Think Those Happy Thoughts.

So I read this [paywall] in the Salt Lake Tribune today, thanks to a student who posted a link to it in a BYUI page on Facebook. (The post has now been removed; whether by the student or administrators of the page, I don't know.)

While I understand that BYUI has the right to screen instructors as it sees fit, I don't necessarily like that neither of these teachers could find out the reason for their dismissal.

In brief: Two online instructors at BYUI were told they had "failed" to earn an ecclesiastic endorsement to teach at the school. Neither of them were told what had led to the failure, leaving only conjecture.

It sounds like at least one of the teachers has been offered a recourse to get the job back, but at this point she's not sure she wants to try.

This is potentially shaky ground. I teach at BYUI and have, shall we say, some unorthodox approaches that might potentially rub someone the wrong way. And while I understand the church's doctrinal stand on homosexuality (which is linked to what these two instructors suspect prompted their dismissal) I have to wonder where the line is drawn. Empathy? Understanding? Tolerance? Where they've not been officially told the reason for their dismissal, I'm not sure what to think.

Don't suspect me of gross unorthodoxy. But still, where is that line drawn? And why keep it a secret? We're told to have our communications be yea, yea; nay, nay. To me, that implies clarity. And it ought to be a two-way street.

Grout and Wheels. Lots of Wheels.

The upstairs bathroom shower area is now grouted.

Still lots of work to do. My plan for tomorrow is to put sealant on the grout, clean up and re-touch the caulking on the edges, clean the tub, and get the finish plumbing in, thus freeing the shower up for use.

Other things to do include:

- Fix the trim around the base of the cabinet

- Patch a little hole on the ceiling

- Patch plaster on one edge of the tub surround

- Paint.

The painting, of course, should have been done a while ago with only touching-up to do, but that's not how this project worked out. No matter. I'm hoping by the end of the year that this project will be behind me.

That'll open up a few others, including fixing the kitchen ceiling, fixing the kitchen tile, and then getting to work on the basement bathroom.

But toss into that something else: I have to get "my" side of the garage cleaned out so we can park a car there. I don't know how I'm going to do it. I've got three bicycles to stow and nowhere to stow them. I might have to put them in the utility trailer, leastwise until I can get the shed cleaned out. But it's also stuffed with bicycles . . .

We have to get the garage cleaned out because we need to parking space. We now have no fewer than SIX cars soon to be at the Davidson household. Who would have thought that possible? The latest acquisition is for Isaac, a 1998 Ford Escort. Squeezing one more car into the garage will help temporarily, but the cars are piling up like bicycles here. I might have to build a shop(!) in the back yard to store a few more of our treasures, and to get me a workbench area once again. This is the major thing I miss from our house in Sugar City. We didn't have a garage, but the little shop we had in the backyard was perfect for storing bicycles and for doing projects. What we've got here in Ammon is only a pale shadow of what once was.

Yes, certainly First World problems, I know. I'm grateful to God for what we have, even if I don't know where to put it all.

G.K. Chesterton: I Drawed A Horsey

“Art is limitation; the essence of every picture is the frame. If you draw a giraffe, you must draw him with a long neck. If in your bold creative way you hold yourself free to draw a giraffe with a short neck, you will really find that you are not free to draw a giraffe.”

~G.K. Chesterton

I’ve been pondering this quote (source) for a few days now, trying to figure out what exactly Chesterton meant. That’s meant, of course, poking around on the internet to find other idiot interpretations (as compared to my own, to be presented shortly). Most of what I’m seeing chides Chesterton for being orthodox, for misunderstanding the free aspects of creativity, because you can’t, like, limit creativity, man.

I don’t think Chesterton meant what people think he meant.

And I don’t necessarily want to imprint my own thinking on Chesterton’s, lest I end up looking foolish like this.

But I can share a few anecdotes, mostly connected to things I’ve read that could have used some limits.

First, “Little, Big” by John Crowley.

Before I read the book – or at least tried to read it – I was led to believe it was an “epic” of “modern fantasy.” But, as I wrote in my review back in 2014, “I’m 138 pages in, and I’m still waiting for the plot to arrive.”

Crowley needed limitations, and he needed them badly. Maybe there was a tale to be told here, but it got lost in all of the freedom that Crowley expressed. It’s a giraffe that doesn’t look like a giraffe.

