Give them a reason to stay

Every two years the part of my soul that is a ride-or-die Fast and the Furious fangirl comes screaming to the surface like a sappy, excitable bear just out of hibernation. Now is that season, folks, since the latest installment--Fast & Furious 6--arrived in theaters last Friday. Did I see it opening day? Why yes I did. Was I sorry to not be able to see it with my Vin Diesel-obsessive mother-in-law? Yes, I was. Was it still awesome? Fuck yeah. See, despite not giving a shit about cars or even owning one, man do I enjoy watching hot people drive stick. I also like action movies where people hug a lot, Vin Diesel, action movies that make bank despite having only one white dude in them, Sung Kang, action movies that are set in places other than New York City and Los Angeles, Gal Gadot, and oh yeah, the Rock. And surprise!Gina Carano (whose acting is improving). And Michelle Rodriguez coming back to life, as her characters tend to do. And emotionally rewarding death scenes. And big-budget franchises with unexpected timelines, long-term plot goals, and mytharcs that boil down to "family is important; take care of yours."

(nine people on a movie poster and only one of them is white??!)

Yes, there are loud, fast machines. Yes, there are scantily-clad women...and men. Yes, there is a lack of non-heterosexual relationships. But when you stack Fast 6 against, say, other recent smash-hit action flicks, guess who comes out on top? The FatF series has, from the get-go, valued portraying people of color in a variety of relationships with one another. Women's relationships are given screen time and their characterizations are well-defined; Mia is not the same as Letty, who differs greatly from Elena, who is not a carbon copy of Gisele, who is not anything like Riley (except in terms of kickassery). You could expect a fight scene between Carano and Rodriguez to be half-dressed and hair-pulling, and you would be wrong; you could expect Elena and Letty to fight over Dom, and you would be wrong again.  Men's relationships, from the top-billed Diesel and Walker to Tyrese and the flawless Sung Kang, are also given screen time, significance, and depth, and director Justin Lin doesn't want you to forget that each film that came before--and the one that comes chronologically after--is important to character development. The attention to detail and relationships creates a film that feels like a real ensemble piece, with each character and their weight of history fitting into the puzzle. 

(my beautiful doomed OTP)

This is not to say that FatF is the be-all end-all of modern filmmaking, deserving of accolades, awards, and a place in the Criterion Collection. At its best, it's good action fun--but the action genre is a massive beast of moneymaking for Hollywood, and why should I bother with ridiculous Bay films when Lin and company have shown us that it's possible to make fun sexy blow-em-up flicks with a core of actual substance? A globally successful franchise, based around and respectful of a diverse cast, is worth talking about and supporting.

Another half-remembered amusing anecdote from Mormon literature

I heard "Land of Confusion" today in CVS and any time I hear that song, I remember that in Gadiantons and the Silver Sword, Garth disapproves of Jim playing his Genesis tapes because they drive away the Spirit.*

(via Amazon)

No really. I'm 99.9% sure that actually happened in the story. Reason #4,923 to leave the LDS church: secular fiction is so much better. That said, I would be totally up for a snarky reread of all the Tennis Shoes books...except I don't have any of them anymore, and I'm unwilling to spend money on them. If a dear reader out there has a few copies they'd like to unload, I'll pay for postage.

*little-known fact: the character of Garth was based on my stepfather.

Teaching creates all other professions

It's Teacher Appreciation Week! If you've been hanging around here for a reasonable amount of time, you know that I am in the library profession. So I'm pretty big on education and educators in general, and I'm taking this opportunity to count over the fantastic teachers in my life. 

There was the second-grade teacher who helped me create my first literary masterpiece (it was about dinosaurs, of course).

There was the sixth-grade teacher who blithely let her students set fire to things in the name of science. Polk County, take note. 

There was the eighth-grade teacher who encouraged me to write down things, even if they were things my mother didn't want to read.

There was the eleventh-and-twelfth grade teacher who was the image of everything I wanted to be: sardonic, learned, independent, bookish, strange. 

There was the English professor who was so smart, so articulate, such a good teacher--not always something you get in a brilliant individual--and a natty dresser to boot.

There was the anthropology professor whose excitement for his subject was palpable, contagious. He taught me new ways of thinking. I owe him a lot.

There were librarians and remedial math tutors and my best friend's mother who is a consummate educator and who, though I never sat in her classroom, has taught me more over the years than anyone.  There were mentors who gave me books off their own shelves and sparks of inspiration who let me natter at them and ask silly questions. 

Who are the teachers in your life?

All Tammy all the time

So between Mark Reads continuing on his Big Damn Tammy Read (he started Protector of the Small! My squee could only be heard by dogs), the fytortall Tumblr folks putting together an anthology of fan writing, and the recently launched PierceFest blog carnival, it's a damn good time to be a Tamora Pierce fan.

