At Last Night's Book Club...

Last night was my monthly book club meeting and it marked the first time I didn’t finish the book.  It wasn’t because I ran out of time; I always make time for reading to the sacrifice of other things that perhaps others would give priority to, i.e., parties, lunch, exercise, school, dinner, social life, taxes, sleep, dessert, and the latest episode of Dancing With the Stars.  When the book is good enough, I don’t care.

It just wasn’t the case with Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen.  I read about a hundred pages (from the large print version they carried at the library because I couldn’t reserve anything normal) and once a couple of my red flags were raised, I checked on Wikipedia see how the story ends.  It confirmed my suspicions and I decided not to bother with the rest of the book.

It’s actually very well written and the circus was alive and vibrant in ways some sci-fi and fantasy don’t try for when creating planets.  And the characters were strong.  Jacob Jankowski was well realized, but I had a feeling I was going to hate his romance with Marlena.  I guessed that she was gonna be married to the bad boy and would have a secret affair with Jacob, and nothing short of an act of God would stop the creeper.  I ended up being mostly right and I decided I have better things to do.

Most content doesn’t bother me.  I am willing to put up with a lot of violence and sex in stories (since most stories can’t function without an element of one or the other; often both.)  But I have seen enough women choosing to attach themselves to horrible men for years on end and never making the move to save themselves from it, that I couldn’t bring myself to read about a wife doing the same stupid thing.  Just couldn’t do it this time.

Needless to say, I shouldn’t have had a whole lot to discuss this meeting, but because I don’t know how to shut up I spoke a lot anyways.  The best discussion wasn’t so much on that book, but a tangential topic on classical literature.  One of my friends asked if there are any books coming out today that could be considered the greats.  We came up with several books but then she pointed out each of our picks were still 20^th Century only.  The question is, what’s coming out in our century that will stand the test of time?

This was tough, especially since we’re only 13 years into our current century.  Still, this was fun to muse over and a little frustrating because very little was coming to mind.  Harry Potter is a no-brainer, but surely that couldn’t be the only great piece of literature to come out in our time.

The Hunger Games is a great commentary on reality TV and the media, but scratch past the surface, there isn’t much there.  Twilight does have some staying power, but it has a very select audience and who knows how long they’ll hold onto it.

After going through some of the obvious choices, though, we realized that we were just focusing on the children’s titles.  None of us are knocking on children’s books (they’re certainly some of my favorite selections) but are there any books targeted at adults today that would have the same cultural impact that Dickens, Austen, and Twain had on the 19^th Century, or Tolkien, King, and Steinbeck had on the 20^th?

None of us could come up with any.  A couple of folks in my group are not as harsh as me and enjoyed Water for Elephants, but nobody was championing it as a story for the ages.  This morning, the only contender I can think of for longevity is Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series, which I will justify because the best installment, A Storm of Swords, came out in 2000.  Still, the series isn’t finished yet and for all we know, the end is going to be crap.  Despite how much I’ve enjoyed the last two books, the series has lost much of its forward momentum.  We’ll see how it goes.

Yann Martel’s Life of Pi may have something going for it in the long term.  I can’t say for sure since I haven’t read it yet, but then, it’s one of the few modern books in mainstream fiction that keeps coming to my attention again and again.

And then I felt really stupid when I realized, duh, we have Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susannah Clarke.  It isn’t just one of my favorite fantasy novels, it’s one of my favorite books, period.  It’s got great humor and lots of charm, all covering a darkly sinister and horrific plot of a monster threatening to destroy the two men who hold the civilized world in their hands, and in many ways, their own character flaws could undo them before they ever accomplish their great task.  I have trouble getting friends to read it because it’s so long and the prose is pretty dense, but everything about it is so delightful, and the footnotes are more fun than the main story itself.

What books do you think are going to last?

The Billboard '80s Singles

I have deep ties to music.  When I was a kid, Fantasia was one of my favorite movies (granted, it was mostly because it had dinosaurs, but I knew every piece by heart).  I played the piano until I was 12 and went onto play the clarinet until I got fed up with my high school band.  I’ve gone to concerts, I listen to the radio all the time, over half my time on YouTube is used finding new music videos, and I sing every Sunday at church (not always in the choir, much to the choir director’s chagrin.)

As much as I surround myself with music, though, I am not very educated about it.  Songs come on the radio and I have no idea who the band is or even what the title is.  The night after a concert, I have remembered the melody the orchestra played and could not tell what it comes from.

This gets embarrassing, so this year, I decided to do something about it.  On top of all the other crap I do, I decided to learn my music.  I want to get to the point where I can just listen to it and I will know what it is.

I started off doing classical music, and made some pleasant discoveries with Stravinsky and Tchaikovsky.  As much as I love them, though, these people don’t come up in most social conversation.  It wasn’t enough to study up on the dead guys, I also had to educate myself on modern music.

So I started with the ’80s.  What I decided to do was look up all the Billboard No. 1 Hits in that decade, listen to all of those and not only learn them, but rank them on how these songs affected me.  Let me tell you, that was exhausting.  It took me over two weeks to listen to all of them (I took frequent breaks from this project), and by the end of it, I don’t know if I can put myself through that again.

