about each others' welfare through the family letters. I had always wondered about Reuben, because it was clear that he and Amos shared a close bond, strengthened by their love of music. Mr. Calow saw Reuben's name popping up repeatedly in the family letters I had emailed to him and he uncovered this little gem -- a photo of the aged Reuben Seal from the local newspaper -- still playing his violin!

Mr. Calow also found a charming photo of Amos's father, Amos Brown Sr, that we didn't have. He's posing with two of his Sapcote buddies. In case you're wondering, Amos Sr is the old fellow with the hat, cane, black coat, and white beard.

We had known that Amos Brown Sr and his wife Sarah Letts Brown both lived long and were the oldest couple in Sapcote for several years. I felt that I knew Sarah well, as she was the main author of the early letters to Amos Jr, but there were no letters from her husband and consequently he was much a much dimmer figure in my imagination. Then another wonderful newspaper article transcription arrived in my email:

17 April 1925

Mr and Mrs Amos Brown celebrated their Diamond Wedding. Both were 83 years old and lived in the oldest house in the village. Mr Brown an old stockinger recalled the time when there were over 100 stocking frames in the village. He himself was a footer working a wide frame which made six at a time. He used to earn nine shillings and sixpence a week which was very good money in those days. He had a family of nine and sixty grandchildren and fifteen great grandchildren.

I can just see him talking to the newspaper man, getting misty-eyed over the Old Days.


I've saved the best for last. This one's much older, from a time when traces of the landless poor are usually limited to brief church records of baptisms, marriages, and burials. My great-great-great-great grandfather Thomas Ellis was born in 1769 and all we knew about him and his family were their names and the dates and locations of their major life events. But Mr. Calow knew where to look for more information and he found a letter to a local landowner from the landowner's employee, regarding the poverty-stricken Thomas Ellis and his wife and six daughters:

Sapcote
2 May 1800

"...I cannot forbear making one request in behalf of that poor Man Thomas Ellis. There is misery enough, no doubt, every where; but think what this poor fellow undergoes in maintaining himself, a Wife, and Six Children, in this dreadful scarcity, by his own hard labour. I am convinced he will not be able to do so long; he will work himself to Death; he swooned twice in his Frame last week, and this week he is so weak as not to be able to get what is necessary for the subsistance of his Family. I have already lent him Nine shillings and sixpence this Week, and I believe I should lend him as much more if he asked for it, he is such an honest Industrious man. He says if he had room to set Frames in, for his Children to work, he should maintain his Family with pleasure. You will recollect when you was last at Sapcote, that you ordered me to build a Shop for him at your expence; this I would have done immediately, if straw could have been found to cover it; but straw is not to be had. I have been talking with Mr. Lovett about it, and he as well as myself, sincerely hope that you will in this one instance consent that he may have a Shop covered with tiles. Consider, Sir, it is not pride that urges me to make this request, it is nothing but real necessity, and the pleasure one has in being the means of bettering the condition of an Industrious man. If you will but grant this, the poor man shall work in his own Shop in less than a Month. He says I am the best Friend he has in the World, but alas! What can I do for him without you enable me. I am to take all the trouble myself in building it; but it is you that must be his best Friend; and I have no doubt but that he has a grateful heart, and will be thankful for what you may do for him. He knows nothing of my mentioning his case to you..."

I'm reduced to tears every time I read it. Thomas Ellis's desperate situation and honest struggle to provide for his family over 200 years ago is likely lost to the world except for this letter. And now I have it. Wonderful. Wonderful that a kindly man took an interest in my ancestor's plight, wonderful that he secretly wrote a letter requesting means to aid him, wonderful that someone preserved and transcribed that letter, and wonderful that someone living thousands of miles away and whom I've never met voluntarily took the time to find it for me.*

The Internet is a miraculous realm, my friends. A glorious, glorious tangle of possibilities. How in the h*** am I supposed to have a social life with these mesmerizing dead people lurking in every corner?

Happy Pioneer Day, my dearest dead! I love you all -- even you cranks.** Send me more flashy genealogy miracles this year, okay?





* He found many other interesting things -- if you are a family member interested in seeing all that he sent, let me know and I will email it to you. I'm also nearly finished scanning, ordering, transcribing, and footnoting the full collection of family letters from England, and I'll post them as soon as they're done. Isn't this why God created spinsters? I hope so, because I love this stuff and I'd rather call it a Calling than an Addiction.

