Autobiography

☙ 'I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.' ❧

― E. B. White

I'm 𝖎𝖔𝖘𝖊𝖕𝖍𝖛𝖘 𝖇𝖎𝖇𝖑𝖎𝖔𝖙𝖍𝖊𝖈𝖆𝖗𝖎𝖛𝖘. According to my basic genealogical research, at ten generations back (circa 1650-1750 CE), ~46% of my ancestors were English (born in England and the English American colonies), ~44% were Scandinavian (born within the borders of modern Norway, Sweden, and Denmark), ~8% were Celtic (born within the borders of modern Scotland and Ireland), and ~2% were Germanic (born within the borders of modern Germany, Switzerland, and the Netherlands).

My Ancestors

I was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA when the atmospheric CO² level was 340 ppm (1980) (it's now at 420 ppm). I had a type of craniosynostosis - probably scaphocephaly - which means my cranial sutures fused prematurely. At the time of my birth, I had two living great-grandparents and three living grandparents. My parents were and are middle-class faithful members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (often called the 'Mormon' or 'LDS' Church). In time, two sisters and two brothers - Nathan, Laurisa, MaryLayne, and Jordan - came after me and we were raised in a somewhat strict and conservative version of the LDS faith. More about that below. 

1987

In June, 1989, our family moved to South Jordan - at the time a small, rural community in the south-west part of the Salt Lake Valley in the shadow of the Oquirrh Mountains. For many reasons, conflict erupted in our home a few years later which led to me being homeless for most of 1999 and planning suicide. It has taken me a long time to shed the trauma and negative habits that were imprinted on me or that I adopted during those few years. My siblings were also greatly affected but I won't speak to their experiences. As adults, we have moved in and out of each other's lives but I'm very glad to still have relationships with them.

Siblings in Disneyland | Apr 1996

Siblings in SLC | Dec 2022

☙ 'We have each other and for all I know that's what hope is.' ❧

― James Goldman, The Lion in Winter 

Amy Spitzer and I had known each other since the early 1990s when she mentored Laurisa's Girl Scout troop. She lived in the other side of South Jordan and we attended different schools. We saw each other occasionally through the years but we never spoke. Everything changed one day in June, 1998 when I happened to enter her workplace with friends and a couple days later she called to ask me out. On our first date, Amy and I were justifiably ejected from the LDS Church History Museum in Salt Lake City for touching an exhibit and playing tag. Exactly one year after that first date, I asked her to marry me during a climb on a rock formation outside Moab, Utah and our wedding was held in October, 1999 in the beautiful back garden of my Burdette grandparents' home in Salt Lake City. 

Our first couple years together were wild and passionate but also difficult, due mostly to my selfishness and insecurities. When she left me in April, 2000, I immediately knew that I needed to change who I was because I didn't want to live my life without her. Her justified assertion of independence and self-worth initiated a process which eventually resulted in our reunion on better terms. Since then, our love and commitment has steadily grown. She's my best friend and I appreciate her love, wisdom, hard work, and sense of fun. In our decades together, she has has literally made my dreams come true (more about that later). Amy carried, birthed, and raised our five wonderful children at great cost to herself. Now ages 13-23, our kids frequently amaze me with their intelligence, vitality, and love. Our family is the most important part of my life.

Spring 1999

Oct 2012

Nov 2023

From October, 1999 to May, 2003, as we began to have children, we lived in my Anderson grandparents' one-bedroom basement apartment in the Sugarhouse neighborhood of Salt Lake City. We next lived in my parent's basement in South Jordan from May, 2003 to late 2004. Since then, our family has lived in the Utah part of beautiful Cache Valley, a traditional homeland of the Northwestern Shoshone (nwbshoshone.com). Using educational savings from my grandparents, we lived in married student housing until the spring of 2009, when we bought our first brick and mortar home, built in 1942. We moved into our current house, built in 1938, in December, 2019 and renewed our wedding vows in our back garden there on the 22nd anniversary of our first date in June, 2020. We love our house and may live there for the rest of our lives. Diana, our oldest, was married to Jordan in our back garden in June, 2022.

☙ “The mind once enlightened cannot again become dark.” ❧

― Thomas Paine, letter

I dropped out of high school in March, 1999, at the end of my senior year. A couple years later, Amy convinced me to go back to school to better myself and provide for our growing family. I went on to earn my GED in 2001, an Associate of Science degree in general studies from Salt Lake Community College in 2004 (including studying American history under Dr. John McCormick and a research paper on the history of libraries), a Bachelor of Arts degree cum laude in history with a minor in British & Commonwealth Studies from Utah State University in 2007 (including two years studying Latin, studying medieval Europe and the English Reformation under Dr. Norman L. Jones, and a senior capstone research paper on the how the death of Irish politician Michael Collins was portrayed in Dublin's newspapers), and a Master of Science degree in library science with an emphasis in rural and small libraries from Clarion University of Pennsylvania in 2009 (including studying rural librarianship under Dr. Bernard Vavrek and a research paper on the history of attempts to form a county-wide library in Cache County, Utah). I'm forever grateful that Amy encouraged and supported me through my schooling and that SLCC gave me a second chance. During this time, Amy also graduated with an AS in general studies from SLCC, a BS in sociology from USU, and an MS in educational psychology-school counselling from USU. She's an exceptional counsellor at Logan High School and currently finishing her doctorate degree in educational leadership from Capella University: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amy-anderson-61a27780/.