Anyways, I took the songs that were 9s and 10s for me and put them in some cohesive order.  I doubt that these are the best songs of the ’80s (except for my number 1 on the list; I am very attached to that song), but these were the best that made the Billboard list.  Here we go:

1)      “Jack & Diane” by John Cougar Mellencamp.  This doesn’t come close to being my high school experience but the nostalgia is there.  What gets me every time are the last two lines, which says everything about growing up.  I’m definitely bringing more to it than was likely intended, but so what?  I imagine this couple grew up and still love each other after putting in their all.

2)      “Got My Mind Set on You” by George Harrison.  There really isn’t a lot to this song, but the tune is catchy and will stick in my head all day long if I hear it.

3)      “Heaven Is a Place on Earth” by Belinda Carlisle.  This is cheesy but I would not mind if a woman said any of these words to me.  And Belinda Carlisle has a stellar voice.

4)      “Livin’ On A Prayer” by Bon Jovi.  One of the most relatable stories ever told.  How many of us are down on our luck, got no way to provide for ourselves, and just have to trust that somehow we’ll be taken care of?  It doesn’t matter how bad things get, though, the whole point of the song is that you can make it, and you don’t have to go it alone.

5)      “Jessie’s Girl” by Rick Springfield.  If there is a song that captures jealousy better, I don’t know what it is.

6)      “We Didn’t Start the Fire” by Billy Joel.  I wonder what lyrics you could add to this in the two decades since this song came out.  This covered nearly everything in the world up to that time and a lot more news has happened since then.

7)      “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” by U2.  I wonder if there’s a song about somebody finding what they’ve looked for.  Oh, yes.  All those boring love ballads that made up half the ’80s.  Never mind.  Let’s keep the song about the search.

8)      “The Way You Make Me Feel” by Michael Jackson.  I have to eat some crow for all the smart remarks I’ve made about Michael Jackson.  The man had some incredible pipes.  His music videos are really odd to watch; he wears more makeup than a lot of female supermodels I see on magazine covers.  Still, I finally understand why he remained so popular for so long.  He was a born performer.

9)      “Shout” by Tears for Fears.  I actually like Korn’s cover of this song better, but Korn worked with great material.  There is lots of anger and raw passion exploding in the lyrics, and the music fits it perfectly.

10)  “Listen to Your Heart” by Roxette.  Today’s breakup songs tend to be about getting drunk and slashing your ex’s tires.  And I enjoy them a lot.  But it’s also nice to listen to one about actually fighting for a relationship when it’s absolutely worth being with that person.

I actually had a lot more number 9s, but I’m calling this good.  As I said, making this list was exhausting and I don’t really want reading it to become a huge chore either.  I will close with some honorable mentions: “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” by Poison; “Sweet Child ’o Mine” by Guns ’N Roses; “Walk Like An Egyptian” by The Bangles; “Total Eclipse of the Heart” by Bonnie Tyler; and “Another Brick In the Wall, Part II” by Pink Floyd.

Hair, Adventure Time, and Dr. Who

The last couple of years have been a vast image experiment for myself.  I’ve had my hair short and to my shoulders, worn a beard, goatee, mustache, and clean shaven, with never a rhyme or reason for it.  And despite opinions I’m sure to the contrary, none of my image decisions had anything to do with my moods, to make a statement, or to impress anybody.  Any decision of whether or not to get a haircut or shave came from the thought, I wonder what’ll happen if I do this.

The most important discovery I made: no matter what, I like how I look in the mirror.  I got razzed several times; people judge based on appearance and can be brutally honest about it.  One of my favorites was in the winter of last year.  I walked up to the front door in my dirty jacket, ski cap, my hair sticking out from the edges and beard thick as a wolf’s hide, and when I walked in, my roommate didn’t recognize me.  He thought I was a hobo going door-to-door for something or other.  I can’t tell you how hard I laughed over that one.

None of it ever bothered me, which was a valuable lesson.  I wasn’t sure whether I would always be comfortable in my own skin and as it goes, knowing that I’m happy with the body I have is a treasure.

Of lesser importance but something I found interesting: nobody comments on my appearance until I change it.  And I mean nobody.

                        ***

I could rave forever about Adventure Time.  Finally, a modern cartoon show that is as funny as anything Looney Toons did, set in a magical world that is so developed it has become its own character, and is a brilliant parody on Dungeons and Dragons and much of the gaming and television that has populated our society.

It looks like it’s for kids and kids watch it, but they are not the true audience.  This is a show for grownups.  Well, grownups who like cartoons, which isn’t a huge population but… whatever.

I could go on, but I’ll just say, this one is awesome.  Best discovery I’ve made all year and it looks like the show could go on for a while.

                        ***

On the subject of good shows, I’ve been watching Dr. Who off and on for a few months whenever my roommates had it on.  It was cute enough, but as much as I like the science-fiction genre, I’m not devout to TV sci-fi.  A lot of it just feels fake and looking at a lot of the monsters and villains Dr. Who was always battling, they just looked too dorky for belief.

Boy, was I mistaken.  There is a lot of silliness, but what I mistook for lack of caring is actually part of the charm.  Dr. Who is about having fun and throwing you into the craziness of the universe we live in.  Dr. Who is an energetic figure with a TARDIS, or his machine that travels in both time and space.  He’s seen a lot that’s in the universe and wants to catch it all, and he brings along companions to share in his joy and fascination.