** I'm talking to you, William P. Smith.

In my Father's house are many mansions.

Ten years ago, I made my first black friend.

Don't judge me. There just aren't that many 'round these parts.

Okay, go ahead and judge me, but please wait for the full story first.

Scene:

Black fella wanders by as I am listening to Quincy Jones's gospel/soul/jazz/rap take on Handel's Messiah, which (as it so happens) is one of his favorite records. Up strikes a conversation, just like that. He tells me of his conversion to the LDS church and how his family thought he was bonkers. About how he moved to Utah to attend BYU, not telling his family that he had decided to serve a Mormon mission until he was already in the Missionary Training Center, so as to avoid endless debate on the topic. He laughs, recalling how they wired money to him in the MTC, stating that they were sure he'd been brainwashed into the mission idea, and explaining that they wanted him to use the wired money to bribe his way out of the missionary cult prison compound thingy. About how he had gone on to serve a two-year mission in Italy and graduate from BYU and for some bizarre reason (I was dying to know but didn't ask), settle in the Provo area. He insists that despite the culture shock he'd experienced in transitioning between life as a South Carolina Baptist and that of a Utah Mormon, the only moments he regrets joining the LDS church are while sitting in a mostly-white congregation each Sunday and listening to us warble the hymns sans fire or feeling.

This is just the coolest thing, thunk I. He didn't seem angry at me for being white -- I was sure most black people must be at least miffed at white people. (I am exceedingly white, to be sure.) And I was mostly able to sidestep the topic of my cushy life as a privileged middle class white girl and how spineless I was by comparison. So far, so good.

Bonus: if there was any question as to whether my prior lack of black acquaintances meant I was racist, here was the answer: I had a Bonafide Black Buddy, folks! I was now certified un-racist! I'm surprised I didn't ask him to pose for a photo with me as hard proof.

He was more than a novelty, though -- he was friendly, intelligent, a storyteller. I started to have a crush on him because, you see, I get gooey over good conversationalists. I'd never been smitten with a black fella before.

Soooo here's where it gets twelve times more embarrassing.

But must continue in the interest of full disclosure.

What follows is the progression in my thinking over the subsequent weeks and months of our acquaintance:

Stage 1: I'm sure he's going to eventually ask me out, and what if we hit it off? And what if it got really serious and we got married? How would I deal with having babies that would probably look really different from me?

Stage 2: Okay, I've embraced the concept of sweet brown babies. But how would my parents respond? And holy Hannah – my grandparents?? They're good people, but they're from those transition generations and they still struggle a bit.....

Stage 3: Okay, I'm pretty sure I could convince my good-hearted elders to embrace the concept of a good-hearted black in-law and sweet brown grandbabies, but WHY WON'T HE ASK ME OUT ALREADY??

Stage 4: Ohhhhh, right. He's a way better person than I am. And he's in really good shape. And he doesn't eat sugar. At all. Ever.

Yes indeed, that was the internal monologue, and it took me several months to realize what I'd been doing. I had seen Quality Human Being and Stellar Latter-Day Saint Who Just Happens to Be Black and somewhere in my subconscious I'd reasoned thusly: I'm not getting any dates with white men because I'm not terribly sexy/sassy/saucy/whatever. Surely this poor man must be as dateless as I due to the fact that he is a black person in snowy-white Utah.* If I can be the Noble One to look past his skin color and grace him with my pasty affection I can get a better companion than I deserve simply because he has the misfortune of living in a land where low-grade pearls generally trump premium onyx (feel free to substitute your own cheesy color-themed metaphor here).

'Twas an icky epiphany. In my feeble attempt to be open-minded I'd failed to realize that it was entirely possible that he didn't see himself as a victim of his situation -- he certainly never acted like he did -- and that, though sincere in his friendship, He Just Wasn't That Into Me (as the kids say). That that possible future I'd toyed with in my head would be a condescension for him, not for me. That he might have his own misgivings about freckled albino descendants with soulless blue eyes. That he might rather remain alone than have to explain to his mother why he'd settled.

