Open Hatch

Archive for the ‘Books’ Category

I’ve been slowly working on a project to produce a version of the Book of Mormon which integrates modern grammar with textual corrections discovered in Royal Skousen’s Critical Text Project.

Royal Skousen has spent decades researching the original and earliest sources (and for that matter, eventually all major printed editions) of the Book of Mormon, and he has discovered thousands of errors and alterations transmitted through various editions from the original manuscripts to subsequent editions. None of these errors or alterations change the meaning of the text substantially, but there are numerous cases where relatively small meanings didn’t come through. One example is the final verse of the book, where the original manuscript, it has been discovered, read “..pleading bar of the great Jehovah”, but the first printed edition (and all subsequent editions) mistook this as “..pleasing bar of the great Jehovah”. (Incidentally, I’ve always found that mistaken word a bit jarring and puzzling – now I’ve learned why. That’s not how it was intended to read!)

My main reason for this is that for some time I’ve wanted to orate a “podcast” of the Book of Mormon, as I really don’t prefer any of the existing audio versions of this book; so while I’m doing that, why not do it with a text truer to the original manuscript?

Initially I even contacted Dr. Skousen himself, seeking permission. He seemed open to it, but deferred to Yale Press, forwarding my request there. Yale Press denied permission on the basis that they would want to authorize and organize such an effort through an established publisher. (I predict they never do.)

Nevertheless remaining curious, I got my own copy of The Earliest Text from Deseret Book. I was both very pleased and disappointed. The disappointment stems from decisions necessary to remain true to forming a “critical text”. This means a text reproducing the original manuscripts as faithfully as possible – right down to some of the weirder grammar – such as “if there be fault, it be the mistake of men” in the original title page – which, incidentally, I think is a perfect mistake. These grammar errors may be inherent to Joseph Smith’s dictation when he (early on) had little education in language. I don’t mean to marginalize The Earliest Text. Being strictly true to the original text doubtless has very worthwhile academic and historical application. But for the layman and everyday readers, it doesn’t. Joseph Smith himself made considerable grammatical and other emendations to the text for the third edition (dozens of times, he scratched out the very redundant phrase “and it came to pass”), and apostles and prophets who followed him down through the decades made numerous grammatical corrections, none of which alter the meaning of the text, all of which make it clearer and easier to read.

What pleases me in The Earliest Text is the plain layout, the spare devotion to only canonical text (none of the extensive introductions, cross-references, chapter introductions etc.), the preservation of initial section breaks as denoted by Joseph Smith, and Skousen’s very clear reworking of the punctuation from scratch. (The original manuscripts were, with very little exception, un-punctuated, continuous blocks of text. All periods, commas, semicolons etc. were added by the original type-setter.)

It dawned on me these facts (of my pleasure and disappointment) produce an opportunity.

The Earliest Text edition may arguably be under copyright as the first printing of all combined discoveries about the earliest text, plus Skousen’s completely reworked punctuation. What it does not have is the grammatical emendations of later editions – which are all in the public domain. Very little has been altered since Orson Pratt’s grammar emendations and versification of the text early last century.

I can combine the two without violating anyone’s copyright.

My edition will integrate these of Skousen’s findings: 1.) Correction of all errors that alter meaning, such as “pleasing” to “pleading”, 2.) All language that supports the original text’s self-consistency, such as the identified “Hebraisms” – for example, so many conjoining clauses prefixed with the word “and” 3.) All grammatical emendations subsequent to the original publishing which clarify meaning, and 4.) Perhaps even some of my own grammatical corrections. For example, where Lehi says “..behold, I have obtained a land of promise, in the which things I do rejoice”. If this isn’t evidently originating in any language phenomenon inherent to the text before translation, why not simply reduce this to “in which I rejoice”? No change in meaning, and plenty of improvement in clear grammar.

Unfortunately, producing a new edition of the text is an involved undertaking. But modern technologies are speeding it up vastly (such as Optical Character Recognition grabbing me a full 1921 text, from a scan of an edition of that year downloadable from archive.org).

I have a full text; I’m working out OCR scanning errors. I’m aiming for a layout akin to the first edition, but maintaining verse numbers unobtrusively.

