Charles Band keeps makin’ ‘em, and I keep reviewin’ ‘em: cheapo horror flicks involving killer dolls. In the case of Skull Heads (2009), the setting moves back to Band’s own family castle in Italy, last seen in Castle Freak (1995).
(Because I need a remedial calendar-reading course, Reader Revenge Month will take place in April, not March.)
Michele e-filed our tax return on Monday, February 15th (is there a more patriotic way to spend President’s Day?). We’re expecting a chunk back, so we’ve been watching for the refund. When she e-filed, the system told her that turnaround time was 3 to 7 business days.
Earlier this week, she checked at the IRS website and saw the projection that we should receive something back by March 2nd.
Today, the same site told her that we’d been bumped to March 9th.
Apparently, the fact that people were filing their returns this year, just like they have every year previous, took the IRS entirely by surprise.
Is it surprising that a goodly number of Americans are leery of installing a federal bureaucracy for healthcare?
New review this week: Mario Bava’s Blood and Black Lace (1964). A director whose first love was paintings meets a reviewer whose first love was books. They clash.
Also, we now own a cockatiel.
That is all.
I’m currently on the train to head home, and the fellow sitting across the little desk from me is valiantly trying to study a physics text, despite the fact that apparently physics bores him to unconsciousness. His head dips lower… and lower… and lower… and yes, his nose is finally on the page.
Yet another reason I need to start carrying a camera phone.
Last night was so stacked with church stuff that I didn’t sit down for my normal Wednesday site update until after 9:30pm, which meant I finished up just shy of midnight. That’s very important when your alarm goes off at 5am, you know.
And of all the places in which I normally announce my new reviews, I forgot this one. My own blog! And it didn’t occur to me until now! Ha! Ha! Droll, what?
Anyway. Conqueror of the World (1983) is a caveman epic which is accurately set before “story” was invented. In other words, it’s tedious and pointless.
The following are some remarks I delivered over the pulpit today in Sacrament Meeting.
***
There are many myths about marriage nowadays. Common ones are that it is for convenience, that it is only for the good times, and that a lifelong marriage is old-fashioned, restrictive and boring. We who are committed to the restored gospel know intellectually that those are false and destructive characterizations of marriage, though we have probably absorbed unconsciously some of those myths, and must consciously counter them in our lives.
One that is so common that some of us don’t even realize we’ve absorbed it, or sometimes don’t even realize that it’s a myth, is what I called the “Happily Ever After” myth. This comes in two forms, one or both of which may be present.
In one form, people expect that all the trial and hardships come in getting to the altar, and that everything should be smooth sailing thereafter. When people who live by this myth then encounter the interpersonal problems which will definitely come after marriage, they conclude immediately that they obviously didn’t marry the right person, and should divorce and try again. This myth concentrates on all of the effort to marriage and fails to warn people of the effort in marriage.
The other Happily Ever After myth, and the one I hope to counter today, is that all the excitement, romance, and passion in a relationship only leads up to the altar, and that the interesting story is effectively over at that point. Maybe the color and excitement will last for one or two years of newlywed life, but eventually it will leach out into a comfortable but drab companionship of habit.
I want to tell especially you newlyweds and soon-to-be newlyweds that this is as false as any other myth; or if it is true, it is only as true as spouses believe it to be true and act as if it is true. For them, it becomes true, but it doesn’t need to be.
The covenant of marriage, as solemnized in the Lord’s holy temple, is the highest ordinance of mortality that most of us will ever experience. It contains within it the greatest promises of blessings, increase, and joy. To think that life after a marriage is solemnized will be less rewarding than before betrays a severe misunderstanding of the Lord’s method and reasons for blessing us with this new and everlasting covenant.
The problem is that, according to both the fairy tales we were told as bedtime stories and the fairy tales that come out of Hollywood, love is an involuntary thing. It just happens. It strikes, like an arrow. You can’t help “falling in love.” Unfortunately, whatever you fall into, you can fall out of. These myths mistake passion and infatuation, which can be supports or companions to love, for love itself. It’s like mistaking salt for the flavor of the food.
So I want to address the newlyweds, the almost-weds, and those who have perhaps bought too heavily into the Happily Ever After myth, with six points on how to build a strong, loving celestial marriage that isn’t reliant on things you fall into and out of. In doing so, I will largely address the men. For one reason, I am one. I know the errors I have committed in the past and continue to commit in the present, so I speak from my own behavior and experience. For another, I want to avoid the appearance of giving a self-serving lecture to my own wife, which is neither warranted nor classy. Sisters, please feel free to listen in and find what wisdom you can for yourselves.