I've seen the same phenomenon since I moved to Salt Lake -- but unfortunately it's being played out rather than just imagined. A beautiful and whip-smart black LDS woman I know has been endlessly dating a white fellow who, while apparently not a bad guy, is nowhere in her league (in my not-so-humble opinion). Seems to me that he's stringing her along, wasting her youth. I suspect he realizes, whether consciously or subconsciously, that her skin color means fewer romantic opportunities and fewer romantic opportunities means that she'll put up with a lot more nonsense and a lot less substance than a white girl of lesser spiritual or intellectual gifts ever would have to. Of course, she appears to be the victim of the same thing I was doing all those years ago, so I must stop short of throwing stones at her beau...

Here's where you beg me to shut up and get a journal and/or a therapist.

I'm almost done.

So these dead, bloated memories bobbed back to the surface of my mind a couple weeks ago when I attended a screening of the excellent new documentary Nobody Knows: The Untold Story of Black Mormons.** I knew most of the broader historical information on this topic, but the outstanding element of the documentary was the interviews with black Mormons (African-American Mormons, to be more specific), many of whom joined the church before the priesthood ban was lifted in 1978. These are hopeful, faithful people and few seemed terribly troubled about the ban itself, but many expressed disappointment at how white members of the church often tried to explain the reasons for the ban (or excuse their own racist behavior or that of their ancestors) using false doctrine. They talk candidly of their individual struggles to reconcile their complete devotion to the LDS church with hurtful behavior -- some well-intentioned, some malicious -- of their white fellow-Saints. It is quite wonderful to watch. I get to pat myself on the back for all the stuff I would never do (the nerve of some people!) and confront things I'm still inadvertently thinking or doing that contribute to the problem. Not all of it is easy to watch, but it is clearly a strong step forward; it is cathartic, honest, hopeful.

As I've reflected on the film in the last several days and what it Means in the larger context of a faith that claims divine origins, I've noted that while Joseph Smith revealed many ludicrously forward-thinking doctrines, most of his followers have taken many generations to be dragged (kicking and screaming) onto the spiritual high road he laid out for them. Basic Word of Wisdom compliance took over 80 years and ultimately the threat of exclusion from our beloved temples. Most of us are still eying the radical Law of Consecration suspiciously despite Joseph's explanation that it is an absolute requirement of a covenant people. The seemingly ludicrous enormity of tracing family lines back more than a few generations for the purpose of temple work staggered even the most visionary early Mormons, who fell back on sealing themselves to church leaders until Wilford Woodruff proclaimed that it was time to actually believe what God had said and trust that if we tried to make genealogists of ourselves, heaven would open up technological doors. And though the full racial inclusion that Joseph demonstrated in the 1830s and 1840s*** was officially restored over 30 years ago (after 130+ years of partial exclusion following Joseph's death), many of us still have work to do on our individual hearts and minds, whether we admit it to ourselves or not.

Those who tell their stories in this movie know that we will get there – they know that Zion will happen.

But soonish would be nice, they say.

Amen, my brothers and sisters.





* Where there is still some cultural resistance to the idea of interracial marriage, though this is not doctrinally supported.

** Which I now own on DVD, so if you want to see it, I'm your girl. If you want to own it yourself, you can buy it here. If you're looking to pay less, Benchmark Books might also have a few left at their slightly discounted price.

*** Some great stuff I'd never heard about less-known early black Mormon priesthood holders is included on the DVD's special features. And also a 1954 take-no-prisoners sermon by Elder Spencer W. Kimball on the evil of racism, especially within the Church. My lands, it's fierce and fiery! And there's muchmuchmuch more. You really need to get your hands on this DVD.

A trivial epiphany.

It occurred to me, two days into the ad nauseum coverage* of Michael's Jackson's death, that Michael wasn't trying to look like just any white person -- he was trying to look like the Disney Peter Pan! Did everyone but me figure this out long ago?

How did I miss this?? It's so obvious, given his known Peter Pan obsession:

1) the increasingly upturned nose that everyone assumed was a surgeon's mistake or some sort of cartilage disintegration

2) the unnaturally high and sculpted cartoon eyebrows

3) the grotesquely opened-up eyes with permanent eyeliner to make them pop out just like Peter's cartoon eyes

And he didn't have to change his eye color, because the Disney Peter Pan has brown eyes.

Whoa. I guess if thousands women can go under the knife to be Barbie, who am I to single Michael out for scorn, especially given his traumatic upbringing? It was just so difficult to look at him without laughing or crying....I hope wherever he is, he's at peace with his former face. It was a nice face. A warm face.







* I loved the dude's music, but no one deserves that much coverage -- not even a dead pope.

No true prude goes unpunished.