Clarion MSLS Grad | Dec 2009

☙ 'He read whenever he could as he walked to and from his work.' ❧

― Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure

In my adult life I have worked as a shelver and circulation clerk at four branches of the Salt Lake County Library System (Dec 1999-Dec 2004), a shelver at the Sugarhouse location of Barnes & Noble (Jan 2001-Aug 2002), a clerk at the Bridgerland Applied Technology College book store (Mar 2005-Jan 2008), and since June, 2008 I have worked at the Logan Library, a medium-sized public library in Cache Valley. I was first a circulation clerk, then the associate librarian for interlibrary loan, then the adult nonfiction and reference librarian, then the head of adult nonfiction and reference services, and am now the assistant director & adult nonfiction librarian. My professional specialities include maintaining adult non-fiction collections (the Dewey classes, reference, local history, and educational video), customer service, research, working with Friends groups, and defending intellectual freedom. I'm proud to be a member of this democratic, educational, and service-oriented profession. I'm an active member of the Utah Library Association and the Cache Valley Library Association, which I helped establish a decade ago. In January, 2024, I was presented with CVLA's annual Library Hero Award.

Mar 2012

☙ 'Think where man’s glory most begins and ends, And say my glory was I had such friends.' ❧

― W.B. Yeats, The Municipal Gallery Revisited

I am grateful to have some great friends. Amy, Craig, and Shawn have been by my side for many years through good times and bad. Steve, Jenni, Josh, and Devan have been my friends since childhood and we still keep in touch (and meet up occasionally). I've had fun and adventures with my friends, but it's the conversations that are most meaningful to me, deepening our relationships and giving me strength.

Josh, Me, Briody, Devan, Craig
Sep 1998

Emily, Devan, Me, Amy, Craig, Steve, Larae, Jenni
Sep 2021

Shawn & Me
Dec 2021

☙ 'What task could be more agreeable than to tell of the benefits conferred on us by our ancestors, so that you may get to know the achievements of those from whom you have received both the basis of your beliefs, and the inspiration to conduct your life properly?' ❧

― William of Malmesbury

I have loved history, especially mediæval English history, since my youth. History (including genealogy or family history) is important to the LDS Church so it was all around me as I grew up. Seeing Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves at a drive-in theatre with my dad in the summer of 1991 was a huge turning point. I wrote a history of the British monarchy in the fifth grade (which is where I first learned about the battle of Hastings) and in the sixth grade I wrote a play about the murder of Thomas Becket and directed a short film about the wives of Henry VIII starring my friend Craig, as well as other friends and family. I spent many wonderful hours at the public library browsing history books. My friend Steve and I once found a National Geographic map of Medieval England for sale at the library and it became an important source for me. Most of my favourite books and films are historical in nature and I have found that I naturally think in timelines. Through my connection to Utah State University, I have had the great opportunity to meet several professional historians, including Norman L. Jones, D. Michael Quinn, Richard L. Bushman, John McCormick, Jared Farmer, Philip Barlow, and Richard E. Turley. Since becoming my library's local history librarian, I have joined the Cache Valley Historical Society. Sometimes I think about going back to school for a graduate degree in English history.

☙ 'Love of England is very nearly the strongest emotion that I possess.' ❧

― Bertrand Russell, Autobiography

I love England. It's hard to describe my feelings for England and this paragraph won't do it justice. I think about England every day. I often mourn the fact that I was not born there, or that I don't live there now. I see the world through an England lens - anything is made more interesting to me if I can find a connection between it and England. People are often intrigued or confused by my reality. Some of my fellow Americans are even offended. But many of my ancestors came to the United States from England, emigrating in two waves in the 1600s and 1800s, so England is in my DNA. I remember coming out as an Anglophile (England-lover) at the height of Britpop in the mid-1990s. Britishness was all around us at that time, from Wonderwall on the radio and Blackadder on public television to Jane Austen in cinemas and Princess Diana on magazine covers. My love for all things England has grown exponentially since then. I enjoy reading The Guardian, the work of Thomas Hardy, and medieval English history; listening to Britpop, the BBC World Service, and the work of Ralph Vaughan Williams; watching Sky News, the work of Laurence Olivier, and adaptations of Brit lit; supporting Dorchester Town FC, the Three Lions, and the Lionesses; and observing Anglican worship, Westminster politics, and UK-Ireland relations. Perhaps surprisingly, I'm not a fan of tea, cricket, Doctor Who, or the monarchy. I'm a financial supporter of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, English Heritage, and The National Trust.

