Journey to the belly of the beast

Post by **_Blixa** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 1:30 am

I spent the day in the COB. My own version of the Chapel Perilous or one of those allegorical hellholes Britomart must navigate in The Faerie Queen. Fortunately I had my own Virgil to guide me through the lower circles of hell where the damned tear at each other's limbs and gnash their teeth in fury while Satan relentlessly chews Hitler, Judas and Brigham Young in his maw.

Truthfully, it wasn't that bad. At worst, everyone was overly friendly---just this side of scary friendly. And while "restricted access" is not what any scholar desires to see over and over in a catelog, I was left on my own to pretty much do my own thing.

I did see this one wizened ghoulish evil sorcerer type, though. I'll leave you to guess which GA it was...

_Yoda · Post by **_Yoda** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 2:09 am

Blixa wrote:I did see this one wizened ghoulish evil sorcerer type, though. I'll leave you to guess which GA it was...

Palpatine---err..Packer?

Post by **_Blixa** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 2:33 am

No...balder. With a patended "evil" grin.

Post by **_The Nehor** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 3:58 am

The COB is that bad for you? Why go?

Post by **_Blixa** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 3:48 pm

Nehor, Nehor, Nehor. I know you understand "metaphor" and "humor."

But, that said, yes in a sense the COB does represent all that is evil to me. However the archives are there and I needed a peek. Or two.

And I had a the perfect person to play Virgil to my Dante.

And as it turned out it was not bad at all (except that my eyes were nearly burned out of their sockets by a glimpse of...Dallin Oakes). I even met Ardis Parshall who some here may remember from that petty and utterly disgusting online contrempts about her (minor) criticism of the FAIR conference that eruped on the MAD boards. It provided, once again, a look at the depths to which the self-righteous will sink in their attempt to...what really? Not defend "the church" however defined. And certainly not act in loving and christ-like manner. It was a vile exhibition and, calling rcrockett, most of it was carried out by anonymous posters!!!

Anyway, I'm sure Ardis and I are quite distant in our perspectives on Mormon history. Nontheless she was gracious and welcoming to me and I hope to be able to talk with her at length some time. I also interacted with archival employees who struck me as genuinely kindly.

All in all, win/win. I learned to adjust my assumptions a bit. Maybe I'll learn to adjust them some more, too.

Post by **_Runtu** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 3:56 pm

I used to go down there on my lunch hour when I worked at the COB. Very nice people down there in the archives/library. Back then, Joann Bitton (Davis's wife) was the receptionist/gatekeeper in the library. I really like her a lot. As for people being overly nice, that's pretty much what we were told to be when dealing with the public. We were representatives of the church, yada yada. People of varying beliefs work at the COB. Most people treat it like a job, not a calling, and I have met many people there who really didn't believe at all in the church but enjoyed their jobs.

One book I read down there was a little volume called (If I recall correctly) "Book of Mormon Source Book." It had two columns. On the left, passages from the Book of Mormon, and on the right, possible sources. Fascinating stuff.\

But people there aren't bad at all. You'd probably like my old boss there.

Post by **_Dr. Shades** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 4:16 pm

Blixa wrote:I even met Ardis Parshall who some here may remember from that petty and utterly disgusting online contrempts about her (minor) criticism of the FAIR conference that eruped on the MAD boards. It provided, once again, a look at the depths to which the self-righteous will sink in their attempt to...what really? Not defend "the church" however defined. And certainly not act in loving and christ-like manner. It was a vile exhibition and, calling rcrockett, most of it was carried out by anonymous posters!!!

Hmm, interesting. To be honest, I agreed with the MAaDites about the Ardis Parshall incident. It seemed like an extreme over-reaction on her part.

Didn't you think she was blowing things WAY out of proportion?

Post by **_Blixa** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 4:48 pm

No I don't. I think she made a very minor joke with a bit of a barb in it. But since the barb was intended for juliann, well, the response became atomic.

Contrast that with the MAD smear of her as bitter anti-mormon (the biggest "as if" ever) and attendant jokes about her appearance, and well...no contest.

Post by **_moksha** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 7:43 pm

Blixa wrote:I even met Ardis Parshall who some here may remember from that petty and utterly disgusting online contrempts about her (minor) criticism of the FAIR conference that erupted on the MAD boards. It provided, once again, a look at the depths to which the self-righteous will sink in their attempt to...what really? Not defend "the church" however defined. And certainly not act in loving and Christ-like manner.

Did she not disrupt the sacredness by which the crew of the Expo-center arranged the seating? This seating pattern requires strict obedience to prevent an outbreak of anarchic apostasy, or at least it seems so till you get enough benzodiazepines in your system.

What materials were marked with restricted access?

Post by **_Blixa** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 10:12 pm

moksha wrote:What materials were marked with restricted access?

Some interesting items in the "MMM collection." It's not formally called that, though I think I think at one time it was. Back when you could look through the actual documents in cardboard boxes.

On the whole it was fascinating to get a sense of what the holdings are like in the archives. I plan to return after this week and poke around a whole lot more. It was not an off-putting place at all, but then I had a guide to put me at ease ; ).

(to be fair, I don't really know what "restricted access" means in each case since I was only doing an initial survey of the archives and not looking at specific items yet. It could mean that they don't have it all transfered to microfilm yet thus they're being careful with fragile materials, or it could be things that for whatever reason they want to control access to. Also I was told that different archvists understand the concept differently, too, so how restricted something really is in practice could also vary).