My friend Amy once told me about the physical exam she underwent at age 21, just before departing on her LDS mission to Brazil. The doctor was going to prescribe a drug that would be harmful to a developing fetus, so she explained to Amy that she'd need to perform a pregnancy test on her just as a precaution, even though Amy had declared on her pre-exam paperwork that she was not pregnant. Amy explained that there was absolutely no way she could be pregnant. The doctor insisted on the test, pointing out that even with the best modern contraceptives you can never be 100% sure about such things without a pregnancy test. No, Amy repeated, there was absolutely no way she could be pregnant.

"Do you even know how babies are made?" asked the doctor.

I guess Amy, being of a literalist Christian bent, should have been more openminded about the pregnancy test and allowed for the possibility of immaculate conception? Surely it's easier to fathom than a 20-something voluntary virgin. Might as well claim to be the Tooth Fairy.

Where am I going with this?

Here's where: I think all of my not-yet-sexually-active female readers (and all my female readers who are no older than 26 years old) should schedule an appointment to get the HPV vaccine. Soon. This month. Here's more information on the whys and the hows. Of course, if you're over age 26, they might be less eager to give it to you, or they might charge you more. Why? Because by your late 20s you've already introduced the possibility of HPV exposure into your life, so the vaccine dose is more likely to be wasted on you.

What's that? You say you're 35 and you're 100% sure you've never been exposed to the HPV virus?

Doctor: "You know that HPV is sexually transmitted, right?"

You: "Yes."

Doctor: "You do know what the word 'sex' means, right?"

I swear. There's no end of punishment to this celibacy deal.

But even if you're over the age guideline for the HPV vaccine you should still try to get it -- I'm going to. Even if I have to pay extra and swear on the Bible that I've never played Song of Solomon with anyone. Ever. They will then throw out the ol' Bible method and administer a polygraph test:

Them: "Never EVER???"

Me: "Never ever."

Them: "Well, she THINKS she's telling the truth, anyway. You do know what the word 'sex' means, right?"

Perhaps you are saying to yourself that this is all pointless in your case. Perhaps like me you have never and never plan to sleep with anyone who is not your exclusive, til-death-do-you-part partner. Even if we are true to our half of that ideal (and I hope we are), a single past or future indiscretion of your partner can introduce the virus into your otherwise safe relationship, unbeknown to either of you. Or, heaven forbid, you could be raped. Or you might make a mistake yourself. The emotional, psychological, and spiritual struggle to recover from any of these sad scenarios is plenty; no need to add cervical cancer as a tragic coda straight out of some depressing art house flick.

So I think I'll picket at the local clinic for my right to get this vaccine. Anyone want to join with me in this historic moment of peaceful rebellion? Revolt of the Ripe-ish Retro-moralists?

Ideas for signs:

Down with ageism!
Down with prudeism!
Vaccines for veteran virgins!

We must get this shot, because it's the wise and responsible thing to do.

We must do it because we are optimists, looking forward to a brighter day -- a day when we can no longer speed through the blood bank's list of "sexual contact" questions in 1.6 nanoseconds.

We must do it to signal to the Universe that we ABSOLUTELY DEMAND that one day we get our chance at an...um...experience....in which it would be technically possible for us to contract HPV.



Please, dear Universe. Pretty pretty please.

The great American stay-cation.

About six years ago my bro and I grabbed a couple last adventures together just before he shipped off on his two-year LDS mission to Pennsylvania.


Adventure #1: We drove off to California on two hours' notice just to catch a concert in Pomona (this was boring Marie trying to pack an entire lifetime's spontaneity into a single weekend to compensate for being such a dull teenager).

Adventure #2: We snuck/sneaked/snook* into the LDS Church Archives and looked at an old journal we weren't strictly entitled to handle.

I know. Gasp. If this is the best I can do for rebellion, I should just pull my knobbly shawl around me and hobble into the sunset. Humor me -- I'm going somewhere with this.

Anyway, this Forbidden Journal we read through was the journal of our great-great grand uncle Moses Thatcher that he kept while on an 1883 LDS mission to the Crow Indians in Yellowstone. We were giggling (veeery quietly, of course!) as we sat in the Archives reading of Uncle Moses's meeting an Indian named Chief Two-Belly. Yes, you read that right: Chief Two-Belly. It was an interesting little book, but I was especially taken by one of Uncle Moses's rants. He marveled at the natural wonders of the Yellowstone area and then noted in frustration that many Amercians considered vacationing in such a place to be inferior and instead would continue to spend their life savings traveling to Europe and other distant places considered more Cultural or Historical or Important. Uncle Moses's opinions were of legendary strength.