Britpop in the US | Dec 1996

In October, 2016, Amy and I took our kids to visit England for the first time. Since this was also our first time travelling outside of the US, it was stressful but also completely wonderful. We were able to stand on the battlefield of Hastings on its 950th anniversary and it was a powerful experience for me. Over the course of nine days, we also visited Canterbury (briefly), St Margaret's-at-Cliffe, the London LDS Temple, Laurence Olivier's birthplace in Dorking, Stonehenge, the village of Anderson, Thomas Hardy sites around Dorchester (his birthplace cottage, his adult home: Max Gate, the resting place of his heart in St Michael's, Stinsford), the Cerne Giant, Glastonbury Tor, Wales (briefly), Shrewsbury Abbey (locus of the Cadfael Chronicles), Ruthwell Kirk (just over the Scottish border), Sycamore Gap/Hadrian's Wall, Bede sites around Durham (his church: St Paul's in Jarrow and his tomb at Durham Cathedral), Nottingham (searching for the place my great-grandfather stayed in 1902), Kibworth (featured in The Story of England by Michael Wood), London (Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, the London Eye, the British Museum), and the Abbey Road zebra crossing! We brought home 28 books in our luggage!

Battle Abbey, England | 14 Oct 2016

In June, 2023, Amy and I visited England again as part of a tour with 23 others organised by the Utah State University Alumni Association and led by my favourite USU history professor, Dr. Norm Jones! He is an expert on Tudor England so our tour focused on historical sites related to Queen Elizabeth I. The first day of the tour marked 25 years since mine and Amy's first date! Over the course of eight days, our tour group visited Temple Church and Middle Temple Hall (the area was the headquarters of the Knights Templar before becoming the centre of legal training in England), Greenwich (including the site of the palace where Elizabeth I was born, the old naval academy, the Chapel of St Peter and St Paul, the Naval History Museum, the Park, and the place where I finally touched the River Thames), the Tower of London (where Elizabeth was held prisoner for a time, and St John's chapel in the White Tower), Westminster Abbey (where Elizabeth is buried), Windsor Castle (where Elizabeth quarantined to avoid plague), Hampton Court Palace (where Elizabeth lived for a time, some of that under house arrest), Richmond (the gatehouse of Richmond Palace where Elizabeth died, the pub from Ted Lasso, and Richmond Green), St Paul's Cathedral for evensong with the mayors of the London boroughs, a performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream at Shakespeare's Globe, Hatfield House (where Elizabeth lived for a time), Ingatestone Hall (a Tudor house still in the same family), Cambridge (walking tour of the city and university, including a stroll along the Backs), Lyveden New Bield (an unfinished Tudor period stone manor house), Stratford-Upon-Avon (including a performance of As You Like It at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, visits to Shakespeare's birthplace and Ann Hathaway's cottage, and touching the River Avon), Broughton Castle (a large manor house with a large Tudor period hall), Oxford (visits to Christ Church College, the Bodleian Library, Jesus College and its Elizabethan charters, the Seventeenth Century Fellows’ Library, the College Hall, a punt on the River Cherwell), along with many wonderful meals, conversations, and book store visits. We brought home 40 books in our luggage!

Lyveden New Bield, England | Jun 2023

☙ 'I'm a big fan of the local library. I just read a book, but that's another story.' ❧

― British Sea Power, Who's In Control?

I have loved books, libraries, and bookstores for as long as I can remember. As a child, my parents read to me and encouraged me to read. I have happy memories of visiting the Sprague Library in Salt Lake City with my mom (I picked out 'Saint George and the Dragon' by Hodges & Hyman) and with my grandma Anderson (I, with her help, asked the librarian about the origin of Robin Hood tales and the resulting answer was the first time I learned of Piers Ploughman). I once rode my bike to and from the old South Jordan library with my friend Steve (5 miles each way - quite a distance for my young self) and I later enjoyed spending time in the old Salt Lake City Library, the old West Jordan library, and the new (at the time) Bingham Creek library. Thankfully, my parents were willing to transport me to and from these temples of learning. I later discovered the wonders of Barnes & Noble and Sam Weller's. Libraries and bookstores were places I enjoying going to learn, explore, and hang out but later became havens that may have saved me.

Today I am a slow but usually thorough reader and I finish about 25 books per year- roughly 2/3 nonfiction and 1/3 fiction. I still frequently purchase books (I can often be found haunting any place with used books for sale) and we have 2900+ in our personal library (most are catalogued at LibraryThing). I collect interesting Penguin Classics (I have 135+), editions of the 11 books authored by my great-grandfather, Nephi Anderson (I have 90+, including five signed copies), books about Robin Hood (I have 65+), and editions of my favourite novel, Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy (I have 25+). We have 17 books published before 1900, including two published before 1800. We have 46 books which are signed by the author. Surprisingly, perhaps because books have been an important medium for information that has drastically altered my thinking as an adult, my mom once told someone that I read 'too much'!

☙ 'Where are your books? - that light bequeathed, To beings else forlorn and blind! Up! up! and drink the spirit breathed, From dead men to their kind.' ❧

― William Wordsworth, Expostulation & Reply

Follow/friend me on Litsy, BookWyrm, and Goodreads for my reading updates and favourite passages.

My ten favourite writers, in no particular order, are:

· Simon Schama

· Paul Kingsnorth

· Robert Macfarlane

· William Butler Yeats

· Thomas Hardy

· George Orwell

· Peter Ackroyd

· Bertrand Russell

· Ray Bradbury

· William Shakespeare

The asterisk numbers below indicate how many times I have read each book.

