Splendid Sun continued with its trend as the best not-A Motley Vision blog in covering questions of Mormon aesthetics with the post Fiction, Discernment and the Spirit.

J. Stapley asks:

Can one person feel the spirit when they listen to a piece of music and another not? If so, is the music true or not? I submit that if one is educated in a specific field, they can gain a level of discernment that allows them to see what others do not. I believe that the Spirit bears witness of beauty as well as truth and that many times the perception of beauty requires effort.

That sounds kind of heavy, but click through the link. Yoda makes an appearance — and that’s all I’m going to say. The subsequent discussion is quite good as well. I even make an appearance — although Stephen Hancock does most of the heavy lifting. As a sidenote, Stapley has spiffed up his blog template. The result is very attractive.

Other posts of note:

1. Pat Eyler has started a series on Wortschatz (word treasures) in the Book of Mormon over at Elders Journal. The first word featured: tribulation.

2. Bret is searching for Mormon folklore over at Nine Moons. In particular, he is interested in primary sources for a paper he is re-writing for the History Honors Society Summit. Hey, Bret, have you seen my three Nephites story at A Motley Vision?

3. Speaking of A Motley Vision, I wasn’t able to post much this week, but read my tale of two reviews. It’s another data point that exposes bias among reviewers of Mormon-themed novels.

4. Jonathan Max Wilson discusses J.R.R. Tolkien, Applicability, and the Book of Mormon at Millenial Star. Wilson claims that Mormon’s abridgement of the records and history of his people “exhibits an inspired degree of symbolic applicability.” Also be sure to check out Wilson’s thoughts on violent puppetry.

5. The personal essay is considered by many critics (including Eugene England) to be a form especially suited for Mormon literature. Wilifried Decoo continues what has become a wonderful Bloggernacle tradition of poetic, touching personal narratives with Ninety one words. It’s a beautiful account — the best so far, I think, in Decoo’s series on life as a Mormon in Belgium.

Back in the day
I love the phrase ‘back in the day.’ It’s so hilariously vague. I’ve heard teenagers use it to mean anytime from the mid-1990s (as in pre-Napster/iTunes) to the mid-18th century. So in that same spirit I intend to highlight from time to time Mormon A&E Internet content that is pre-Bloggernacle Times.

This week, I want to continue with the personal essay theme and point you to Chris Williams’ beautiful post at Outer Boroughs: Is God a Musky? Not only does it have one of the best titles ever, but it also has one of the best lines ever to hit the world of Mormon letters (and I’m absolutely serious here) — “I saw God in my agnostic dad.” Thanks, Chris.

The Sugar Beet is kind-of back
The Mormon satirical newspaper the Sugar Beet is finishing or has just barely finished its one-year run as a print publication. And now there are signs that it may return to having some sort of a Web presence. There are even Monty Python-esque Sugar Beet Toonz. Unfortunately, they’re housed on a geocities page for now so you may click through and find that the bandwidth has been exceeded.

NOTE: I welcome submissions. E-mail arts and culture-related posts, tips, reports and news articles to motleyvision AT gmail DOT com.