200 Years!

Classical 89 Thinking Aloud: http://www.classical89.org/thinkingaloud/past.asp?d=12/19/2008
On December 22, 1808, Beethoven personally conducted the historic concert in Vienna that premiered his Symphonies 5 and 6, his 4th Piano Concerto, and his Choral Fantasy. Today, in preparation for this wonderful celebration, music historian and scholar Luke Howard joins us to discusses the story and music of this interesting premiere.

All Hallows Eve

Tonight, a night of candy and costumes for some, will be a night of closed doors for others. Some Utah sex offenders have been told not to answer their door to trick-or-treaters tonight.
Offenders on probation should be at home, at work, or at their halfway house so that parole officers will be able to check in on them. "We have adult probation and parole agents out doing home visits every night of the week; Halloween is certainly no exception," Department of Corrections spokeswoman Angie Welling said.
Welling said parents should be cautious that night anyway.
"Parents know their neighborhoods, and they know who their neighbors are. We would recommend, just like any other law enforcement agency, that they stay close to their kids or at least know what homes they are going to on Halloween night," she said.
Welling said the department has never had an incident in the past involving trick-or-treaters and sex offenders, but it still wants to be safe.
Other states are more strict, with rules that sex offenders must avoid all Halloween decorations on their house and put out a sign saying "No candy." (Taken from "Sex offenders face rules for Halloween" By Mary Richards @ KSL)

For more information on who might be living in your neighborhood visit: http://www.familywatchdog.us/

African Unity

Classical 89 Thinking Aloud: http://www.classical89.org/thinkingaloud/past.asp?d=10/2/2008

The United States of America has been around since 1776. The European Union was established formally in 1993. What about a United Africa? This year, this decade, or even this century? If it ever happens, should it? In other words, what might such an alliance mean both for Africans themselves and on the world stage generally? We're talking with one of the world's premiere scholars in the area of African studies about the prospect of a United Africa.

• What are some of your thoughts on today turmoil across the globe?
• What do you think we can do in our own lives to increase unity?

Matters of the Mind and Mental Health

Classical 89 Thinking Aloud: http://www.classical89.org/thinkingaloud/past.asp?d=10/24/2008

Two formerly separate worlds have converged in a new book titled Matters of the Mind: Latter-day Saint Helps for Mental Health. The book comprises chapters on mental disorders and we're discussing its rationale with two of the editors, both LDS clinical psychologists.

• What mental illnesses have you come up against in your life? How have you coped?
  
• Mental illnesses aren’t different for those who believe in the LDS religion versus those who do not; so do you think there should be books like this specifically for the LDS community?
  
• How do you view the utilization of professional treatment for mental health problems?

Poet Idris Anderson

Classical 89 Thinking Aloud: http://www.classical89.org/thinkingaloud/past.asp?d=10/27/2008 Idris Anderson is the 2008 recipient of the May Swenson Poetry Award, a significant national award for poetry in the English language. Her publisher describes her poetic voice as having little interest in ideology, but great concern for lived experience in all its richness. Eminent literary critic Harold Bloom says Anderson's "grave, measured poetic voice" won him over instantly. Anderson visited BYU last week and stopped by to talk to us on Thinking Aloud.

Views of Islam Part I: Religious Violence

Last year at this time, especially in the state of Utah, a whole lot of attention was captured by an anniversary. 9-11, the 150th anniversary of the massacre at mountain meadows. By coincidence, we all hope by sheer coincidence, the anniversary has been shared now for seven years by another massacre; one perpetrated in Manhatten, in Pennsylvania, at the Pentagon. Thinking Aloud turns its attention to questions about Islam, the nature of its association with religious violence, and by way of comparison, the connection between ANY religion and the phenomenon of violence. Join us for Thinking Aloud, on the anniversaries.

A Social Critique of Harry Potter

Classical 89 Thinking Aloud: http://www.classical89.org/thinkingaloud/past.asp?d=8/27/2008

J. K. Rowling has described her Harry Potter series as "a prolonged argument for tolerance." Some may not care too much about underlying themes - as long as they get their quidditch and magic - but one Oxford student presents a compelling case in support of Rowling's social statement. Prejudice in Harry Potter's World outlines the many moments in which Harry, his magical friends, and millions of readers are learning a thing or two about social equality.

Are We There Yet?

Classical 89 Thinking Aloud Interview: http://www.classical89.org/thinkingaloud/past.asp?d=8/21/2008

BYU professor Susan Rugh has a new book about the golden age of American family vacations - a time of open roads, new cars, cheap gas, and countless destinations. More Americans were seeing more of America. Unfortunately, not everyone was welcome on the road. Rugh also reveals a harsh underside of the vacation at this time, when African Americans were denied food, lodging, and even access to restrooms. The title of the book is Are We There Yet?

Mobile Phones and Forbidden Romance

Classical 89 Thinking Aloud Interview: http://www.classical89.org/thinkingaloud/past.asp?d=8/14/2008

Romance in Morocco may look like a dream on film but for Moroccan teenagers, romance means straddling the fence that lies between cultural norms and Western influence. In the last decade or so, cell phones have dramatically affected gender and generational relations in the Middle East and North Africa, specifically in Morocco. BYU Researchers published the article Globalization, Mobile Phones and Forbidden Romance in Morocco, in the June 2008 issue of the Journal of North African Studies. They will join us to discuss this increasing rift between globalization and forbidden romance in Morocco.

