Humor is about surprise. When we chuckle at a pratfall or chortle over the verbal twist in a punch line, it's the unexpected that is tickling our funnybone. But in contemporary Mormon culture, the unexpected is unwelcome. Be it white shirts on the sacrament-passing deacons, correlated lessons in the Sunday school, prescribed topics for missionary farewells and funeral speeches—Mormons are conditioned to the comfort and security of the foreseen and the scripted.

As a result, what passes for "Mormon humor" is gentle and genial rather than pointed and penetrating. Saints permit themselves moderate chuckles over the doings of J. Golden Kimball, cute kids, and general authorities who share endearing personal anecdotes before getting down to brass plates. Any funny business has a familiar rhetoric and a reassuring predictability.

Then along comes Of Curious Workmanship: Musings on Things Mormon by Edgar C. Snow, Jr. It's quite a surprise.

Two of its happiest surprises are subject matter and style. An essay title like "The Naked and the Darned" lets you know right away that you aren't in Kansas any longer, Brother Toto. And when that essay enlightens you as to "the one example of nudity in church-sanctioned art," can Oz be far behind? When was the last time you heard an argument in favor of the calling of Ward Humorist? (To some among us, that may be the best innovation since two-piece garments.) Another of Snow's "musings" concerns "Mormon action figures" for children. His characters would include, among others, Porter Rockwell, Merlin Olsen, and Steve Young. In Snow's set, the Brigham Young package carries a disclaimer: "Wives sold separately."

If what Snow muses about is wondrously surprising, how he says it is even more refreshing. The cream of his crop is definitely not homogenized. Fresh language is, of course, requisite for effective humor. Stylistic bobbles may be overlooked in action narrative, in biography, in the "how-to" manuals that we accept as inspirational literature. But in the comic arena, style is all. Consider the difference had J. Golden Kimball, instead of his famous funeral retort—"Bishop, just who the hell is dead here anyway?"—had said, "Oh! I seem to be confused about who is deceased."

Snow's style is distinctive, very much his own. But there are echoes. At his best, Snow's wry voice reminds us of Mark Twain and Garrison Keillor. Readers, Mormon and non-, can anticipate wholesome guffaws as they ponder the Jeopardy-like question, "What TV series would Spencer W. Kimball have produced?" or consider the original "nicotine-patch approach" to cutting down on "cussing" by limiting one's self to words used in the Bible. One sentence in particular exemplifies the style of this most welcome book. Recounting the lot of a BYU student who had mispronounced Elder Hartman Rector's last name, Snow writes: "No one laughed, but there was plenty of feigned coughing, and everyone smiled so wide their faces hurt afterward. I don't think she ever knew, and only a cruel person would have told her."

Curious workmanship indeed!

The musings in this book first appeared in my column on AML-List, an internet listserv co-sponsored by the Association for Mormon Letters and Weber State University, and moderated by Ben Parkinson, who managed to succeed in the dual roles of friend and editor, a difficult task. ("Do-Re-Mi-Fa-So-La-Ti-Do" originally appeared in the April 1999 issue of Sunstone magazine.)

When someone asked me what I was trying to do with my column, I misinterpreted his statement as a question rather than the accusation it likely was, and came up with the following answer: Imagine if Hugh Nibley were not so smart—no, make that a little dull—and if he had written a series of whimsical meditations on odd Mormon topics in a stuffy room full of open cans of paint thinner. That would adequately describe what I think I've done here.

By way of background, I am a person blessed or cursed, depending on your point of view, with abundant curiosity. The word "curious" has several different meanings: (1) eager to learn; (2) nosy; (3) oddly interesting; and (4) something done carefully with great skill.

Please note the first two definitions refer to people like me who are eager to learn—and at times nosy—about their Mormon heritage. The last two definitions usually refer to objects, and might apply to parts of the Mormon experience. We often use the term "curious" with its negative connotations, probably because of what we have learned by sad experience. But we can't ignore the positive attributes, especially since the curiosity of Joseph Smith led him to pray about the ambiguities of multiple Christian doctrines and churches, opening the curtain for the on-going drama that is the Mormon Restoration.

I trust no one will view this book as my attempt to supplant The Encyclopedia of Mormonism, Especially for Mormons, Golden Nuggets of Thought, the collected works of Hugh Nibley, or of Elder Bruce R. McConkie, and I disclaim any authority or expertise whatsoever. I sincerely hope that these essays will not be viewed as an attempt to detract from the serious goodness of the Mormon experience, but as an invitation to enjoy, as I do, the marvelous work and wonder that Mormonism is, and the curious workmanship of its people.