Dr. Who can also be one of the scariest shows ever.  Seriously, there are some bone-chillingly freaky episodes, ones that make you wonder how they pulled off something that crazy.

Then there are stories that go straight for the heart and make you fall in love with the Doctor and the sacrifices all of his friends make for him.  I watched the season finale, “The Name of the Doctor,” with my roommates a few weeks ago, and it blew my mind.  That was the coolest use of time travel I’ve ever seen and Clara, the Doctor’s current companion, got to do one of the most selfless acts in any sci-fi story, and possibly in all television history.

Needless, since then, I decided to start this series from the beginning.

Okay, not the beginning beginning.  Most of those aren’t available and frankly, would take up way too much of my life.  I’ve started with the reboot, where Christopher Eccleston plays the Doctor’s ninth incarnation.  He is one tough s.o.b. and I love his attitude and how he handles any crisis that comes his way.  This is a show that is hard to keep away from.  I love it.

The Two "Stars"

I finally saw Star Trek: Into Darkness last week.  It was close to not happening; with my tight budget, I don’t find many excuses to splurge, not even for the movies.  Which is a shame for me, because I love going to the movies.  If I can’t go with friends or family, I will go by myself because there is nothing like seeing these thirty-foot tall human beings walk and talk on the big screen.

But I just don’t make it the movies anymore.  Unless the power has gone out at my place, and I’ve just been out eating pizza and singing karaoke late into the evening and when my roommate and I get back, we find the power is still out and we’re too wired to go to sleep, so rather than stand around in the dark lighting candles just to find our way to the refrigerator, we decide to go see a late night flick.  That’s pretty much what happened the other night.

And the movie was incredible.  Star Trek has gone down very exciting direction: the actors are incredible, the plotting was very tight and faster paced than any previous Star Trek films, and J.J. Abrams has brought a more physical Spock than I’ve ever seen before.  This movie played with some of the best elements and ideas from Wrath of Khan (the best Star Trek film after all these years) and reinterpreted them in ways that I expected and yet felt daring at the same time.  I really enjoyed.

But I’m not going to spend the whole time talking about how and why this movie was great.  Seeing it actually sparked and old conversation that I had some years ago with friends.  The question I was asked was which is better: Star Wars or Star Trek?  At that time, I said Star Wars.

This was a no-brainer.  I first saw Return of the Jedi when I was seven and it changed my world.  There are swords made out of colored lights, giant slugs and monsters, space battles, lightning bolts flying from hands, little green men disappearing at death, and being able to lift things with your mind.  The only thing I asked for Christmas one year was the entire trilogy on VHS, and I wore those tapes out in two months.

Star Wars occupied a lot of my playtime and I owned several of the toys and models.  By the time I reached high school, I had read several of the novels and come to love some of the extra characters found in the books you can’t find in the movies, like Han and Leia’s twins, Jacen and Jaina, and Mara Jade, the only good match for Luke.

Star Trek, on the other hand, didn’t grab me nearly as much.  I’d seen all the movies by the time I was 10, sure, and I liked them pretty well but they didn’t grab me nearly as much.  While Star Wars was an epic tale of good versus evil, love, adventure, and had so much variety, from the aliens to the spaceships to the planets that they would visit and so on and so forth.  Star Trek did not have nearly the same variety.  The aliens were all humanoid, hardly any variety in any of the ships, and several of the stories went over my head often.  It wasn’t until I saw them again in my teens when I actually appreciated what was going on.  Star Wars is told clearly enough that I could grasp it as a kid and not feel like I was being talked down to.  It was easily the superior series.

And I kept that opinion even through the awfulness of the prequels.  As bad as though movies could be, they were nothing compared to the few episodes of the TV series that I saw.  The original Star Trek just looked dorky, and the stories told weren’t much better.  And there was The Empire Strikes Back, which is still one of the best movies ever made.

After a lot of thought and careful consideration, though, I’m going to have my opinion and give the better series title to Star Trek.

There’s really only one reason for it: Darth Vader.  I have nothing against the villain.  Darth Vader is evil and terrifying and as perfect a bad guy that you could ever ask for.  I have a problem with his redemption and since the prequel, an issue with Anakin in general.

Vader’s redemption was problematic even before the prequels came about.  This is a monster who killed people left and right, and it hardly mattered whether it was the Rebels or his own people.  The impression is left that he’s a conqueror of worlds, and while he never actually governs anything, he doesn’t mind playing executioner wherever he finds himself.  At the last minute, he decides to save his son and gives up his life for that.  Somehow, at the end of the film, that act changes him entirely and puts him on the same level as Obi-Wan and Yoda, the two most righteous characters in the whole story?  Hard to swallow, but I managed to overlook it for a while because everything else was just so darn good.

But the prequels made that worse.  The whole premise behind Anakin Skywalker was that he had been a good man but that that good man died after being seduced by the dark side.  So much of Return of the Jedi is based on Luke’s belief that there is still that good man hidden in there and he just needs to be found and brought to the light.