Hours ago I accidentally ran into the work of a font designer who created a font intent on reproducing a style of typeface in wide use in the 1800′s through early 1900′s, but which was subsequently almost entirely abandoned. I’ve incorporated this font into a page layout and title page design first draft; I’m very pleased with it. Here is a link to a pdf export: 1921-bookofmormon00smituoft-editcopy3-title-pages-design1

This entry would probably best be at a new blog devoted to the project; but I’ll have a section here devoted to it as well; so maybe I’ll just copy relevant stuff to.. whatever.. new blog.

I’m looking for people to form a group in the Provo/Orem (or even wider Utah) area which will work through the excellent creativity (and unblocking) workbook THE ARTIST’S WAY (cover pictured below). If you may be interested, please email me.

Also, I decked out a Creative Reference wiki page listing this and other very useful books.

I modeled and textured (and lit – which was difficult) this invented planet. I’ve long thought that green should be/is the primary color for exuding, uh.. coolness.. awesomeness.. awe.. in space. So I made this planet green.

Hmm.. I wonder if that idea didn’t have to do with The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet, where, if I remember, two kids fly to a decidedly green planet. I love the illustrations in that book. I’m going to my library and xeroxing them. Er.. looking.. at them. There seems to be a reprint out with a cover that is too comic, IMO. Although it is in the comic style of the era. Maybe I’m just biased to what I read as a kid.

Oh, duh. It was inspired by this. Well, many people have thought of green planets.

Oh yeah. I made this green ringed planet here. If you like it feel free to put it on your computer’s “desktop”. The thumbnails link to larger.. er.. huge.. images (1680 x 1050). Tell me what you think. There’s also a smaller one I did inline here trying to composite with a Terragen image I made. Not sure that one fully worked out.

Here’s a link to the same, with attempted enlargement and noise/retouching to make it look originally at 1024 x 768 (the Terragen 2 preview only lets me render the terrain I composited this into at 800 x 600 )

I composited these last two in Photoshop, using a “darken” mask to make the sky eliminate the black shadows on the planet and rings.

While looking for images for my computer desktop from My Neighbor Totoro, I ran across this description page of an Anime based on short stories Ursula K. Leguin set in Earthsea.  I also found this YouTube post of a trailer for it (embedded below) – this looks great (especially the art).  You can find a UK trailer on YouTube that has a more dramatic punch but unbearable, typically pious unctuous "I am the voice of Wonder" American English announcing.

If my local libraries or video rental stores don't have this in, I think I'll just get it – lower prices for it found by froogle are less than or not much more than rental (the first one it finds has a description of it from an entirely different film, though – what the.. !?).

With his permission, I’m copying these words of Mahonri Stewart (an LDS playwright and active voice in the LDS literary/art community, and who occasionally writes over here) which he wrote at the AML-list, where the topic emerged (in response to a link to my Harry Potter predictions at this blog) of the morality presented in the final Harry Potter book. I liked what he had to say about the book; here it is (with minor edits for clarity/syntax). There will be spoilers here if you haven’t read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

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[Incidentally, the day of this post is Harry's birthday.  Happy Birthday, Harry!  Someone said that with the dates from the books, the world has been Voldemort-free for 10 years.]

A review from the Christian Science Monitor (here syndicated at Yahoo) in moral disdain of Harry Potter came to my attention. But I have a moral disdain for the views expressed in those criticisms. They are far off-base.

These are spoilers for anyone who hasn’t read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

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Done reading. Now commenting on my own predictions in this post.

This book is very, very satisfying and inventive.

New blog design (for this and the past three new posts in a row) in progress here. Here’s a page about it.

Just so’s if I’m right I can say I said so, before the final Harry Potter book is out this weekend I’d like to make some predictions. I arrived at these on my own and then discovered that big networks of Harry Potter fans have speculated the same. By the way, this portrayal or illustration of Severus Snape, which I love, is taken from Leaky Fan Art, a huge art forum full of Harry Potter fan art, much of it excellent (and much of it not).

These are spoilers for anyone who hasn’t read up to book 6, The Half-Blood Prince.

Oh, I just noticed that with the spoilers in this entry hidden there is a delightfully odd visual juxtaposition between this entry and the last. Click the psychedelic image in the banner to see that layout

On with the predictions.

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[This entry is rated PG-plus-ish!]

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Author: Orson Scott Card
LOST BOYS
HarperCollins/HarperTorch Reissue Edition January 25 2005
First publication in 1992 by HarperCollins
Mass Market Paperback, 544 pages
ISBN 0061091316
$7.99 US dollars
Amazon – Barnes and Noble – BookSense – Author’s book page

As a long aside before my own actual review, I’ll lay challenges to someone else’s review, Terry L Jeffress (in the review archive at AML), faux paus though it might be, 14 years ago though it was:

Jeffress’ review

Jeffress says the ending to this story is anticlimactic. Simply put, he’s wrong. Well, except that’s his view. Except that his opinion is wrong. (I’m being facetious). Though I’m not sure what kind of ending Jeffress would have liked. An ending that erases some things that happened in the story? For those things to have never happened? The story itself hinges on matters of life beyond mortality, and the final lines of narrative boldly present the main character’s assurances of resolution that will occur in the next life. How very important is that point which Jeffress missed.

Jeffress also asserts that Card “Doesn’t introduce the suspenseful elements that play on the story’s resolution until well into the novel”. No, they were there early, along with some really great and subtly disturbing foreshadowing. Jeffress also apparently missed that.

And not enough horror? The behavior of some people in the story was quite horrific enough – and this wasn’t a gore or slasher film (I mean book – I see every scene in the book in my head though, as a film) – it was suspenseful. To complain against the book’s form one would have to complain that it isn’t suspenseful enough. And it was very suspenseful.

Lastly, I just don’t see how playing affections for children is any abuse in storytelling, and I disagree that such affections should necessarily fade for teenagers (which has nothing if little to do with this story). That complaint is really off-target. News Flash: people love children. Or they should. Children are naturally compelling. If properly portrayed. Which they were here.

Jeffress concludes by recommending the short story version of this tale. Well, good for that, at least. This story is published in Card’s short story collection book Maps in a Mirror, also in reprint by Orb Books (an imprint of Tor), published January 1, 2004. I don’t doubt the short version is also very good, though I haven’t read it, and I suspect I would end up recommending both.

Here is a favorable review I entirely agree with, by one Stephanie Name.

Now, my own review -

I give my highest recommendation to read this novel. In fact I would love to see it turned into a film. It is in turns flabbergasting and unbelievably good, harrowing and glorious. It also has some moments I thought were really darkly funny.

It tells the story of a young Mormon family that moves to North Carolina for the father’s new job programming video games (for the Commodore 64, which Card provides many authentic descriptive touches of. And from first-hand knowledge, I think. Several Christmases ago my dad bought me a Commodore off eBay – yeah, I’m a retro gamer – and one of the bonus books sold with it had a programming article written by Orson Scott Card). The boss at the father’s company and two other characters at his work provide some boggling fodder for unrelenting and unbelievably low conflict, which the father handles in ways only the rarest of men could pull off. But that ain’t all of it. There are some _nutso_ people in the local Mormon ward, and also the children’s school, who provide some outrageous antagonism, which although there was little redeeming about those characters, aside from the fact that they may not be bloodthirsty neo-Nazis, and also perhaps because these are characters any of us may have met in everyday real life – rendered to me as downright darkly comic.

Depending on your view. I know people who can hardly stomach that; making it an apparently “love it or hate it” story. Clearly I fall on the side of loving it. But the characters aren’t all either far off the deep end or upright as a Saint. There are characters anywhere between the long spectrum of crazy and sane.

Speaking of crazy, I love the grace the story lends to the theme of how indistinguishable craziness can be from religion. Well really in fact, don’t religious people believe some strictly not rational things? As an example, there is nothing logical in supposing a resurrection.

But how many outright wicked opponents can you cram into one story and have the main characters fend them off with brilliant wit, perfect justice, and without inflicting any counter-harm? I could spoil it with a more specific answer but I’ll just say that here, Card’s answer is “a lot.”

And the real heart of things comes through the children in the story, I would say especially the increasingly withdrawn oldest son in the family.

As the book’s cover blurbs and copy let on, the story is also set to a backdrop of boys in the city disappearing one by one.

I will set up expectations. When I said glorious I meant the ending, which – despite but also because of everything else that happens in the story! – left me in a blubbering and astonished stupor. I picked up several of the clues in the novel as to other happenings – which were simply rending to know without the story outright telling – but I did not see that one coming.

But do not skip ahead to read the ending of the story.

The rest of this review is spoilers unless you have read this novel.

Here’s a kid who sees ghosts and helps them solve their unresolved problems. Was that tale around before this? Because this was around before Shyamalan.