Let it be said that I love to travel. If money and time were no consideration I would give the last layer of skin off the soles of my feet to visit the world's wonders and people. I feel very fortunate in the chances I've had to travel to far-off lands and that besides being fun and giving me occasional delightful feelings of superiority these experiences were educational, enriching. I'm also banking that the memory of my adventures will keep me sane one future day as I'm changing diaper #17,286.

(Yes, I just wrote that, and what's worse: I MEANT IT. Forgive me, Susan B. Anthony.)

But do you think there's something to Uncle Moses's rant? Is it possible for a modern person to be openminded and well-informed and world-wise and completely happy without wandering very far afield from their home?

The couple I stayed with in England were avid travellers. They had been to Australia, Greece, Italy, the United States, and many other places. "Holiday" for them always meant leaving England. I told them I really hoped to visit Scotland while I was there. Scotland? We've never been to Scotland. Why would a person want to visit Scotland?

There's an amazing rock formation on the border between Utah and Arizona. I've never visited it, and I don't know any other Utahns who have, either. However, it's famous in Germany. Germans will fly all the way to Utah just to visit that one rock formation.

Is it just that we crave novelty, or is it more than that? Can library card + curiosity + vivid imagination take a person wherever he needs to go intellectually? Or is there something vitally important that we absolutely can't get anywhere except on Mount Kilimanjaro or in the Valley of the Kings?**

I really really need you to tell me. Because it's spring, you see, and I've never been to Paris....




* Okay, we didn't have to SNEAK. We wanted to be sneaky, but really anyone can go in the Church Archives.

** If so, why am I sitting at this computer? Why are you sitting at your computer? We need to sell our computers and buy plane tickets!

Flight of the Easter* Vultures.

On my way to church Easter Sunday I saw ten deer. Happy Easter! they seemed to say as they paused all full of life and spring, a-fattening themselves on lush cemetery grass fed by the dead. I don't think the dead minded, except perhaps the ticklish dead.

On my post-church Easter Sunday walk through the city cemetery I saw that brightly-colored lollipops had been stuck in the ground around one headstone, like candy flowers. I walked over for a closer look and saw that enterprising ants had determined to not let all that sugar go to waste. Happy Easter! they seemed to say as they swarmed over the sweet engraved face of the baby girl, eating her treats. I don't think she minded -- those ants were pretty fun to watch.

On my way home from the cemetery I saw ten huge birds gliding in a whirlpool formation. I followed them as they drifted eastward, silver wing feathers shining the evening light. Noble eagles! I thought. What a glorious and inspiring Easter vision!** I eventually tracked them to two huge trees in the yard of a stately home. Vultures. The original ten vultures plus seven more of their vulturey friends. I'm not sure why seventeen vultures chose to ominously descend upon the richest part of the richest neighborhood in town, but I do hope that whatever individual at 1288 East 3rd Avenue is dead (physically or otherwise) provided a splendid Easter feast for those magnificent birds. I don't think he minded, whoever he was.***

The Moral (yes, my child -- everything has a moral):

The death of one feeds the life of another; all things in nature are types of Christ and his cause. He puzzled the faithful and scared away the faithless with his talk of cannibalism, but cannibalism is what he demands we believe in: every Sunday he puts us at the top of the spiritual food chain, lays himself down on the table, and dares us to believe that we eventually are what we eat. All death gives life, however undeserved. The purest death, offered as a gift, gives the purest life, however undeserved.

Jesus loves the deer and the ants and the vultures, and so he feeds them on you. But most of all he loves you, and so he feeds you on himself.

Happy Easter.





* So I missed the boat by a couple days: computer's still possessed. Apparently the universe wants me to spend more time taking walks through the cemetery and spend less time blogging about it.

** I still am occasionally guilty of confusing patriotism with religion -- embarrassing, but true. I tried to have it surgically removed, but it appears that they missed a bit.

*** 'Tis economical, if nothing else. You gotta sell your soul for a plot in that cemetery – far more costly than a stately home in the Avenues (these days you can't even give those away).

Call me Paula Revere.