Pornography and the Internet Generation

Classical 89 Thinking Aloud Interview: http://www.classical89.org/thinkingaloud/past.asp?d=8/8/2008
Clinical psychologist and licensed therapist Jill Manning offers a tool that will arm youth against the enticement of pornography. Her new book, What's the Big Deal about Pornography? A Guide to the Internet Generation, posits that parents and children ought to be talking about the problem of pornography more, but in very focused ways. Jill Manning joins us for the interview, with Jason Carroll of the BYU School of Family Life.

Incarceration and Families

Classical 89 Thinking Aloud Interview: http://www.classical89.org/thinkingaloud/past.asp?d=7/31/2008

Too often, we think of incarceration as only an imposition on the individual. But few inmates are islands unto themselves, lacking spouses, children, or other family members. Shirley Klein and Stephen Bahr help us explore all sides of this tale: the bigger family picture of incarceration and the story of the concentric rings that move outward from the offender to the lives of those nearest and dearest.

Breaking Dawn

A stay-at-home-mom of three boys Stephenie Meyer found herself writing after a dream she had. When she sat down at her computer and began, she found that she couldn’t stop. The piece she created, which centered on her dream, became Twilight, a novel. In an era of Harry Potter and the immediate success of writers willing to bring their readers into mystical and magical worlds, Twilight was immediately successful. Written for young girls, it became popular with all people- and thus began the craze. The story centered on protagonist Bella, a high school student who moves to the sleepy Pacific Northwest town of Forks, Washington. Shortly into the book Meyer introduces Edward, who becomes Bella’s love, and oh- he also happens to be a vampire. Meyer twists and weaves the plot into a series of dramatic and gripping events. It is almost impossible not be entranced by the world and romance of the characters she creates. Two books later in the series, the saga continued. Unlike many sequels, New Moon and Eclipse, the second and third books in the series, drew more readers into the lives of Bella, Edward, Jacob, and the host of other characters. Why these books have created such a strong response, and gained readers around the globe can perhaps be found in the careful and well-weaved stories that ensues.
For students at Brigham Young University the books hold special meaning. Stephenie Meyer graduated from BYU and her books are sold not only at the student bookstore in the Wilkinson Center, but also at Deseret Book, a Latter-day Saint book store. When the news broke that Meyer was working on a fourth book in the series, and the last in the saga to be written by the point of view of Bella, fans scrambled to pre-order, and wait in anticipation. Breaking Dawn, was thrust into even more of a spotlight when it became know that a Twilight Movie would be coming out into theaters December 2008. Many die hard fans re-read the first three books waiting for Breaking Dawn, while following website and blog posts about movie updates.
On Saturday August 2nd at 12:02 am the first copies of Breaking Dawn went on sale. The Brigham Young University celebrated by holding, ironically and comically, a blood drive as well as a party in the student bookstore. Copies could be found at bookstores everywhere, and fans flocked to pick up multiple copies. Hosting a series of concerts and celebrations including one in Times’ Square, Meyer and fans celebrated the debut of the fourth book. While the movie is still in the works, and a book written by the point of view of Edward is due to be released in the future, Twilight fans are satisfied for the time being.

-Katherine Harris

Feminazis or Ardent Advocates?

Classical 89 Thinking Aloud Interview: http://www.classical89.org/thinkingaloud/past.asp?d=7/30/2008

When tracing the genealogy of human rights activism, it’s hard to know precisely where to begin. But in the English speaking world, the lineage of human rights as it relates to women can almost certainly be traced back to one Mary Wollstonecraft today. We’ll examine a tradition of rhetorical prowess, from Wollstonecraft to Virginia Woolf.

Happy Birthday William Clark

Classical 89 Thinking Aloud Interview: http://www.classical89.org/thinkingaloud/past.asp?d=8/1/2008

Today is the birthday of William Clark, a giant among American explorers. He helped connect our young East to our expansive West, leaving behind an overwhelming amount of detail in his journals. His role in the Lewis and Clark expedition assured him a place in American myth. But has history been too kind to Clark? He was only thirty-six when he returned from his trans-continental journey. What about the other thirty years of his life? Historian Jay Buckley treats the explorer's later life in his new book, William Clark: Indian Diplomat .

Here Comes the Chaotic

We’re planning a chaotic interview … more precisely, an interview about chaos … which should be on the air sometime in late summer. Yes, I do know about the new Get Smart movie, but that involves KAOS, not chaos. I won’t be seeing the movie, by the way; I’m a purist about remakes, which are so often opportunistic. There is, however, a synchronicity between the chapter of my life when I was glued to the original Get Smart sitcom on TV, with its endless rivalry between CONTROL and KAOS, and the youthful season of my fascination with Greek mythology. Here’s the tale.

Sometime in junior high I bought a Scholastic Paperback edition of Bernard Evslin’s Gods, Demigods, and Demons: An Encyclopedia of Greek Mythology. I pored over that little handbook as though it contained the holy grail. From Medusa to the Minotaur, from Olympus to Hades, the book contained just the right bait for a kid in junior high: gore and guts, shades and monsters. The most perplexing entry of all (… I seem to remember…) was an entry for Chaos. Chaos eluded my comprehension for the most part, and yet somehow seemed more true, more real than any of the more colorful mythological entities endowed with more tangible characteristics, human or animal. Zeus could become a swan, and Cerberus had three heads. You could imagine these. Chaos, on the other hand, was too remote, too mysterious. No feathers or fur, no feet or flesh. Even though Chaos may have been a womb, or the well from which sprang the Urgötter (whoops, wrong pantheon), Chaos was not material. It was closer to infinity, or nothingness, or all the eternity in between. Chaos seemed an anti-matter twin to life. Not a person, but a raw, gruesome concept … to be feared as some disembodiment lying in blood at the root of all abstraction. (Yes, I was a weird kid.)

At this early date I have no idea where our Thinking Aloud discussion about Chaos or chaos will go, other than to say we’ll be talking not with a philosopher, nor a physicist, nor astronomer, but with a classicist. A classicist is that rare breed of scholar who knows in astonishing detail what everyone else has forgotten, or (more usually) what we’ve never learned in the first place. To be a classicist is to retrieve and then organize the chaotic flotsam and jetsam of past civilizations’ intellectual sojourns upon the seas of time. A classicist must have a formidable mind. To be a classicist is to be a god, demigod, or demon. You can bet I’m shaking in my boots about this interview. My plea to you: Pour out some libation in my behalf, consult the oracles, read the auspices … if any ill omens present themselves, please, please, please let me know … so I can back out of this interview! (Or maybe just send me a few questions you might ask during the interview.) That’s my urgent plea to you before approaching this topic with a real live classicist. [An extraneous aside: One of my favorite book titles is A Gentle Plea for Chaos, but that’s a book all about one eccentric British gardener’s aesthetic views … a good read by the way.]

-Marcus Smith

Emigrant Nation

Classical 89 Thinking Aloud Interview: http://www.classical89.org/thinkingaloud/past.asp?d=7/25/2008 Thirteen million Italians didn’t “get the boot” but “left the boot” between 1880 and 1915. The story of this massive emigration is epic by reason of sheer scale. But it’s also a quirky story, for a very curious reason. If you were an Italian emigrant, your country let you go, but at the same time held onto you. By calculated strategy, Italy became more idea than just place. Scholar Mark Choate traces the intentions and politics that pursued these travelers in his new book, Emigrant Nation: The Making of Italy Abroad. That’s the premise of our story, with historian Mark Choate, on our Thinking Aloud.

Summer Travel

I recently circled Colorado in an RV. We drove down highway 550, supposedly one of the most beautiful drives in America (according to people who create such subjective lists). But it was beautiful. In fact, compared to the desert where I grew up it was amazing. We passed through Montrose, Ouray, Silverton and Durango. We cruised over to Mesa Verde, the almost incomprehensible cliff dwellings of the Southwest.
In south-central Colorado we climbed the Great Dunes, the tallest in North America. All that sand suddenly nestled in the Rockies was a little surreal. Our giant Colorado loop included the Garden of the Gods, downtown Denver, Rocky Mountain National Park and camping at Wal-Mart (is there anything you can’t do at that place?).
But what a summer for travel, eh? When it comes to travel, we tend to think long distance. I’ve never been to Africa and I’ve yet to experience the great European tour. The more I’ve thought about it though, the more I realize how much I’m ignoring the great county right in my backyard.
So, with gas prices rising inexhaustibly and consistently, how have you modified your summer plans? What are some of the nearby landmarks and historical sites you’ve yet to see, despite maybe years of living right beside them?

-Brent

Posting on Postman

Classical 89 Thinking Aloud Interview on a related topic: http://www.classical89.org/thinkingaloud/past.asp?d=7/11/2008

Twice now (in over three hundred Thinking Aloud interviews) the title Technopoly by the late Neil Postman has been mentioned. A third allusion would be the charm. (Any bets on how soon?) Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised to have Technopoly crop up again in just about any interview touching on human behavior or cultural trends—or at least Postman’s name. So today I’m thinking about Neil Postman, a cultural commentator on things related to media and education. Nowadays we all fancy ourselves media experts; there’s little point in distilling any ideas from Technopoly in this post. A simple weblink suffices; you can Google the rest. Do I endorse the book? Yes … probably … haven’t read it yet, actually. But as I think about this title and its author—who three years before his death delivered the August 2000 commencement address at BYU (an address that in its extreme brevity seems to have met the minimal length requirement to justify conferral of an honorary degree), I can’t help but wonder if, in coming years, a general education at any reputable university (including BYU) will not of necessity include a prerequisite course along the lines of media-and-technology-literacy, so that, as Postman put it, the educated person will be in a position to “use technology rather than being used by it.” I’m not a card-carrying member of the truly wired generation. But even those of us who grew up watching Walter Cronkite and Gilligan’s Island (premiere broadcasts of the latter!) … we older, perhaps wiser folk know that technologies push not only content but values at us that we wouldn’t necessarily choose to pull. Even something as archaic and outmoded as television did that to me (for far too long, I’m ashamed to say). The internet does it to me. Alas, almost no barrier is sufficient to prevent the pushers. (Didn’t that word have really nasty connotations in the 60s?) Finally, a really nice Postman quote for you: “Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see” (from The Disappearance of Childhood [1982]).

-Marcus Smith

A New Era in News and Information

Classical 89 Thinking Aloud Interview: http://www.classical89.org/thinkingaloud/past.asp?d=7/11/2008

The world wide web ... a saturated world of fact and fiction, diaries, opinions, videos, photos, buyers and sellers, and oh so much more...I can’t even list them all. Indeed, the landscape is changing in news and information. A new era has arrived in media consumption. The internet traffic can be overwhelming for some of us, with seemingly endless blogs and vlogs, podcasts and vodcasts. All you have to do is “google” this or “yahoo” that and download it or Facebook it. Some say, this is how they stay connected with their “friends” and show them their pictures. And I think to myself, isn’t that what we use hotmail.com and yahoo.com for?

And then I think, when did we lose our personal touch? What happened to our more intimate encounters where we met face-to-face for lemonade, hot chocolate, or shared a milkshake? Did we lose it around the time when Alexander Graham Bell made that first telephone call and later proclaimed to his father of seeing a future when "friends converse with each other without leaving home" (http://www.americaslibrary.gov/). Well, Mr. Bell, it’s become a lot more than you bargained for.

These days, I have to try to decipher my friends’ tone of voice through their text messages. It seems our hand held devices and computer screens get more face time than those near and dear to us. In fact, it reminds me of an email chain I read that in essence says we’ve traded the postal stamp for an email account and within the last several years, we’ve traded the email account for a networking site or a blog space. It seems like our treasured “friends” are now part of our Facebook or are invited to read our blog and post their own thoughts, rather than being invited to share a meal with our family or spend a night out on the town listening to a live band.

Things have become too convenient. We’ve become so self-important that everything we want to say finds it way on an internet blog or posted on a Facebook “wall.” There’s just too much traffic. Yet, what’s the alternative? Technology is streamlining our communication. I remember the day when it dawned on me that I would no longer be able to communicate with my two best college friends the way I wanted because they lived overseas and phone calls became too expensive. Even now, I dread making phone calls to friends who live in the states because time zone differences make it difficult to call within my “free” cell phone minutes... as no one provider offers everything you need for just the right price.

Yes, the landscape has changed immensely and I’m wondering when we’ll eventually stop communicating face-to-face and just rely on our Facebook to have profound relationships with people we call “friends.” I wonder when we’ll blog our ideas instead of getting together for neighborhood meetings. Will the internet become so crowded with all of our “stuff” that we’ll have to start paying hefty tolls just to be part of the Web community? Don’t get me wrong. I love new technology. How great are our iPods? Huh? We don’t have to carry around a bunch of CDs in some felt covered pack anymore...right? How great are text messages ... especially when you just need to say a few words because you don’t have time to talk. Without a doubt, new technology makes communication easier and accessible to many ... but at what cost? As with anything, people can abuse and misuse great technology and ideas. I hope that this new landscape in news and information ... this new era in media consumption doesn’t turn us into Sandra Bullock’s character in the movie The Net. Hopefully, we don’t turn ourselves into these islands where our only human contacts are done in binary code. Maybe there’s a way to bridge the personal with the technological without becoming too superficial. Perhaps only time will tell. Or maybe I just need to wrap my head around this new world of communication and realize that this may be as “personal” as it’s going to get.

-Nkoyo Iyamba

When Modernism Went Bust

Classical 89 Thinking Aloud Interview: http://www.classical89.org/thinkingaloud/past.asp?d=7/17/2008

Exhibit: Turning Point: The Demise of Modernism and the Rebirth of Meaning in American Art July 17, 2008 – January 3, 2009 BYU Museum of Art

Campbell Gray and Jeff Lambson could have said oodles more. We hosted them for the usual half hour on-air … woefully insufficient time to expound upon the ideas behind the new BYU Museum of Art exhibition titled Turning Point: The Demise of Modernism and the Rebirth of Meaning in American Art, on display through January 3, 2009. (Our TA interview aired July 17, 2008, and can be heard here [link to audio]).

Before the interview, Gray and Lambson graciously walked me through the yet unopened, unfinished exhibition—along with Brent, Anna, Katherine and Robynn of our TA staff. Around us … a mad scramble of technicians frenetically finishing the exhibition with the clock ticking. Here are some musings I came away with … ideas that occurred to me as we chatted in the museum, but which may not have made it into our interview. Caveat lector: these are my private distillations and highly prejudiced views. I do not make either guest responsible for any expression or perspective in this post.

Turning Point— the whole kit and caboodle beyond the mere “pieces on display,” including curatorial signage or “wall talk,” associated educational video, the forthcoming lectures, future elucidations of individual museum docents—is calculated, I believe, to draw us into theory. Not just draw us in … perhaps actually to make of us a community of theorists … a community that values participation, even if minimal, in theoretical discussions about all those time-honored questions about art. Turning Point puts out the welcome mat for any and all who have a hankering for the intellectual acrobatics of art philosophy … those endless discussions about aesthetic experience… you know, heady stuff from semiotics to significations, from reader response to post-modernism. I can’t imagine my grandmother would have cared for this nor recognized it as a welcome mat. In fact, I was brazen enough during our walkabout to mention this impolite truth—a truth I shared somewhat gingerly, of course. I don’t believe either Gray or Lambson took offense, because these two museum personnel (the director and the curator of contemporary art) know that grandmothers like mine actually do come into the museum. Neither one of them would want any visitor to feel like a fish not only out of water but miles from the nearest stream. Even so, Turning Point requires careful explanation, and I expect many visitors will sense this. How could they not? The fellow who just saunters in hoping to enjoy something, using this exhibition like a TV remote when there’s time to kill … well, that was more Cliché and Collusion.

I could be very wrong. After all, visitors to Cliché and Collusion seemed to engage readily with that intellectually provocative exhibition … even visitors without all the high-brow jargon necessary to explain art. Explaining is the thing. Turning Point is fundamentally not an exhibition at all, but an explanation. The subtitle alone (The Demise of Modernism and the Rebirth of Meaning in American Art) foreshadows some coming pending explanation. Death and rebirth have always made for a great story. For this story, you need to personify art. By the way, this story, as it happens, boasts a happy ending. The plot goes something like this:

Once upon a time, one kind of stuff prevailed … but only for a while… then it went away… It was called Modernism …. And now there is a new generation, a new regime, a new kind of stuff … better and more democratic stuff … But actually, this regeneration isn’t about the stuff per se, not about die Dinge an sich. It’s not about objects. It’s about a new way of being and relating with each other in the presence of art. Art may be only the foil for the more ethically rich activity of inhabiting the palace of art. Behold the throne room. The artifact has been dethroned. Oh it’s still in a throne room, to be sure. But regeneration in this story means that our consciousness is no longer about stuff, but about all of us: the artist who engages an audience, the audience that countenances or even welcomes the presence of the artist along with the dialectic that ensues.

