Results of Ruminations

Like Harry Baker  (start at 1:29), I like people. This is easy to say in general, because there are some specific humans that I have little respect or appreciation for beyond the simple truth that we're all connected--the beautiful and the despicable. And considering the unflagging pessimism that louers over my heart and the tumultuous sea of depression that too often capsizes me in its troughs, this is no small thing. Indeed, it's the love of people--more than love of self--that keeps me around. That isn't to say that I am in a perpetual state of desiring suicide--quite the opposite; I don't want this ride on Earth to end, and thinking of "the undiscovered country" propels me through more of Hamlet's "To be or not to be" soliloquy than is probably healthy and a more-than-white-knuckle-grip on however many numbered breaths I will yet claim. But that doesn't mean that I haven't thought about leaving the world on my own terms. I was ...

What was your first album? Not the first one you listened to, but the first one you wanted and, therefore, received? Purchased or got as a gift? When I was in sixth grade, my music teacher, Mr. Harvey, introduced us to a new album that he was enjoying called Return to Pooh Corner . It was by a guy named Kenny Loggins (whom I didn't know and hadn't heard of but, since my dad was a musician, I figured--in that 11-year old logic that a sixth grader possesses--that the two men likely worked together). That Christmas, I asked for my first album. Today, my Spotify "Discovery Weekly" playlist pulled up " The Last Unicorn " from the Return to Pooh Corner album and I decided to listen to it. Wow. It sounds like a theme song that belongs on a late eighties' animated film, which is good, because that's exactly what it's covering. I didn't like the cartoon (it scandalized me when it said "damn", as if I were back in 1939 when Gone ...

I wouldn't say this is a companion piece to an older essay , but it is a spiritual successor. Despite the fact that lots of different thoughts have been percolating, I feel as though I would be remiss if I didn't self-indulge about how I feel about my writing, especially now that I've finished, essentially, six days of uninterrupted writing. And the way I feel about my writing is pretty much this: "Are you enjoying the creation of your book?" "Yeah!......*sobs*." ( Source ) I tried something different this year, which isn't unusual--I am doing my best to grow as a writer, which means that I put arbitrary challenges on myself to see what happens and how I can improve (as well as what mistakes to avoid in the future)--but I may have gone a little too far. Firstly, I didn't have a single word written* before I went down. The past couple of years, I was in the middle (or near the beginning) of a book when I headed for the cabin . This time, h...

Does God wear a tie? I'm not an archaeologist, so I don't spend a lot of my time researching the fashions of history (except for late Elizabethan and early Jacobean England because of course ). Additionally, fashion doesn't particularly speak to me--I try to look nice (most of the time) in a conventional, conservative way. It's one of the few areas in my life where I'm comfortable modifying it with the descriptor "conservative". But when talking about God (or Jesus, which is similar and, yet, different), I start running into imaginative cul-de-sacs. Starting at the beginning (you know, 16th century Italy), I'd have to say that my mental concept for God would have to be Michelangelo's. As a lifelong Mormon and participant in selective parts of Christianity , this is a good starting point. The original finger beam shooter. ( Source ) While an art historian could probably bring in a lot of potential layers of meaning, I'm considering fas...

I started my reread of Book IV of Paradise Lost  recently. It took the better part of an hour to get through the first 115 or so lines. They are fraught with implications, questions, and applicable ruminations, which meant that I had to go very, very slowly. And, as so often happens when you're reading good literature, there were three real showstoppers: ...is there no place Left for Repentance, none for Pardon left? (4.79-80) and ...he deserv'd no such return From me, whom he created what I was (4.42-43) and Hadst thou [Satan] the same free Will and Power to stand? Thou hadst: whom hast thou then or what to accuse, But Heav'ns free Love dealt equally to all? Be then his Love accurst, since love or hate, To me alike, it deals eternal woe. (4.66-70) Taken out of context as they are, the meaning of the passages is rather opaque. I should probably note that these quotes come from Satan's soliloquy before he enters the eponymous (well, one  of the eponymous)...

This past week, I had a lot of interesting moments. I went on a writing retreat wherein I wrote over 40,000 words in three days (with some bonus writing while I was at it, putting the end-of-the-week total at 47,500 words and change). I was hoping to write an essay about that. I had a chance to meet my dad in Manti and enjoy a dinner with him and my family, somewhat unexpectedly, and then, during that time, had some introspection that made me think more clearly of what and how I write. I'm reading a couple of books that have me pretty excited ( The Last of the Doughboys  and Building God's Kingdom , if you care to know) and I was thinking of maybe drafting a few hundred words about either one. An old Spider-Man comic came to mind that I was thinking I should reread, then do a close reading on it. (It comes from a comic published in 1994.) I mean, my Spider-Man essays don't pull in a lot of readers, but the point of these posts are more for my own growth as a writer, ...