Of course, it's always a good time to be a Tammy fan. Arguably my first fandom--I edged into the now-sadly-defunct Steelsings community a year before I hit the starwars.com message boards--readers of Pierce's books have consistently been a friendly, drama-free, and very talented bunch. But lately it seems there's been an upswing in activity: more fan-art, more fic, more discussion, and I'm loving it. The best thing is reading her books yourself for the first time; the second best is introducing them to someone else; and the third best is talking about them with people who love them as much as you. I'm looking forward to a summer full of Pierce!

A review of a book that doesn't exist

Recently I read Sweethearts by Sara Zarr, for participation in my branch of the Forever YA book club. It was good and I'm looking forward to discussing it with my book club buds, but when I began reading it something about the setting made me wish it was a different book. See, the story is set in Utah, and the main character is not LDS. She mentions this specifically, since it sets her apart from her elementary school classmates, who are nearly all LDS. She's the object of bullying for various reasons--her weight and appearance, her friendship with another strange, bullied kid--and it's indicated that her bullies are Mormon children.

(via Zarr's website)

Ah! thought I. This is going to be really interesting, reading about life in Zion from the perspective of someone who isn't Mormon! Of course the book went in another direction, probably because writing that story would have forced the book into a very specific niche. But I'd like to read that story, very much. My own perspective is that of someone who encountered mild bullying because of being part of a peculiar people; I was the only LDS teen in my high school until junior year. I could never imagine what it was like to be surrounded by church peers, to go to seminary in your high school as a class rather than getting up at the crack of dawn and going to the chapel or to a member's house. And it never occurred to me to wonder what it was like for teens in Utah who weren't part of that community. In the past few years we've been getting memoirs and fiction written by Mormons and former Mormons (can we just call ourselves Formons?). Maybe at some point we will see a few stories written from the other side. Or maybe they already exist--are you aware of any, beyond the lifestyle pieces that pop up occasionally? Is there even a There there? Would you read a novel or short story or memoir about a stranger in the strange land of Utah?

The house grew. It was not made.

Once upon a time there was a skinny arm of land wedged between a lake and a river, and upon a square of this land a man built a house. Five or so years later, after the man had died, the house passed to his oldest son's family, and so it went for some time. Children and cats in the yard, fishermen on the dock. 

(a cat long departed)

This is my family's home. Originally belonging to my grandparents, then to a set of aunt, uncle, and cousins. I spent my childhood and youth on the property, and I lived there the summer before college, after my parents sold the house I grew up in and moved north. The house had been for sale since my senior year, but with the market taking such a drastic downturn I didn't really think it could ever sell; it's a million-dollar property now, double waterfront, in an expensive area of my hometown. But it sold. Last week, in fact, to people who really only wanted the land, who plan to knock the house down and build something new. And so my grandmother packs up the remnant of strange oddities in the garage (my aunt and uncle are pack rats) and looks for a condo or a small house. It's very strange, unsettling and wrong, to think of going anywhere else on the island for a holiday dinner. It's selfish to think of myself, I suppose; it wasn't my house, didn't belong to my parents. But its sale and eventual destruction is the final tap of the hammer: now I truly can't go home. I can go to my aunts and uncles' houses, I can stay with DRSHEBLOGGO, but it's far too easy to envision a day when my town will be, finally, a tourist destination, when I will have to stay in a hotel if I want to visit old haunts. 

(Christmas 2010)

Not a nice feeling. But I am sneakily, guiltily glad that it took so long to sell. I'm glad I was able to bring my manfriend home and show off my history. I'm glad I had one last Christmas at home in 2012, with nearly all my family present. I'm glad my childhood had such firm roots, that there were treehouses and rambles and wooly damp forests for adventures. Many people don't have that and I was lucky. I am lucky. And I hope someday to be able to commit the house and its stories to print in the way that they deserve. 

Justify the malice, or, How many links can I fit into one post?

