Stacks Archive

  • Interview with a Vampire

    Posted on December 15, 2014 | 1 Comment
    Vampire Weekend burst onto the indie pop scene in 2008 with an  afro-tinged caribbean-flavored  eponymous album. Almost immediately its world pop stylings made it a critical and popular darling, at least with my friend Becca, who introduced me to the band, and with other Brooklyn […]

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  • I Don’t Know What to do With my Breasts! And I Think I’ve Experienced Some Sexism

    Posted on November 15, 2012 | 7 Comments
    Although it would take a lot more life experience for the lesson to sink in, it was important to have a sense at a young age that I wouldn't settle for just any attention that came my way, to know that I would rather be alone than feel small and humiliated or like a body part that just happened to have a person attached to it.

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  • How to Be a Woman Week

    Posted on November 12, 2012 | 8 Comments
    So, here it is, The D&S How to Be a Woman Week, wherein we'll be discussing our favorite parts of the book and that scariest of all F-words -- feminism

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  • Staff Stacks, Pt 1

    Posted on August 15, 2012 | 32 Comments
    What the writers of D&S are into now.

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  • Objects of Faith and Desire: A Seal Upon Thine Heart

    Posted on July 24, 2012 | 5 Comments
    In this series of posts I will explore ancient (and possibly modern) artifacts that relate to matters of faith and aesthetic desire.   Among artifacts of the lands of the Bible, called by scholars the Ancient Near East (ANE), no object is more ubiquitous than […]

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  • Coming Soon to a Life Near You

    Posted on June 6, 2012 | 4 Comments
    Saturday was a terrible day. Nothing better than the bald statement, as they say. I was blue, so many shades of blue (NOT grey!) before dinner time that I decided some cine-therapy would benefit me, and so I drove to the theater in time to […]

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  • Our Favorite Mormons: “We Believe in Equal Rights”

    Posted on May 29, 2012 | 10 Comments
    This is a guest post by Mark B (aka, Mark Mighty And Strong) about an early Mormon feminist and her husband, who is the most effective Mormon missionary you’ve never heard of. Their names are Louisa and Addison Pratt. We need to begin by clarifying […]

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  • Staff Stacks

    Posted on May 11, 2012 | 7 Comments
    What we're into now.

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  • Our Favorite Mormons: Alice Louise Reynolds, Our Absent-Minded Professor

    Posted on May 1, 2012 | 11 Comments
    If you haven’t met her, I’d like to introduce you to Alice Louise Reynolds, a “founder” of The Lord’s University, a beloved BYU professor and one of our favorite Mormons. It is estimated that Reynolds taught over 5,000 students in 20 different literature courses during […]

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  • Return and Report: The Sense of an Ending

    Posted on April 10, 2012 | 9 Comments
    What was the line Adrian used to quote? 'History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation.'

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  • The Lovin’ Spoonful

    Posted on March 31, 2012 | 3 Comments
    I don’t want you to feel “Jealousy,” really, I don’t. Still, you might be a teensy bit covetous when you find out that I’m going to see Spoon in two weeks in Houston, and this during a non-touring, except for this mini-Texas tour, non-new album […]

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  • The Hallelujah Chorus

    Posted on March 15, 2012 | 11 Comments
    Let’s just get the Shrek connection out of the way. The strange inclusion of the song “Hallelujah” in the enormously successful 2001 animated film (that launched a million sequels) helped put Leonard Cohen’s enormously influential but not yet incredibly well known composition on the popular […]

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  • My Emails with Andre

    Posted on March 6, 2012 | 7 Comments
    O Lord, how long shall thy hand be stayed from, and thine eye behold, the wrongs of thy people and of thy servants inflicted by our much prayed for, but now regrettable … Mormon Moment?   By my calculations, The Mormon Moment began on June […]

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  • Staff Stacks

    Posted on February 8, 2012 | 8 Comments
    What the D&S writers are reading, watching, listening to, eating and browsing right now.

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  • Rogue Cinema: Enjoy the Silence

    Posted on January 31, 2012 | 4 Comments
    The Artist is a bold, artsy stroke hidden in a big-hearted familiar story, or maybe it's the other way around?

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  • All Hail, Pauline Kael

    Posted on January 10, 2012 | 3 Comments
    I first came across movie critic Pauline Kael’s work in an undergraduate English course in the early 1980s. John Trimble, author of our textbook Writing with Style, showcased a few vivid examples from her writing for the student to emulate. In particular, I recall exerpts […]

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  • I Resolve …

    Posted on January 3, 2012 | 6 Comments
    Instead of putting my energies into losing weight -- er, being healthy -- or, you know, trying to be a better person, I think my life in music, books and movies needs some attention.

