Jacob Bender's Blog, page 18

Keep Mormonism Weird

Across the street from Voodoo Donuts in downtown Portland is a glorious wall painting that reads:

"KEEP PORTLAND WEIRD."
I've heard it claimed that Austin, Texas actually originated the "KEEP [BLANK] WEIRD" meme, but no matter, Portland as certainly made it its own--and would that all the Lord's cities gloried in their weirdness!  Indeed, when a friend of mine moved from Portland to Salt Lake, her chief gripe about the place was that in Utah, people said "Weird" like it was a bad thing! ...

Straining at Gnats is WHY One Swallows Camels

That BYU has an honor code is of course nothing exceptional; most colleges have some sort of honor code that forbids cheating, plagiarism, sexual assault, etc, as well they should.  BYU, along with many religious colleges, expands that list to proscribe alcohol, drug abuse, and extra-marital sex, all of which are core tenets of the faith.  What makes BYU's such a strange beast, then, is its Dress and Grooming standards, one that bans beards of all things from the university named af...

The Problematics of Iman in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

Midway through that end-of-the-Cold-War allegory, 1991's Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Captain Kirk and Dr. McCoy are sent to a gulag after being framed for the assassination of the Klingon High Chancellor.  While the crew of the Enterprise is busy planning their jailbreak, solving the who-dunnit, and preventing full-on war, Kirk and McCoy are befriended by a fellow inmate named Martia, who informs them there is already a hit out on them.  She offers them her expertise to...

A Very Belated Response to the Seahawk's Resounding Superbowl Victory

It's now been over two months.   Baseball season's started.  College basketball is in the Final Four.  There's been a massive mudslide in Snohomish county.  Washington's moved on.  Everyone's moved on.  Superbowl 48 has already passed on into legend--and will soon into myth--and is now mainly just a good way to cope through another mediocre Mariners season. 

So now that the confetti is long since cleaned up and sits disintegrating in some New Jersey landfill...

The Implicit Mormonism in Arcade Fire

Enough on-line interviews have casually mentioned that Arcade Fire frontman Win Butler was raised in a conservative Mormon household (and that as a mere biographical footnote) that I think I can safely assume it a fact, and not just another of those Steve-Martin-hometaught-Christina-Aguilera type urban legends.

Nevertheless, the point need not be belabored that Arcade Fire is very obviously not a Mormon band, neither sympathetic with nor openly antagonistic towards the LDS Church, or even maki...

On Neah Bay and The Shedd Aquarium

Neah Bay, WA: The northwestern-most point of the continental United States.  High School biology students are bussed in by permission of the Makah Tribal Council, to explore and catalog the teeming life of the tide pools.  These youth are instructed by their teachers to look, but not touch; admire, but not remove; examine, but not interfere.  With pens and paper in hand, the students crouch in close to peer at the staggering biodiversity contained within just one provisional po...

On Hannibal, MO and Stratford-upon-Avon

When I first visited Shakespeare's grave in Stratford-upon-Avon, what struck me most was how Shakespeare, "at the top of his game, still returned to Stratford-upon-Avon, that hickville one-horse-town of his youth he couldn't run away from fast enough. He voluntarily returned...Shakespeare had everything in London, fame, riches, popularity, prestige, and yet as he approached middle-age, he still chose to leave it all behind to return to podunk Stratford-upon-Avon."

I mused that "for all his pro...

On Hannibal and Stratford

When I first visited Shakespeare's grave in Stratford-upon-Avon, what struck me most was how Shakespeare, "at the top of his game, still returned to Stratford-upon-Avon, that hickville one-horse-town of his youth he couldn't run away from fast enough. He voluntarily returned...Shakespeare had everything in London, fame, riches, popularity, prestige, and yet as he approached middle-age, he still chose to leave it all behind to return to podunk Stratford-upon-Avon."

I mused that "for all his pro...

Songs for Sunday Morning

There is a surprisingly robust sub-genre of songs that address the very specific malaise that can only be felt on a Sunday.  Maybe it's the recovery from Friday and Saturday night; maybe it's having to face the work week again; maybe as a day of new beginnings it makes one take a cold hard look at one's life; maybe as a religious Sabbath it makes one take a cold hard look at one's soul; maybe it's the fact that once again you are not in Church; maybe it's the fact that once again you are...

Salt Lake I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down

Last year, after I got my PhD acceptance letters in the mail and as I prepared to move cross country, I found myself often singing along to that old LCD Soundsystem standard, "New York I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down," only swapping out "New York" for "Salt Lake."  Nary another lyric change was necessary:
 
"Salt Lake I love you, but you're bringing me down," "Like a rat in a cage/pulling minimum wage" [hey-oh, Right-to-Work state!], "our records all show/you are filthy but fi...