Four Books for Brooks Briggs.

Brooks Briggs, a Facebook friend and former co-worker recently posed an interesting question on Facebook: "What are the top three to five books that have influenced your life—for better or worse? What books influenced your thinking, your trajectory, and who you are today? And—if you have another moment to spare—give a little explanation about how or why. But you must honest. Ready? GO!"

I've been an avid reader for most of my life.  So I loved the challenge of this question.  But it's definitely too involved to be answered within the abbreviated limits of a Facebook update.  So I decided a blog post would be a more appropriate answer.  Here are four books that have been influential in my life.

A biography of Harry Houdini.  I can’t remember the title of this book or the name of the author. It was geared to younger readers. I checked it out from the Washakie County Library and read it at least three times in fifth or sixth grade. It was totally inspiring to a weird kid like me and it made me want to be a magician.  But more than that, it was so much fun to read that it’s the reason I’ve been a life-long reader.  Even today, I’m still willing to trudge through unpleasant books because I know that somewhere out there is a book like that biography of Harry Houdini that will be an immensely pleasurable read.  And I’m always happy to find such a book. Which brings me to my second choice.

Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin.  This book could make it onto this list just for the fun factor.  The snappy, smart writing style makes it the ultimate page turner.  It’s laugh-out-loud funny. It features mad-cap, crazy plot lines that you’re somehow willing to believe.  And it’s got characters that are so brilliantly defined they jump to life off the page.  This makes it all the amore amazing that Tales of the City speaks to me on a much deeper level.  This is a book about people who find that the lives they thought they were supposed to lead, are somehow not the lives that are best for them.  These are outcasts and misfits who are embraced by a magical place that is willing to let them be themselves. I’ve returned to these characters time and time again.  I’ve consumed the book and all its sequels multiple times. I’ve watched the TV series. I’ve listened to the audio book.  I’m even one of a limited number of people who have seen the Broadway-style musical based on the novel.  Oh, and I've made a pilgrimage to visit the places that make the book so delightful. And every time I interact with the characters who populate 28 Barbary Lane, I’m a better person for it, even with all the sex and drugs.

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.  This is the perfect segue from my previous choice.  Great Expectations and Tales of the City have a lot in common.  They both began as serialized stories in popular periodicals. Both books are brilliant accomplishments in character development.  And they both capture the essence of a place and time, all while raising questions about social issues. of the era  Where Great Expectations differs from Tales of the City is in the theme that I took away from the novel; What is legal may not always be morally right.  And what is morally right may not always be legal.  That lesson has served me well.  It’s been a reminder to keep an open mind, to listen to the stories of others, and to try to be more caring towards people I may not fully understand. It’s a lesson that has inspired a fair amount of kindness and happiness in my life.

The Book of Mormon.  The assignment as laid out by Brooks was to talk about books that have been influential in your life, not your favorite books.  Up until now, the books I’ve listed have fallen into both categories.  With this selection, the story gets decidedly more complex.  When looking at the responses to Brooks' question, I noticed that many members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints selected The Book of Mormon as an influential book.  I am no longer a member of the Church so this might seem like an odd choice for me.  I don’t even like The Book of Mormon.  I find the writing clunky.  I find the stories mostly heavy handed.  The violence is frequently overwhelming.  And I question the suggestion that the great civilizations of the Americas are a result of Judeo-Christian traditions.  And yet, many important decisions in my life were based on the principles extolled by this book or were influenced by the ideas that emanate from the book and its associated religion.  The perplexing part, most of those decisions were reasonably smart. I'll admit that I tend to make reasonably smart decisions.  But without The Book of Mormon my decisions would have been very different.  And I question if they would have been better.  On a more humorous note, The Book of Mormon does share something with Tales of the City: I've seen both the musicals!

There are many more books that have influenced me.  But this is a decent response to the question posed by Brooks.

Utah painted.

Here's a surprise. The Salt Lake Art Center is not open on Sundays, which has always bugged me a little bit because I think Sunday afternoons were meant for museum visits. The surprise? The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints' Church History Museum is open on Sundays.  For an organization that believes in keeping the sabbath day holy, I was pleasantly surprised to discover the Church agrees that visiting a museum is an appropriate activity for a Sunday afternoon.

How did I discover this fact?  Well, I went to the museum as my second stop on Salt Lake City's current circuit of LeConte Stewart exhibits.  There are two shows featuring the artist's work; a joint effort by the Utah Museum of Fine Arts (UMFA) and the Church History Museum.  I started at UMFA to see more Stewart paintings in one location than you'll ever see again.  And all of those paintings represent places in Utah. 

The exhibit at UMFA is titled LeConte Stewart: Depression Era Art.  I wasn't expecting to like the show as much as I did.  Stewart's paintings from the 1930s are melancholy, even bleak.  That realization that things were troubling for many Americans during the depression makes this show relevant today.  Here are some paintings I found interesting.

A whole gallery is dedicated to the idea that small businesses struggle in a bad economy.  Hometown businesses shutting down were featured in a number of Stewart's paintings.  As the son of a small business owner, I found these paintings beautiful.  Here's Untitled (The Golden Rule) (c. 1930s, oil on board), my photo may not show the detail, but the business shows torn curtains and broken windows.