I kind of like this story, though I find it sort of predictable. So many people raise toasts to the joys of dialectic and the human aspect of artistic interaction that I hardly need to add my toast to what everyone else is imbibing in our post-modern free-for-all. If I find some of this slightly passé … I mean, these conversations are generally only new to undergraduates at the academy … I still am sold on the exhibit. Why? Because of the authority issue. How can any art be American if it relies too heavily on the authority of convention, the authority of the elite, the authority of the insider, the authority of the cognoscenti. If Americans are going to consume meaning in a fair and equitable way, then Modernism was thoroughly un-American.

So the arbiters of good taste are dead: long live the new arbiters! This exhibition tells us that the arbiters were once authorities, far too few in number, and offers a gentle reminder of the generally healthy practice of questioning authority. I came away from Turning Point thinking, more than anything else, not about art but about the Boston Tea Party.

-Marcus Smith

Ideas versus People

Some Kind of Wonderful Fallacy?

When ideas saunter into the Thinking Aloud studio, they arrive (as it so happens) with people attached to them: stuck on like epoxy. So before I begin an interview, I often wonder if my task is to devote myself to the ideas that have presented themselves or to the people who come along in tow. An either-or fallacy lurks in there somewhere. But stick with me as I explain myself.

Ideas and people are not mutually exclusive categories … not necessarily. Yet while people often lack ideas, ideas never exist without people. We can justifiably ask ourselves which should take priority in our estimation … people or ideas. The one category is physical, tangible; the other abstract and often nebulous.

Time for an aphorism:

One idea (and one idea only) comes close in value to the value of any single human being: namely, the idea that no idea will ever be of equal value to (or greater value than) the value of any single human being.

That strikes me as axiomatic … and not entirely tautological. Unfortunately, it took a few years for me to arrive at this conclusion. This axiom or premise may well be the major plank in the Thinking Aloud platform, or should be. It’s a fundamental idea that underscores everything we try to accomplish. At least, that’s the way I see things as they relate to my role in these radio conversations. I might very well have used the word significance or importance in my premise. Here, I’ll try it again with a few tweaks:

One idea (and only one idea) will ever be nearly as important or significant as any single person. And just what idea would that be? It is the idea that no idea will or ever could be of equal importance to (or greater significance than) that of any single person.

There are easily a dozen people here, behind the scenes at BYU Broadcasting, who would, at this point, be tempted to scold me for my style of expressing this thought. The word count is high. It’s convoluted. Maybe even heady. But Thinking Aloud is—by intention—a place where we come together to flout the prevailing broadcast wisdom which holds that shorter is always better, good ideas always need packaging in transparent slogans, and listeners can’t cope with audio longer than a soundbyte. If you’ve read this far, you’ll know that I’ve already lost the audience that needs facile headlines and short paragraphs—the audience that seems to subsist on daily, reductive regurgimedia.

If you’ve ever studied the great rhetoricians of the ages, you’ll know that the third time is often a useful trick: a third iteration of the same idea can pack a whallop. So here goes, with maybe even just a little more tweaking:

Of all the world’s impressive ideas, I’ve never come across a more potent or challenging one than this, namely, the simple idea that no single thought, premise, tenet, viewpoint, concept, abstraction, doctrine, principle, deduction, conclusion—in short, idea—will ever be as valuable, potent, significant, weighty, or profound as—or ever excel the value or importance of—a human being.

The truly dangerous ideologue, in my view, is always someone who will not subscribe to the basic delineations of this assessment.

Feel free to think back at me.

-Marcus Smith

Rebirth of Meaning in American Art

Turning Point: The Demise of Modernism and the Rebirth of Meaning in American Art
July 17, 2008 – January 3, 2009
BYU Museum of Art

This exhibition traces the sea-change that took place in American art in the late 1960s. In the early `60s, the most influential works in the art world were large canvases streaked by abstract lines and forms. Toward the end of the decade, Minimalist and Conceptual artists assailed the established authorities of the art world. By 1970, this group of young revolutionaries had overturned the very idea of a single art authority and upset many other assumptions about the nature of “high art.” This art revolution wrought deep and enduring changes in how artists create their works and how the rest of us think about them.

For more information: http://cfac.byu.edu/index.php?id=1625

Thinking Aloud will air a discussion on this exhibit July 17th on Classical 89.1 at 11:00am. or 8:00pm.

Scots in Utah

Classical 89 Thinking Aloud Interview: http://www.classical89.org/thinkingaloud/past.asp?d=11/24/2006

Like their nostalgic melody, the Scots themselves have rooted themselves abroad, far from home but always longing for it. Even though countless Scottish emigrants have set up shop in Utah over the years, just try to find a community of émigrés, a Scottish neighborhood or enclave. Independently minded Scottish emigrants to Utah can be found only where they are; and you’ll find two of them on Thinking Aloud.