My ten favourite books are:

· Great Tales from English History Volume 1: The Truth About King Arthur, Lady Godiva, Richard the Lionheart, and More by Robert Lacey (2004) *3

· Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy (1891) *2

· Selected Poems and Four Plays by William Butler Yeats, edited by M.L. Rosenthal (1996) *1

· Ecclesiastical History of the English People (Penguin Classics) by Bede, translated by Leo Sherley-Price (c. 731) *4

· The Wild Places by Robert Macfarlane (2007) *1

· Essays (Penguin Modern Classics) by George Orwell, edited by Bernard Crick (1941) *1

· Here by Richard McGuire (2014) *1

· Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by unknown (c. 1400) *2

· The Wake by Paul Kingsnorth (2014) *2

· In Search of England: Journeys Into the English Past by Michael Wood (1999) *1

Ten honourable mentions:

· Unforgettable Fire: Past, Present, and Future - the Definitive Biography of U2 by Eamon Dunphy (1987) *2

· The Big Fellow: Michael Collins & the Irish Revolution by Frank O'Connor (1937) *1

· The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet (1989) *2

· Unquiet by Linn Ullmann (2019) *1

· Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson (1945) *1

· Landscape and Memory by Simon Schama (1995) *1

· Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (1953) *1

· Albion: The Origins of the English Imagination by Peter Ackroyd (2002) *1

· Thomas Hardy: A Biography Revisited by Michael Millgate (2004) *1

· Michael Collins: Screenplay and Film Diary by Neil Jordan (1996) *3

The ten best books I finished in 2023 were:

· The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold (2019)

· Revenge of the Librarians by Tom Gauld (2022)

· The Hellebore Guide to Occult Britain by Maria J. Pérez Cuervo (2021)

· Pilgrims in the Kingdom: Travels in Christian Britain by Deborah & David Douglas (2004)

· How to Live Like a Monk: Medieval Wisdom for Modern Life by Danièle Cybulskie (2021)

· Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A New Verse Translation by Simon Armitage (2007)

· Once & Future, Vol. 5: The Wasteland by Kieron Gillen (2023)

· Castle by David Macaulay (1977)

· For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf by Ntozake Shange (1975)

· The Pictorial History of St. Albans Abbey: The Cathedral and Abbey Church of Saint Alban by D. R. Feaver (1967)

Coming soon: my ten favourite book covers

☙ 'If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week.' ❧

― Charles Darwin, The Autobiography

While growing up, I took lessons on piano before briefly studying trumpet at school, then taught myself to play my mom's classical guitar. From 1997-2000 I was the singer and rhythm guitarist in a rock band with my friends Craig, Josh, and Devan. I was briefly involved in a project with my friend Tim around 2003-2004. I played guitar on a single track on his debut album. I've been slowly learning to play the tin whistle over the last few years.

 I don't play any instruments regularly any more but I still listen to a lot of music - an average of 7100+ tracks per year, or 18 tracks per day - and it's an important part of my life. I love 90s alternative rock and Britpop (the music of my teenage years), post-Britpop, 00s post-punk revival, post-rock, celtic folk music, Gregorian chant, soundtracks of my favourite films, and Western classical string music, especially string quartets and the work of composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. Recently, I have been slowly discovering modern English folk music (by way of Offa Rex) and the original British and Irish post-punk bands of c. 1975-85 (by way of The Cure). My Last.fm account lists most of the music I've listened to since 2006 and nearly all the concerts I have attended since 1997. My all-time favourite musical work is Vaughan Williams' The Lark Ascending. I still frequently purchase music albums on CD and we have 700+ in our home library (not catalogued yet).

The asterisk numbers below indicate how many times I have seen each musician/band live in concert.

My ten favourite musicians/bands, in no particular order, are:

· Sigur Rós *1

· U2 *1

· Explosions in the Sky *2

· Sea Power

· Coldplay *1

· Gavin Friday

· Sarah McLachlan *2

· Pink Floyd

· Travis

· Oasis

Ten honourable mentions:

· Keane *1

· The Verve

· The Beatles

· The Smashing Pumpkins *3

· The Waterboys *1

· Radiohead

· Clannad

· Adele

· Bryan Adams *1

· The Cranberries

My ten favourite popular music albums are:

· Urban Hymns (The Verve, 1997)

· Takk… (Sigur Rós, 2005)

· No Need to Argue (The Cranberries, 1994)

· Story of an Immigrant (Civil Twilight, 2015)

· A Rush of Blood to the Head (Coldplay, 2002)

· An Appointment with Mr. Yeats (The Waterboys, 2011)

· Valhalla Dancehall (British Sea Power, 2011)

· Boy (U2, 1980)

· Shag Tobacco (Gavin Friday, 1995)

· White Chalk (PJ Harvey, 2007)

Honourable mentions:

· Under the Iron Sea (Keane, 2006)

· Surfacing (Sarah McLachlan, 1997)

· All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone (Explosions in the Sky, 2007)

· Razorblade Suitcase (Bush, 1996)

· The Invisible Band (Travis, 2001)

· Animals (Pink Floyd, 1977)

· Whatever and Ever Amen (Ben Folds Five, 1997)

· 21 (Adele, 2011)

· OK Computer (Radiohead, 1997)

· Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (The Smashing Pumpkins, 1995)

My ten favourite popular music songs are:

· Lucky Man (The Verve, 1997)

· Acrobat (U2, 1991)

· Time (Pink Floyd, 1973)

· The Rebels (The Cranberries, 1996)

· Boxes (Travis, 2013)

· The Last Living Rose (PJ Harvey, 2011)

· Yeats's Grave (The Cranberries, 1994)

· A Day in the Life (The Beatles, 1967)

· My Twentieth Century (Gavin Friday, 1995)

· River Lea (Adele, 2015)

My ten favourite music videos are:

· Please (U2, 1997)

· Apparition (Stealing Sheep, 2015)

· Lucky Man - US Version (The Verve, 1997)

· Last Known Surroundings (Explosions in the Sky, 2011)

· Glósóli (Sigur Rós, 2005)

· Up & Up (Coldplay, 2016)

· I'm Outta Time (Oasis, 2008)

· I Can't Be With You (The Cranberries, 1995)

· Burn the Witch (Radiohead, 2016)

· Do the Evolution (Pearl Jam, 1998)

· Coffee & TV (Blur, 1999)

My ten favourite live concerts I have attended are:

· The Waterboys at The State Room, Salt Lake City, Utah, 13 Oct 2013

· Sarah McLachlan at Kingsbury Hall, Salt Lake City, Utah, 14 Feb 2011

· The Smashing Pumpkins at Tom Tom Music, Sandy, Utah, 3 Feb 2000

· The American Festival Chorus and Orchestra - Ralph Vaughan Williams: The Great English Mystic at the Utah State University Daines Concert Hall, Logan, Utah, 22 Oct 2022

· CHVRCHES at the Ogden Amphitheater, Ogden, Utah, 9 Aug 2018

· Roger Waters at T-Mobile Arena, Las Vegas, Nevada, 16 Jun 2017

· Julie Fowlis at the Ellen Eccles Theatre, Logan, Utah, 27 Oct 2015

· Civil Twilight at The State Room, Salt Lake City, Utah, 26 Apr 2012

· Fiddlesticks at the Draper Historic Theatre, Draper, Utah, 8 Nov 2002

· Live at Wolf Mountain Ampitheater, Park City, Utah, 30 Aug 1997

My ten favourite live albums are:

· P·U·L·S·E (Pink Floyd, 1995)

· Mirrorball (Sarah McLachlan, 1998)

· Bursting Out (Jethro Tull, 1978)

· Live 2003 (Coldplay, 2003)

· Under a Blood-Red Sky (U2, 1983)

· Unplugged (Bryan Adams, 1997)

· Live on Two Legs (Pearl Jam, 1998)

· Show (The Cure, 1993)

· Sea of Brass Live (British Sea Power, 2015)

· Earphoria (The Smashing Pumpkins, 2002)

Coming soon: my ten favourite live recorded tracks 

My ten favourite album covers are:

· Black Sabbath (Black Sabbath, 1970)

· Earthling (David Bowie, 1997)

· Deftones (Deftones, 2003)

· The Invisible Band (Travis, 2001)

· What We Lose in the Fire We Gain in the Flood (The Mynabirds, 2010)

· Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (The Smashing Pumpkins, 1995)

· Modern Blues (The Waterboys, 2015)

· The Division Bell (Pink Floyd, 1994)

· Songs From the Wood (Jethro Tull, 1977)

· Let England Shake (PJ Harvey, 2011)

The ten music artists that I listened to the most in 2023 were:

· Anonymous 4

· Clannad

· Sigur Rós

· PJ Harvey

· The Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo de Silos

· Sarah McLachlan

· Explosions in the Sky

· Arctic Monkeys

· Richard Ashcroft

· Fontaines D.C.

☙ 'I saw a film today, oh boy, The English army had just won the war. A crowd of people turned away, But I just had to look, having read the book...' ❧
― The Beatles, A Day in the Life

I have always been a frequent film viewer, but it was only as an adult that I began to recognise and develop my own taste. I enjoy historical films, adaptations of classic European literature, Irish cinema, and the work of directors Ingmar Bergman, Ken Loach, and Werner Herzog. We have about 90 films in Criterion Collection editions. I still frequently purchase films on DVD and Blu-ray and we have 900+ films in our home library (not catalogued yet).

The asterisks below indicate films I watched in a theatre during the film's first run.

My ten favourite films, in no particular order, are:

· The Secret of Roan Inish (John Sayles, 1994)*

· Michael Collins (Neil Jordan, 1996)

· Robin Hood Prince of Thieves (Kevin Reynolds, 1991)*

· Richard III (Laurence Olivier, 1955)

· The Secret of Kells (Thomm Moore, 2009)

· The Seventh Seal (Ingmar Bergman, 1957)

· Hamlet (Franco Zeffirelli, 1990)

· Braveheart (Mel Gibson, 1995)

· Becket (Peter Glenville, 1964)

· The Green Knight (David Lowery, 2021)

Honourable mentions:

· Creation (Jon Amiel, 2009)

· Calvary (John McDonagh, 2014)

· War Horse (Steven Spielberg, 2011)*

· The Wind that Shakes the Barley (Ken Loach, 2006)

· Macbeth (Jed Kurzel, 2015)

· The Village (M. Night Shyamalan, 2004)