You know what?  I never saw the good Anakin Skywalker.  You see the adult Anakin in love with Padmé, but beyond that, there isn’t a lot to recommend his character.  He’s whiny, he’s selfish, hot-headed, disobedient, and he murdered an entire tribe of men, women, and children.  This is before Palpatine ever gets his hands around Anakin.  When Anakin gets married (and this is where I lose all respect for Padmé; he confesses his genocide to her and she still takes him as her husband?  That’s maddening) he marries her in secret and against the Jedi orders laws and customs.  Palpatine was not a corrupting influence on Anakin; Anakin was already corrupt.  He just happened to be aligned with the good guys until he was shown another way.

In Revenge of the Sith, after it’s clear that Anakin kills all the Jedi children, I just have to laugh whenever any of his family says, “There is still good in him.”  No!  There isn’t!  He was never that good to start with and he never showed any true act of penitence or contrition.  His being put on the same level as the other Jedi masters is a joke.

As silly as Star Trek could be, they never made such an idiotic move in the core part of their story.  Star Trek is a story about a community united in a great cause, and they stick together no matter the battle, and that’s the kind of story I like inspiring me at my point in life.

A Thank You, Fearful Symmetry, and Cooking

Being in a court reporting program has its interesting quirks when it comes to class.  A normal college class, you sit in a chair and listen to the teacher talk at you.  In a court reporting dictation class, the same thing happens only this time you’re actually taking notes.  Hanging on the teacher’s every word, in fact.

Tests are five-minute recorded dictations—meaning our teachers record the dictation and we have to listen to the audio later to see how bad we did.  We do about two to four tests a day.  You have to pass 99% to move onto the next speed level; so to pass a 120 word-per-minute test, I’m only allowed to miss 12 words.

I haven’t made it to less than 12 words yet, but that doesn’t make the tests worthless to me.  I still have to type up two transcripts a week from any of the recorded tests and turn them in for credit.  Here is where my story starts:

Yesterday, I had my two transcripts ready and had grabbed the tape to listen to so I could see how many words I missed.  And yes, you read that correctly: I grabbed the tape.  You know, those little plastic boxes called cassettes, and you have to press REWIND and FAST FORWARD and it can take you an entire minute to find the place you’re looking for.  Can you believe the things we as a species have had to put up with?

So I have my tape and I stick it in the tape player, throw on the headphones (those monster earmuffs with the cord sticking out at one end—they are so thick I would be happy to wear them in wintertime at Washington) hit PLAY and start correcting my first transcript for the week.

I’ve gotten through an entire page (roughly a minute to a minute-and-a-half has passed) when my teacher comes in from her other dictation speed class to let me that she could hear herself from the other room.  That’s when I realize that my headphones aren’t connected to the right source so everybody in the big room can hear the tape and it was definitely interrupting their own work.  Of course, I was oblivious to the odd stares I was getting until my teacher pointed it out.

That was the nicest thing anybody’s done for me all year.  I mean that sincerely, no joke.  When I’m doing something stupid, I appreciate somebody stopping what they’re doing and letting me know what I’m doing wrong.  It’s the surest sign of knowing who my real friends are.

By the way, the headphones thing not being connected but still thinking they were… not the first time I’ve done anything like that, although it was the first time in a public setting.

                        ***

I’m a pretty big fan of Dan Wells.  I’ve only read his John Cleaver trilogy (I Am Not A Serial Killer, Mr. Monster, and I Don’t Want to Kill You), but they were fantastic reads and I am not opposed to reading his new post-apocalyptic Partials series sometime in the near future.

Good as his writing is, though, my first introduction to him was from the Writing Excuses podcast and more recently, his other podcast, Do I Dare To Eat A Peach? that he does with his brother, Rob Wells.

I’ve plugged all of these before, but now I have to give a shout to Dan Wells’ blog at www.fearfulsymmetry.net.  It’s his latest post, “Art and Life, Imitating Each Other,” that I really wanted to bring to your attention.  Apparently, reality has caught up with science-fiction, as per a document the United Nations report on drones, and the moral question of designing robotics to fight our wars.

This is a real thing and I think everybody should check this blog out just to get an idea of what’s going on and this writer’s take on what this means for the human race.

                        ***

I don’t know whether I’ll ever go back to a real college after I’m done with my court reporting program.  The whole point of going to college for me was to get set on a career path, and with court reporting, I’m put into a profession where I don’t need the degree, just the certifications.

Education is an ongoing thing, though.  I’m never going to be satisfied with just this, and while paying for classes is expensive, knowledge is priceless.  It’s the only thing you carry with you for all life, and I firmly believe that knowledge is one treasure we keep after we die and move on.

So I already have plans to be taking classes after I’m done here and moving onto new things.  My interests: cooking and dancing, because I am terrible at both.

With dancing, I’ve taken lessons before but they never lasted long either because of time and/or money.  So on the rare occasion that I go to a dance, there’s always that one couple that’s showing off some swing dance or ballroom move they’ve been practicing for years and I get jealous.  I’m really hoping to change that as soon as I can.

When it comes to cooking, though, it’s something that I can do, but my skills are very limited in that field.  I can do nearly any breakfast dish you can name: pancakes, waffles, French toast, bacon, eggs (scrambled, fried, poached, runny yoke, sunny-side up, boiled), oatmeal (with various additions of fruit or nuts), and hashbrowns.  Haven’t done spinach frittatas or grits, but I’m pretty sure I could handle the first.  I’ve had grits a couple times before and I have no desire to learn.