How Mental Illness is Depicted in Film

Classical 89 Thinking Aloud Interivew: http://www.classical89.org/thinkingaloud/past.asp?d=5/24/2007

Listen to a coversation with two BYU educators about the representations and misrepresentations of mental illness in the movies. We talk with both Jay Fox, an English professor who is a president elect with the National Alliance on Mental Illness in Utah (NAMI-Utah) and with Marleen Williams, who works as a clinical professor of Counseling Psychology at the BYU Counseling and Career Center. The interview includes an exploration of why we're all drawn to observe situations of mental illness in film, also a consideration of just how "clinically correct" movies makers ought to be.

Science and God

Classical 89 Thinking Aloud Interview: http://www.classical89.org/thinkingaloud/past.asp?d=9/24/2007
Scholars have been engaged in prying open some space for the notion that even scientists have acknowledged divine guidance in their studies, insights, and findings. Our questions today: Does God Ever Assist Scientists? And, how might some scientists respond to this question?

Utah County Archeology

Classical 89 Thinking Aloud: http://www.classical89.org/thinkingaloud/past.asp?d=7/14/2008

It almost seems silly to say, but a reminder couldn’t hurt: archaeology need not be pursued in exotic places like Egypt, Greece, or Central America. We’ll talk to archaeologists who know the valleys of the Wasatch Front and outlying areas of the Great Basin and Intermountain West, in a survey of peoples and cultures past but not entirely forgotten: Peoples we sometimes call the “Fremont” or the “Anasazi,” and other indigenous inhabitants of the place we utahans call home.

Utah State Archaeologist Kevin Jones

Michael Ballam

Classical 89 Thinking Aloud Interview: http://www.classical89.org/thinkingaloud/past.asp?d=7/3/2008

There are probably few Utahans who don't know the name, Michael Ballam. It was only after moving to Utah in 2006 that I began to fully appreciate the talent and spiritual depth of this talented and dedicated singer/actor. Michael Ballam gave up a promising operatic career on the East Coast to return to his native Logan, to dedicate his considerable gifts to his community. In 1993, Ballam founded Utah Festival Opera ... a month-long season of opera and musical theatre at the fully refurbished Capital Theatre ... now the Ellen Eccles Theatre in downtown Logan. He continues to serve as its general director. My wife and I drove to Logan last summer to see "Porgy & Bess" ... George Gershwin's brilliant opera about African-American life in the 1920’s. Michael Ballam traditionally sings and acts in at least one UFO (the clever acronym for Utah Festival Opera) production. Last year it was "The Most Happy Fella". This year, he stars as John Adams in "1776" ... which leads me to the reason for these comments.

Marcus Smith is the producer and host of Classical 89's Thinking Aloud, and I'm the executive producer ... a role which allows me to host shows which pique my interest. Having met Michael Ballam briefly after last year's production of "Porgy & Bess", I resolved to interview him in connection with this season's UFO run. I was particularly interested in "1776" ... not just for Ballam's starring role, but for its story about the framers of the Declaration of Independence. I've always known that document was penned by Thomas Jefferson, but I was not aware that John Adams, who would become our nation's second President, was the president of the Continental Congress that debated whether the thirteen American Colonies should declare their independence from England to become a new nation. On June 30th, UFO (I love that acronym!) performed a musical review of selected works from this season’s repertoire at Salt Lake City's Cottonwood High School, so I was able to interview Michael and record some of the music without driving to Logan.

What is Michael Ballam like? I already knew he was immensely talented and a tireless promoter of Utah Festival Opera. But sitting down with him, I found Ballam to be at the same time, relaxed and intense ... intensely committed to his craft and what he sees as his mission to bring great theatre to Utah ... theatre that entertains and ennobles. Ballam wanted to put on "1776" because of the importance of this year's historic presidential election. He revels in the commitment and courage of the representatives of the Continental Congress who faced charges of treason to declare freedom from England. Ballam told me, he not only portrays John Adams. He lives John Adams … a man who was known to be obstinate and difficult in order to achieve the greater good. Adams' courage was bolstered by the wisdom and devotion of his wife, Abigail ... a relationship similar to that which Ballam says, exists between him and his wife.

This season's run of Utah Festival Opera in Logan, Utah runs through August 9th. Check out their schedule at http://www.ufoc.org/. You're sure to find a production that speaks to you, whether it's "1776", "Into the Woods", or UFO’s two operatic productions, “Aida” and “Manon Lescaut”. There’s also “Gypsy”, which is performed as a radio drama. Don't miss this theatrical treasure. And tell Michael Ballam, that Wes Sims sent you.

-Wes Sims

Utah Shakepearean Festival

Classical 89 Thinking Aloud Interviews:
http://www.classical89.org/thinkingaloud/past.asp?d=6/19/2008
http://www.classical89.org/thinkingaloud/past.asp?d=6/26/2008

What is life without a little play? Without the laughter of an uproarious comedy, the thoughtfulness of a great drama, the melodies of a classic musical?

The curtain’s up on a new summer theatre season in Cedar City. In 2008, the Tony Award Winning Utah Shakespearean Festival features summer performances including Fiddler on the Roof, Cyrano de Bergerac, Othello, Two Gentlemen of Verona. I’ll introduce you to Two Gentlemen of Cedar City on our Thinking Aloud interview, to talk about the season.

Visit the Utah Shakespearean Festival : http://www.bard.org/

Widtsoe Ties Some Tongues;

1954 -- 2008

. . .but Mangum Will No Longer

One year ago, our Thinking Aloud team worked, albeit temporarily, in Knight-Mangum Hall at the southern edge of the campus. Today, the building is rubble. Worse than rubble: dust. It got vaporized. If you doubt that, visit the site. Its demolition has been planned for some time. I knew about it and had time to prepare. But I didn’t prepare, and so I fear I must confess: I’m shocked. Not appalled, just shocked. Incredulous, you know, or in denial.

