A Small Report and a Question of Aesthetics

A Brief Report on the most recent church goings ons. The book club was a mild success, in that two people came this time and we got the next two months assigned. In August we are reading a book about the languages of love (there are apparently five of them) and how to improve communication with our spouses. I suppose these languages will be French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and, um, Romanian? We will see.


Our talks went well. I finally finished reading the last book of a multi-volume fantasy series with overtly Christian themes (no, not the one with the lion, the one that also masquerades as a Bildungsroman , or better yet, the great British boarding school multi-part novel). Since I no longer had any excuses, I wrote my talk out on overcoming selfishness on Sunday morning. I managed to refer to said fantasy book, Lacan's mirror theory and Nietzsche, so although I forgot the Goethe quote I was going to put in, I called it a success. Matt prepared his talk on the same subject by doing our laundry, cleaning the bedroom and the kitchen. He spoke impromptu on the subject, weaving an allegory of unselfishness out of the 3rd Battle of Ypres or Passchendaele or the Messines Ridge, which is celebrating its 90th anniversary. His only regret was not using the quote he thought up, that it is often said of the British army at the time were a bunch of lions led by asses, while he feels that one could say of us today that we are a bunch of asses led by lions. The comments I received afterward (mostly from women, being in primary and all) were either to express empathy with a German train story I told or to explain how their husbands were fascinated by the WWI battle and now wanted books on the subject. Not hard to blame them, since an explosion in Flanders that was heard in Dublin seems worth further reading.

A couple of months ago I read Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five and thought it was a good book. I was interested in how it changed my point of view on '50s and '60s science fiction as a addressing WWII as well as the Cold War. I was sad recently, however, to read on a "intellectual" Mormon group blog that many of them thought that it was vulgar and pornographic. First reactions was (admittedly like others on that blog) "huh? where? when?" and as I read more of the posts I was reminded of some bad language, two extra-marital affairs (no graphic sex), a visit to a porn shop (again, no graphic detail) and a juvenile drawing of a woman's breasts (if you've been to junior high, you've undoubtedly seen something similar).

It reminded me that I have thicker skin than many when it comes to what I can stand when I read a book or a watch a movie. I find that I tend to separate the message from the medium/media. That is, I justify the use of violence in a movie, if its use is to promote the message that war is bad.

Matt and I got into a long argument/discussion about this over started by Hemingway. I haven't read much Hemingway, but what I have I didn't like, but Matt's been reading him for his current class. What started as a discussion about the merits of reading Hemingway (or not) boiled down to a debate on how much the message or the medium has to do with whether a text is "good" or "art" or even just appreciated.

While my academic views are nearly all inclusive, by personal taste and views on the subject are not as inclusive. In my academic research I've been less interested in form and message than pure content, although in my greater study I am aware of the roles form and medium play. In my personal reading, I find that there is a more delicate balance of medium and message in what I like and don't like. For example, I hate many family-oriented films simply because they are cliché ridden. On the other hand, I loved the film V for Vendetta because it was unusual in story and action, even though the moral of that story might as well be anarchy.

So, dear readers, to take cue from Heidi's blog, where do you draw the line? When does the medium justify the message (eg war movies)? When does the message justify the medium (eg Mormon art)? Or do you believe (like Sergei Eisenstein) that the medium is the message (eg early Soviet film)?

5 Things I Hate About You . . .

. . . and to be fair, five things I like about you. This post was inspiried by Thora's lists about what she likes, dislikes, and misses about Virginia and Utah. My list is restricted to five things I like and dislike about living in Mapleton.

Five Dislikes:

1. You have to drive to Springville or Spanish Fork to take care of the basic needs of life, yet you live right next door to your neighbors in typical suburban fashion. Next time I live in the middle of nowhere, I really want to be in the middle of nowhere.

2. People still stare at me when I drive around in Mapleton. It's like they know I'm some sort of outsider and they need to make sure that I know that they know. All ages and types do this too - men, women, young people, old people, children. Matt thinks I'm crazy and makes fun of me, but it happened to my brother-in-law when he visiting last summer, so we know it's real.

3. I hate to be a witness to the urbanization of Mapleton. For example, there is a local feud between a dairy farm and the homeowners who built their big homes near the dairy. The homeowners want to close the dairy because the smell is a nuisance and somehow they have support from the city government. As my co-worker always says when he gets off the phone with students, "Stupid Idiots!". Newer residents think they're moving to an idealized country with no dairy farms, sheep, open burns, small lots or ticks and when it's not so they complain and throw money around until someone changes it for them. It makes me sad.

