Mattathias Reads The World

Mattathias is joined by a band of weird and wonderful Mormon poets to share and celebrate their contributions to the ARCH-HIVE collective's 2020 Mormon Art Twitter challenge, #Archtober2020. The blessing of poetry to express what is just beyond reach, the useful vulnerability of sharing one's creations with a circle of friends, and the benefits of creating art alongside others who are drawn to the same sources of inspiration are all commented upon.

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Guests in this episode are:

Grace (https://twitter.com/sunnystarpoetry)

Madie (https://twitter.com/missmadiejean)

Joah (https://twitter.com/JoahFussell)

Elizabeth (https://www.elizabethpinborough.com/ and https://lovelybrains.substack.com/)

You can check out all of the fruits of #archtober here: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23archtober2020

Out of serious concern about the global spread of a terrifyingly destructive strain of a debilitating and often terminal disease, I've invited the foremost community health expert, Dr. Madison Beckstrand, DA* who helped raise the alarm about the epidemic last year, to share her guidance on how the syndrome currently is spreading through our communities, how an easy self-test she's developed could be transformative in catching this destructive disease early to minimize the damage, and the currently available treatments and therapies that can help patients regain quality of life, even though there is, as of yet, no fully recognized cure for the terrible condition the good doctor has dubbed "Main Character Syndrome".

If you find Dr. Beckstrand's counsel useful to you or to one of your loved ones or members of your community, please share it to raise awareness of these important diagnostic and treatment options, because as our expert says, it's never to late to take action against this dreadful plague. You may also find therapeutic benefit from Dr. Beckstrand's prior visit to us here at MRtW Studios: https://anchor.fm/mattathias/episodes/Mattathias-Reads-the-Lit-Blitz--Episode-4-Part-Heaven-by-Madi-Beckstrand-eghlaa

*Doctor of Awesome

Hello, listeners, and thank you for joining us for the first MRtW episode of 2021. For this special holiday episode, I'm joined here on the air by my good friend Mido so that we can discuss Martin Luther King's legacy, the contradiction of being both non-white and non-black in a race-driven country, and then we take a break from our regularly scheduled sobering reality to share quick pitches for 3 television dramas for a better world: 

1. 40 Acres and a Mule: This alternate history drama features Territorial Governor Bass Reeves in an 1884 the United States offered freed slaves land... in the same fraught territory where indigenous nations already faced exile. And with restive ex-Confederate states resisting martial law, another bloody Presidential election looming, and white land speculators looking West once more, the citizens of Exodus Territory must decide whether what they seek is statehood... or independence.

2. BLM (Black Les Mis): an audacious multi-season intensive adaptation of  the classic French novel which inspired one of America's favorite Broadway musicals, BLM will place Hugo's drama of police brutality, mass incarceration, unplanned parenthood, workplace sexual harassment, student activism, and persistent destructive wealth gaps among black Americans in and around Minneapolis from 1964 to 2020.

3. Back to Africa: Based on 100% true black American and transatlantic history, this smash biopic miniseries features Civil Rights legends John Lewis, Fannie Lou Hamer, Bob Moses, and many more as young SNCC activists immediately following 1964's Freedom Summer, as Harry Belafonte offers them a reprieve from America's racial nightmare with an all-expenses paid trip to meet their peers in the newly independent African nations of Senegal and Guinea. Revitalized by the experience, Lewis and others decide to continue the journey by traveling onwards to Ethiopia, Egypt, Kenya and more. Outside of American racial lines, they can for a time enjoy a new world where black is the default and whiteness truly a foreign concept. 

We hope you enjoy these pitches, and look forward to seeing these shows greenlit, cast, produced, and released for streaming worldwide soon!

In preparation for All Souls Day, I met with LDS historian Ardis Parshall to discuss her "Who We Lost" project gathering the names of all the Latter-day Saint deaths to the Flu of 1918-1920. We discuss the role of memory and mourning in connecting us to one another and forming individual identity and resilience in the face of trauma, and how looking at history can help us navigate the tumultuous present and more fully love one another.

If you are not already familiar with Ardis' extensive work on LDS history and culture, do yourself the favor of exploring the archives of her groundbreaking church history blog, Keepapitchinin: http://www.keepapitchinin.org/

Or follow her on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Keepapitchinin

Or examine the "Century of Black Mormons" project: https://exhibits.lib.utah.edu/s/century-of-black-mormons/page/welcome

SPECIAL BOOK LAUNCH EPISODE! Merrijane Rice, past MRtW guest and widely acclaimed "Queen of the Lit Blitz" celebrates the launch of her second book, "Grace Like Water" with a reading of seven poems from the collection. We are also joined by her son Nathan, who illustrated the book, and who provides insight into the collaborative process of finding the right visual image to match with his mother's textual ones. Merrijane's words take us through the whole span of the New Testament, from the moment that "wise men" from the East contemplated their star charts, all the way through to the Final Judgement envisioned by John, imprisoned on the isle of Patmos. You won't want to miss this.