One personal detail I've never seen reproduced in film about Joseph Smith is the whistle when he spoke. The closest approximation to the sound he must have made can be heard from Gopher, a character in Disney's animated version of Winnie the Pooh. "Sssssay, what'sss the big idea? I ve never heard anyone ssssay anything about Jossseph'sss whissstle?"

During the tar and feathering episode in Kirtland, Ohio, one of Joseph's assailants pushed a vial of poison into his mouth which he crushed with his teeth, breaking a tooth and cutting his palette, leaving him with a whistle when he spoke. In fact, one account says that when the prophetic mantle fell onto Brigham Young during his debate with Sidney Rigdon, Brigham's voice became Joseph's, even down to the whistle (see S. Dilworth Young, BYU Speeches of the Year 1964, p. 17).

Now I've had a whistle sound in my nose before and it's very irritating, almost as annoying as listening to someone complain about a whistle in their nose. I'm sure Joseph was equally annoyed. He eventually had his broken tooth fixed in Nauvoo, Illinois, presumably by the only dentist there, Alexander Neibaur (see Donna Hill, Joseph Smith: The First Mormon, p. 145). Perhaps Joseph was alerted to Neibaur's dentistry practice by reading an advertisement similar to the one I found on page 3 of the John Taylor-edited Nauvoo Neighbor on October 29, 1845:

ALEXANDER NEIBAUR DENTIST. In returning his thanks to the Brethren and Citizens of the City of Joseph for past favors, he would inform them that he continues his practice, and has fixed the following prices: Teeth inserted, $2 each; teeth cleansed, 50 cts; filling a tooth, 50 cts; teeth extracted with great ease. Every operation warranted for 5 years. Meat, wood and money taken. A constant supply of Matches always on hand.

If you get a chance, read some of the advertisements in old church periodicals, some of them running as late as the 1960s in the Improvement Era. I maintain these ads are some of the most charming pieces of Mormon literature around.

As P. J. O'Rourke has said somewhere, anyone who romantically longs to have lived in a past era need only consider two words: dental hygiene. I don't think I want to know what was used to fill teeth in Neibaur's day, or how a tooth (or its substitute?) could be inserted, although insertion is clearly a more intricate operation based on Neibaur's price list. Hmmm ... I wonder how many teeth you could get cleaned for a side of beef? And the warranty about extracting teeth with great ease sounds a bit far reaching, based upon my own wisdom teeth experience when my dentist nearly put his foot on my chest to get leverage. And when I read Neibaur's statement, "A constant supply of Matches," I envision attendants eagerly awaiting the match needs of Neibaur's customers, like frenetic waiters continually filling your water glass, no matter how little you have sipped. The matches were clearly a draw to Neibaur's establishment, presumably since the Word of Wisdom was still in its formative stages. I wonder how much he would have charged to fix a whistle in your tooth?

In an age before floss and fluoride, it's hard to imagine Neibaur needed to solicit customers at all, but it seems like business had slackened off, otherwise, why the advertisement? Wait a minute, does Utah still have unfluoridated water? Is there some connection here with a dentist's lobby effort? Were Utah legislators concerned about communist corruption of precious bodily fluids? Perhaps there's a legend waiting to be started that Neibaur and his profession were gratefully blessed by a post-whistle Joseph Smith, promising them a land of milk, honey, and a constant supply of cavities.

I recall several activities that kept me awake while being bored in church as a ten-year-old: (1) drawing trucks, tanks, fighter jets, and soldiers on the margins of a sacrament meeting program, (2) rubbing a pencil on the sacrament meeting program placed over the old, embossed, blue hymnal cover to produce a shaded version of the tabernacle organ, (3) flipping with increasing rapidity through a hymnal in which someone had written in pencil at the bottom of many pages "Turn to page [different no. for each page]" in a backward-and-forward searching sequence ending after about five minutes on a page on which that person had written, "Why have you wasted so much time turning these stupid pages when you should have been listening to the speaker?" (4) reading the words to "If You Could Hie to Kolob" (which I found with some effort can be sung to the Star Trek theme song), and (5) pondering the Egyptian pictures that adorn the Book of Abraham. It was at this age I decided the Pearl of Great Price was my favorite book of scripture since it was illustrated.