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  • Christmas Music Hangover

    Posted on December 23, 2011 | 24 Comments
    Today, a special Christmas guest post from Colin. They say that the first step in recovery is admitting that you have a problem, so here goes: Hi, my name is Colin and I have a holiday music hangover. There are a lot of Christmas songs […]

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  • Do Not Go Gentle Into Christmas Eve

    Posted on December 13, 2011 | 6 Comments
    I suspect every family has a list of Yuletide must-see TV such as “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “How The Grinch Stole Christmas,” “Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol, ” “A Christmas Story” or “Elf,” but are literary works included in your Most Wonderful Time of the Year-read […]

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  • In Defense of Coldplay

    Posted on December 6, 2011 | 12 Comments
    A few weeks ago, I was chatting with some of my students, seniors in a small, rural Texas high school, about what we were listening to. “Mylo Xyloto, the new Coldplay album,” I said, in answer to the question, What’s playing in your car? “Coldplay?” […]

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  • November Staff Stacks

    Posted on November 30, 2011 | 10 Comments
    See what we're into this month.

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  • Songs for Winter … and Summer

    Posted on November 23, 2011 | 8 Comments
    Something is wrong with me. I’m not going to even make a case that the way I listen to music is in any way normal. A few years ago, a non-Mormon friend told me that my listening habits were my way of using drugs. Seemed […]

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  • Return and Report: Chatterton Square

    Posted on November 8, 2011 | 4 Comments
     “She’s pretty, but it’s much more than that. What is it?” she asked in innocent inquiry. “I think it must be because she’s so full of life, but not fussily, not noisily. She seems to have some secret way of enjoying every minute. She doesn’t […]

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  • Brother Dog and Sister Cat

    Posted on November 1, 2011 | 5 Comments
    In certain Republican circles, when Rick Perry says he believes in capital punishment you hear wild applause, but when Jon Huntsman says he believes in evolution you hear … crickets. Well, I’m clapping with the crickets on this one, although this was not always the […]

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  • Heidi and Jared Talk About Beavis and Butthead

    Posted on October 25, 2011 | 10 Comments
    With Beavis and Butthead starting again this week, Heidi enlists Jared to discuss the original and the world needs more Beavis and Butthead.

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  • October Staff Stacks

    Posted on October 18, 2011 | 10 Comments
    What the D&S writers are doing this month.

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  • Serious Concerns

    Posted on October 11, 2011 | 6 Comments
    I think I had, in some way, consigned poetry readings to the territory of performance art and local avant garde theater -- embarassingly earnest and unintentionally hilarious events featuring Very Serious Artists.

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  • Favorites: Fancy

    Posted on October 4, 2011 | No Comments
    It was hard to choose a favorite post for the  Doves & Serpents one-year anniversary celebration this week. I thought I should choose the post that was most representative of Stacks and my idiosyncratic personal approach to reviewing and talking about books and music, something […]

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  • My Favorite Mormon Feminist Texts

    Posted on September 27, 2011 | 12 Comments
    Today’s Stacks comes to us from EmilyCC, today’s guest for The Exponent and Doves and Serpent Blog Swap. Every so often, the bloggernacle has a discussion about the essential texts of Mormon Feminism. I figured it might be time to have another one. I’m listing […]

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  • Screenplays as Literature

    Posted on September 20, 2011 | 10 Comments
    “Novelists, poets and playwrights make literature; screenwriters make changes.” So jokes Scott Burns in a recent column titled “From Script to Screen with ‘Contagion,'” appearing in the 9-10-11 Wall Street Journal.   But, in spiteof Burns,  do any of you read screenplays as if they […]

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  • A Chronology of Pop Culture Heroines

    Posted on September 13, 2011 | 17 Comments
    Part One, ages 6 to 18

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  • Book Lover

    Posted on September 6, 2011 | 7 Comments
    I’m not afraid to admit it. I have a problem. I’m addicted to books. I thought I had kept it hidden for many years, but when my wife finally catches me looking at the most recent Library of America catalogue with lust in my eyes, […]

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  • I Feel Fine

    Posted on August 30, 2011 | 3 Comments
    This week, in video form: 1. Everything was going surpisingly well … 2. And then everything seemed to break — our car, the vacuum and computer. For good measure, someone smashed the window of our van with a rock. 3. We were also asked to […]

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  • Staff Stacks

    Posted on August 24, 2011 | 10 Comments
    Check out what the Doves and Serpents writers are into now!

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  • When We Lived in Uncle’s Hat

    Posted on August 16, 2011 | 12 Comments
    When We Lived in Uncle's Hat explores what makes a home or a family -- the family goes through many incarnations --and how it can be difficult to find a place that feels like home.

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  • Husband and Wife Book Club: The Road

    Posted on August 9, 2011 | 10 Comments
    Read The Road only if you can handle the bittersweetness of life. Read The Road only if you can bear to carry the torch.

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  • The Husband and Wife Summer Book Club

    Posted on August 2, 2011 | 21 Comments
    I've written in the past about how different our literary taste tends to be. We are reliable (and not always complimentary) opposites.

