film, theater and religion

I've been working diligently creating a make-believe curriculum for a class. I've been making it as good as I can, so that some day it can be adapted to create a class I can teach in High School. This class is kind of my dream class, if I had my way, this is the class I would teach most of, it deals with very important things that apply to real life just as easily as to film.

During my research, I came across this blog and post. It is really fantastic. It talks about Mormon theater, a bit of history. Further down it has some great quotes by Church leaders. A little bit further down and you get the "artists dilemma" as he calls it and uses Joseph Smith as an example- really great stuff. I've been thinking about this scaffolding that is the thematic and moral core of a film around which everything is created and tailored. I suppose that also must be true in our lives- the themes, morals, virtues we get to pick. We choose which morals and virtues are most important and we build our lives around that core. When choosing a major many people choose to build around money- which makes this essay I've linked to very interesting to me, especially the Joseph Smith part. Shouldn't the 'artist's dilemma' be everyones' dilemma?

I encourage you to read the essay.

a first for me.

This last week I did something that I haven't ever done before. I bought artwork. Churchy art work too. I generally hate church art. Paintings by Greg Olson and the like just aren't my cup of tea. But there are several artists who are not Mormon, and I do enjoy their art. Behold: A detail of the painting I bought. The real one has birds and the boat also in the painting. I wasn't sure how legal it would be to put online, (probably not at all) so I added the nasty watermark, hopefully that makes it more legal...

I'm really glad I bought it, it my favorite. Other art I like is the Carl Bloc paintings, and that one big one in the MOA, but I think that might be Carl Bloc too...

church: Learn the Dance Moves

While mingling with church people this week I was re-ticked off about something I've been ticked off about for a while. It seems to me that the grand majority of people in the church perform assignments (callings, speaking, giving lessons, special assignments, etc) in a certain manor- as if there was a specified dance. The new seminary teacher recently called to the position assumes the duty and 'does the seminary-teacher-dance' until released, happy to not have to dance for a bit, then when called again starts dancing to whatever new assignment was given. I would use the term 'going through the motions' but I don’t like it. This concept of dancing came from the music video "Stand" by REM- each profession has an associated dance- but there is no possession. A Bishop does what he thinks he ought to do, a speaker says what he thinks he ought to, a teacher does his job as if there were pre-established dance moves - do the dance moves and you automatically do a good job. This group of people is frustrating. I have never had a good lesson or experience from this group of people so far in my life. Whenever a good job is done its because the person takes ownership of the job. Bishop says: this is my ward, I can do with it what I want, I can be creative. In one group the assignment enslaves the person, and in the good group the person enslaves the assignment - the assignment dances while the person tells it how.

The movie ”John Q” is also about this subject- except leaves the church world (didn't really like the movie much but was slightly redeemed by thematics). This whole thing applies to any profession. So if you're going to be a teacher- don’t dance as a good teacher dances, because then you're just going to suck. you need ownership