For awhile there I was distracted by Tegan and Sara and Leprous, but true love lasts a lifetime and my favorite power metal sneak feminists, Kamelot, are perfect for every season. Part of this is that Tumblr user thesiegeperilous is in the process of posting a series on the female gaze in heavy metal (one of which posts links to my own Kamelot superpost, oh my how I blushed!), and so I've been thinking about image, how groups in these genres portray themselves, and how they might consider their fanbase and fan expectations when creating those images. Though according to Deena Weinstein the male to female fan split is fairly even, the majority of metal performers are male and--as in most media--the product is largely aimed at male audiences...or rather, the default audience, which is assumed to be male. As Stephanie Green points out in her very good 2009 article on Strange Horizons, despite a significant presence female fans may often be marginalized or have their fandom policed (as I noted briefly a few months ago). If, as Green posits, "metal's themes center on untamed masculinity in all its forms," does a female gaze even exist within the music? Why would I refer to any metal band as feminist, even a sneaky brand? On the surface, Kamelot does not appear to meet the criteria: the major female characters in their songs have a tendency to die, and mainly male desires and character arcs are considered. However, two songs from very different eras present a more nuanced view into the band psyche--the "Elizabeth" trio and the four-part "Poetry for the Poisoned." Furthermore, the characterization of Ariel on The Black Halo can be read as, if not created for the female gaze, then an inversion of the male gaze. 

First, Karma's "Elizabeth": nominally about the notorious Elizabeth Bathory, the song is, in Khan's words, about beauty, vanity, and growing old. Within this frame, the song can be interpreted as an examination of beauty standards for women in place since time immemorial, and how straining to meet kyriarchal expectations turns women against one another and against themselves. According to legend and as portrayed in the song, Bathory murdered young women in order to use their blood to preserve her own beauty and youth. Kamelot's rendition is somewhat more sympathetic; the lyrics show a woman full of pride, doubt, and fear, trapped by actions carried out in order to free herself from "the vicious hands of time." American culture dictates norms for women, from our appearance to our sexuality to how we raise our children, and typically these norms are narrow indeed, based around an ideal of fairness (where beauty is white), thinness (where health is unimportant), innocence (where malleability is prized above self-esteem), and availability (to the right men, at the right time). It's easy enough to see myself in Elizabeth, to imagine the demands placed on me carried to their logical extreme. How far are we willing to go to make ourselves desirable, in a culture where a woman's worth is measured by her desirability? Authorial intent is always a murky topic, but I read "Elizabeth" as a song created by someone who was in fact interested in concerns like these, who saw a need to ask what would drive a woman to murder repeatedly, with a specific end goal in mind. As a listener I am free to derive my own meaning from songs, and while I have no idea if any of the band members would take the label "feminist," the "Elizabeth" trio is significant to me through the lens of feminism.

Next, the Ariel question. During Epica, Ariel is presented as a typical masculine hero-on-a-quest: he's active, he has goals, he loves but he sets aside that love in favor of his journey, his lady is fridged for his emotional testing, etc. The Black Halo continues the quest, but Ariel's position has shifted slightly. Beginning with the Epica song "Descent of the Archangel" and continued in "March of Mephisto," "When the Lights Are Down," and "The Haunting," Ariel is acted upon, placed in a position normally occupied by women. Indeed, "March of Mephisto" specifically indicates that Ariel is being seduced--by multiple personages, no less, as his seduction is two-fold and carried out mentally by Mephisto and physically by Marguerite. Now, the plot breakdown of this album as posited on Wikipedia diverges somewhat from my interpretation; it emphasizes that Ariel seduces Marguerite under Mephisto's influence, but it is also indicated that Mephisto delivers Marguerite to Ariel (is that enough italicization?). So for me, Ariel's mental/spiritual assault by Mephisto in conjunction with Mephisto maneuvering Marguerite like a chess piece trumps Ariel's autonomy. In effect the positioning of Ariel gives listeners a two-pronged fantasy: those attracted to women (Marguerite) can imagine themselves being seduced by her, and those attracted to men (Ariel) can imagine themselves seducing him. Ultimately, though the songs and accompanying videos showcase very beautiful women--including the flawless Simone Simons, who really deserves her own post someday--which is normative of androcentric heavy metal, the main male character is not in the typical position of power-over. Lyrically the songs don't stroke Ariel's ego or glorify his relationships; rather they pin the blame for Helena's death and his own downfall squarely on Ariel. Tracks like "This Pain" reveal an awareness of how non-sanctioned sexual relationships affect women, both in the medieval period Ariel is supposed to be part of and in good old 2013. On the flipside, since Khan's voice and appearance are the vanguard of Kamelot, suggestive lyrics come straight from the horse's mouth; the teasing nature of "Descent of the Archangel," the romance of "Forever" and "Temples of Gold," and the lust behind "March of Mephisto" all have an attraction magnified by the fact that they are sung by a beautiful and charismatic performer. Similarly, the "you will kneel before me" line from "Veritas" capitalizes on Tommy Karevik's physical and sonic appeal.

