The Fob Bible – A Motley Vision

Adam & Eve in 2016

AMV’s about page is very upfront about the inbred nature of the current Mormon-arts community, but this post seems to require a direct reminder of the fact.

The new online miniseries Adam & Eve is written and directed by Davey and Bianca Morrison Dillard. They were both early joiners of New Play Project, which began life as “mere” student works, yet gained acclaim, gathering words like renaissance and breakthrough and baby-this-is-the-future. It didn’t hurt that established playwrights like Eric Samuelsen and Melissa Leilani Larsen, and Mahonri Stewart were seduced by all this young blood and provided additional work for them to produce. No doubt, NPP, while it lasted, was a marvelous thing, and everyone involved deserves fond memories of their own and long memories of ourn.

My intimacy with NPP began with Davey approached me about publishing a collection of NPP work. I had a couple stipulations but was largely hands off, and the thing came out almost six years ago now, if you can believe it. Among the short plays included in the collections was Davey’s “Adam & Eve.” It was his first attempt at playwriting. One of his better NPP plays. And, apparently, has not unclutched him ever since as it appears now in serial film form as “Adam & Eve.”

[keep reading] Continue reading “Adam & Eve in 2016”

Payday Poetry: Moses and Aron by Will Bishop

I think we should celebrate the free-ebook-ing for ebook week of the Fob Bible by featuring a poem from it. So here it is:

Title: Moses and Aron

Poet: Will Bishop

Publication Info: 2009, The Fob Bible, published by Peculiar Pages

Submitted by: Theric Jepson

Why?: Th. writes: “.

If Will and I weren’t both Mormon, I don’t suppose I could give this poem as heavily a Mormon reading as I do. To me, this is the Mormon Moses and the Mormon Aaron. It will be fun to discuss why.”

Participate:

Here’s the link to the spreadsheet so you can see what’s already been submitted

Payday Poetry: Philistina by Danny Nelson

This is a deceptively simple poem best read in the context of the entire project (The FOB Bible). It’s seems a bit underdeveloped in isolation. And yet it still accomplishes what many of us seem to be working on these days — a riffing on scripture that asserts both literalism and metaphor or fable-ness. That underscores the essentialness of historical, familial struggles turned in to literature to people of the Book (Books?). At the very least, it extends the network of personalities that we engage with when we read the Bible, that are in some sense part of the history of Mormons (and people of other faiths as well). Even more — and here you should probably just skip down and click through and read the very short poem itself — it slyly points to the way in which sing-songy, rhyming (bad) poetry is employed by Mormons for didactic means and shows how its a double-edge sword and a two way street.

And again: so far, Theric is the only one who has submitted anything. Spend 15-20 minutes this holiday season and dig up something good for us. Or I’ll be forced to start posting more of my slammin’ rhymes. And nobody wants that.

Title: Philistina

Poet: Danny Nelson

Publication Info: The FOB Bible, 2009

Submitted by: Theric Jepson

Why?: Th. writes: “.

I hope you appreciate that I am limiting myself to one poem per poet included in Plain and Precious Parts. It’s not easy. I picked this one because it was a poem even my father, not a famed devourer of poetry, latched on to immediately and has told many people about. He has brought it up in conversations. I think it’s new point of view gave him equal parts fascination and sadness.”

Wm adds: I do appreciate it. I also appreciate the comment on the new point of view — that’s something that literature can give us that other forms of discourse can’t (or at least can’t in quite the same way).

Participate:

Here’s the link to the spreadsheet so you can see what’s already been submitted

Short Story Friday: Abraham’s Purgatory by B. G. Christensen

Since Tyler has posted his excellent two-part review of The Fob Family Bible, it seems appropriate to feature a story from it this week. Enjoy! Or don’t. Either way, speak up in the comments so Theric isn’t forced to talk to himself about his own project.

Title: Abraham’s Purgatory

Author: B. G. Christensen

Publication Info: June 2009, The FOB Bible

Submitted by: Theric Jepson

Why?: Theric writes: “.

Though I’m adding this story from Plain and Precious Parts of the Fob Bible last, it is, in my opinion, the best entry for the SSF sweepstakes. This story has been published in other forms elsewhere before and has always engendered debate. It’s not a long read, but it challenges the reader and requires us to take sides. Highly recommended for SSF.”

Participate:

Submit to Short Story Friday

Possible online sources of stories and link to spreadsheet with current submissions

All Short Story Friday posts so far

Re: The Fob Family Bible, Part II

Note: This is the final part of my review of The Fob Bible, which I began here last week. This part picks up where I left off, which was here:

Within the Mormon context of The Fob Bible, the (pro)creative movement of these “opposite equal” spheres further implies the eternal (pro)creative influence of both male and female Deities over the universe. For if we have a Father in Heaven and if, as Eliza R. Snow reminds us, “truth is reason, [then] truth eternal / Tells me I’ve a Mother there” and that she’s doing more than merely keeping House. Rather, as Nelson’s variation on this theme suggests, she, as represented in the creative power of the moon (which here “lift[s] land” from the earth’s watery void, “set[s] the rain in silver sheets / upon the ocean’s stormy streets,” and places “birds in flight” and fish in the sea) and as the feminine coeval with God the Father, is an active participant in the eternal, reiterative round of creation, a circling “dance” that is more productive of all that is “good,” beautiful, and holy than many of us may care to–or even, at present, can–imagine. Continue reading “Re: The Fob Family Bible, Part II”

Re: The Fob Family Bible (Part I)

Note: While some may consider it a conflict of interest to post a review of a book edited by one of AMV’s contributors on AMV, to you I say, “Blogging is all about the art of self-service and self-promotion. So I’m reviewing The Fob Bible (published May 2009 by Peculiar Pages and edited by Eric W Jepson, et al) here as a public service whether you like it or not. And I say that with all the kindness I can muster.”

Part I appears today and I’ll post part II next week.

* * * *

Re: The Fob Family Bible, Part I: Introduction and The First Four Fobnesses

I’ve got two family Bibles on my bookshelf: one nearly brand-new two-volume set from Bookcraft/Deseret Book–The Old and New Testaments for Latter-day Saint Families (Salt Lake City, 2005 and 1998 respectively); and one unwieldy, second-hand volume from Crusade Bible Publishers, Inc. (Nashville, 1980s)–The Holy Bible Family Altar Edition. These were intended, I believe, as coffee table volumes, books meant to be points of gathering, conversation, and communion between family members, their communities, and their God. Such creation of communal understanding is enhanced, the editors of all three volumes imply, with the editorial apparatus–the study helps–built into each text: among other things, the glossaries, the book and chapter introductions, the topic headings, the colored words that highlight important aspects of the text, and the footnotes that include cross references and scriptural commentary. According to the editors of the scriptures for Latter-day Saint Families series, these helps are “designed especially” to “help [“¦ us] read, understand, and think about [“¦ the scriptures] in exciting new ways”¹–ways that will lead us, presumably, to become as God is, the central and defining focus of LDS theology. Continue reading “Re: The Fob Family Bible (Part I)”