Jacob Bender's Blog, page 19

A Diagnosis

It was very important to her that he had asked her out first.  This was integral.

For of course he hadn't--in fact he hadn't needed to. Taking a risk, she had pulled up his number illegally from customer records and sent him a text inquiring whether John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were back together.

His car had overheated on his way to Moab you see, and he really needed this car to move him to the Midwest, to start some grad program in a month; he had told her this explicitly, for she was...

This Is The Proper Sequence Of Music To Listen To By Which To Process a Break-Up

Elliot Smith's Either/Or, followed immediately by X/O. Sea Change by Beck.Grace by Jeff Buckley. In Utero by Nirvana works surprisingly well in this context, believe it or not.Mad Love by Robi Draco Rosa (though start with track 2)."Hey Ya!" by Outkast, which was a break-up masquerading as a party song all along.The Best of Leonard Cohen. Best of The Smiths Vol. II. The Curtain Hits The Cast and/or Trust by Low. Quiet Is The New Loud by Kings of Convenience.  Beatles for Sale by...

A Mis-Reading of "Satan Sought to Destroy the Agency of Man"

(Warning! Nerdy--but necessary--theological debate below!)

"Wherefore, because that Satan rebelled against me, and sought to destroy the agency of man, which I, the Lord God, had given him, and also, that I should give unto him mine own power, by the power of mine Only Begotten, I caused that he should be cast down" (Pearl of Great Price, Moses 4:3).

I was teaching some Sunday School class recently, and somehow we got to quoting Batman (as tends to happen), about how "we fall so we can learn t...

At Least In English, We KNOW We're Studying Fiction!

Recently I was watching Star Trek II, when this microbiologist kept interrupting to protest how "unrealistic" the science was--"they're just making things up!" she kept repeating.  "Hey, you know what else is made up?" I said, "Literally everything else.  The characters, the lines, the story--this is all made up kiddo, it's fiction!" 

I used to get defensive when folks said us English students "just" study fiction--but I've had of late one of those sudden epiphanies about my di...

The Loneliness of Robinson Crusoe

So here's the thing about the original, unabridged Robinson Crusoe: the prose is dry, pedantic, and archaic; its Calvinist Christianity is ham-fisted and didactic; the novel's swash-buckling tales of adventure on the high seas merely bookend 100+ pages of rather tedious description of island survival; the colonial/imperialist elements are problematic at best (the first word he teaches Friday is "Master"); the charachter of Crusoe is frankly unsympathetic, for he was first shipwrecked on a sla...

“I Think You Should Be Destroyed”: The Climax of The Round House as Informed by Star Trek: TNG

(A conference paper I wrote for a class last semester, one that helped me process the climax of Louise Erdrich's National Book Award-winning novel "The Round House," and as such may perhaps help other readers come to grips with it, too).  
*Warning: Heavy Spoilers Below*


     “Be careful, liberal-minded reader!” reads the end of the Maria Russo’s New York Times review of Louis Erdrich’s The Round House, “In Erdrich’s hands, you may find yourself, as I did, embracing the...

Ontario, Idaho

"Yeah, that's another thing that bothers me," he said--amiably enough, but with a far away look in his eyes--as he twisted some stiff metal wires in the blazing sun.  My tire had blown out you see, so violently that the tire guard was torn apart and loose wires were now dangling across the rim.  I feared we'd be stranded here, still so far from home, but the tow-truck driver took one look at it and said, "Oh, I bet we can fix that!  We just need to tie 'em up, tuck 'em back in...

On Liberalism, Generosity, and Freedom

At some point during my BA at BYU-Idaho, I realized that whatever position was taken by all the conservatives surrounding me--on immigration, the Iraq war, torture, health care, "Right-to-Work" laws, Unions, etc--I disagreed with.  Almost every single issue.  Granted, southeast Idaho is so harshly conservative that even moderate Republicans get kinda weirded out by them; nevertheless, in a perverse sort of way, there was something clarifying, even refreshing, about the starkness of...

The Total Noob's Guide to The Velvet Underground

You know how the best math teachers aren't natural math geniuses, but those who once struggled with math themselves?  Same with the Velvet Underground.  I present myself here as a total noob at The Velvet Underground, one who can maybe help fellow noobs access this seminal yet terminally strange act. 

Perhaps you're curious cause all the Lou Reed obits from last October kept referencing his first band like it was some sort of big deal; maybe you keep seeing The Velvet Undergrou...

...But That's Not a Party

When I was younger and more self-conscious, I held with those that said that my preferred form of "partying" is to simply hang out with friends and enjoy a laid-back, stimulating conversation.  And indeed, to this day, one of my greatest pleasures in life is to be in the company of kindred spirits and converse happily well into the night.

...but that's not a party.

And I still meet full grown adults today whom I suspect have not quite overcome the self-consciousness of their youth, who ins...