Finally, Poetry for the Poisoned's title track. It's no secret that I am fond of this album, a release decried by many fans, and part of it is that I hear it as darkly reflective of Ariel's journey on Epica and The Black Halo; the main character on the title track is very similar to who Ariel would have become had he fully succumbed to Mephisto. Beyond this, the record features two unnamed female characters who differ greatly from Helena and Marguerite. Though "If Tomorrow Came" is my favorite song on the album--largely for featuring that singular woman--more interesting to interrogate is "Poetry for the Poisoned" itself. The spoken word bit at the end of Part I sets the theme up nicely, making quite clear that this song is about sex and sexual appetite, but Parts II and III turn the female voice into the subject and the male voice into--well, not quite an object, but into someone who is acted upon as he acts upon the woman. It is rare enough in Kamelot lyrics to see a woman acting out, and rarer still in metal lyrics generally to see one whose sexuality is not necessarily objectified or demonized. Not to say that this doesn't occur in "Poetry," but presenting a female character who glories in her sexuality and her physical power is a noble goal--particularly if she is not ultimately punished for it. And even beyond this, the song can be read as a revenge story, as it ends with the male character's death and "life in slow review" as he considers what's brought him to this place. Not only is the female character still alive at song's end, she's been empowered to strike back at someone who assaulted her and assumed she would provide satisfaction for him and nothing more. Of course there are less charitable interpretations of this song, but as a fan of so-called weaponized femininity, I like mine.

No band, actor, writer, or filmmaker is perfect; most of the time I have to analyze the media I'm consuming and see if there's enough There there to make it worth my while. It's entirely possible to be a fan of problematic things; it's why the gods blessed us with critical faculties. And while there is material in Kamelot's catalogue to take issue with, there's also enough thoughtful, unusual material that I feel confident that the band are aware of their non-straight-male fans and are interested in not alienating them, in creating narratives that don't always privilege prototypical male sexuality and that present cognizance of  female desire. 

Twin cities

I picked up the book Rust Belt Chic on a recent trip to the delightful Mac's Backs in Coventry, and have been enjoying it quite a bit. Not only is it a charming and smart tribute to Cleveland and other Rust Belt locales, but it's helping to elucidate what I suspect is the major reason that I have taken to Cleveland so well: namely that it's a lot like Tampa. Or rather Tampa is a lot like Cleveland, since the Cleve is a much older, larger, and more established city. On the surface they don't look much alike at all--Tampa is tropical, humid and killingly bright, famous for cigars and amusement parks, while Cleveland is possessed of Real Seasons and noted for the intensity of its loathing for LeBron James, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and an abundance of rust. But the two share some specific features that have settled them firmly in my regard. 

Industry: Tampa is the seat of heavy industry in Florida. It's home to the largest port in the state and functions as the shipping gateway to Central and South America. Evidence of this is everywhere, from the stretches of industrial ugly on Adamo Drive to the clots of semis flooding Interstates 75, I4, and 275 to the glorious view of shipyards visible from the new highrises in Channelside. Cleveland, of course, is famous or infamous for its heavy industry, chiefly steel manufacturing; seeing the ruin porn of factories and steelyards, the "unplaces" of abandoned warehouses and unfinished building projects make me feel oddly at home here. Fittingly for my Spacecoast USA pride, there's a NASA outpost in Cleveland too, the John Glenn Research Center.

Water: Both cities benefit from their locations on coasts, and the gladness in my heart when my manfriend decided that Cleveland was where his med school lived was initially due to the fact that I wouldn't be landlocked. Growing up on Florida's East Coast and then living for six years on its West Coast, with many sojourns to springs and many days spent on rivers in between, I'm not sure I would have been able to adjust to living in--say--Iowa. Lake Erie and the North Coast, as well as the Cuyahoga River (no longer flammable) and the many area creeks, are a relief to my eyes and to my sensibilities as someone requiring large quantities of water to live. A coastal elite I'll always be.

(downtown Cleveland; photo mine)

Climate/Geography: This is where you say, Diana I think you may have cracked, because yes, it snows in Ohio. In fact, it's snowing right now! (happy spring) However, the summers are just like home, and last summer the temperatures here in the Cleve rose past those in Tampa--I checked. My, it was balmy! My only other frame of reference for summers is New Hampshire, which...sometimes it snows during New Hampshire summers...so to find myself in a place with genuine summer is a blessing. Furthermore, though the geography of northeast Ohio is not at all similar to that of west Florida, the landscape of business is strangely familiar. Once outside the industrial centers of the cities, you'll find farmland and fruit groves in both Hillsborough and Cuyahoga Counties. And I like that a lot about my former and current cities: I like being able to go from the urban beauty of skyscrapers, train tracks, and warehouses to a more rural view of pastures, cows, and bounteous trees. 