My first reaction to these pictures was that I could draw better than the guy who drew them. I savored this feeling since I thought myself a little superior, something a ten-year-old rarely experiences. In Facsimile No. 1, I puzzled over why Abraham seemed to be dressed in a baseball uniform, especially with batting gloves on. I also wondered why Abraham didn't just get up and run away—contrary to the picture's legend, he wasn't even fastened to the altar. Facsimile No. 3 was equally puzzling. Why were two women, figures 2 and 4, described as men? The signs above the heads of the figures in Facsimile No. 3 also reminded me of space helmets found by Erich von Daniken in other primitive pictures—maybe Egypt had been founded by aliens! And they all wore high-top tennis shoes. I laughed at Olimlah (with a weird horn on his head) doing the hokey-pokey dance with Shulem probably without permission "by the politeness of the king."

I suffered in silence for many years about my pre-pubescent concerns with the Book of Abraham pictures but eventually forgot about them until I read some old Hugh Nibley articles in The Improvement Era on my mission that gave me some satisfying answers and at least set me straight on Egyptian aesthetic theory. Facsimile No. 2 didn't really interest me much until I was at BYU where I read Michael Rhodes's translation of this picture (called a "hypocephalus"; see BYU Studies, Spring 1977) and realized figure 7 was an "ithyphallic" figure (you'll have to go look up the term as I did and then you'll probably want to look at figure 7 again as I did). I thought this was interesting. It's not the type of thing your average gospel doctrine teacher would point out, but if you can be sober-minded for a minute you'll realize it's consistent with the blessings of eternal increase, as Joseph Smith points out, although I'd never thought of it being quite so literally depicted. It's no wonder in one earlier edition (check out the 1960 edition) of the Pearl of Great Price that this picture was "doctored."

When my kids get bored in church, I think I'll have to introduce them to the many interesting uses of church hymnals as well as to the curious pictures in the Book of Abraham, except for Facsimile No. 2—it's PG-13. My six-year-old already makes me draw tanks, airplanes, and dinosaurs on the back of church programs.

Back when I was at BYU (around 1982), there was a letter to the Daily Universe editor that went something like this: "I am appalled. When I went to the Wilkinson Center to buy a year's supply of candy and chocolate at the candy shop, I happened to innocently wander into the gallery across the hallway to be affronted by pernicious obscenities! To my shock and horror, I found that administrators at the BYU had allowed a perverted art student to display detailed drawings of frontal nudity in the Wilkinson Center gallery!" Okay, so my reconstruction of the letter isn't entirely accurate; it was actually ten times as bad as that. The only problem was, much to my personal dismay, I had to agree with the writer of the letter. I too had seen the pictures and was equally offended: they were easily the most obscene things I had ever seen in my entire life. All of the nudes were grossly obese. Now before anyone gets mad at me, let me explain that I personally am not in great physical shape myself, so I'm not picking on fat people. In fact, my wife asks that I not appear naked coming out of the shower in front of our boys since I might scare them.

Back to the BYU incident. The next day, true to the principle of unintended consequences, the Daily Universe ran a lengthy article about the incident, and, in one of the most satisfying episodes of irony I ever experienced at BYU, the Daily Universe ran large photos of each picture.

Before getting worked up over this topic, let's first explore an ignored tradition of nudity in LDS church art. It is not a strong tradition. Not including Facsimile No. 2 of the Book of Abraham, there is only one example of nudity in church-sanctioned art: semi-topless Lady Liberty in half her splendor appears on the masthead of the LDS Nauvoo newspaper, The Nauvoo Neighbor.

Nakedness is treated in the scriptures, of course. Adam and Eve were naked without shame before the Fall. Of all God's creations, only humans feel the need to cover their nakedness. The Hebrews considered nudity shameful, as illustrated by David's emissaries being humiliated by foreign powers who sent them back home with their beards shaven and their outer clothing cropped to show their buttocks (2 Sam. 10:4). That trip back to Jerusalem was no doubt a pain in the—well, you know. There's also the puzzling episode in which Isaiah goes naked for three years as a sign (Isa. 20:2-3). Of course, some commentators interpret this to mean he only went around without his shirt on, and maybe that is what happened (if you think that's unusual, just read what Ezekiel does in his book). The only other prophet I know who went shirtless from time to time was President John Taylor when he was working in the back yard (as reported in Sam Taylor's The Last Pioneer: John Taylor, a Mormon Prophet).

Hmmm. I imagine if Mormons had a monthly meeting in which everyone over thirty-five had to attend naked, it would actually curb sexual sins since most people would lose their appetite. It would also be an interesting foil to other monthly meetings: "I would like to stand and bare my ..."