It's Sunday. Here's something slightly more religious: Paradise Lost. I started another reread of Paradise Lost  this last week. My school is having an informal book club about the poem and, though I won't be able to attend as often as I wish, it's exciting to read Milton again. One of the interesting things that was brought up during the discussion was the mistrust most of the participants had of Satan. I mentioned before some of my experiences discussing the Prince of Darkness, but that was in the formal school setting. In this conversation, we could be even more forthright, and since most of us were LDS, we were able to dive into more specific theological implications than I do with my students. (The added benefit was that we didn't have to waste any time explaining what happened in the book, as summarizing and explaining the text is a huge piece of my pedagogy.) As we wandered through Book I, it quickly became apparent that there was a reluctance to embrace...

What's the point of questions? This is asked not as an accusation, nor as a subversion of itself, but as an inescapably ironic process of inquiry. Questions are powerful. Very powerful. World changing. Yet their ubiquity seems to also enervate them. Can we question questions? And if the point of a question is to ask the question, can we come to an answer about questions that doesn't open up for more questions? But first, a story: I was sitting in a Sunday School class a year or so back, doing my best not to nurse my professional grudge against most (though certainly not all) Sunday School teachers*. It never is a personal grudge, but, having not only gone to college specifically to learn about different methodologies, studies, and theories of teaching, I have also completed nearly a decade of teaching. Students seem to appreciate my class, insomuch that I dare say that I'm probably a fairly good teacher, and one thing that I have practiced for that time is carrying on a c...

I try to keep a light touch on the publishing world, and I like to follow success stories about authors, even if I don't read their stuff. As a frequenter of bookstores (my closest is a Barnes and Noble, which hurts my help-independent-booksellers inclination, but spares my bank account, as I can get a teacher discount at B&N, plus not have to commute for an hour to get there), I see a lot of names on the shelves. My diet is dichotomously spread between classics and science fiction/fantasy , with some dabbling in the historical section, too. The large, mainstream fiction is relatively unexplored by me, though I occasionally venture outwards. And, since I always perk up when I hear about authors--and few current authors court as much controversy as Jonathan Franzen--I finally decided to buy a copy of Freedom . (In the interest of full disclosure, I bought it used for a dollar, plus tax, at a now-out-of-business used bookstore.) It's still sitting on my shelf. But an audiob...

I looked up the most lucrative authors of 2016 on Forbes , curious to see what kind of emphasis mainstream fiction has over the commercial fiction (which covers the speculative market). Here's the list (the gallery is obnoxious, so I'm putting the information here). Also, I've put the genre in which they write into parentheses so that it's easier for me to analyse. James Patterson (A) Jeff Kinney (MG) J.K. Rowling (YA/F/A/M) John Grisham (A) Stephen King (F/H) Danielle Steel (A/R) Nora Roberts (A) E.L James (A) Veronica Roth (YA/SF) John Green (YA/NA) Paula Hawkins (A) George R.R. Martin (F) Rick Riordan (YA/F) Dan Brown (A) If you've walked through a bookstore for any amount of time, you'll see these names. What's interesting here is the sprinkling of Young Adult books (though it's debatable if Rowling's presence on this list comes from her Adult/Mystery books or continual sales of Harry Potter ), but only one Middle Grade. The fa...

Finland is an interesting place. Besides giving the Russians a run for their money during the Winter War , they're consistently considered at the top of sundry lists of best schools in the world. There's always a lot to unpack whenever comparing countries in any way, not the least of which comes from the different cultures, histories, and values of the people within the counties. That disparity can make large, important schisms between comparisons and ought not to be ignored. That being said, there are universal things among humans. Specific needs, like air, food, and water come to mind, but even on the broad-scale, not-quite-universal-but-so-ubiquitous-as-to-make-them-effectively-catholic level, we can see that certain thoughts, behaviors, or techniques can have a strong effect on most everyone. When we look at problem areas in America (health care, education, race relations, gun control), we can't simply point at another country, account for comparative development and...

I'm listening to the notes from Lin-Manuel Miranda about Hamilton . It's really enjoyable and frustrating at the same time, as he's reading his notes aloud. There isn't always context, since the note comes from a piece of the musical that he's talking about. Once, he said, "This can be applied to modern politics." What does this  mean? No idea. But Miranda is a really engaging, interesting, brilliant (and I mean that) person, so I don't want to stop listening to his thoughts, even though they're incomplete. One of the things he talked about, though, was how a song came to him. He was riding through New York City (in a more detailed route than I'm going for here), taking the A-Train to get to a friend's birthday party. The train commute was long, so he was working on one of the songs that would wind up in Hamilton , only to be so taken in by the process of writing that he ended up only attending the party long enough to drink "half ...