I have made forays into dinners and desserts, but they’ve been average attempts at best.  And considering that I might have to cook for myself for a while to come, I’d like to make sure that I’m eating right and maybe healthier than I currently do.  My family has a chilling medical history and I’m sure my diet of breakfast burritos and hot dogs isn’t conducive to preventing anything.

But really, this is just my roundabout way of saying that I’m happy Masterchef is back for its next season.  I used to make fun of my brother and his wife for always having Food Network on.  I mean, all you can do look.  You can’t smell the delicious odors or taste the food, so why torture yourselves for hours on end?

So here I am doing the same thing.  To be honest, though, I don’t feel all that upset that I don’t get to try any of the food.  I’m fascinated by the challenges each contestant goes through to make perfect dishes.  I mean, these are home cooks working at a professional level.  That takes a lot of guts, especially considering the quality of their judges, and many of them pull it off week after week. It’s a cool show to watch.

Of course, since I’m watching it via Hulu, I’m always going to be eight days behind, but whatever.  I’m really happy that in our day and age, we have so many options instead of hoping that a rerun will play a couple months down the road.

The Daily Show

I’ve kvetched about the news before.  I started mistrusting the networks when Good Morning America shifted their focus from world and national events to wedding dresses and the Red Sox.  (Okay, I know the Red Sox finally coming out on top was huge, but really?  There was a really intense presidential campaign going on at the time and ABC put the news on hold for that?)

I could turn this into another rant on how the battle between reporting and entertainment has favored the second choice for far too long, but I won’t.  Instead, I’ll focus on what may be the only check on the news media’s excess: The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

The Daily Show is not a news show; indeed, a running gag they admit often is that they’re Comedy Central’s fake news station.  It is pure entertainment…

…and yet it’s not pure entertainment.  While they’re not reporting the news, Daily Show is extremely rigorous in its fact-checking on the stories they choose to mock, or as I think of it: editorialize.  As I see it, if this were print media, these folks would be the Opinion page, and that’s not a bad thing to be.

When I first started watching the show, I noticed that they took a lot of shots at Fox, like everybody else in the visual media.  They’re not shy about it; it’s a very liberal program and Fox seems like their natural foe.  I figured they were just going for the easy jokes.

And then I saw them take on CNN and ABC, and called them into account for their excesses and sheer stupidity, and that’s when I realized that Daily Show isn’t just making jokes; they are making a serious point that journalists have a responsibility to tell the truth and how betrayed we feel when they fail in that duty.

I don’t always agree with everything they say, but it is funny and is holding the reporting profession to aim higher than they currently are.  It’s only a half-hour long and four nights a week.  And it can take even less of your time, depending on whether you care for the guests they bring on (I usually skip the Hollywood stars, but there are enough politicians and authors they bring on that are fascinating to listen to.)

I guess what I’m saying is that I finally have a late night show I will actually make time for.

The Book of Mormon

The Book of Mormon has a very radical history.  Its origins are shrouded with divine intervention or audacious falsehood, depending on who you speak to.

The story according to Joseph Smith begins when he was 17 and living in Palmyra, New York.  He felt terrible for some of his youthful follies, and so, as he prayed to God he received a visit from an angel named Moroni.  Moroni gave Joseph several instructions during that visit and among those was to inform him that at a hill nearby his home, there was a record of the ancient American inhabitants that the Lord would command him to translate.  Moroni left and then returned a second time that night, repeating what he’d said before with some additional instruction.  He left and returned a third time, saying the same things as his last visit with even more additional instruction.

The next morning, Joseph was visited a fourth time with the same circumstances and was instructed to tell his father everything that Moroni had told him.  After hearing all these things, Joseph’s father told him that it came from God and that he needed to obey the angel.

When Joseph went to the hill, he found the record Moroni had told him about, and seeing that they were written on gold plates, he thought about how this gold could really help his family in their indigent circumstances.  God didn’t like that attitude very much.  Moroni appeared again, and in more words than I am giving, Joseph was forbidden from translating for four years.  During that time, he was told to grow up and set his heart only on the things of God and then he would be worthy to translate the golden plates.

Four years later, Joseph received the plates with special instructions to keep them hidden from the world because there were wicked men who sought to destroy the work of God.  But if Joseph did everything in his power to keep the plates safe, God would take care of the rest.  The plates stayed hidden and protected, and Joseph was able to complete the translation of the plates, and through same miracle, was able to publish the record as The Book of Mormon, named after a prophet-historian in the scripture.

The golden plates were taken up by Moroni once the translation was completed and nobody besides Joseph ever saw the plates except on two separate occasions.  The first time, three of Joseph’s friends (Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris) heard the voice of the Lord and were shown the golden plates in a divine manifestation.  The second occasion, the plates were shown by Joseph Smith by eight men—Joseph’s father, two of his brothers, four from the Whitmer family, and Hiram Page.  While none of them heard a voice or saw angels, they were allowed to touch and handle the plates.  The testimonies of both the Three and the Eight Witnesses are published as part of The Book of Mormon, as well as Joseph’s testimony as to how he received it.

The golden plates were taken by the angel Moroni and nobody has claimed to have seen them since.  The Book of Mormon was published in 1830, and shortly afterwards, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was established.

This is only a summary of what took place over several years, but in essence, it’s what happened.

Of course, most of the world gets about ten seconds into that story and say, Yeah right.  You expect us to believe that something like that happened in our day and age?

To which I say, Many of us believe that the Red Sea was parted to let the Israelites cross on dry land.  Next to that, being commanded to write a book doesn’t quite stretch my credulity.

One of the best criticisms I ever heard on the Book of Mormon was when a gentleman asked me what happened to the gold plates Joseph Smith translated from.  “The angel Moroni took it up with him.”

“That’s rather convenient for you, isn’t it?”

I bit my tongue.  Frankly, it would have been more convenient to have the gold plates with us to verify that part of Joseph Smith’s story, but even then, I doubt it would make that great a difference in convincing anybody of our claim to hold the full and restored gospel of Christ.  That belief has only come by prayer and listening to the Spirit, as far as I’ve ever witnessed.

Of course, there’s the familiar charge of Joseph Smith being a liar and a fraud.  There’s no evidence that the Book of Mormon wasn’t just pulled out of a hat, and there’s even historical records stating that Joseph Smith used a hat during translation (one of the quirkier aspects to the story, I will gleefully admit.)  And, the truth is, Joseph Smith couldn’t prove anything to anybody.  We have to take his word on it that what he said was true.

But what about the Three and Eight Witnesses?  In my not-so-humble opinion, they are the best argument for the Book of Mormon’s veracity.  All 11 of these men claimed to have seen the golden plates, and in the case of the Eight, they physically handled them, while the Three claimed to have had a miraculous vision accompanying their witnessing of the plates.  All of the Three and three of the Eight (Hiram Page, Jacob Whitmer, and John Whitmer) were excommunicated or had their records removed from the Church, nearly all at the same time.

These were all men who had been close friends with Joseph at the beginning of the Book of Mormon translation.  They had all been prominent members of the Church and had suffered much the same things Joseph had in the early days of building Zion.  However, because of their own prideful ambitions, they were cut off entirely.

Oliver Cowdery had been one of Joseph’s closest friends and was instrumental in assisting Joseph during the bulk of translation.  After the excommunication, he went into law and became a very successful lawyer—and one of Joseph’s most bitter enemies until the end of Joseph’s life.  And yet… during a trial, one of Oliver’s opposing attorney’s made a snide remark about the Book of Mormon, and Oliver went on record defending his vision of the golden plates.

(On a sidenote, Oliver let go of his animosity after Joseph was murdered.  He became so incensed at the legal injustice taking place that he volunteered to go to Washington DC at his own expense to demand justice for the crime committed by the mob.  He lost, but was eventually rebaptized with the Saints and stayed faithful till his death.)

Martin Harris was often in trouble in the Church, despite his enormous influence and aid in the early days, especially financially backing the Book of Mormon publication.  He lived a long life and often bore testimony about his experience in seeing the golden plates.

David Whitmer was excommunicated and never returned, as is the case with his brothers and brother-in-law in the Eight.  He was hurt and never more a friend to Joseph Smith.  And yet, seven years before he died, he had 21 upstanding citizens in his community sign and witness an affidavit he made proclaiming his testimony of the golden plates and the truth of the Book of Mormon.  This was decades after his excommunication and he had no intention of returning.  He was bitter about Joseph, and yet he never stepped down from his testimony of the golden plates and was the most public about this.

John Whitmer was excommunicated and Jacob Whitmer and Hiram Page voluntarily had their records removed.  They never went back, and on their deathbeds, each proclaimed that they had seen the plates and that they knew it came from God.

I’m happy that the other five witnesses (Christian Whitmer, Peter Whitmer, Jun., Joseph Smith, Sen., Hyrum Smith, and Samuel H. Smith) all stayed in the Church until they died and stayed true to their testimonies of the golden plates and the Book of Mormon.  But it endlessly fascinates me that six others found cause to leave it all behind.  Their departures weren’t amicable.  It was horrendous, awful, deeply antagonistic.  They had so much animosity towards Joseph Smith, Jun., and if at any time, they could have said it had all been a lie.  If it was a lie, they had nothing to gain by affirming the Book of Mormon was a true book.  And yet they stuck to their story to the end.

I can’t understand why they would do that unless it had been real.

Regardless, this has led me to think much about how I feel about the Book of Mormon.  The title page of the Book of Mormon lays out that its purpose is “to the convincing of Jew and Gentile that JESUS is the CHRIST, the ETERNAL GOD” and the book is quite frankly the main reason I ever came to believe in God.

See, I was born and raised Latter-day Saint, but that has never been a guarantee that I was going to stay.  Freedom to choose is given such a high place of respectability in the Church that nobody interferes even when the choice is to go against the Church and what it stands for, and this has been the case since its foundation.  Many people joined and were baptized and no small number of them left soon after, and this trend goes on today.

When I was a teenager, I had gotten so angry about the personal traumas and injustices that had happened to me for so much of my life that I didn’t see any evidence that there was a God there.  I certainly couldn’t tell you what the Spirit felt like, what the purpose of prayer was, or why there was so much emphasis on things like Sabbath worship or Priesthood.  What was it all for when clearly none of that had affected my life in any way for the better?

On my mom’s advice, though, I decided not to call it crap until I actually read my scriptures.  It’s funny; I have been reading since I was two (no lie) and read anything that my hands could touch and yet I’d never read any books of scripture all the way through.  And it was a challenge.  It took me a year-and-a-half to get through the Book of Mormon once.  Since then, I’ve read it well over a dozen times and certain passages well over a hundred.