· The Three Musketeers (Stephen Herek, 1993)*

· Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Terry Gilliam & Terry Jones, 1975)

· The Count of Monte Cristo (Kevin Reynolds, 2002)

· Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (Peter Weir, 2003)*

My ten favourite actors are:

· Laurence Olivier

· Daniel Day-Lewis

· Brendan Gleeson

· Derek Jacobi

· Kenneth Branagh

· Emma Thompson

· Max von Sydow

· Liv Ullmann

· Mick Lally

· Rowan Atkinson

Honourable mentions:

· Gunnar Björnstrand

· Jennifer Connelly

· Jessica Chastain

· Michael Sheen

· Cillian Murphy

· Kate Winslet

· Liam Cunningham

· Mel Gibson

· Paul Bettany

· Michael Fassbender

My ten favourite television shows are:

· Mr. Bean (1990-1995)

· Keeping Up Appearances (1990-1995)

· The Last Kingdom (2015-2022)

· Cadfael (1994-1998)

· Tess of the d'Urbervilles (2008)

· The Adventures of Robin Hood (1955-1959)

· Lark Rise to Candleford (2008-2011)

· Downton Abbey (2010-2015)

· Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969-1974)

· The Hollow Crown (2012-2016)

☙ 'I don't blame any one for not believing my history. If I had not experienced what I have, I could not have believed it myself.' ❧

― Joseph Smith Jr., King Follett funeral sermon

As mentioned above, I was raised in the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the faith of most of my ancestors for the previous 100 years. Like other practicing Mormons during the 1980s & 90s, my siblings and I attended three-hour services every Sunday and other meetings on weekdays. Over a two-day General Conference every six months, we watched 10 hours of sermons, music, and prayers. We were taught that before our lives, our spirits/souls chose to be born on Earth so that we could be tested and return to our heavenly father after life if we chose correctly between our brothers, Jesus and Lucifer. We could only be with our loved ones after death if we were sealed to them (officially connected during ceremonies inside private temples) and lived worthily for our whole lives. We were baptised after turning eight years old. We were taught that Joseph Smith restored the true church after God the Father and Jesus told him that all other churches didn't have the full truth. We paid 10% of our income to the church, as well as other occasional offerings. We regularly read the The Book of Mormon and other LDS scriptures (The King James Bible, Doctrine & Covenants, Pearl of Great Price). We were interviewed annually by local authorities about our beliefs, our commitment, our 'purity' (including our sexual lives). My brothers and I were expected to fund and serve a preaching mission for two years. Everything in my life, and I truly mean everything, revolved around the authority, expectations, practices, and ceremonies of 'The Church' as directed by its leadership, who claimed to receive divine revelation and were nearly all conservative, straight, white, male, and of retirement age.

LDS Baptism | Oct 1988

From roughly age 15-30 I swung back and forth between intense LDS religious practice and occasional periods of apathy, embarrassment, imperfection anxiety, and doubt. In late 2010, I began a journey to explore other religious options after reading the experience of a Cache Valley man who had converted from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to the Episcopal Church. All of a sudden I desperately wanted the freedom to discover for myself what I believed. Over the following year, I first investigated Roman Catholicism (which has fascinated me since childhood), then neopaganism, then Deism, and finally landed in Humanism (humanists.international/policy/declaration-of-modern-humanism), where I have resided, fairly comfortably, ever since. Looking back, I have visualised these progressive steps as concentric circles of belief, each larger than the one before. During my search there were many factors at play but my over-arching desire was to find a universal and objective truth. Along the way, the light of science pushed the supernatural farther and farther away until it no longer had any real meaning or purpose in my life except as an anthropological curiosity. During this time, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel C. Dennett, Richard Dawkins, Carl Sagan, and especially A.C. Grayling, Bertrand Russell, and Charles Darwin were guiding lights. For a year and a half I hid my struggle from nearly everyone outside our home. I finally felt ready to tell people about my new reality in mid-2012. This was a very difficult and painful process which put a lot of strain on our marriage and kids. Thankfully, we're in a much better place now.

☙ 'Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.' ❧

― William Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well act I, scene I

I am a humanist because I try to live an ethical life and I don't see convincing evidence for anything supernatural. This translates into a focus on humanity's one shared life, here and now (since there's likely no pre-existence, nor after-life), and a responsibility to, at the very least, be kind to everyone equally as best I can. Humans working together to improve life on Earth is the only higher power I believe in. In the interest of equality, I support a line of separation between religion and government, including reverting the US national motto to E pluribus unum (Out of many, one). While not a strict pacifist, I am usually against all forms of violence. I'm a paid member of Humanists International, Humanists UK, the American Humanist Association, and Humanists of Utah. I'm an annual financial supporter of the International Committee of the Red Cross, the International Rescue Committee, and GO Humanity.