Here’s another: Gormenghast. More specifically, “Titus Groan,” by Mervyn Peake.

I liked it better, in 2016, than I did “Little, Big” in 2014, but still: “It's very Dickensian with interesting and extremely dull characters. And there are enough twists in the story to keep things going for the more adventurous reader. But this isn't a great quest, if that's what you like in fantasy. It's as if Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld wrote a great quest novel about all the stuff that happens before the quest starts.”

Again, a giraffe that doesn’t look like a giraffe.

This is important to me because in Doleful Creatures, the book I’m perennially writing, I see the same pitfalls. I haven’t limited myself in any way. I’m creating a giraffe with a short neck, where a long-necked giraffe should be.

Or in other words, I drawed a horsey.

But you know, talking about limitations is so . . . limiting:

I'm not advocating a strict set of limits for everyone and everything. That's foolish. But I think working within constraints and limitations leads to a more focused product, if I can use such a harsh word in the world of "art."

Way Too Late at the Movies: Fantastic Mr. Fox

Now Wes Anderson's 2009 "Fantastic Mr. Fox" is . . . a movie I have seen.

If I'm honest, the book it's based on isn't the best of Roald Dahl's work. And though it bragged a quirky director who brought in his corral of quirky big names to voice the critters in this tale, this is a movie that at beginning, middle, and end, was a disappointment.

The story, well, it suffered from Hobbititis before The Hobbit was stretched into three movies. Not too much story to tell, so a lot of embellishment. Weird middle-aged angst. "Family troubles." And so. Many. Speeches. Interrupting the flow of the story. It's like at times they forgot they were making a movie and just wanted to hear George Clooney speak.

And the animation. Stop motion is either excellent or mediocre. This fell into the mediocre camp. The movement seemed stiff and robotic, and the characters' eyes were so dead. The plasticine eyes of Wallace and Gromit have more warmth in them.

Anderson's linear storytelling methods don't lend to this kind of art, I think. Moving left to right, right to left, up or down, that may be Andersen's schtick, but it made the film feel really one-dimensional. With mouth and body movement subpar to even the likes of Rankin/Bass.

Still, it was a movie I'd long been curious to see. And thanks to YouTube Free Movies, I've seen it. It was worth the price.

A Weird Dive: Bartleby the Scrivener

Today, I suppose they might say Bartleby was a quiet quitter.

Or not. Because quiet quitting is the practice of not being taken advantage of by an employer who expects 80 hours of work a week for 40 hours' worth of pay. What Bartleby does in this story by Herman Melville is basically not want to work and not be bothered if he doesn't have money, or food, or shelter at all.

The story can be found here (ironically or not at bartleby.com).

While the writing is typically stilted, I found this teleplay more accessible:

Not only does it star a very young Greg Brady, it also cuts through Melville's florid descriptions but doesn't leave out the odd mystery behind Bartleby's behavior which opens up a lot of possibilities to discuss free will and the responsibilities and consequences thereof.

And it's tempting to call the story nihlistic, but it's not. Because Bartleby isn't in the clutches of nefarious schemers bent on his destruction, but rather chooses to reject what the vast majority of use recognize: Work is necessary. It can be fulfilling. And charity, when offered, can be accepted. But the free will above all decides how we react, and if we react only with free will, it can be to our own destruction.

An interesting aside: Douglas Adams pokes fun at the story in "Mostly Harmless," Chapter 12, where Arthur Dent settles on the Planet Bartledan where no one really wants to do anything and the protagonist of a local novel inexplicably dies of thirst before the story is finished.

So yeah, it's a weird one.

He *Might* Be A Communist

 

But remember, sometimes a Commie is quiet about his or her Communism (shows anti-KKK, anti-war rally).

It's All Over But the Crying

Closing in on this one, finally.

And yes, it does feel like it's all over but the crying. Still left to do:

1. Clean grout joints

2. Caulk edges

3. Grout joints

4. Waterproof grout

5. Install finish plumbing, including replacing the broken tub drain ring (for which I bought a $24 tool at Home Depot).

Then there's the plastering and painting, plus a little electrical work (replacing outlets) and other miscellaneous cleanup and prettifying. But it is a big relief to have the tile done. It took a lot longer to finish than I anticipated it would. I had to cut the last round of tile in below-freezing weather, which was not fun.

