Alarming Statistic

More than 50% of the adult women in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints are single (either never been married, divorced, or widowed). If marriage is indeed an eternal principle, and an ordinance that can only be performed during mortality, then some spiritual being is winning a battle and I'm thinking it probably isn't Cupid or Aphrodite.

If one considers dating from a Marxist or economic perspective, our supply of commodified women far exceeds the demand, which reduces itself constantly by external and internal forces. The market for single LDS women resembles that of menhirs (or anvils, for a more modern equivalent). Each buyer (man) only requires one (or one at a time, anyway, and although the lifespan of the product is sporadic and certainly not guaranteeable, I doubt the majority of buyers ever require a second), and the population of men who abstain from this "menhirism" for any one of several reasons (homosexuality, reduced sex drive, lack of faith, cowardice, laziness) grows.

Beyond the growing population who denounce participation in the demand, a large percentage of the consumer population are certainly involved in the market. Most single men of my aquaintance are constantly shopping or browsing. They adopt menhirs for a temporary duration, but are often somehow frustrated or unsatisfied (a quirk of the market being the ability of the product to reject the purchaser).

A menhir once properly contracted and owned becomes property in perpetuity (subject to contract laws), and although break-downs occur, they will eventually be replaced with more permanent models (not subject to erosion or damage). Owners who have replaced irreparably non-functioning models with other non-permanent models will eventually find all units contractually replaced, and become owners of multiple units in perpetuity.

On a micro-scale, though, the introductory statistic proves that there are large numbers of unsold models on the market, as well as those that have been used, abused, or leased. These units are left to sell themselves as best they can while newer batches are in production. The market is flooded, and production has never been cost-effective. It becomes less so on a constant slope.

One solution might be to create a new market for the functional parts of the unsold models. Although a menhir's refusal to fulfil its primary function when given a viable opportunity is counter-productive and offensive to the original designer (think "convent"), when the menhir has no opportunity for primary fulfillment, it might be given some secondary fulfillment.
Although they must, on the whole, be defective, each unit must have acceptable parts which can go to increase the marketability of more viable models (hair, skin, teeth, pancreas, etc). Another solution might be to turn functioning models into pop-art (my favorite solution). Although the units themselves cannot fulfil their intended function, they might still be means for artistic or sensory expression. Russian artists have long explored the relationship between utility and art.

A third solution resembles a landfill more than anything. These unsold models can herd together, and be left to their own objectives, turning away from the market entirely and into what must externally resemble a convent in the same way that the United Order resembles socialism.

Unfortunately, morality dictates that unsold models should always be considered as still marginally marketable to a less-discerning buyer-crowd, which renders large portions of these solutions outside the realm of practicality.

Enough of this for now.

Tolkien and Tragedy

Tolkien lived as a scholar, spending most 1940s Tuesdays in a pub affectionately nicknamed the "Bird and Baby" (among others) near the colleges of Oxford. Now, tourists clog every inch AND the narrow passages between mismatching rooms and uneven tables. The only thing more difficult than getting a drink there is hearing one's self think. I found it impossible to imagine any conversation at all, let alone the ones which sparked the Inklings' genius masterpieces. I believe they did most of their conversing at Lewis's rooms in Magdalen College, though.

Although J.R.R. Tolkien must have borrowed themes and moments from the ancient texts he studied, his own brilliance and characterization more than fill in the historical framework.
The story of Middle Earth makes me unutterably sad. From the bitter-sweet beginnings to the final severings I feel the need to weep, because above all it is a story of endings, of unendurable change. I imagine Tolkien himself must have felt such a sadness when he thought of the literature he could never resurrect, spending his life reading texts of a simpler time but living and reflecting on the World Wars which had ravaged his nation and changed the face of life itself.

This sense of tragedy emanates also from the Arthurian novels of T. H. White, who studied at Cambridge in the decade prior to WWII, though he was born in India. This feeling comes especially from the final book of the Arthurian sequence, often considered a bastard sequel, called The Book of Merlyn, which, according to Wikipedia, was published in the mid to late seventies.

Another fascinating writer who captured that scent of tragedy was Susan Cooper in her Dark is Rising sequence. She was born in England and lived her childhood during the war years. She was also Oxford educated, and carried two profoundly similar elements also expressed by White and Tolkien. All three story sequences contrast mortal lives with immortal (well, sometimes only the profoundly long-lived), and all three describe the passing of an era or period of conflict which cannot be reclaimed or undone. Cooper, though, as befits her age, saw it from a more cyclical perspective. She contrasted the hectic, ephemeral lives of Will's large family to the constant and returning conflict between good and evil into which Will is drawn.