[Addendum since first write: Card says when he heard of the premise of The Sixth Sense he at first refused to see it because he realized it meant LOST BOYS could never be filmed. You know what I say to that? Rubbish! So many stories and films are so like each other but have suceeded enormously despite. The comparison will be made (in fact it could be made favorably in pitching it to producers - producers on the whole tend to only want to do something that has "already" been done! - producers do not think like audiences.) - but the comparison will be then be thrown out the window for everything else greatly different between the stories, and because your story has ten times the heart. No diss on Shymalan's work; I love his film and it has a lot of heart. LOST BOYS has more.]

What I predicted right: Gallowglass would try to pull (successfully or not I didn’t know) something creepy, and the Butler (the landlord’s father, rather, tending the house) did the crimes. I knew Stevie’s friends were really the spirits of the lost boys. I knew the moment when Stevie disobeyed his father and didn’t come to the table when his father rushed out the door, and I knew that he then went out back and got lost like the other boys. I knew he was a ghost when his mother was trying to touch him to test his temperature, and he wouldn’t go near her. As I said, it was rending to know that while the characters didn’t. And what left me in a blubbering and astonished stupor was the fruit of Stevie’s unshaken courage.

I went to look for Movie Magic Screenwriter and typed in the wrong URL. I found this page. Something it says is so good I’m going to reference it in Google’s cache in case the page changes.

They’ve got these blurbs from guest speakers who are very successful screenwriters. I believe the one, Paul Haggis, is the type that a certain book I’m reading sneeringly refers to as a “Creative Protectionist” type; one who makes art for art’s sake, and who happened to be one of the one in fifty thousand who made it big doing so. Because such successes are rare (or are they just a matter of lining up the right business plan behind the art?), folks on the purely business, pragmatic side of the spectrum (who are in the habit of deluding themselves that they can “eliminate” risk) advocate going with what is tried and true – in other words, what has been done before and made money. That approach by definition demands formulaic, unoriginal, and therefore to the audience, drab films.

Which is what Haggis’ comments get at. And whatever else I might be – I think my film ambition may demand more pragmatic people at my side – I think I’m a “Creative Protectionist”. Now mind, though I counter-sneer at that term, the book from which it comes (THE PRODUCER’S BUSINESS HANDBOOK) has some absolutely indespensable loads of details on the actual operational and organizational procedures of the most successful independent film production businesses. I will not ignore the loads of wisdom and business know-how in that book. It’s just a matter of deciding what of it to take for granted and what to question, if your insticts ever tell you otherwise on anything. Because film is a business of risk, and I would think that sometimes you have to know when to knowingly take a risk, do something “untried” and “unproven”. The same kind of thing goes for listening to what folks on the fiercely independent creative artist side of things have to say; decide what to take for granted and decide what to challenge. And I don’t mean to say make rules out of any of your conclusions; I mean feel it out for every work of art you want to put forward.

To get back to where I was going, I find myself more inclined to first listen to the “creative protectionists” for creating stories, and then use the business side of things to decide what to do with my art.

So here are three excellent answers to questions by Paul Haggiss via screenwriter.com, referenced in google’s cache:

QUESTION:
Sometimes I go to sleep at night and say to myself that this isn’t working and I don’t know what I’m doing and I’m not going to write anymore. The next morning I get up and my characters are yapping again. At this point in your career, do you ever have such insecure thoughts?
ANSWER:
Every single day. You deal with it by writing. You just sit your ass in the chair and write through it. It’s the only way to solve your problems. When you come upon a problem, write directly into it. Embracing the problem is often the way to find a really interesting scene. My other trick is to say, ‘What awful thing could happen to them right now?’ Because sometimes, things are going too well for your characters and you have to give them the worst possible thing that could happen to them. [Ah ha ha! This sounds like God meddling with his lazy children who are too comfortable. "Let's give them a trial!" - RAH]

–

QUESTION:
What type of scripts are hot in Hollywood right now?
ANSWER:
Never ever ever ever ever ever think that way. That is the road to failure and hackdom. I just met with Linda Obst this afternoon, and she bemoaned the fact that all young writers are looking for a payday and therefore are writing what they think she wants to see rather than writing what is in their gut, something they have to say. I cannot stress this enough.

I wrote two spec scripts that I was absolutely sure no one would ever buy: Million Dollar Baby and Crash. They both sold within a couple of years of me writing them, which is very fast.

