Comments on: People of Paradox Symposium

By: An observer

An observer — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 01:47:35 +0000

I have been waiting for this symposium and hoping it would come. Times and Seasons, IMO, is at its very best when its several thoughtful bloggers and guests break free from bite-sized posts and really get into a good analysis (what ever happened to 12 Questions? I loved that). Maybe that just means I don’t like blogs, and tend to like blogs when they don’t act like blogs.

The Rough Stone Rolling Symposium was terrific, and this is already shaping up to be very interesting. To be sure, Givens’ book is on par with the few recent texts (RSR, Prince’s McKay bio) that warrant extended, serious consideration on T&S because of their groundbreaking–or shattering–analysis. Thanks to T&S from a usuallly silent reader for arranging this symposium–I’d love to see more like this. And many thanks to Professor Givens for interrupting his admirable productivity to participate here.

Also, I love Wilfried’s posts.

By: Dave

Dave — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 21:50:33 +0000

Yeah, one of the first things I noted about the book itself was that the font was smaller than usual for a book. Once I got reading it didn’t really bother me, though.

By: East Coast

East Coast — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 20:18:52 +0000

I’ve been enjoying your symposium so far (thanks for the invitation…maybe I’ll even read the book!).

I went to Amazon to look at the book’s table of contents and found two reviews…one four star and someone gave it one star because they couldn’t read the type (which looks fine to me from the sample pages) and from your comments here it probably deserves more than 2.5 stars. I haven’t read the book and can’t review it but perhaps some of you who have read it could review it.

By: BHodges

BHodges — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 18:12:36 +0000

I thought that comment was excellent, indeed.

By: Adam Greenwood

Adam Greenwood — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 13:30:56 +0000

In Kramer’s defense, it is pretty funny.

By: Kaimi Wenger

Kaimi Wenger — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 02:30:48 +0000

That’s a very sad commentary on the quality of our comments, Brad.

By: Brad Kramer

Brad Kramer — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 02:11:42 +0000

That might be the funniest comment I’ve read on this site, Kaimi.

By: Kaimi Wenger

Kaimi Wenger — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 00:39:24 +0000

Well, I for one really hope that at least one of the reviews highlights what was, for me, one of the exciting points of the book: Reading the dance chapter and having a sudden realization, and saying to myself,

“A-ha! That’s where it all came from. The whole riff in _The Mormons_ sounded a little too good to be truly an extemporaneous rambling. And it wasn’t really just off-the-cuff after all. Poor Helen Whitney ran into a scholar with a book in page proofs, asked an innocuous question, and inadvertently got half a chapter dropped onto her. That explains the mystery.”

Old Man Givens used glowing paint to disguise himself as the ghost to scare away tourists, so that he could buy the theme park for himself. And no one knew of the crude oil underneath the old roller coaster. He would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for you meddling kids.