Is it just my imagination, or are three out of every four Financial Experts called in by PBS and NPR to comment on our current national shame ENGLISH? Has anyone else noticed this strange phenomenon?

At first I joked about it, but it's now officially spooky. I understand that the English tend to be quite well educated (and even when they're not, that accent makes them sound well educated to the American ear), but why this glut of English experts on United States finance specifically? Could it be that just as the Japanese in recent decades have sent hordes of friendly spy "tourists" to photograph every square inch of the U.S., the English have slowly been tickling us with their charms, waiting for us to giggle, roll over, and expose our soft financial underbelly?

(Maybe we can convince the world to blame them for this mess???)

And don't get me started on how all the good American characters are now being played by Englishmen and -women. I'm pleased as punch to see my beloved Hugh Laurie become a household name hereabouts, but is there truly no cranky American actor good enough to play that cranky American character? If so, 'tis sad. 'Tis burnin' Rome, circa A.D. 64.

('Tis a conspiracy???)

Do economic downturns/meltdowns/crunches/crises/recessions/depressions ultimately trigger cultural and educational renaissances*? Let us pray that they do. In the meantime, it's high time we turn a leery eye toward the English among us -- I'm not usually a lynching woman, but I think they might be up to no good.



* Is "renaissances" even a word? Help? Lena?

Plus pain, minus muse (or: someone find me a rhyming dictionary).

There once was a patron o' lim'ricks
Who knew that her friends were no dim hicks
........Yet due to brain rot
........Her contest forgot
And now she's trying to come up with another rhyme for "limerick" that conveys her profound despair and self-reproach, but to no avail.



Help me.

Steal this picture.

Over the years I've swiped the artwork of so many people in illustrating my blog, it's high time I give back. I created this little graphic for a baby shower that never happened, so in an effort to make use of it and also to smother a bit of my copyright infringement guilt, I'm offering it to my fellow criminal cheapskates, wherever in cyberspace they may reside.

Take it!
Don't credit me!
I promise not to sue!

And they're giraffes, in case you couldn't tell. Giraffes without tails. Forgot the tails. Oopsie.

Oh well. Consider it my artistic widow's mite.

In which I see more dead people on my magic computer thingy.

Who out there loves the Interweb?? I'm a full-on addict, and it's only getting worse. Latest fix:

The Thatcher family has always understood that its patriarch, Hezekiah Thatcher, my great-great grandfather, knew Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas in the 1830s and 1840s when all three were residents of Springfield, Illinois (Hezekiah had not yet joined the LDS Church and Lincoln was still a junior law partner, just beginning in his political career). I've long wondered if it were really true. Maybe (thought I) they didn't really KNOW each other, but when Lincoln became famous “I used to pass him on the street” suddenly became “we knew each other.” I wanted to know more about this claim, but Hezekiah never kept a journal, so I figured that digging up any details of his association (friendship? rivalry? mutual indifference?) with Lincoln would be an ordeal. Probably involving a trip to Illinois. So I never bothered to try.

Then all the yammer related to Lincoln started in the last few weeks (Happy 200th, Abe!) and brought the question back to my mind. I thought it couldn't hurt to consult my friend Google to see what he might have to offer on my question. “Hezekiah Thatcher” + “Lincoln” took me to a site that informed me Lincoln was one of the lawyers in an 1843 Springfield civil case involving Hezekiah. I then typed the name of the case into Google and up came a website that meticulously archived all of Lincoln's legal papers, complete with case abstracts and scanned images of the original files! And there was my grandfather's name, in Abe Lincoln's handwriting. It was almost as surreal as seeing your grandfather's name written in God's handwriting.*

The Hill v. Thatcher case ended in a settlement rather than a full trial, which is in keeping with a description I recently heard of Lincoln the lawyer – he would encourage settlement and discourage trials whenever possible. Already showing signs of moral greatness at that early date.

So the family story is at least minimally true. The quiet, shy Hezekiah really was personally acquainted with the awkward, melancholy Abe Lincoln at least on this one occasion. Then, little knowing Mr. Lincoln's destiny or his own, he joined up with the Mormons and headed west, adding a whole slew of Wild West credentials to his resume.** Lincoln headed east and.....saved the universe, more or less.***

And now I've got this lead on the Lincoln/Thatcher link, I think I'll dig some more. Maybe I will find, buried deep in the Sangamon County Archives, a Happy 30th birthday card to Abe Lincoln signed

From one hardy frontier fellow to another,

Hezekiah T.