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  • But With Joy Wend Your Way

    Posted on July 26, 2011 | 15 Comments
    Few hymns seem to capture the Mormon spirit so completely or at ts best. The steady beginning building to the gorgeous swell of music and lyrics work together to convey the sense of joy and faith that Clayton wrote about, the beauty of life in spite of difficulties and hardship.

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  • Return and Report: The Murakami Edition

    Posted on July 19, 2011 | 14 Comments
    Four novels later, I find myself firmly in the critical admirers' camp.

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  • Staff Stacks

    Posted on July 12, 2011 | 15 Comments
    What the writers of D&S are into right now.

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  • Rasputin Records

    Posted on July 5, 2011 | 10 Comments
    My husband and I both enjoy a really broad range of musical genres. As such, I’ve often wondered — how will our kids find a way to fulfill the role of the rebellious teenager at our house when we as parents seem to appreciate most […]

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  • The Evil One

    Posted on June 28, 2011 | 8 Comments
    Does reading make you a better person?

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  • Atticus Finch: Fatherhood Gold Standard

    Posted on June 21, 2011 | 15 Comments
    For years, I’ve cited To Kill a Mockingbird as my favorite book whenever asked. But I’ve read a lot of books since I first read that book in ninth grade English class. So thanks to a book club I’m a part of, I re-read it […]

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  • Staff Stacks

    Posted on June 14, 2011 | 22 Comments
    Take a look at what we're into right now.

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  • Dignified

    Posted on June 7, 2011 | 4 Comments
    It's obvious that female writers and male writers are equals and "greatness" is highly subjective so we don't have to say a word, right? I'm not so sure.

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  • It’s Not You, It’s Me

    Posted on May 31, 2011 | 12 Comments
    I loved this recent segment from NPR’s All Songs Considered about the bands that  contributors have  broken up with over the years and why. From the piece: “Context is everything here, so the three narrowed their picks into four basic categories: bands you swore off […]

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  • Return and Report: A Visit From the Goon Squad

    Posted on May 24, 2011 | 5 Comments
    Welcome  back to Return and Report,  a segment on Stacks where I give brief reports on what I’ve been reading or listening to lately. Today’s edition will feature an amazing book, which was  was on my to do list for this year. “Time’s a goon, […]

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  • All Girls Must Be Everything

    Posted on May 17, 2011 | 13 Comments
    Now if you're not "hot," you are expected to work on it until you are.

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  • SexRead

    Posted on May 10, 2011 | 19 Comments
    Since I pretty much like tackling any topic through reading, it should be no surprise that I like reading about sex.

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  • In the Gut

    Posted on May 3, 2011 | 11 Comments
    "It's not about masculine or feminine. It's about power, and passion, and weirdness"

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  • Get Lost

    Posted on April 26, 2011 | 6 Comments
    Lately, I've been thinking a lot about what we mean when we talk about "losing ourselves in a good book."

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  • Book Worm Love

    Posted on April 19, 2011 | 14 Comments
    The books people love and the way they talk about them can be quite revealing about the way they view the world. Or not.

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  • Just Too Good to be True

    Posted on April 12, 2011 | 3 Comments
    Context can be everything in art. Hearing those songs again, in a fresh context, I was actually listening to them for the first time.

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  • Bicycle Playlist

    Posted on April 5, 2011 | 1 Comment
    "Bicycles move with the flow of the earth ..."

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  • I’m Not Fancy

    Posted on March 29, 2011 | 52 Comments
    ; “At fifty, every man has the face he deserves.   To erase the lines and change the contours of one’s face is a way of obliterating one’s history.” –George Orwell ; When Kennedy was about 9, I started a mother/daughter book club. At the […]

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  • My Oldest Possession

    Posted on March 25, 2011 | 9 Comments
    Forty years ago today I received a gift, an item I've owned longer, and used more often, than any other possession

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  • Return and Report

    Posted on March 15, 2011 | 10 Comments
    Welcome to a new segment on Stacks where I give brief reports on what I’ve been reading or listening to lately. Today’s edition will feature four novels I’ve read in the last month, including one that was on my to do list for this year. […]

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  • To The Greatest Boy in the World — A Tribute

    Posted on March 8, 2011 | 6 Comments
    My boy, my oldest, is turning nine tomorrow. He is still young, but in the last six months, there have been these strange flickers of the future, a shadow of the young man he will become running through him. There are wry asides, hair that […]

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  • Rock of Ages

    Posted on March 1, 2011 | 6 Comments
    In the last few years I've become a fan of Swedish death metal. There, I said it.

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  • Awakenings

    Posted on February 22, 2011 | 15 Comments
    "True spirituality is not a defense against the uncertainties, pain and danger in life, not an 'an inoculation,' as Joseph Campbell called popular religion, to avoid the unknown. It is an opening to the entire mysterious process of life."

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