Some of my most valuable lessons came from the Book of Mormon.  The passage that changed my life most is found in Jacob 2, when Jacob’s people began going off the deep end.  In the few years they had lived in their promised land, they had been blessed with gold, silver, and all the treasures in the earth, and because some of them had more than the other, they let themselves become prideful, wearing fine clothes and beginning to persecute those that were poorer than they were, creating an awful inequality among themselves.  They had taken their eye off the Lord and this caused Jacob to cry:

“O that he would rid you from this iniquity and abomination.  And, O that ye would listen unto the word of his commands, and let not this pride of your hearts destroy your souls!  Think of your brethren like unto yourselves, and be familiar with all and free with your substance, that they may be rich like unto you.  But before ye seek for riches, seek ye for the kingdom of God.  And after ye have obtained a hope in Christ ye shall obtain riches, if ye seek them; and ye will seek them for the intent to do good—to clothe the naked, and to feed the hungry, and to liberate the captive, and administer relief to the sick and the afflicted.” (Jacob 2:16-19)

I had read these words many times before, but when I came across them at age 20, I cried because I knew that I had been focused so on my own gain and status all my life until that point.  In a lot of ways, I consider that moment to be the true beginning of my conversion to God, where it wasn’t just that I believed he was there but that I understood what was expected of me and the kind of man that He wanted me to become.

It goes back to Christ’s saying, “No man can serve two masters… Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” (Matt. 6:24)  It hit me then and continues with me now that the “love of money is the root of all evil” (1 Tim. 6:10) and I made a decision that if gaining wealth should ever cause me to lose the love of my fellow man, then I pray I’m never rich.  I would rather be a poor man all the days of my life and still have charity for my brothers and sisters on earth than to be wealthy and think myself better than another.  Anytime I catch myself with such pride and ambition, I shudder and ask if this is what I want to be, and I say, “No.”

Why stop there, though?  Jacob certainly didn’t.  In the same sermon, after all the chastisement of the inequality of wealth and the pride that came from that, he went on to an even more serious charge, breaking the law of chastity.  He was especially harsh on the men, and Jacob in his calling as prophet, repeated what the Lord said in this:

“For behold, I, the Lord, have seen the sorrow, and heard the mourning of the daughters of my people in the land of Jerusalem, yea, and in all the lands of my people, because of the wickedness and abominations of their husbands.  And I will not suffer, saith the Lord of Hosts, that the cries of the fair daughters of this people, which I have led out of the land of Jerusalem, shall come up unto me against the men of my people, saith the Lord of Hosts… Behold, ye have done greater iniquities than the Lamanites, our brethren [a nation Jacob’s people were on bad terms with].  Ye have broken the hearts of your tender wives, and lost the confidence of your children, because of your bad examples before them; and the sobbings of their hearts ascend up to God against you.  And because of the strictness of the word of God, which cometh down against you, many hearts died, pierced with deep wounds.” (Jacob 2:31-32, 35)

I certainly find this passage applicable to many of the problems we see in our society today, especially in the home.  I could use this opportunity to comment on how this is a general warning to all, but I can only think of how it affected me.  A reason I take the law of chastity seriously is that not only do I know how it would break the heart of the woman I will someday marry if I ever chose not to live it, it’s clear that God will hold me accountable for how I treat my wife.

Those few verses alone taught me more about my responsibilities as a husband than any other single thing ever have.

And as a final lesson I learned, I’ll finish with my favorite story from the Book of Mormon, and involves the Lamanites that were mentioned earlier.  The Lamanites were an awful, awful people.  They were lazy but very warlike, unbothered by murders and their own selves.  At one point, some missionaries decide to go among the Lamanites and teach them the gospel of Christ, to see if they can bring at least one soul to repent.  The timing is sketchy, but I assume that over a period of months and probably years, the missionaries were so successful that they were baptizing by the thousands.

One missionary, Aaron, taught the king of all the Lamanites, and I am a huge fan of this king.  When the king is first introduced, he tries to kill Aaron’s younger brother but because of unfavorable circumstances, relents.  In fact, he was so impressed with Aaron’s brother that he was excited to hear about this gospel of Christ, and after Aaron shares what he knows, the king declares:

“…what shall I do that I may be born of God, having this wicked spirit rooted out of my breast, and receive his Spirit, that I may be filled with joy, that I may not be cast off at the last day?  Behold, said he, I will give up all that I possess, yea, I will forsake my kingdom, that I may receive this great joy.” (Alma 22:15; emphasis added)

I added the italics because this highlights what God’s blessings are worth.  I don’t know whether the king ever heard about Jacob’s sermon, but he lived that counsel, “before ye seek for riches, seek ye for the kingdom of God.”  In the world, you can’t gain more than your own kingdom, and this king wanted to trade that for a chance to be in God’s kingdom.  Is there any greater sacrifice than that?

Yes, there is, because this story isn’t done.  After the king is baptized, many people in his country listen to the preaching and are baptized.  The king dies and passes the kingdom onto his son, and it’s not long afterwards when the nonbelieving Lamanites become angry with the believers.  Through some pretty awful political machinations, the nonbelievers took up their swords and prepared to go to war with the believers.