If you try and second guess what people want and then provide it, YOU WILL FAIL.
Guaranteed.
And never listen to any agent who tells you any different.
You want to write something unique, something only you know.

–

QUESTION:
How does an unknown make it to Hollywood?
ANSWER:
You have to understand that for all intents and purposes, I was “unknown” to the film business four years ago. I had no more advantage or disadvantage than you have. You may not think that truth, but it absolutely is because I had no “heat” coming off any great television show. It was all about the script. If you write a great script and put it in your drawer at your cottage in Muskoka Lake, someone will track it down and find it. If you write a bad script and send 100,000 copies out, it still ain’t gonna sell. The trick is really simple: write a great script. And I don’t mean to be flip. That’s just the truth. Write something that’s in your heart, and if you have your craft down and if you’re really honest with the characters, it will sell. It just may take some time. I guess that’s what you should ask yourself. Not how to sell or market something, but have I written enough and experienced enough to write a good screenplay? You write, you research, you write, you research… What makes a good writer is thousands of pages written.

Where I am dubious of these comments: excuse me Haggis, but at some point someone picked up your work and put a lot of money behind it. And then audiences loved it and got more money behind it. Don’t discount that. Your success was not all pure art. It was pure art with filthy money behind it.

Other than that, he sounds just like the writers in this “ZEN” book I constantly refer to, which Richard Dutcher recommended to me – and I like what I hear. Haggis doesn’t say it’s easy, he says it’s a lot of work, but he says to go with your gut. I should also say, though, that the whole premise of sharing ideas before they are even written in first draft form – sharing them in schools and for example this online-organized writer’s workshop – that goes against what I read in ZEN. There are ideas I’d share with others, and there are ideas I won’t until I’ve got a first draft written.

One more against “doing what has been done before” – what is one of the major complaints about films? That too many of them are FORMULAIC. What does this imdb reviewer of Napolean Dynamite have to say positively about it?

I think where the film ultimately succeeds, aside from the casting of Heder, is that it doesn’t fall into the traps of predictability and stereotyping.

Whatever the writer’s gut tells them to do will be original. Actually, that could mean doing something that has been done before. Maybe in a different way, but still.

Oy. So, a first draft.. oh yeah. That’s why I went to get a program that will output screenwriting format (right now there’s Haggis again at that page: he’s hot, he’s everywhere, he’s the Indie Hero); ZEN recommended writing 120-ish pages of pure rubbish in screenwriting format to defeat the fear of the written page. That’s what I need to do, and that’s what I’m going to do.

I am also reading another indespensable book on independent film marketing: THE COMPLETE INDEPENDENT MOVIE MARKETING HANDBOOK. Though I have the same singular criticism for it that I have for the (afore-linked) PRODUCER’S BUSINESS HANDBOOK – it takes formula way too seriously – I emphasise that it is indespensable.

Lastly, I haven’t forgotten the other two books I mention here (though I haven’t finished reading them), one of which an anonymous commenter mentioned helped him get his first film off the ground, picked up by Fox Searchlight. Who left that comment? One of the folks who made Napolean Dynamite?

Look at this! Look at this entry! LONG! This is my contract with the world.

As I’ve noted here, Richard Dutcher recommended the ZEN AND THE ART OF SCREENWRITING books to me.

I devoured the first book when it arrived (via Barnes and Noble order) and it’s been back on my bookshelf for some time now. Unfortunately I forgot some of its particulars of advice (which I’ll show), but the general advice I remember. I may skim back through it and post more detailed notes later.

The book interviews many very successful screenwriters, interspersed with short chapters of advice from the author, William (Bill) Froug, who founded and headed a reorganization of the screenwriting program at UCLA. It goes through the art and craft, and the business, and also morality, which encouraged me the most, and I’ll address it first.
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A question of “What are we reading?” in a forum prompted me to realize that of all the reading I do I mention so little of it in this blog.

Recent reads (most recent first):

The Book of Mormon – the President of my church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) invited all members last fall to read this book by the end of the year, promising certain blessings as consequence – an increase of peace, a greater resolve to do what is right. Those blessings happened for me. Apart from that: this book is true. It’s a mix of glory and the profoundest tragedy. It’s lighting and thunder against bad religion and philosophy. According to many it is also stylistically bland – but that was never the point for me. More than any of this, it is a witness of the Savior of the world, Jesus Christ, and His power of deliverance.
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