#1: Passion and infatuation are not the same as love. They can be present in love or help support its development, but they aren’t it. Love isn’t an unbidden emotion; it is an attitude, and a conscious decision. Marriage isn’t about passion masquerading as love; it is about commitment, which is the essence of love. This is one of those things which you can hear all your life and never grasp, just like other profound but simple statements like “God is love” or “the glory of God is intelligence.” But it bears repeating. The point of marriage isn’t passion; the point is commitment. Ironically, passion is more likely to continue and thrive in an environment of solid commitment than in one in which passion is the end-all be-all.
#2: Men, never attempt to “pull rank” with the Priesthood. That’s not what it’s for. Doctrine & Covenants 121:41-42 applies as much to marriage as to anything else:
No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned;
By kindness, and pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy, and without guile.
The alternative to this is found a few verses earlier in verse 37:
When we undertake to cover our sins, or to gratify our pride, our vain ambition, or to exercise control or dominion or compulsion upon the souls of the children of men, in any degree of unrighteousness, behold, the heavens withdraw themselves; the Spirit of the Lord is grieved; and when it is withdrawn, Amen to the priesthood or authority of that man.
The Apostle Paul taught this same concept in verses which are widely misunderstood. In Ephesians 5:23, he writes:
For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.
You may think you know what this means, but you are probably mistaken. If Paul had meant that the man is the chief ruler of the wife, the word translated here as “head” would have been arche, a Greek word which means “general” or “chief.” (That Greek word is the root of such English words as archangel or archenemy.)
But the Greek word which is translated “head” is kephale, which we see in English words such as “encephalogram.” Specifically, it means “forehead.” It was the term for the leading edge which bears the brunt of an opposing force. In an army, the arche was the general, safe well behind lines while he directed the armies beneath him. The kephale was the front line, meeting the enemy before the rest of the army.
That is clarified in Ephesians 5:25:
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it.
That sounds to me like the best possible description of the role of the husband and Priesthood holder in a marriage and family.
#3: She is not stuck with you. She may be married to you, she may be sealed to you, but she is not stuck with you if you are not worthy of her. Even if she puts up with you for all your long life together, do you think the Lord will reward her with life in the Celestial Kingdom together with someone that she has to put up with? Or will the Lord reward her faithfulness to your marriage vows by releasing her from those vows?
Continue to court her. She first agreed to marry you because she saw the version of yourself that you put forward to impress her – not a dishonest version of you, but the best version of you. Does she deserve any less than that now? Be that best version of yourself for her sake, and reassure her every day that she made the right decision in accepting your proposal. Just as your testimony needs to be strengthened constantly to keep it from withering, your marriage will only be eternal if you make it your priority eternally. Ask yourself frequently: “Why would anyone want to be married to me?” And be honest with yourself in your answer.
#4: Be a righteous and worthy Priesthood holder. If you are in a marriage, as many of us are, in which your wife easily outdistances you in all spiritual things, you need the strength and blessings which come from the righteous execution of your Priesthood duties just to keep her in sight. If you are in a marriage in which your wife struggles with spiritual things, then your home needs the blessings and spirit which will naturally come as a result of your righteous efforts. You should live righteously not in an effort to scold or shame your spouse who struggles, but because your marriage needs something which only you are able to provide. Do it for both of you.
#5: A house divided against itself cannot stand. It is to be expected that there are disagreements in marriage. You are both very different individuals, you are both imperfect, and sometimes there is more than one right answer. But you are also commanded to be one. Among other things, this means that what happens between husbands and wives stays between husbands and wives. Never badmouth your spouse to others, whether or not she can hear. Keep arguments private; nothing can be gained from airing your grievances to friends and family, and the argument has suddenly become bigger in scope and influence. The only exceptions are where issues of personal safety, illegal actions, or significant unrighteousness are involved, and even then you should only consult with those people who have a civil or religious responsibility to help. Disagreements between husband and wife are an intimate part of marriage, and should be treated with the same privacy and discretion as all other parts of marital intimacy.
#6: Sacrifice. Some have defined sacrifice as “giving up something good for something better,” but that definition denies just how hard sacrifice can be. I like this one better: Sacrifice is giving up something you want now, for something which will be of greater value later. It requires foresight, objectivity, perspective, and self-control.