BUY THE BOOK (and its predecessor "Messages on the Water" which also deserves a spot on your bookshelves) HERE: amazon.com/author/merrijane

Follow Merrijane online here: https://www.facebook.com/poetinzion

The much-lauded "Queen of the Lit Blitz" Merrijane Rice joins me to discuss her 2020 Lit Blitz piece, "Family Tree". We discuss the differing benefits of poetry and prose, the similarity of small and large scale family drama and heartache, which leads us to imagine some of the challenges of Heavenly Parenting. I also get the inside scoop on Merrijane's amusement and satisfaction at her hard-earned MoLit stardom, and her advice for hopeful imitators and jealous rivals. 

She also TEASES her UPCOMING BOOK at the end of the episode. You heard it here! (Maybe even first, though I'd of had a better chance of this if I posted right after recording.) 

A very generous listener found the following recording in a vault, on a solid gold LP. I was able to play the record back and transfer it to digital format, and was very interested to find on it a broadcast from long, long ago with some startling resonances for our present moment. 

The record sleeve had a number of strange engavings on it, which my household Reformed Egyptian expert kindly translated for me:

"RADIO FREE SHEMLON: A MESSAGE FROM A LOYAL SERVANT OF THE LAST TRUE KING TO ALL THE UNIFIED LANDS OF LAMAN, CONSERNING THAT USURPER AMALACKIAH WHO HAS STOLEN OUR LANDS AND HEARTS AS HIS FOREFATHER NEPHI STOLE THE RECORDS OF GOLD, COMPASS OF BRASS, AND BLADE OF STEEL FROM OUR FATHERS. 

MAY THOSE WITH EARS, HEAR. MAY THOSE WITH EYES, SEE. MAY THOSE WITH HEARTS OPEN THEM TO GIVE PLACE TO MY WORDS; AND MAY ALL WHO SEE THE DANGER OF THESE DAYS PUT THEIR SHOULDERS TO THE WHEEL BESIDE ME!"

We here at MTRW were astounded by what we heard. We're very grateful to be able to share this strange artifact with you now, and hope many will learn something from those who recorded it in days gone by. We believe the lessons of those ancient times may also be of use in our own days.

Annaliese Lemmon joins me virtually at MRtW Studios to share and discuss her Lit Blitz short story "Portal Friends", (https://lit.mormonartist.net/2020/06/portal-friends-by-annaliese-lemmon/) which explores (and in certain ways, I would argue, improves upon) C. S. Lewis' Narnia through the eyes of an 11-year old LDS girl adjusting to being part of the Young Women's class. We talk about the complex shift from childhood to adolescence, the advantages of Mormon-Muslim friendship, and the nature of some of the portals we can walk through to find our true selves. 

We also talk about her history with the Lit Blitz, beginning with an unpublished submission in 2013 and then as a recurring finalist from 2014 through 2017 and, of course, in 2020; her non-LDS fantasy fiction, including several pieces available online; and her own reading preferences, including the works of Brandon Sanderson, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Shannon Hale, among others. We end with her praise for Merrijane Rice and Jared Forsyth's Lit Blitz pieces, and a teaser for Annaliese's forthcoming Lit-Blitz-adjacent story, tentatively titled "The Gift to be Healed".

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Links:

http://annaliese-lemmon.byethost8.com/ (Annaliese notes that she's currently in the middle of changing servers. Until annalieselemmon.com points to the new server, there will be some broken links on the site.)

Twitter: @AnnalieseLemmon

Past Lit Blitz Finalist pieces: 

2014: https://lit.mormonartist.net/2014/06/curelom-riders/

2015: https://lit.mormonartist.net/2015/05/disability-death-or-other-circumstance-by-annaliese-lemmon/

2016: https://lit.mormonartist.net/2016/05/the-gift-of-tongues-by-annaliese-lemmon/

2017: https://lit.mormonartist.net/2017/06/daughters-of-ishmael-by-annaliese-lemmon/

Other stories by Annaliese:

"Tattered Flower" published at The Arcanist: https://thearcanist.io/tattered-flower/

"The Legacy Left Behind" published at Flash Fiction Press: http://www.theflashfictionpress.org/2016/12/04/the-legacy-left-behind/

Other pieces we mentioned:

"September the First Day of School" by Howard Nemerov https://allpoetry.com/September,-The-First-Day-Of-School

"This is Not My Adventure" by Karlo Yeager Rodriguez:  https://uncannymagazine.com/article/this-is-not-my-adventure/

"So Much Cooking" by Naomi Kritzer: http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kritzer_11_15/

I sit down virtually with The Conor Hilton (https://twitter.com/TheConorHilton (I grew up near tOSU, and learned by experience the value of a definite article!)) to discuss his claim to a guerrilla Mormonism. We discuss historical guerrilla precedents, including my namesakes and his, and then delve into what shapes his aesthetic militancy and radical pacifism, and where he's found Light, Knowledge, and a Sure Foundation in the teachings of the Prophets and Witnesses. We talk about the self-appointed gatekeepers and border agents who make scrappiness and agitation vital virtues for disciples who don't always know which pronunciation of Shibboleth to use when they hit a checkpoint, and we hope and imagine together that Better World where such things are Done Away. 

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More from Conor on (Re)Claiming Mormonism:

http://conorhilton.com/faith/61/

 https://www.arch-hive.net/post/the-promise-of-mormonism

Buy Books from Cece, the brilliant and noble one to whom Conor is hella married: https://bookshop.org/shop/cecereads

An images (with words on it) that may be of interest given our discussion:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammon_Hennacy#/media/File:Jesus_wanted_poster.jpg