Bear in mind, the believers had been warlike people and many of them were murderous fiends before they accepted the gospel.  They were no strangers to death.  So when the nonbelievers came to war, the believers knew what was at stake.  But because of the gospel they’d accepted, and knowing the sins they had committed before, they were loath to go to war.  They did not feel right killing their brethren, even though it would be self-defense.  They took their swords and buried them, saying, “…if our brethren destroy us, behold, we shall go to our God and shall be saved.” (Alma 24:16)

Then they really put themselves to the test.  When the nonbelievers came against them, the believers knelt down and prayed.  The unbelieving Lamanites came on them and killed 1,005 of the believers that day, and the whole while that this was going on, the believers “would lie down and perish, and praised God even in the very act of perishing under the sword—” (Alma 24:23)  I’ve never read anywhere else of anybody subjecting themselves so perfectly to the evils of this world with more confidence than these martyrs, save it be Christ himself.  This action alone makes them the most Christlike people you will find in any scripture that I know of.

Many of the killers were so touched by this sacrifice that they also gave up their swords and were baptized.  That the believers welcomed them into their society makes this one of the most understated and perfect acts of forgiveness I could ever imagine.

There are times I wonder whether I’m sacrificing enough or forgiving enough of another, and when I place myself against this standard, I know that I have a long way to go.  But I’m happy that there is this story to guide me and inspire me to become who I want to be.

It also makes me grateful to have the Book of Mormon in my life.  I would not believe in Christ without it, and because of it, I have known how to feel the Spirit work in my life and I have been witness to miracles because of the gospel that it brought to me.  Without it, I certainly would not have brought myself to write these monthly essays.

And most of all, I believe the Book of Mormon is a true book and that its purpose is to bring one closer to Christ.  That testimony is worth more to me than the whole world.

Flimsiest Excuse Ever (Of All Time)

I had a plan and planned to follow through
When the plan choked and went ka-BLEW!
I rushed heroically to save its life,
But despite my efforts and my strife
I was forced to finally admit
That because I wouldn’t submit
To the wise course of actually using
A planner, I found I was fast abusing
The time that is generously given
To put a real post here.  Instead I’ve riven
Such goal from reality.  So instead here
Is some quick rhymes pulled out my rear,
Wishing you to have a merry, productive day
While I find something more useful to say
This next week when I come back and give
Something worth reading, and I can live
With myself for yet another week
In my internet home, where I do love to speak.

He's Just Not That Into You

I don’t really like self-help books; I already know how to help myself.  If I lack anything, it’s in motivation, not advice.

I’m also not a huge fan of relationship books; since I rarely find myself in a relationship, those books just piss me off.

I’d heard good things about He’s Just Not That Into You by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo, however, and decided to check it out, and I admit that I’m a fan.

Let me get this clear up front: I am not the target audience.  This book was written and will be most appreciated by women, especially women stuck with losers and need a wake-up call.

Written by a couple of people who had done work on Sex and the City, this book is about recognizing when men are serious about their romantic relationships and when they’re “just not that into you.”  In a way, it almost seems like an anti-relationship book, because so much of the book is devoted to recognizing that your man is a bum and it’s time to dump him and not look back.  And yet, that makes it the best relationship book because it encourages women not to waste any more of their time with someone who’s not serious and open themselves up to true happiness, because they won’t have it with those leeches on their backs.

Even though I’m definitely not who this book is aiming for, I appreciated this book because nearly everything I’ve ever wanted to say to my women friends or acquaintances who keep putting themselves in these awful relationships with men who don’t care but they won’t get real and see that they’ve given up two years of their lives when they could have seen the signs within two weeks (and often less.)

They cover all the bases, from signs when you’re first dating that the men aren’t interested until months down the road.  He’s just not that into you if he isn’t: asking you out; breaking up with you; doesn’t want to marry you; disappeared on you; is selfish jerk, bully, or a really big freak.  I was very happy that they picked on that one.  I’m weekly still seeing way too many women together with the jerks, bullies, and freaks, and it drives me nuts that they won’t break away from them.

The worst part is that no matter how often I say it or their real close friends tell them, they keep making excuses for their man.  I just have to say, if your man is being rude to you, make you look stupid in front of others, yelling and/or criticizing every little thing you do, controlling every aspect of your life, etc., he’s not into you, he’s into himself.  The “Selfish Jerk” chapter was a genuine pleasure, and I hope that every woman who reads this book and finds themselves with that problem had the clarity of mind and the guts to cut any ties they had with the creeps.

This book is great, needed to be published, it’s been out for nearly a decade and is still timely and will be for several more many more years to come.

I only have one disagreement with Chapter 4: “He’s Just Not That Into You If He’s Not Having Sex With You.”  This is definitely a cultural thing; the writers are in a culture where sleeping around is common and expected, the idea being that if the man isn’t trying to get you in bed, he’s not interested in you at all.  I’m in my mid-twenties and still a virgin, with no plans of changing that till I get married.  I am definitely not part of that culture.

It’s not that sex never crosses my mind, but simply that I have different priorities.  But just because a guy isn’t sleeping with you does not tell me that he’s not interested.  There are other signs to keep your eye on.

The next chapter, though, “He’s Just Not That Into You If He’s Having Sex With Someone Else” I have no arguments with whatsoever.