The most important relationship you will have on earth is with your spouse. I will say it again: The most important relationship you will have on earth is with your spouse. She is more important than your parents, your siblings, your children, your friends and buddies, your boss or co-workers, or anyone else you can name. I said earlier that marriage was a commitment, but it is more than that: It is the commitment.
Ask yourself, “What wouldn’t I give up for her?” There is only one right answer: the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. If you have any other answer, you have answered the question wrong. The most important relationship in your life, by definition, cannot play second fiddle to anything else in this world, and if you treat your marriage as something of lesser value, you will find yourself wondering why it isn’t as fulfilling as you thought it would be.
Now. After sacrament meeting, please don’t ask my wife how good I am at walking the walk of my six points. I am still battling the natural man in all my doings. But I least am dimly aware of how I should be, and I crawl slowly toward that future in which I can exemplify what I teach, instead of simply pointing to something far in front of me.
That said, I don’t envy you newlyweds. The first five years are the toughest years of your marriage life, as you bump rough corners off each other and learn what to prioritize and what to jettison when your lives become your life together. The next toughest years are the second five years. The next toughest are the third five years. Look forward to them.
I also don’t envy you because the relationship I have forged with my wife is far greater than it was, even in those rose-colored days right after the wedding. In many ways, it’s better even than I imagined that it could be. I don’t know of any happiness greater than being married to your best friend, and with years of commitment that best friendship just keeps getting better.
As promised (or vaguely hinted at), here is the PDF version of the presentation on the history of B-movies I gave yesterday at LTUE. I want you that this is the point form accompaniment to the lecture, and may seem fragmentary without my lecture notes, which are fragments themselves, more mnemonic devices than a full essay. But you at least see what the LTUE attendees saw, minus my scintillating commentary.
If you’re in the Utah area, you’re probably familiar with Life, the Universe and Everything (LTUE), the annual SF/fantasy symposium held at BYU. It runs this Thursday through Saturday, and I’ll be there on Friday for a couple of panels. (Yup — they’re running five or six panels that were my suggestion, but I only got on the ticket for two.) One of them, on the history of the B-movie, had no one else volunteer to be a panelist, so it’s changed from a panel to a presentation, complete with Powerpoint.
For those of you unable to attend, you’ll have to content yourself with this week’s review of Watch Me When I Kill (1977), a movie in which (subversively) no one watches when the killer kills.
I understand that you probably don’t speak Swedish. Neither do I. All you need to know is that unseen terrorists attack an Idol-ish show on Swedish TV, and there’s only one man who can set things right.
This is what I get for not blogging more promptly. Had I written on Saturday, I could have told you about the Boy Scout “Klondike” winter camp that I went on with my sons Friday night. But I put that off until Sunday.
And then Sunday, my daughter Sariah got hit by a car.
Relax, she’s fine. Let me tell the story, okay?
According to eyewitnesses, of which I was not one, she came out of the church and looked both ways before crossing the street to where I had parked to see if her little sister Emma had already come out to the car. Then she waited patiently to come back to the church side of the street, but somehow missed the Jeep coming toward her.
Fortunately, the Jeep was going very slowly. She collided with its bumper and was thrown to the pavement, but didn’t hit her head. A member of our ward who is also one of the local cops ran out and took charge, checking her eyes and mouth and getting her covered and identifying witnesses until the police in uniform showed up, and the ambulance. Michele rode the ambulance with her to the hospital, and I followed after with the other kids.
They checked her out and found no head or neck injuries. X-rays showed no break in either the right thigh or the right elbow, the two spots that hurt. They put some band-aids on the scuffs on her right hand, gave her some Motrin, and sent her home; she walked out of the ER limping a bit.
And that was that. When I left this morning, she was debating even telling the other kids at school, because who would believe her? Her only real bruise is high enough on her thigh that she couldn’t show it off without dropping trou.
I think I’m going to make her a T-shirt on CafePress: “I Got Hit By a Car, and All I Got Was This Stupid T-Shirt.”
Oh, and the explanation for the title? Last February, Alex broke his ankle. The February before, I had a stroke. We had been jokingly wondering what calamity would come along to soak up our tax return this year. This didn’t really qualify, though; $100 ER copay, which will be covered by the driver’s insurance. You’ll have to try harder than that, February! (He said, courting disaster.)
