August 2011 Archives

"Prodigy" typically refers to someone of extraordinary talent or ability, especially a child. A fun fact I picked up somewhere in the last two decades is that it originally meant "an unnatural happening," and so referred to omens or things of prophetic significance--as well as to something so unnatural it's monstrous. I once found it listed as a synonym for "monster."

The videos below were both sent to me by a friend who like me is a poet interested in religion. The first one involves many meanings of prodigy.... The last one is much simper, and will help alleviate some of the horror you will no doubt experience as you watch the first.

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I can't say how much that video freaks me out. The difference between the kid sitting and smiling at the "Today" lady or yawning or playing with his shoelaces because he's bored, versus the kid when he's all worked up, dabbing at his sweat with his folded handkerchief, really disturbs me. And then, when he starts jumping and down and shrieking, "But the Lord is gonna do it. That means God has to do it, and then God is gonna do it, and then Jesus has to do do it, and then God is gonna do it," as if that was anything but nonsense, I almost believe I have seen the anti-christ.

Whereas this is just nice. Perhaps the kid's mom helped him with intonation and expression, but it's still a very nice presentation of a terrific poem.

So, there's this bio-statistician here in Utah named Richard C. Bennett Jr aka Rick Bennett who blogs as Mormon Heretic, an absolute misnomer since he's a doctrinaire protector of patriarchy and promoter of orthodoxy. Mormon Heretic doesn't like me. He insists on going to my sessions at Sunstone and then complaining about how I do stuff he doesn't approve of. He has gone to social networking sites to find images of and information about me, and posted it on his blog. I am responding in kind. I figure, turn about is fair play.

Mormon Heretic/ Rick Bennett feels free to say all sorts of nasty personal things because he's managed to stay very anonymous, but here's the thing: I know how to find stuff out. Having discovered his name in real life, I am posting it here. Because douchebags who use anonymity to avoid consequences for their actions deserve to be outed.

Please feel free to pass on to any and everyone who might care (an admittedly tiny population) that Mormon Heretic is Rick Bennett.

The Mormon dislike of realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in the glass.

The Mormon dislike of metaphor is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in the glass.

That's something I figured out from thinking about The Book of Mormon musical, and it's also why art produced by Mormons for Mormons is such useless crap.

with thanks to Oscar Wilde and his preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray.