First ever official CougarGuard contest

[MikeWaters]

Introducing the first ever CougarGuard contest:

How to Win:

Guess for the Arizona game:
1) Beck’s passing yards
2) Brown’s rushing yards
3) Total yards surrendered by BYU defense
4) Turnover differential (i.e. positive number means BYU had less turnovers)


How the winner will be determined:

Your guesses will be subtracted (absolute value) from the actual yardage totals for steps 1 through 3. These 3 values will be summed and added to [the product of the absolute difference between your turnover differential guess and the real turnover differential times 25]. The smallest number wins.

Example:

Your guesses (example #1):
1) 300
2) 120
3) 450
4) +2

Another person’s guesses (example #2):
1) 400
2) 75
3) 350
4) 0

Real totals:
1) 250
2) 200
3) 500
4) -1


Calculation (#1):
[(300-250) + (200-120) + (500-450) + (2 - -1)(25)]
[50 + 80 + 50 + 3x25]
180 +75
255

Calculation (#2):
[(400-300) + (200-75) + (500-350) + (0 - -1)(25)]
[100 + 125 + 150 + 1(25)]
375 +25
400

Conclusion: 255 beats 400.

Prize:

Your choice of one of the two following books related to Mormon history/literature. You can either accept the prize, or have it mailed to another poster. If you accept the prize, you agree to read it and give a short report at some future date (to encourage discussion).

Book #1

In All Their Animal Brilliance: Poems
by Lance Larsen

Book Description
If poems are "levers of transcendence," as Edward Hirsch argues, then "In All Their Animal Brilliance" offers a collection of pry bars, each designed to jar the reader loose from the mundane. Occasion is everywhere, whether it's a bloody thumb print in a library book, a tarantula climbing one's arm, a young father thawing his wife's milk in the microwave, or a boy who sits down on a platter in an Amherst backyard and waits for Emily Dickinson to winch him into higher whiteness. In their attempt to lift us out of our expectations, these meditations--by turns tender, whimsical, or darkly comic--reveal the subterranean logic of our lives. And in the process, these poems take us places, on foot, by car, and through woods, feeding the animal hunger that lights our way.

About the Author
Lance Larsen is the author of "Erasable Walls" (New Issues, 1998) and the Director of Graduate Studies at Brigham Young University in Utah. His poems have appeared widely in journals including "Paris Review," "New York Review of Books," "Kenyon Review," and "Southern Review." He is married to mixed-media artist Jacqui Larsen.

My note: I have this book, and it is excellent. It is tinged with Mormon intermountain themes (just tinged, not more), and represents the best work of a mature artist. We should read and support Mormon artists who do great work.

Book #2

Fawn McKay Brodie: A Biographer's Life
by Newell G. Bringhurst

From Booklist
To the general public, Fawn McKay Brodie is best known as the author of controversial biographies of such historical icons as Joseph Smith and Thomas Jefferson. Bringhurst, like Brodie, was raised in rural Utah by Mormon parents. He seems to bring a special passion and understanding to his subject, persuasively portraying her as a tough, independent woman who willingly braved an avalanche of criticism for various assertions in her "intimate" biographies. Bringhurst provides credible speculations on her formative years, which included a strong yet ambivalent rejection of Mormonism. To her death in 1981, Brodie remained a staunch liberal, just as the designation was becoming one of opprobrium. As a teacher at UCLA, Brodie inevitably was drawn into conflict with then governor Ronald Reagan. This is an informative and absorbing account of an admirable and interesting life. Jay Freeman

My note: I have selected this book because 1) I am reading it and maybe another person reading it will lead to conversation and 2) it is cheap.