☙ 'Regardless of whether I believe or not, whether I am a Christian or not, I would play my part in the collective building of the cathedral.' ❧

― Ingmar Bergman, introduction to The Seventh Seal screenplay

I still enjoy a strong personal interest in Mormonism, Catholicism (Roman & Celtic), Anglicanism & Episcopalism, British & Scandinavian paganism (old & new), the folklore & mythology of Britain, Ireland, and Scandinavia, and the intersections between all of these subjects. All along, I have attended weekly services with Amy and our kids, first at our local LDS ward (congregation) and now at our local Episcopal parish. We have been welcomed and loved at St. John's and I very much enjoy participating in the community there. In a reverse of the oft-used phrase, sometimes I think of myself as 'religious but not spiritual' since I'm a philosophical naturalist but have always been attracted to the æsthetic, culture, and accoutrements of Western religion (both Christian & pagan), such as ritual, tradition, community and communion, the human philosophy of Jesus, rites of passage, ancient texts, Romanesque and Gothic architecture, stone circles, Gregorian chant, spells & incantations, Church Latin, saints and hagiography, pilgrimage, monasticism, nature worship, candles and bonfires, illuminated manuscripts, vestments, holy trees and holy wells, the pentangle & the cross, 'smells & bells', etc. I live my daily life in a gray area between scientific scepticism, Christianity, and Wicca, a formed amalgamation of the beliefs of my ancestors of the last few thousand years, which makes me feel connected to them. Lately I've started to recognise and accept that all this makes me a strange type of religious humanist.

☙ 'Comment is free, but facts are sacred.' ❧

― C. P. Scott, Manchester Guardian, 5 May 1921

I highly respect the noble profession of investigative journalism and try to support independent, non-profit news organizations and public broadcasters. I consume a lot of news in various mediums. We subscribe to the Guardian Weekly print magazine, the Salt Lake Tribune digital edition, and our local newspaper, the Herald Journal. I often visit the Guardian and BBC News websites and listen to NPR over the airwaves. I listen to the BBC World Service through the KUER mobile app and watch Sky News on YouTube to get UK news and a British perspective on world events. I'm an annual financial supporter of KUER 90.1 NPR Utah and PBS Utah.

☙ 'The advancement of science and the diffusion of information [is] the best aliment to true liberty.' ❧

― James Madison, first inaugural address

Literacy, education, free information, free expression, and truth are incredibly important to me. I'm in favour of public education and public libraries and I'm anti-censorship. I stand for intellectual freedom and encourage everyone to #UniteAgainstBookBans. I'm a financial supporter of the Wikimedia Foundation, Utah Humanities, the Friends of the Logan Library, the Friends of Merrill-Cazier Library, USU Alumni Association student scholarships, Helicon West, and Bridgerland Literacy.

☙ 'Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.' ❧

― Winston S. Churchill

I'm a strong supporter of multi-party representative democracy. I try to be informed about the issues of the day from our neighbourhood to the world, I try to consider multiple sides of an issue, and I vote in every election. I'm in favour of sensible taxes, sensible term-limits, opening debates to more candidates, public financing of elections, implementing ranked choice voting, making it easier to vote, making it easier to run for office, and making it easier for political parties to organize and be accepted by the state. Hate speech and violent rhetoric have no place in a democracy (or anywhere, for that matter). During my political journey over the years, I have voted for Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, independents, and Greens.

☙ 'What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?' ❧

― George Eliot

I'm a green democratic socialist, or ecosocialist, because the climate crisis is the largest problem facing humanity and I believe that unrestrained capitalism and growth, which caused the crisis, must be replaced by a more nature-friendly, humanising, and equal way of living. (Because I live within American politics, I must explain that democratic socialism ≠ single-party authoritarian state communism. Like many leftists before me including George Orwell and Clement Atlee, I support the former and strongly condemn the latter.) I am in favour of a robust 'Green New Deal', or 'Green Industrial Revolution'. I also believe that distributing our society's resources and power more fairly would go a long way towards resolving systematic inequalities of health, education, and opportunity for the disadvantaged - women and racial, gender, and sexual minorities. I'm still learning and I'm definitely not perfect but I would call myself a feminist, an LGBTQ+ ally, an anti-racist, and an anti-fascist. I love trees (especially the broad-leaf varieties) and hate fossil fuel derivatives (including pollution and plastics - #KeepItInTheGround). I'm wary of power, wealth, and big business. I have attended public rallies in support of free speech, women, scientists, public lands, action to address the climate crisis, and I stand with the 99%. I'm anti-violence and pro civil disobedience. I'm against the death penalty and the proliferation of guns and in favour of physician-assisted suicide. I'm also in favour of creating a 'single-payer' healthcare system or 'Medicare for All' system or, even better, a National Health Service in the US. We can afford to provide healthcare, a basic human need, to everyone in the most wealthy country on earth. Healthcare is a human right.

The Political Compass places me in the 'libertarian left' quadrant (no surprise). The worldwide Green politics movement is my home, with its four pillars of environmentalism, nonviolence, social justice and grassroots democracy, but I also stand in solidarity with many other democratic, non-violent, environmentalist, labour, and progressive movements, organisations, and parties. I support the #PlanetAndPeopleBeforeProfit. I'm a paid member of the Green Party of the United States, the Green Party of Utah, Democratic Socialists of America, and Democratic Socialists of Salt Lake. I'm an annual financial supporter of Extinction Rebellion, Greenpeace, and One Tree Planted.