Microculture: New Yorkers, Los Angelenos, and Seattlites may scoff all they want at midwestern bulwark Cleveland and southeastern ant-hill Tampa, but you'll have a good time in either city. Both contain fucking awesome breweries (Great Lakes, Market Garden, Indigo Imp, and others in the greater Cleveland area, and Cigar City and Florida Avenue in Tampa--perhaps more that I'm not aware of), a reasonable variety of food, museums and gardens, and theme parks if that's what you need. Perhaps they don't have the 24-hour-a-day beat of NYC, the historical patina of Boston, or the Hollywood glamour of LA, but--as Rust Belt Chic points out--a city should not strive to be like other cities; it should strive to be like itself. You can be a foodie in Tampa, a skate punk in Cleveland, a highbrow film nerd in either, and you can roll around in the local history of Eliot Ness (the dude who took down Al Capone) and Santo Trafficante, Jr. (of the Tampa mob family) or take in strange plants at the respective botanical gardens, both located near the cities' major universities.

(downtown Tampa; via tampashit)

Now it's possible that all cities are like this, that if I had moved to Des Moines I would feel the same way, or Portland, or Phoenix. But I'm not sure; I remain obsessed with London and Vancouver, but for very different reasons. I think there's some quality that Tampa and Cleveland have, some self-deprecation or carelessness, some stubborn local pride in our casinos and stadiums and suburban sprawl and most of all in what lies beneath that veneer: pierogi and Cubanos, old bricks pushing through concrete in Ybor City and historic settlers buried under a movie theater parking lot in Middleburg Heights.

Practical for whom?

As I tweeted last night after reading chanson's Sunday In Outer Blogness round-up, I'm still not really sure if the post in question is joking. Irresistible (Dis)grace gives a further rundown and examination, and I agree with a lot of their points (most pertinently I'm inclined to agree that even if a thing is demonstrably false that doesn't mean it isn't worth believing in [see: Chaos magic, Alan Moore and his snake god, etc...with caveats.] In other words, I don't think the ahistoricity of the Book of Mormon is a good reason to not form a church around it).

However, what I'm really more interested in here is the mere possibility of so-called Mormon atheism. When I left the church there was no inkling in my mind that a person could remain in the church as a non-believer. I'm still not quite sure why anyone would want to, but that's neither here nor there. Everyone is familiar with Mormon culture, from casseroles to The RM, but what about cultural Mormonism? Will there ever be a point where nonbelievers engage with LDS culture as modern cultural Jewish people do with Judaism? I think most of my continuing surprise at this line of thinking is that my Mormonism did not separate culture and doctrine. As I grow older and read more accounts of currently and formerly practicing members, the lie that is correlation becomes more and more baldfaced. The church is not the same everywhere. It probably never will be, for the simple reason that people are people.

Without asking probing questions, I can’t assume any Mormon I talk to even believes in the existence of God or the resurrection of Jesus. Even the Mormons that aren’t closet-atheists are largely latent atheists (or agnostics) without knowing it. Since evangelism, I take it, is partly to engage the conscience and the depth of one’s heart, I want to reach them where they are really at, even if they don’t quite understand what is going on.

What a world to live in! Again, perhaps this was consequence of being a hopelessly naive 19-year-old, but it would not have occurred to me to wonder whether the people around me at church actually believed what they heard from the pulpit and read in the scriptures. "New Order Mormons" weren't a Thing. Personal interpretations of doctrine were only ok as long as they matched up with official ones. The divide between what the brain knew and what it knew it was supposed to believe was an unbridgeable one. And, I will remind you once more, this was less than a decade ago. From where I'm standing, still connected to the church through my parents and still observing through blogs and the news, the LDS at large are not yet far along enough to allow for Mormon atheism.

St Pedantic's Day

Q: Hey Diana, you've got O'Connells on your mom's side! Do you just love St Patrick's Day?

A: Not really. I don't need an excuse to drink beer and I hate parades. However, I do enjoy the opportunities to be pedantic and irritating that the holiday offers. For instance, what's with the endemic misspelling of the diminutive of "Patrick"? My aunt Patty is pretty confused to see her name on every marquee and flyer. Also, I take some pleasure in wearing orange on March 17. Basically if you ask me about my St Patrick's Day plans prepare to get an earful of annoying jerkface.

seriously why would you do this to beer though

I don't ask much of my audience

But I am asking you to back this Kickstarter, because LORD IN HEAVEN I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR THE VERONICA MARS MOVIE FOR MY ENTIRE ADULT LIFE.

Edit: welp, the Kickstarter reached two million last night and has been going strong since. I guess the VM fans finally got our wish.