Here are some of the things I really miss that they have taken away from BYU. I don’t know who they are, but it’s probably the universal they, distant cousins to the royal we. Institutions have compelling reasons for acting, and often those actions rub uncomfortably against our penchant to be nostalgic about things that disappear. Ahem … all I mean to say is that I was once terribly fond of and now really miss: the fountain on the east side of the Talmage Building; the old former siting of the Tree of Wisdom (or “Dallin Oak”); the double uninterrupted colonnade of columnar oak trees stretching from the Talmage to the Law School; swimsuits you could check out from the locker rooms instead of having to bring your own; Navajo tacos in the old pre-franchise-era Cougareat; the sweeping circular staircases in the Cougareat and Wilkinson Center ballroom and the fancy brickwork above your lunch; established trees on the west hillside behind the old Alumni House; ducks in canals; a president who actually resided in the “President’s House”; the architecture of Stephen Markham with a mighty lecture hall in the old Joseph Smith Building (venue for my own baccalaureate convocation!); strange little houses that lined the hilltop by the Carillon; Arthur Henry King; the Mahonri Young statue of Brigham Young in the Fine Arts Center; the giant Christmas tree by the Brimhall building.

Well, you can only behave nostalgically for a brief moment, else the enterprise starts to evince the tell-tale symptoms of curmudgeonliness. So I’d best leave it there. (Or didn’t I stop soon enough?) I repeat: the Knight-Mangum Hall Building, with its Social Hall, its history of missionary language instruction, and all it’s glorious you-can’t-get-there-from-here-ness, simply is no more. Wrecking balls and bulldozers have eradicated what moth and rust never could.

-Marcus Smith

Literature in a Technological World

Most technology becomes irrelevant over time as someone introduces a new way to build a house, throw an arrow, play a game, or share music. In contrast, well-crafted literature, like Homer retold in his epic poem Odyssey, endures as a relevant part of the human experience for three millennia and longer. Technology merely makes life more comfortable and enjoyable and at times may even prolong days or years. The tools used to shape a life of comfort and ease, however, never give it meaning and purpose the way literature does. Literature is heartache, anger, blasphemy, exuberance, and despotism, but it is also passion, joy, worship, reverence, and freedom. It is built of the elements that celebrate life; literature is life. With each turn of a page, a reader loves, hates, dies, and is born again.

When I was ten-years-old, I languished in a German concentration camp with other unfortunate women through Corrie ten Boom’s The Hiding Place. Since then, I have faced life with greater determination and gusto than someone who merely dies a thousand deaths in a simulated game can ever appreciate. Although one might argue my suffering was merely vicarious, because ten Boom crafted a well-written story I came to appreciate the struggles of Corrie and her sister Betsie in a way that made those experiences a part of my own life. Even if characters are fictional, life implications are real. I endured slavery with Eliza in Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin as though I was confined with her because the fictional story captured actual human experience. Since then I have enjoyed a freedom that only those who have shared the tragedy of slavery can appreciate.

In today’s world of blinking lights and constant beeps from slim phones announcing themselves at inconvenient times, we are constantly reminded of the importance of technology to our daily existence. However, amidst the din of white noise as technology insists we give it attention, literature still has the power to take us far from the superficial world of longing, getting, and possessing, into a world of solitude exposing those quiet places in our soul to the things that make us most human. It is during these moments that literature accomplishes what technology never can. While technology may make our lives more comfortable, literature can make them uncomfortable in ways that transform us and give our existence greater meaning and purpose. Therefore, as we suffer at the hands of unscrupulous suitors with Penelope, feel the sting of condemning friends with Job, experience pathos as Hamlet faces unavoidable tragedy, or feel indignant about class prejudice with Eliza Doolittle, we experience life in a way that will never go out of fashion or become obsolete. This experience gives life meaning and purpose.

-Anna Staker

The mind that lies fallow but a single day …

The Thinking Aloud team meets “officially” once a week in a dim newsroom tucked away in the basement of the Harris Fine Arts Center on the BYU campus. We kick around ideas. We survey the coming week. We listen to Marcus talk about his kids. Mostly, we sit in a circle with our hands on our chins, wondering how to keep you engaged and excited about our little radio program.
More than that, we want to keep you thinking. We want to stump you and send you back to the drawing board. We want to interrupt that often monotonous orbit of eat, work, pay, save, play, worry, sleep, etc. You could say we’re concerned for your well being. We care about your brain and what it can do.
So, as we tossed around the idea of a Thinking Aloud blog, I must say that I furrowed my brow, scratched my head, and wondered why. The internet seems to have already become a bog of blogs. In the era of microwave everything, including microwave thought, the blog is just another iteration of the media world, a stripped down column that gets info out even faster.
But I finally realized that a Thinking Aloud blog made sense. In fact, I realized such a blog is essential to what we hope to accomplish from right here in Utah Valley, for those who live here and anyone else. I returned to my mentors, the great Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, the guys who understood not only the power of the periodical, but its importance and potential. Can you imagine a New York Times columnist opening his article with a quote from Virgil? Of course not. Check Addison out on Monday, 12 March 1711 (300 years ago!) writing for the Spectator – #10 to be exact:
“As if one, whose oars can scarce force his skiff against the stream, should by chance slacken his arms, and lo! Headlong down the current the channel sweeps it away” (Virgil).
Thinking Aloud is definitely a small skiff of a radio program fighting its way against the main “stream” media. Addison goes on to say:
“Since I have raised to myself so great an audience, I shall spare no pains to make their instruction agreeable, and their diversion useful. For which reasons I shall endeavor to enliven morality with wit, and to temper wit with morality, that my readers may, if possible, both ways find their account in the speculation of the day.”
Addison says lots of other good things (check out Spectator No. 10 here). The point is, Thinking Aloud has raised an audience to itself, maybe not a “great” one in numbers, but certainly a great one for the quality of its thought. There are no major blogs from Utah Valley. Aside from our radio program, the Thinking Aloud blog will hopefully become a useful hub where people can recover themselves “out of that desperate state of vice and folly into which the age is fallen.” Hopefully you will join us now and then for the difficult but refreshing swim against the stream. Hopefully you will share your thoughts, engage in the discussion, and not be afraid to spend more than 60 seconds doing it. At Thinking Aloud, we’ve pretty much tossed the microwave out the window and dug out the ol’ crock pot.
So, let your thoughts stew. Stew a while over other people’s thoughts. We hope you will become as much of a contributor as we are to the process. After all that, a closing sound bite from Addison:
“The mind that lies fallow but a single day sprouts up in follies that are only to be killed by a constant and assiduous culture.”
Who knows what exactly that even means? … that’s why we’re here.