Climate Change Protest | Sep 2019

The one major subject of disagreement I have with other leftists is the wide availability of abortion. Despite empathising with pregnant women in desperate circumstances (though I acknowledge that as a cisgender male I will never know what that is like) and challenging myself through books and documentary films and conversations to listen to arguments for the liberalisation of abortion, I just haven't been able to come to terms with the idea of the intentional termination of potential humans except in the most extreme circumstances where the life of the mother is threatened and abortion may be justified through the principle of self-defense. I believe that anyone who has sperm should use it responsibly and I myself have had a vasectomy after our multiple planned pregnancies. (People, especially men, don't talk enough about this simple procedure that can avoid major problems. If you're curious, ask me about it.) I'm in favour of scientific sex-positive education in public schools, including information about birth control, and of government and community safety nets for those who fall pregnant. Since I disagree with the predominantly religious rhetoric and arguments of the American anti-abortion movement, I find myself in a very small boat with other abortion-wary secularists, humanists, progressives, and socialists. And, yes, I know that many of the organizations I have joined support broader abortion rights. It's a paradox I live with.

☙ 'I must keep my own style & go on in my own way.' ❧

― Jane Austen, letter

I love visual art. I have drawn or sketched for most of my life. Mediums and styles that I appreciate include pen-and-ink drawings, woodcuts and etchings, stained glass, oil paintings from the romantic and realism movements, gothic architecture, black and white photography, and political cartoons. Favourite artists include John Everett Millais, Agnes Miller Parker, Tom Gauld, Arthur Rackham, Howard Pyle, David Macaulay (whom I had the opportunity to meet in 2014), Edward Gorey, Fred van Deelan, N.C. Wyeth, William Morris, Brian Cook, Jackie Morris, Anton Corbijn, Ben Jennings, Stephen Wiltshire, Maxim Peter Griffin, and Banksy. My all-time favourite artwork is Mariana by Millais.

Ink Sketches | c. 1996-97

Avebury Stone | Aug 2016

My favourite sport is association football (soccer). I am a fan and part-owner of the Dorchester Town FC Magpies (#WeAreDorch) and a fan of the Three Lions and the Lionesses- England's senior national teams. I also casually follow the USU Aggies, the Logan High Grizzlies, and Real Salt Lake.

Euros | Summer 2021

Due to the illness of someone close to me, I'm a financial supporter of the Intermountain Foundation at Primary Children's Hospital, the Children's Oncology Group Foundation, and the Huntsman Cancer Institute. Let's #kickchildhoodcancer!

I've had a conflicted relationship with food all of my adult life. I'm a little overweight but otherwise surprisingly healthy. I currently subscribe to Noom to help me get healthier and positive changes are happening: I feel much better and I've lost 50+ pounds (nearly 25 kilograms or 4 stone) since Nov 2022. I'm an ovovegetarian - I have avoided meat since 2013 for moral reasons and avoided dairy since about 2017 for dietary reasons. I enjoy bread in almost any form, oatmeal/porridge, apples, berries, legumes (especially peas, beans, and lentils), carrots, potatoes, rice, nuts, chicken eggs, pot pies, vegan cheese, sandwiches, green salads, pickles/gherkins, sauces and dressings, soups, black pepper, cold water, oat milk, black coffee (usually decaffeinated), wassail, ginger ale, cider, and beer (usually non-alcoholic). Join me for a ploughman's lunch?

And, finally, a few random facts. I enjoy open-water swimming and walking. I was cast as Hamlet in Ms. Doxey's sixth grade class production and have loved Shakespearean tragedies and histories ever since. When I was 15, my sister Laurisa and I had the chance to meet Margaret Thatcher in Salt Lake City but at the last moment I was too embarrassed by my common clothes to go through with it. I have never been skiing (in neither snow nor water), which is probably unique for a Utahn of my age. More than 25 years after by birth and 80 miles away from my birth hospital, I happened to accidentally meet the doctor who delivered me after he told me his name and I recognised it (I attended his funeral about 15 years later). Thanks to Laurisa, I once talked to Ben Folds on the phone. I was elected the second president of the Cache Valley Library Association, holding that position in 2014. I enjoy playing chess, Klondike solitaire/Patience, Tetris, and Kubb. I used to have five body piercings. I dreamed of owning a Mini after being introduced to them in Mr. Bean in the 1990s and since 2017, I have. In addition to England, I'm also interested in the history and culture of Ireland and the Scandinavian countries. For all of my adult life, my preferred footwear has been black Dr. Martens 1460 boots (vegan variety since 2013). As a child, I once put a stone so far up my nose that it had to be taken out by medical professionals who threatened to tie me to the gurney if I didn't stop resisting. My favourite animals are black-billed magpies and grey seals. My favourite colour is green. Sometime around age 13, I rode a cow in our town rodeo and was bucked off and stepped on. Though my longtime fear of annihilation at death has lessened considerably since reading Irvin Yalom and Martin Hägglund, it still lurks in the shadows. Before I die, I would like to 1) produce my own translation of Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, and 2) stand on the battlefield of Hastings on its 1000th anniversary on 14 October 2066 (I'd be 86 years old).

Though I have had some significant struggles, I must admit that overall I have been very privileged. I agree with Dickens' character Amy Dorrit that...

☙ 'Sometimes it has been rather hard to live, but I think not harder... than many people find it.' ❧