Quickening

We're forecast to get another snowstorm this week and suffice to say--I'm ready for spring. Actually, we could skip spring and go straight to summer and that would be ok too. But until the temperatures and hemlines rise, I'll have to content myself with fantasies of sock-free wardrobes.

my burning sun will someday rise 

Guilt vs. shame

The academic interest in shame and other emotions of self-consciousness (guilt, embarrassment) is relatively recent. It’s part of a broader effort on the part of psychologists to think systematically about resilience—which emotions serve us well in the long run, which ones hobble and shrink us. Those who’ve spent a lot of time thinking about guilt, for example, have come to the surprising conclusion that it’s pretty useful and adaptive, because it tends to center on a specific event (I cannot believe I did that) and is therefore narrowly focused enough to be constructive (I will apologize, and I will not do that again). 

Shame, on the other hand, is a much more global, crippling sensation. Those who feel it aren’t energized by it but isolated. They feel unworthy of acceptance and fellowship; they labor under the impression that their awfulness is something to hide. “And this incredibly painful feeling that you’re not lovable or worthy of belonging?” asks Brown. “You’re navigating that feeling every day in high school.”

The above text is from this New York Magazine article--it's specifically about adolescence and the effects of American-style high school on development, but this quotation about guilt versus shame reminds me specifically of what I felt as a teenager in the LDS church. In the past I've referred to feelings of bad behavior or inadequacy as guilt, but it seems that shame is a more proper term, at least as it is used in the article. As I read it, guilt stems from feeling that you've done something wrong, whereas shame stems from feeling that you are wrong--yourself, your being. This is the key to why I felt so strongly that I was a bad Mormon, though my behavior was model, and why reinforcing my "good habits" (scripture study, prayer, magnifying callings, etc.) did nothing to dispel that feeling.

Shameless linkage

Brief shit-around-the-web post round-up: I'm excited about Fearless Defenders (and tentatively The Movement), dismayed and baffled by Terry Deary, and sartorially inspired by TV characters. 

Whatever you're doing today--fancy sex, making waffles, eating all the chocolate in sight, watching action movies, napping--I hope you all have a wonderful Valentine's Day. Preferably with lots of fandom Valentines like this one:

Prophetess, priestess, queen

One of my favorite women-in-culture blogs posted today about Tamora Pierce, Beka Cooper, and the Cult of the Gentle Mother. Go give her post a read if you're unfamiliar with any of these terms (or even if you are; it's a good post). All done? Ok. Reading Deborah's post made me remember something that I always meant to talk about and then never got around to. As I read along with Beka when her books came out, the first mention of the Gentle Mother cult gave me pause, initially because I was excited for this stitching-together, a very good and plausible reason for the lady knights of Tortall to decline and for Alanna to be the fulcrum that she was, but then because it reminded me of the eternal question of women and the priesthood in the LDS church. 

Early in the church's history, women wielded priesthood power--not to the extent of men in terms of baptizing and sealing, but women such as Emma Smith and Eliza R. Snow were recorded as healing sisters and setting apart Relief Society presidencies. Skip to the present, where LDS women have no active priesthood authority. When and why did this gap appear? Mormon women in the past were frontier women, as the church moved from Ohio to Missouri to Illinois and on west to Utah and California; as such they took on more roles than the women in "civilized" areas of the East Coast. For all his flaws, Brigham Young endorsed the women of the church in their goals to obtain education and be self-sufficient, and a number of male LDS authorities blessed women with priesthood power, including Hyrum Smith, Joseph Smith, and Young. Emma Smith, as leader of the first Relief Society, gave blessings to women members, and Eliza Snow in her time as RS President did the same, along with encouraging the sisters to develop themselves spiritually and economically. Snow was also instrumental in shaping considerations of Heavenly Mother, another aspect of LDS doctrine rarely touched today.

Ultimately, the spiritual status of LDS women declined...or was reshaped. According to D. Michael Quinn as excerpted on Mormon Heretic, the temple endowment ceremony still bestows the Melchizedek Priesthood on women. Not having participated, I can't speak as to the exact wording of the ritual or how explicit this might be. The development of the Relief Society may not have been to Joseph Smith's expectations, as the first meeting's minutes indicate that he saw the body as a parallel to the organized men's priesthood. The Relief Society today is neither this parallel nor a strict administrative organization. It is an auxiliary entity, subject to oversight from the bishopric of its ward, and the President does not set apart her counselors or administer healing or other ordinances.  Where exactly the schism happened, I can't say, though in the 1940s Joseph Fielding Smith told Belle Spafford, the Relief Society General President, that church elders administering was the Lord's intention and the Saints' proper mode of action. It does seem clear that as the church grew and refined its practices, much of its early wildness was lost (for better and worse); correlation has done a good deal to weed out, well, heresy. In doing so, women's roles as mothers and wives were emphasized to the point of obstructing and even obliterating other options and pathways. As noted on Mormon Heretic and discussed at length in the Bloggernacle, the priesthood has become synonymous with administrative and leadership power. It is interesting to me that despite not having paid clergy, the LDS church nonetheless has a sharp division between members and leadership, where "members" is in practice "women." Doctrinally, there's no reason why any faithful endowed member should not administer to fellow members, but functionally only male members carry these practices out. Women are not condoned to administer to one another or even to their own spouses and children. It's possible that LDS women are privately blessing their children and themselves, and indeed I hope they are. 