For any family members who want to know more about what I found or see my transcription of the complaint written up by Lincoln, click here for more complete information.

* Of course, there would be no way of knowing it was God's handwriting unless you'd found the Ark of the Covenant and could use the stone tablets to do a thorough forensic comparison. Which would be an unforgivable use of the Word of God that would surely call down a lethal ZAP! from on high.

** Friend of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, pioneer in the first year of the Mormon exodus to the West, polygamist, fearless rescuer of stranded immigrants, forty-niner who made his fortune in California, father of a Pony Express rider, tireless traveller who walked across the USA three times, founding settler and generous financier of Cache County Utah, and on and on and on, gush, gush, gush.

*** Oh, for shame -- you were paying attention in school, weren't you?

Wooing the West.

Once upon a time, Utah was in a bad marriage with Jonas Kage, the Ballet West artistic director. It wasn't that Utah was bad or Kage was bad -- it was just a bad match. Utah liked pretties and tutus and swans, while Kage liked flesh-colored unitards and avant-garde Nazi war ballets. So this was how a typical ballet season looked for years: Sleeping Beauty (condescending pat on head), Nutcracker (condescending pat on head), Echoing of Trumpets (whack 'em up side the head). It got really abusive there at the end. My parents canceled their ballet season tickets.

But finally Utah and Jonas Kage realized they didn't belong together. They parted ways and soon Utah found an artistic director who understood her and was forgiving of her love for pretties and tutus: Adam Sklute, former artistic director of the Joffrey Ballet. He saw that while Utah didn't like watching war crimes en pointe, that didn't mean that she wanted to see the same three classical ballets over and over.* She wanted to be stretched a bit -- she just didn't want to be stretched too far too quickly (which of course is a concept any dancer dude should understand).

So he gave Utah her adored Nutcracker, but with a tricksy Christmas Eve twist. He gave her ballets she'd never seen before that were classically beautiful but stylistically different. He gave her some masterly faux-drunk Sinatra dancing. He may well have loved avant-garde Nazi war ballets, but he realized that he couldn't force Utah from Giselle to genocide in a couple of seasons, or maybe ever. He had to love Utah for who she was and kindly open her to new possibilities. And he did.

And they lived happily ever after. Or at least until the 2008/2009 Ballet Season.

Epilogue:

Come to the Utah premiere of Madame Butterfly, opening this month! Mom and I got to watch one of the studio rehearsals today and it looks like it's going to be fantastic, beautiful, moving. With an invisible strongman lifting delicate butterfly geishas up through stage fog. And if you want to attend upcoming studio rehearsals, contact Ballet West to sign up for their email newsletter. I've been to a handful of the studio rehearsals over the past few years and they're always fun to watch (even when they're rehearsing avant-garde Nazi war ballets!)

*and over and over and over and over and over

Buyer's market, but goin' fast.

To the scores of eligible* bachelors frittering away their youth on temporary love, longing for the day when they might possibly afford my eternal devotion:

Interest Rates are low! All offers considered! Now's the time, boys! Seize the dame!

I'm a-houseshopping at the moment and if you don't stop me, these childbearing hips will soon come with a 30-year mortgage.**

With much appreciation,***

Marie

* For my purposes this means 1) non-porn-addicted, 2) gainfully employed, 3) not living with mother. Really Good Excuses will be considered, though only for requirements #2 and #3.

** They already come with a cat, but she's unlikely to last more than seven. She's quite naughty and headed for a tragic and mysterious end.

*** Fifteen percent per year guaranteed, plus offspring.

A mensch, a virgin, and a God.

It's not that I don't love plenty of the devil's music. Heck, when I first encountered George Michael's Faith album in my tweens, I managed to convince myself it was okay to listen to the naughty title track because it was about faith.* And it's been all downhill from there.**

But as for Christmastime, I have zero use for secular music. If someone said we could only have Christmas with Rudolphish tuneage, I'd opt for no Christmas. I don't care about sleigh rides or jingle bells or roasting chestnuts or frosty nose-nippings -- they do nothing for me. They are the styrofoam peanuts in the Christmas package of my imagination – you're not going to get away from them completely no matter how hard you try, but all you can think from the minute you get your hands on the real present is, “What am I going to DO with all this fluffy crap?? And why does it keep clinging to my *&%!! hands??”