-Brent Rowland

The Essential Themes of C.S. Lewis

Classical 89 Thinking Aloud Interview: http://www.classical89.org/thinkingaloud/past.asp?d=7/10/2008

Let's take a walk with C.S. Lewis through the back of a commonplace wardrobe. "A step further in –then two or three steps…" What do we find at the back of a wardrobe? The novels of C.S. Lewis guide us into worlds often laced with themes; our guides, Bruce Young and Steven Walker will lead us through these themes and positions of C.S. Lewis.

How Much Does Machiavelli Matter Today?

Classical 89 Thinking Aloud Interview: http://www.classical89.org/thinkingaloud/past.asp?d=7/7/2008

"The authentic Machiavelli,” says one daring scholar, “is one who subordinates personal interests for the common good…”

If that’s true, it turns common wisdom on its head, and makes a saint out of a sinner.

Who was Machiavelli, and how much do his ideas still matter today. A historian’s view, on our next Thinking Aloud

The Mathematics of Wound Healing

Classical 89 Thinking Aloud Interview:
http://www.classical89.org/thinkingaloud/past.asp?d=6/25/2008d=6/25/2008
Imagine: you’re riding your bike down the street when you hit a curb and come tumbling down. As you get back up you notice that your knee is bleeding. You race home to quickly wash it and apply a band aid. Over time your wound scabs over, and your skinned knee eventually heals- leaving only a scare of what was once a fresh wound. But what of the science behind the role your body places to heal wounds? On today’s Thinking Aloud Marcus Smith will speak with John Dallon, about the mathematics of wound healing. What goes on behind the realities of scraps and tears? Dallon explores the complexities and science behind this human miracle.

International Adoptions

Classical 89 Thinking Aloud Interview: http://www.classical89.org/thinkingaloud/past.asp?d=4/18/2008

American citizens are seeking to adopt children in ever increasing numbers. Recently, the controversy in Eldorado, Texas has brought to light the question, who will nurture, foster, and rear our children? But far away from the media spotlight on the FLDS church, the so called "baby trade"-perhaps a cynical phrase perpetuated by the clever assonance of baby and trade-goes on day after day. On today's Thinking Aloud, we're talking to BYU Professor Jini Roby. Roby has been involved in key legislation in the area of adoptions, particularly international adoptions. The U.S. State Department reports that with the reduction in children available for adoption in the United States, more and more U.S. citizens are adopting children from other countries. We're discussing what's at stake, what's the impact and who's paying what price in the baby trade?

Beyond Words: Creative Journals

A Diary by A. Margaret Jefferies (1912-1992) This page: year 1951

Classical 89 Thinking Aloud Interview: http://www.classical89.org/thinkingaloud/past.asp?d=3/5/2008
Have you ever read some old journals or diaries? Maybe the journal of a grandparent or perhaps one that belonged to an ancestor. After reading pages of words, you might have wished the writings were accompanied by illustrations to give you a different view or further insight into some of the events that were happening in the life of your long deceased relative. We're talking about creative journals and diaries with BYU Philosophy professor, Travis Anderson. We're discussing going beyond words to enhance your journals.

Parent-Child Quality Time: Does Birth Order Matter?

Classical 89 Thinking Aloud Interview: http://www.classical89.org/thinkingaloud/past.asp?d=6/5/2008
What's the point in a science that doesn't solve problems? Economist Joseph Price has applied his science, with great adroitness by the way, to a question about birth order and the rearing of children. His findings are striking and may lead to some corrective measures, some problem solving in our own lives, our own homes, our own families. What one economist can tell you about parental care and nurturing beyond child number one. What's happening with the subsequent children? We're thinking aloud about birth order and parent-child quality time.

BYU Opera Singer Rachel Willis-Sorensen

Classical 89 Thinking Aloud Interview: http://www.classical89.org/thinkingaloud/past.asp?d=2/15/2008

We're getting to know nouveau talent … a new talented voice on the scene. BYU Vocal Performance student Rachel Willis-Sorensen is headed to New York to audition in a highly competitive contest at The Metropolitan Opera House. She's talking about her journey to the world renowned Lincoln Center stage at the Met.