But I think it's worth it.

And oh yeah:

6. Repair kitchen ceiling from where water dripped through from the offending bathroom. I'm about 98% I got that leak fixed by repairing the subfloor before I did the floor tile.

And if I didn't well, this:

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day

Today's voyage down the Internet rabbit hole is inspired in part by a fellow Facebooker's love of Christmas music.

I, too, am a fan. I listen to it year-round, unashamedly.

I offer Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day." It was a song written out of grief and despair. Longfellow lost his wife of 18 years when she died after her dress caught fire. On Christmas Day in 1863 he sat with his son who was nursing a bullet wound suffered at the Battle of Mine Run in the American Civil War, he heard nearby church bells pealing.

He picked up his pen, and in those uncertain, dark times, wrote:

I heard the bells on Christmas Day

Their old, familiar carols play,

and wild and sweet

The words repeat

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,

The belfries of all Christendom

Had rolled along

The unbroken song

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till ringing, singing on its way,

The world revolved from night to day,

A voice, a chime,

A chant sublime

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black, accursed mouth

The cannon thundered in the South,

And with the sound

The carols drowned

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent

The hearth-stones of a continent,

And made forlorn

The households born

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;

"There is no peace on earth," I said;

"For hate is strong,

And mocks the song

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:

"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;

The Wrong shall fail,

The Right prevail,

With peace on earth, good-will to men."

The now mostly-forgotten stanzas relating directly to the Civil War add an emotional punch to the poem and song already not lacking in emotional punches.

Adding to Longfellow's despair might have been the result of the battle of Mine Run: Inconsequential to the overall war effort, but a battle in which Union General Edward Johnson lost 550 men, or 10 percent of his fighting strength.

On the Street Where I Lived . . .

Today I learned that when I lived in Tours, France, I lived on a street named for Paul Marie Théodore Vincent d'Indy, a French composer and music teacher whose students included Erik Satie and Cole Porter. Porter was a student for only three months, while Satie, in typical Satie fashion, felt his own compositions were worse after d'Indy's tutelage. D'Indy was also an anti-Semite.

So this kind of started on a sour note. But still, an interesting voyage nonetheless.

In Blois, the street I lived on was named for Honoratus of Amiens, better known as Saint Honoré, and is the patron saint of pastry chefs.

This was my favorite mission apartment. The building it was in was built before Columbus discovered America, and like all of the buildings on that side of the street, was built at the foot of a cliff or hill. You could enter at street level and climb a few flights of stairs to get to our apartment, or from the back you could enter and go down a few flights of stairs.

In Perigueux, the street I lived on was named for Victor Basch, a French politician and president of the Human Rights League of France and an ardent anti-Nazi. He and his wife were killed by Vichy France militia officials in Lyons in 1944.

Maybe this takes the curse off the Vincent d'Indy connection.

In Toulouse, I lived on a street named for Louis François Gaston Marie Auguste de Roquemaurel, a French naval officer and explorer, who journeyed to Antarctica and throughout the islands of the Pacific.

He was a native of Toulouse and donated many of his relics from his Pacific visits to the museum in town.

And lest anyone think stateside is devoid of character, the house I grew up in is named for Minnie Gibson Hitt, an early Idaho Falls banker and the first female head of a bank in Idaho.

The house I live in now is on a street named for the match point concept in tennis. In a neighborhood with many tennis-themed street names that has a grand total of one tennis court, private. So that's a little boring. If not ironic.

I Love it when Fiction Intrudes into Real Life

In the MASH Season 7 episode "Ain't Love Grand," Klinger mentions he grew up at 1215 Michigan Street.

That got me curious to head to Google Maps. Looks like his neighborhood has seen better days.

But that address puts him only 1 1/2 miles northeast of Toledo's Fifth Third Field, home to the Toledo Mud Hens, which still has as a neighbor Packo's at the Park.

It's kind of fun when real life intrudes into fiction.

There's also a Tony Packo's across the river, not far. And apparently they have a lot of MASH memoribilia.

Anyway, my idiot Facebook friends and I had a fun discussion about it. Read if ya wanna.