The Cult of the Gentle Mother overtook what had previously been in practice. LDS women had some measure of active spiritual power within the church structure, and it was gradually eroded and changed. The church's culture, traditions, and doctrine have always had a way of becoming inextricably intertwined: now it may simply be a case of enough women pointing to the temple ceremonies and scriptures and saying, It's right here. It's God's teachings. We're doing this. If women in the church today do succeed in their push for change in how the priesthood is wielded, I doubt that it will be a single triumph or one that needs no defending and bolstering. Equality is not something that we get and then keep forever. It can be taken away or altered in a person's lifetime. As women have seen in the (nominally) secular sphere, each step forward is attended by backlash and extremism. 

Note: A good deal of my information here comes from this Sunstone article, written by Linda King Newell. It's an excellent overview of women and the priesthood in the LDS church. I also recommend reading the comments for the Mormon Heretic post linked above; there are some really interesting notes from a member of the Community of Christ. And for more information about the Smiths, priestesshood, and the early Relief Society, check out this fMh post (and this one).

Still I'm holding out my hand

If you don't follow my Tumblr, I recently rebageled this quotation from Natalie Goldberg: “Writers end up writing about their obsessions. Things that haunt them; things they can’t forget; stories they carry in their bodies waiting to be released."

This has been said before by many, I'm sure, but I think it's the core. There are stories that I will never finish writing. There are themes and motifs and images and turns of phrase that live inside me like the vampire; sometimes these things can be written out or bled off, and sometimes they are never-healing wounds. And this is most of the reason why this here blogge has had such a dearth of material lately: because I am distracted by writing a story that I have been writing for nearly a decade. Maybe this time it'll finally hive off and become its own being.

blerg

Dudes, I am super depressed. Maybe it's the daily slog to the bus stop in 8 degree weather (right now, with wind factored in, it's 0 degrees out! Exciting); maybe it's that January is a month of Mondays; maybe it's the knowledge that in the fifteen months I've lived here, I've applied to fifty-four jobs and had two interviews; maybe I'm ragingly homesick; maybe I'm just hungry, exacerbated by information from my dear Princess Slayer regarding the demise of Big Bruno's.

Whatever the cause, I need to cheer up. So here are some things that have charmed me lately. 

• Presti's Bakery in Little Italy, home of the best goddamn kolachky I've ever eaten. Really good pizza too. And chai lattes. Go to there and eat of the bounty.
• in the newest Captain Marvel, Carol punches dinosaurs.

• I do actually like snow. And I hold out hope of experiencing thundersnow at some point on the North Coast!
•  The libraries here are really good, have I mentioned this? There are a lot of them too!
• The Lizzie Bennet Diaries are pretty fun. Jane's impression of Darcy is one of the greatest gifts the Internet has yet bestowed.
• Michelle Obama is flawless. 
• and one thing that will make me even more depressed: Skins returns for its final series in March.

o.O

Being that I have no interest whatsoever in football, it took seeing the link retweeted about fifteen times before I finally clicked through and read this Deadspin story about Manti Te'o.

And then I read it again.

And again. Because what the fuck? What is actually going on here? Notre Dame and the man in question have released statements presenting the whole thing as a hoax perpetrated solely upon Te'o. Rumors abound as to whether Te'o was on the down-low and took the girlfriend-in-Canada bit too far--I sincerely hope this isn't the case, as Te'o is LDS and the fall-out from a) being gay and b) being outed via A TOTALLY FUCKNUTS CRAZY HOAX would most likely be horrible. On the other hand, pulling a dead-girlfriend stunt for publicity and donations is pretty gross and damning.

However this ball bounces, it'll be journalism for the ages. 

Year's finest

I have returned from winter rambles...with A List. Behold my Top Ten Various Awesome Things of 2012 in no particular order, because real blogging what's real blogging?

10. Favorite Cover of "Black Betty": Gypsyhawk (live at the Old Towne in Pasadena). So. Much. Hair.

9. Favorite New Ongoing Comic from One of the Big Two: Captain Marvel, motherfuckers. Kelly Sue Deconnick and Company (including the Dodsons, Jamie McKelvie, and Emma Rios) knock it out of the park twice a month with the Carol Corps. Amazing art and fantastic writing, continually the best book of the week.