That said, as much as I love the most common religious Christmas music, it does get stale pretty early in the season (Messiah excepted). It's not that I tire of the Baby Jesus – it's that there are so many ways and reasons to be amazed by him, I get tired of doing the same amazement over and over (and over and over). Through the years I've collected some lovely recordings of formal choirs singing beautiful, less common carols and I listen to them all season. But over the last couple years I've also been compiling a list of unusual carols and newly composed Christmas songs performed by popular artists. It's hard to find ones that aren't saccharine or just plain bad, but I've found a few. Or at least I think they're great. Much thanks goes to Sharon for giving me a few of them and putting me on paths that led me to several of the others. Here are some I especially love...

Long Way Around the Sea by Low
One Special Gift by Low
If You Were Born Today by Low
The Coming of Jah by Low
All the King's Horns by Sufjan Stevens***
Holy, Holy, Holy performed by Sufjan Stevens
Put the Lights on the Tree by Sufjan Stevens
Carol of the Birds performed by Joan Baez
Down in Yon Forest performed by Joan Baez
Mary's Wandering performed by Joan Baez
Burgundian Carol performed by Joan Baez
Virgin Mary performed by Joan Baez
Break Forth O Beauteous Heavenly Light performed by the Roches
Star of Wonder by the Roches
Sleep, My Little Jesus performed by Ella Fitzgerald
Praise His Holy Name performed by St. Olaf Choir****
Here's a Pretty Little Baby performed by St. Olaf Choir
Angel Eyes by Willie Nelson and Emmylou Harris
Man Is an Island performed by Emmylou Harris
There's a Light performed by Emmylou Harris
Cherry Tree Carol performed by Emmylou Harris*****
Mary Had a Baby performed by Bruce Cockburn
Riu Riu Chiu performed by Bruce Cockburn
Down in Yon Forest performed by Bruce Cockburn
Shepherds performed by Bruce Cockburn
Jesus Ahatonnia (The Huron Carol) performed by Bruce Cockburn
Travellin' on for Jesus performed by Kate and Anna McGarrigle
Seven Joys of Mary performed by the McGarrigles (et al.)
Old Waits Carol performed by the McGarrigles (et al.)
Rebel Jesus performed by Lily Lanken and Martha Wainwright
Some Children See Him performed by Rufus and Martha Wainwright
Spotlight On Christmas by Rufus Wainwright
Wise Men by Kate and Anna McGarrigle
The Holy Babe performed by Mahalia Jackson
A Star Stood Still (Song of the Nativity) performed by Mahalia Jackson


I know this list is very gospel-music-poor, and I want to fix that without getting all Aaron Nevilly or cheesy-overwrought-piano. What am I missing? (Yes, I realize that "unusual religious Christmas music sung by popular artists" is a very artificial category, but humor me!) I'd love to hear what you've got. It's never too early to start hunting it down for next year.

Happy Christmas, all. The Baby Jesus loves you. He really does.





* That he'd get more action sometime soon. (Very soon, or he'll lose faith again.)

** Will someone PLEASE sort out the idiom “all downhill from there” for me? I can't tell if it's supposed to be positive or negative, and I've heard it used both ways. On one hand, going down is usually perceived negatively, at least in a figurative sense – a decline, a falling apart, a slumping toward DEATH. On the other hand, going downhill is easy, the reward for having climbed the hill – it can be perceived as well-earned coasting. Which is the correct meaning? Is there a correct meaning? Please don't leave me languishing in linguistic limbo – I need answers! I need GUIDANCE!

*** I also love Sufjan because he shares my obsession with "O Come O Come Emmanuel" – it makes three appearances on his Christmas collection. I love him it.

**** Okay, so St. Olaf's isn't really a popular group. But they know how to rock, so they made the cut.

***** A Holy Family marital spat and a talking fetal Jesus commanding cherry trees to bow down – gotta love those apocryphal baby Jesus stories! But it's not so far from things we know happened, you know -- Joseph was suspicious at first and Jesus looked out for his mother. So listen to this odd one without fear of lightning. Plus it's got banjos and mandolins, and all good Christians love banjos and mandolins.

Dear "friends"

...who have or are planning to abandon me for life on one or other coast. One day soon the ocean levels will rise, and vast hordes of bedraggled urbanites will flee inland, to the mountains. You will be one of them. Please do not pester me with your pleas for shelter -- for you abandoned me.

Love,
Marie