And here is the Green Front (1935, oil on canvas), which shows a general store in Kaysville, Utah owned by W.D. Adams and Sons.  While the store survived the depression, the painting still evokes the realities of doing business in a struggling economy.

I enjoyed seeing Stewart's painting process in action.  Stewart worked from real life, not from photographs.  He made sketches and then painted studies before completing the final work, and many of those studies were beautiful and on display.

For example, Smith's House (1937, oil on canvas) was shown next to one sketch and two oil studies.

Then there's this photo of a brilliant painting, Approved by Postmaster General (1936, oil on canvas) shown next to a small study for the same painting.

One of my favorite paintings in the show is Private Car (1937, oil on canvas) showing unemployed men hitching a ride on a train in hopes of finding work somewhere else. By the way, what a great title for a painting exploring this subject matter.

In the study for the painting, the men are absent.  While beautiful, it somehow lacks the same emotional impact.

Stewart also had a fascination with houses.  Bleak, lonely houses that were struggling to survive in a time when households around the country were facing foreclosures.  Here's one of my favorites featuring three homes; The Smiths', the Jones', and the Browns' (1936, oil on canvas).

My second stop was at the Church History Museum where the exhibit was titled, LeConte Stewart: The Soul of Rural Utah.  Side note: What's with the carpeting?  I don't think I've ever been to an art museum with carpeting.  Polished concrete? Sure. Hard wood? Definitely.  But carpeting?  But other than the carpeting, this show was displayed beautifully; maybe even better than at UMFA.  Most of the paintings were landscapes which I found less interesting than the introspective paintings at UMFA.  But there were some standouts.

Here's Country Funeral (1948, oil on panel).  This is a painting that forces the viewer to create stories.

Some of my favorite paintings were about religion.  Stewart was a Mormon.  He was commissioned by the LDS church to paint murals in several temples.  For me, religions are at their best when they're commissioning artists to celebrate their beliefs.  And in this show some of the best paintings are Stewart's depictions of LDS temples in which he painted murals.  I like these paintings for two reasons.  First, they're buildings that are architecturally interesting, built when the church was dedicated to making each temple unique, unlike now when temples seem to be little more than glorified, cookie-cutter stake centers.  Second, I love the way the buildings reference temples built by the great cultures of the Americas; which seems appropriate considering the Book of Mormon's story line.

This is Hawaii Temple Construction (1918, oil on canvas).

And here is Alberta Temple, Evening (1921, oil on panel).

If you like Impressionism mixed with a good dose of the American west painted by the likes of Maynard Dixon, both of these shows are worth a visit.  Or, if you just want to take a little pride in the art of Utah, both shows are worth a visit.

A missionary among theater goers.

There's a definite possibility that I was the only actual returned missionary in the Eugene O'Neill Theatre for a recent performance of the hit Broadway musical, The Book of Mormon, a show all about Mormon missionaries.  Still, it's obvious that Trey Parker, Matt Stone,  and Robert Lopez have done their homework.  They're surprisingly adept at capturing the realities of being a Mormon missionary, particularly since none of them have been on a mission.  Sure, they get a bunch of stuff wrong.  The way they represent the Missionary Training Center (MTC) is off by at least a mile but nonetheless hysterically funny.  The stuff they get right, they get really right.  As a return missionary, there a few moments that were freakishly accurate.


The show-stopping song, Turn It Off, about that "nifty Mormon trick" of ignoring troubling issues and putting on a happy face certainly rang true for me. Or how about Scary Mormon Hell Dream.  This satanic, chorus-line-inspired extravaganza is a riotous good time.  My favorite moment? The dancing coffee cups as a temptation.  Brilliant.


Which brings me to a few ideas raised by this show.  First, the calculated offensiveness of the show.  This is a musical designed to push buttons.  A lot of Mormons might be upset by the flippant way the creators treated their beliefs.  But skewering Mormons is just the beginning.  The Book of Mormon takes on everything from AIDS to female circumcision (I'm pretty sure this is the only musical that uses the word clitoris on multiple occasions) with a South-Park willingness to offend.  And while it's brilliant today, I wonder if this show will be as tolerable in the future.  I can imagine a time when some of the ideas expressed in this show won't be acceptable to a more politically-correct audience.  Although I was surprised at how relevant a sexist musical like How to Succeed in Business is in our modern world.


On the positive side, it's obvious that Parker, Stone, and Lopez love Broadway.  With toasts to Rodgers and Hammerstein and The Lion King, even the work of early musical-theater geniuses like Cole Porter and Irving Berlin, this show is a little love letter to the Great White Way.


I also have to note how spectacularly The Book of Mormon communicates the style of Matt Stone and Trey Parker.  I approach most things with a eye toward visual art.  I appreciate artists that are informed by history, but create new and exciting work with an identifiable style. Stone and Parker have accomplished that difficult trick.


In the end, this is a story about faith.  About believing in something bigger than ourselves. And while The Book of Mormon may have a riotous good time at the expense of Mormons, it also reminds us that people who believe in things that might seem incredible, often accomplish miracles.  Maybe that's why it's so delightful.