This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2005, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Lots of Latter-day Saints have earnestly sought Brother Paul's Mormon Bathroom Reader over the holidays - for someone else, never for themselves.
Truthfully, shoppers said, Paul Skousen's new page turner about Mormon odds and ends, quips and quotes, fodder and folderol was for cousin Johnny, little Suzy or friends Neil or Nell.
"Nobody wants to 'fess up about where we do a lot of our serious reading," laughs Skousen,
51-year-old South Jordan author of last year's Book of Mormon World Records. "But where else are you to find some peace and quiet?"
Certainly not at Deseret Book, Seagull or other LDS bookstores, where frantic shoppers gobbled up his latest book on Mormon miscellany like popcorn. Skousen's reader flew off the shelves at an Orem Seagull. Copies were as illusory as Houdini at Deseret Book outlets in American Fork and the Orem University Mall.
"I can't find the darn book anywhere," laments Provo resident Shyla Reed. "I thought what mattered to me, mattered to them [referring to Deseret Book's ad campaign]. I want one for my husband."
"Sorry," a Seagull clerk tells a man seeking a copy for his son, "we're all sold out. With a title like that, everyone wants one."
And why not?
Skousen's book is a gem for Latter-day Saints mining the culture for nuggets of nostalgia or kernels of knowledge. For instance, members cowabunga over "Mahana, you ugly!" and other lines from "Johnny Lingo" - the 1968 original - can catch up on the movie's entire cast, including eight-cow Mahana (Naomi Kahoilua).
Heck, there's even a primer on Mormon profanity: fudge, freaking, gosh, crud and crap - the latter, Skousen writes, a derivative of the "Middle Ages English crappe" rather than flush-toilet inventor Thomas Crapper.
Others will swear by J. Golden Kimball's very real cuss words - some, Skousen notes, fact and others probably folklore.
"You brethren can't go on missions because you swear too much," the legendary swearing Mormon leader allegedly opined. "You can overcome it. Hell, I did."
Some more classic Kimball in the reader:
"This city [Brigham City] looks like hell. You need to clean things up, mow the grass, paint your houses and barns. And you sisters, you could stand a little paint yourselves."
The reader's "Getting Stoned in the Rock of Ages" really rocks for fanciers of intelligent design. And heads up, Jon Hedder fans, Idaho lawmakers' tribute in the tome to "Napoleon Dynamite" is sweet, but makes "no freakin' sense" to those who haven't seen the hit flick, the author adds.
If they're lucky enough to find a copy, Bathroom Reader readers will have trouble finding anything in it. It has no index, footnotes or table of contents. Readers must muddle their way through its 416 pages.
Skousen says it's not meant to be read cover to cover or all in one, er, sitting. It's for recreational diversion, not scholarly dissertation.
"My intention is not to have scholars go, 'Well, according to Skousen's Bathroom book, we know this to be fact.' I want it to be factual, but not a book that you reference. I want it to stir people to do more study on their own."
Skousen's reader also defies easy labeling. Its contents are chock-full of items he says didn't fit into his first Mormon record book or the sequel he is now penning. Church members supplied some of its morsels. Some treats are from his own files. Others came courtesy of his father, Cleon Skousen, author of several more scholarly works.
"The joke is [my book] is for the full- or half-bath family library," Paul Skousen says.
Light as it is in tone, the book is not entirely lighthearted. Skousen dishes out gospel meat to go with the milk.
For instance, "Brother Paul" counsels members stocking up on their year's supply to separate the wheat from the chaff. In other words, go easy on grains. His motto: Store what you eat and eat what you store.
"A lot of stuff we store is junk we would never eat, and we would get sick if we ever tried," he says. "When most good Mormons die, they leave behind about 400 pounds of wheat for every year they expected to eat it."
Biosphere II, the hermetically sealed lab in Arizona, filled the author with religious awe and a sense of allegory when he read up on it. Scientists, he notes, were stumped by all the large limbs snapping off trees in the Edenic greenhouse until one young man breezed in and realized it was due to a dearth of wind.
"That has parallels to life," Skousen says. "We need opposition to grow properly and become our best selves. A tree that grows without wind, outgrows itself and breaks. That's what happened in Biosphere II and what happens to us when we try to shelter ourselves from trials or refuse to accept them and grow strong in the process."
Caffeine, sabbath worship and R-rated movies are a few other somber subjects Skousen tackles. The book also is liberally leavened with levity, including one-liners - well, pithy quotes, at least - from C.S. Lewis and late LDS Church President Ezra Taft Benson. It's further filled with facts about famous people - Queen Victoria, Pope John Paul II, Thai Queen Sirikit, among others - who were presented The Book of Mormon. There are even sections debunking popular Mormon myths and misconceptions.
Skousen says his reader has even prompted prayer.
"One woman said, 'Brother Paul, there's only one thing I really pray for when reading your book: a severe case of constipation.' I'll probably use that as an endorsement on the cover of the next edition."
J. Golden Kimball nuggets
* "I love all of the brethren, but I love some a hell of a lot more than I do others."
* Speaking at a funeral in San Francisco, J. Golden Kimball remarked he knew the deceased was a good man because he read the church-owned Deseret News. "And it takes a damn good man to do that."
* "I may not walk the straight and the narrow, but I sure as hell try to cross it as often as I can."
* "Some people say a person receives a position in this church through revelation, and others say they get it through inspiration, but I say they get it through relation. If I hadn't been related to Heber C. Kimball, I wouldn't have been a damn thing in this church."
* "Young men, always marry a woman from Sanpete County. No matter what hard times you experience together, she has seen worse."
Some movies and TV series created or written
by Latter-day Saints
* "The Absent-Minded Professor" (1961 movie)
* "Baywatch" (TV series, 1989-2001)
* "Son of Flubber" (1963 movie)
* "Flubber" (1997 movie)
* "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood" (2002 movie)
* "As Good As It Gets" (1997 movie)
* "McCloud" (TV series, 1962-71)
* "Magnum P.I." (TV series, 1980-88)
* "Eight Is Enough" (TV series, 1977-1981)
* "It Takes a Thief" (TV series, 1968-70)
Source: Brother Paul's Mormon Bathroom Reader