4. The ward in Mapleton drives me crazy simply because it's so vanilla. There is one interesting family who home-school, have an awesome family bluegrass band, and are vegans. So they're pretty much left to themselves by the rest of the ward (I already knew them from bluegrass so we're pretty good friends). This isn't to say that the ward is made up of bad people, just typical, uninteresting Utah Mormons. I suppose it's fair to realize that they take as little interest in me as I do in them, to the point most of them aren't really sure who I am (although its funny to me to be called in order of frequency David or Marya's daughter-in-law, Heidi's sister-in-law and finally Matt's wife). They also failed to get our records last summer when we lived in the ward, but when we moved back in January they told us that eight months was long enough time for us to be in the ward, so they would go ahead and get them (and that took them two months). Here are some of my favorite conversations that have driven me mad with the ward:

First Ward Member: "So you live with Heidi in that house?"

Me: "Yes."

1WM: "So its just the two of you?"

Me: "And my husband."

1WM: "Oh!" and she scurries off shocked

Second Ward Member: "I know Marya's done alot of geneaology. Do you have your five-generation pedigree done?"

Me: "Yes I do."

2WM: "Yeah, its so nice for you guys that Marya's done alot of your geneaology." (Why would my mother-in-law do my family's geneaology? Or why would she have thought that in my five months of marriage that Marya would go out and do all of my geneaology? Or does she think since Matt and I had barbeque and bluegrass at our open house that we're related?)

The following conversation I've had with several different ward members:

Various Ward Member: "How are your parents doing?"

Me: "Fine, they are staying busy and [fill in with time appropriate comment like doing alot of yardwork or preparing for a visit from relatives]."

VWM: "So how do they like [Qatar, Bahrain, Darfur, Saudia Arabia, etc depending on the person]?"

Me: "Actually my parents live in Arizona, but Matt's parents like Qatar quite alot."

VWM: "Oh, well that's nice.

I know, I'm probably too rude to live in this ward. Oh well.

5. They're is no leash law in Mapleton. Now I'm sounding like a new resident who hates the real country, but I feel like a number of the dogs in Mapleton aren't trained right to have no leash law. We've got many car and people-chasing dogs. Ok, only one car-chaser that I know of, but usually I run into a least one unhappy dog when I walk around Mapleton. They poop in our yard and bark and growl at you if you're on the sidewalk near their house, the other side of the street, or even if you're in your own yard and they're out trolling the neighborhood. I don't mind the chickens wandering around, but the dogs drive me crazing.


Five Likes:

1. It's close to the mountains. We have a really nice view of the mountains from the kitchen window and backyard which is a delight.

2. It's still fairly rural, especially compared to the rest of the valley. It has a nice fresh smell (or *fresh* smell, depending on the day), there are farms and animals everywhere and its not uncommon to see people going down the road on their horses. And there are a number of people fighting to keep Mapleton that way by restricting growth up the mountain and setting a minimum lot size.

3. We live in a nice, normal neighborhood with nice, normal neighbors. I wouldn't have thought much of this except that we moved here after living in the tree streets where the neighbors were not necessary nice or normal. Here no one cares that we're students and they don't have to prove the point that they're not students by keeping their yards fastidiously clean. But it's not white-trash either, just a relaxed quiet neighborhood.

4. The ward may be vanilla, but its not malignant. Again, this wouldn't have meant as much, except coming from our anti-student, anti-renter Provo ward. The people here might not have taken much notice of us, but it's not because we are the lepers of the ward by being "students". In this ward I've made some good friendships with a couple of the older ladies (I really do mean older, one of them has great-grandkids in the ward) who have been very nice to me. I also love my Primary calling! I'd forgotten just how much fun Primary is and the time at church just flies now.

5. It's where I'm suppose to be. Ok, I know it's sort-of a cop out, but I couldn't think of a better one.


Living in Mapleton on the whole has been a challenge for me in various ways. I associate Mapleton with my darker times of being freshly graduated, unemployed and feeling isolated. Thanks Thora for helping me realize there are some things I really like about Mapleton. Without being too cheesy, I'm really blessed to live here.