(via Kelly Sue's website)

8. Favorite YA Novel About Dragons: Seraphina, by Rachel Hartman. I received this book as a birthday gift and devoured it in about two days. Fresh, original use of dragons and really well-developed political setting. Very much looking forward to the sequel. 

7. Favorite Spiritual Offspring of Veronica Mars: Pretty Little Liars, obviously. I continue to be so rabidly obsessed with this show that I'm considering rewatching VM (for the fourth time) to write something really obnoxious about the two. You've been warned. 

(via Warner Brothers)

6. Favorite Nerd Convention: Geek Girl Con. Sacrificing a goat toward the goal of going again this year, because this con is not to be missed.

5. Favorite Timesuck Social Networking Site: Twitter, you're old news...Tumblr is my master now. 

(via duh)

4. Favorite Northeast Ohio Regional Beer: Market Garden's Cluster Fuggle IPA. Nommmm. If you're in the Great Lakes brewpub, be sure to stumble across the street to Market Garden too.

3. Favorite Liveblogging Event: Mark Reads Tamora Pierce. 'Nuff said.

(via Mark Reads)

2. Favorite Fangirl Squee: The Pacific Rim trailer. Holy fuckballs I need this movie to be out already. 

1. Favorite New Lead Singer of My Best-Beloved Band: Tommy, baby, you're amazing and we love you. A thousand welcomes. Now please headline the US.

(via headbangershollow)

The Kamelot Superpost, Part 5: A New Voice

And finally we come to Silverthorn, the first Kamelot record in nearly fifteen years to feature a vocalist who isn't Roy Khan. Fans waited with held breath and much speculation to see how new boy Tommy Karevik would do with Youngblood, Grillo, Tibbetts, and Palotai at his back...and the band turned it out, as we knew they would. Silverthorn is in many ways a callback to classic Kamelot albums like Karma and The Black Halo, but it retains the experimentation and dark vibe of Ghost Opera and Poetry for the Poisoned, creating a pleasing hybrid effect. Silverthorn is also a concept album, like Epica and The Black Halo, something many metal bands enjoy creating; however, Silverthorn diverges from Kamelot's past concept records by creating a familial drama rather than a personal one. There is a lost love on this album (the narrator's wife, murdered by his brother), but the chief source of agony and estrangement is the brothers' dead sister. Where Khan and Co. created deeply individualistic narrators, knights-errant on quests for self-discovery and higher knowledge, Karevik and Co. have created a Greek tragedy of warring brothers, dead sisters and wives, and--of course--an ancestral home. Silverthorn is steeped in mythology the way most Kamelot albums are, but it draws from a different well, and to great effect. 

 

(album cover from Prog Archives)

Even more than previous records, the women of Silverthorn suffer from the phenomenon known as "fridging": being killed off so that the male narrator(s) may experience personal growth. Jolee's death tears the family apart; the father becomes abusive, the mother withdrawn, relatives die off like flies, and eventually the narrator and his twin are irreversibly estranged. Aurora, the narrator's wife, is murdered by his brother, who escapes blame until the very end. Both events are catalysts for the narrative, but the true core of the record is in the relationship between the two brothers. The major overarching theme is repentance and forgiveness (or absolution), but neither man seems too interested in Jolee's forgiveness for their negligence--instead the narrator eventually forgives himself after he deems he's suffered enough, and brother Robert apparently seeks salvation through the destruction of his brother and assumption of his identity and life in a kind of sublimating act. Aurora is a means to this end for Robert, and for his own arcane reasons, the narrator only tells the truth of what occurred after a period of penance in prison.

Karevik switches voices on occasion throughout Silverthorn; the chief, unnamed narrator speaks for most of the songs, but a few, including "Veritas" and "Falling Like the Fahrenheit," are sung from Robert's perspective. Perhaps coincidentally, these are two of the most popular tracks on the album. Kamelot fans do enjoy their singer showing off his dark side. Musically, Silverthorn is an incredible production, filled with orchestra, chants and backing vocals, and elaborate instrumental pieces. Karevik's voice is fresh and though still very much in the power metal vein, different enough from Khan's to create an intriguing new effect. "Sacrimony (Angel of Afterlife)" and "Solitaire" are possibly the most typical power metal tracks, with the bulk of the album made up of midpaced, gothily atmospheric songs. The clearly formidable combination of Karevik's fresh voice and the seasoned songwriting talents of Youngblood, Tibbetts, Palotai, and Grillo seem to be a winning formula for creating a record that displays both the iconic Kamelot elements fans love--epic stories, soaring and powerful melodies--and a desire to continually forge ahead and break new ground. Silverthorn is sure to be the first in a new string of classic records.

Necessary Track: "Torn" (live).