If I’m not mistaken, at least some of the movie theaters in my area offer discount ticket prices on Tuesdays. If that’s true, today — Tuesday — would be a remarkably good day to go see Six Days in August, or to go to see it a second time, or to watch it a third time, or to treat your children to it (you can buy tickets for them, or for friends or cousins, at a distance), or to take others to see it. But, of course, absolutely any day is a good day for Six Days in August.
I’ve heard from two or three people now who tell me that they’ve gone to see the film a second time, and that they’ve liked it even better on a repeat viewing. I find that interesting because, curiously, that’s been my experience, as well. I saw the whole thing several times while it was still going through post-production and while adjustments were still being made. And I’ve seen the final version, with score, three times now. I’ve liked it better with each viewing. That surprises me just a bit, but I’m grateful for it.
Incidentally, I mentioned here last week that four past or present General Authorities of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had attended the premiere of Six Days in August on Wednesday, 9 October: President Dallin H. Oaks of the Church’s First Presidency, Elder Gary E. Stevenson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Elder Kevin W. Pearson of the Seventy (who also serves as the president of the Church’s Utah Area), and Elder Robert C. Gay, an emeritus member of the Presidency of the Seventy. I was surprised to learn, just the other day, that a fifth General Authority was there, as well: Elder S. Mark Palmer, a current member of the presidency of the Seventy, attended with his daughter Whitney, who played Phebe Rigdon in the film. I didn’t see him there — the auditorium was full pretty much to capacity, with something between 500 or 550 in attendance, such that we had to turn down several requests for additional tickets — and I hadn’t made the connection between Whitney Palmer and Elder Palmer (who, by the way, is a native of the blessed land of New Zealand).
I enjoyed Studio Five‘s roughly five-minute interview video with Ted Bushman (Wilford Woodruff) and Jenessa Sheffield (Vilate Kimball). Perhaps you will, too: “See the Film About The Succession Crisis of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints”
My wife and I went out to dinner with a group of friends last night, and then on to a performance of The Magician’s Elephant at the Hale Centre Theatre in Sandy. It’s curious play, a musical. I enjoyed it, although I can imagine that some didn’t. I really like getting together with neighbors and former neighbors in this fashion. It’s good to catch up over dinner, and the plays are always icing on the cake.
Recent comments here and elsewhere about the testimonies recorded from the witnesses of the Book of Mormon have sought to discredit them as mere “ghost stories” about “magically” appearing and disappearing golden plates. Such tales, I think we’re supposed to conclude, are more suited to the campfire than to a courtroom or to serious historical analysis. They’re merely “miracle stories,” of an ordinary kind that is common to religious (or superstitious) people.
But this is to grievously misrepresent the witness testimonies, and to reduce them to an agenda-driven caricature.
Consider, for example, the accounts given by the Eight Witnesses. There is nothing in them about an angel or about anything supernatural, much less about a “ghost.” There is nothing supernatural about the plates, which figure in the various accounts given by the Eight as a simple and quite mundane material object, noticeably heavy, that they “hefted” and “handled” and closely examined, and of which they “turned” the “leaves.” This isn’t a fairy tale or a mere “miracle story.” And we aren’t told how the plates arrived nor how they exited. Nothing is said on that topic. Simply that the plates were there, that they were literally visible, that they were substantial, and that they were tangible.
The same can be said about the related, unofficial, but well documented experiences of Lucy Mack Smith and Mary Musselman Whitmer and William Smith and Katherine Smith Salisbury and Josiah Stowell and Emma Smith and one other that I’m not yet at liberty to share. No ghosts. No angels. Nothing mystical or supernatural. Quite matter of fact. It’s true that Mary Whitmer’s remarkable account involves an elderly-seeming man showing her the plates and allowing her to handle them, but there is nothing overtly angelic or ghostly or supernatural about him. (See Royal Skousen, “Another Account of Mary Whitmer’s Viewing of the Golden Plates.” And see the depiction of Mary Whitmer’s encounter with the Book of Mormon plates in Undaunted: Witnesses of the Book of Mormon.)
This isn’t really very much like discerning the face of the Virgin Mary on a flour tortilla or seeing Jesus in a bowl of porridge. (For the record, I do take Catholic accounts such as those of the visions of Lourdes and of Guadalupe seriously, and I’m still trying to form my final thoughts on them. I don’t rule them out in advance, on the basis of ideology or presuppositions; I think that it would be intellectually dishonest to do so, and I’m quite willing to entertain the thought that the Lord is working in many ways, even beyond his authorized, restored Church. But my confidence in the accounts of the Book of Mormon witnesses doesn’t depend upon what I may decide about, say, Marian apparitions.)
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