What American boy of a certain age didn’t want to be Mickey Mantle, the sublimely talented, golden-haired centerfielder of the New York Yankees in the 1950s and 60s?
Read The Last Boy, Jane Leavy’s recent biography of Mantle and you may ask another question – who would want to be him in the 1970s, 80s and 90s? He was not a very nice person – who knew their hero was an abusive roaring drunk and womanizer of mammoth proportions? He was enabled by sycophants around him that were unable to see the broken-down alcoholic he had become because they were blinded by the memory of what he once was. It is a sad, sobering, yet extremely compelling book to read.
The use of the word “boy” in the title is telling – Mantle went through his life unable to make adult decisions. The best decisions of his life came too late – he entered the Betty Ford Clinic and cleaned himself up at the same time he acquired the cancer that killed him at the age of 64. After his playing career ended he made his living by being Mickey Mantle – everyone it seems was happy to boast that they had bought a round for The Mick, and the baseball memorabilia business was fueled by people’s desire to own anything connected to Mantle. At his worst he would blow his nose into a Kleenex and give it someone as a collectible or sign obscene comments about the anatomy of little boys’ mothers onto baseballs. One diagnosis is that he suffered from “acquired situational narcissism,” and he was undone not so much by alcohol as by his celebrity.
Leavy digs deep, revealing complexities about Mantle: that he was a shame-filled bed wetter as a child, that he had been sexually abused and that he never had the ability to stand up to his emotionally controlling father. She did something like 500 interviews for the book, and, most significantly, draws on her own encounters interviewing a drunken Mantle in 1983. The book is meticulously researched and beautifully written.
She sees Mantle as much more than a baseball player, she sees him ultimately as a national icon. The subtitle of the book is “Mickey Mantle and the end of America’s Childhood.” As a baseball player he was proof of America’s promise, he was who everyone wanted to be, and in his own words, “what this country is all about” – a boy from the lead and zinc mining fields of Oklahoma who grew up to be … Mickey Mantle. His playing career ended in 1968, as tumultuous a year as exists in American history, a year of souring on the war in Vietnam, the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy, of race riots and finally the election of Richard Nixon. How many of us long for the days before 1968; before everything got complicated? And how many of us wish strapping heroes like Mickey Mantle could remain forever young?
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Friday, March 25, 2011
The Book or the Movie?
I was seated on an airplane next to a six-month pregnant woman a couple of days ago and our little plane was buffeted about both on take-off and landing by a fair amount of turbulence. She didn’t like it – in fact she reached out and grabbed my arm to steady herself on five different occasions.
Every time she’d apologize, and every time I’d say, “That’s okay.” I figured she could grab my arm all she wanted as long as she didn’t go into labor. At one point she said, “When I was overseas I did a lot of flying on Blackhawks and Chinooks but it was never like this.”
“Were you in the army?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. “I was in Iraq for 14 months.”
My opinion of her changed in a heartbeat. Up until that moment I’d thought she was (for lack of a better word) a bit of a chicken. Now I thought different. She was much braver than me. 14 months as a soldier in Iraq? No thanks. I’d want to do that as much as I’d want to be six-months pregnant.
On the plane I was reading Fever Pitch, Nick Hornby’s memoir about growing up a fan of the English soccer team Arsenal. She asked me if the book had anything to do with the Drew Barrymore movie of the same name. I had to begrudgingly admit that yes, the movie had a connection to the book, but that Hollywood had totally mangled the job, turning a revealing look at male obsessions into a romantic comedy.
She asked, “Do you always read the book before you see the movie?”
I don’t always do that, but I had to admit that a lot of times I do, and usually when I do I am disappointed.
“I know,” she said, “I wouldn’t want to read the book first – it would spoil it because you’d already know what was going to happen.” That really wasn’t the spirit my remark was offered in, and I was trying to figure out how to re-state my position when she said, “The Notebook – now that was a great book that was turned into an even greater movie.”
She had me at a disadvantage. Although I think there might well be a copy of The Notebook in my house and although the movie has played at my house several times, I’ve never read or watched it. Sorry Nicholas Sparks.
Our conversation did get me thinking about the old “book or movie?” question. In my mind it’s rare for the movie to top the book – my standard answer is there are only two movies that pop into my head as being superior to the book: The Godfather and Ordinary People.
All of which leads me to ask four questions:
1. Would you like to spend 14-months as a soldier in Iraq?
2. Would you like to be six-months pregnant?
3. Do you generally prefer the movie or the book?
4. What movies would you say exceed the book?
Every time she’d apologize, and every time I’d say, “That’s okay.” I figured she could grab my arm all she wanted as long as she didn’t go into labor. At one point she said, “When I was overseas I did a lot of flying on Blackhawks and Chinooks but it was never like this.”
“Were you in the army?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. “I was in Iraq for 14 months.”
My opinion of her changed in a heartbeat. Up until that moment I’d thought she was (for lack of a better word) a bit of a chicken. Now I thought different. She was much braver than me. 14 months as a soldier in Iraq? No thanks. I’d want to do that as much as I’d want to be six-months pregnant.
On the plane I was reading Fever Pitch, Nick Hornby’s memoir about growing up a fan of the English soccer team Arsenal. She asked me if the book had anything to do with the Drew Barrymore movie of the same name. I had to begrudgingly admit that yes, the movie had a connection to the book, but that Hollywood had totally mangled the job, turning a revealing look at male obsessions into a romantic comedy.
She asked, “Do you always read the book before you see the movie?”
I don’t always do that, but I had to admit that a lot of times I do, and usually when I do I am disappointed.
“I know,” she said, “I wouldn’t want to read the book first – it would spoil it because you’d already know what was going to happen.” That really wasn’t the spirit my remark was offered in, and I was trying to figure out how to re-state my position when she said, “The Notebook – now that was a great book that was turned into an even greater movie.”
She had me at a disadvantage. Although I think there might well be a copy of The Notebook in my house and although the movie has played at my house several times, I’ve never read or watched it. Sorry Nicholas Sparks.
Our conversation did get me thinking about the old “book or movie?” question. In my mind it’s rare for the movie to top the book – my standard answer is there are only two movies that pop into my head as being superior to the book: The Godfather and Ordinary People.
All of which leads me to ask four questions:
1. Would you like to spend 14-months as a soldier in Iraq?
2. Would you like to be six-months pregnant?
3. Do you generally prefer the movie or the book?
4. What movies would you say exceed the book?
Monday, March 21, 2011
Unbroken
The question I want to ask you about Laura Hillenbrand’s recent book Unbroken is not “Have you read it?” but “Have you read it yet?” Outside of small children, I cannot imagine anyone who would not enjoy this book. I found myself up until about three in the morning on two different nights during the week that I read it. I had to learn how it came out.
The book is the true story of Louis Zamperini, Olympic athlete and at one time America’s best hope to break the four-minute mile. He’s the kind of guy who goes to Berlin to compete in the 1936 Olympics and hands his camera to Joseph Goebbels to snap a picture of Adolf Hitler for him. Goebbels complies! Louis enters the Army Air Corps at the beginning of World War II, and that’s about all I want to say about the story because you need to read it for yourself. Let me know when you have.
I’m fascinated by Laura Hillenbrand, by the way. She’s the author of two books, Unbroken and Seabiscuit. Both books are absolutely captivating and are also built on mountains of research. What fascinates me about Laura Hillenbrand is that she is homebound, battling Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, while putting out a wonderful book once every ten years. Unbroken describes Loius Zamperini, and when you have read his story you’ll feel fortunate your life has been so soft in comparison. But “unbroken” is also an apt word to describe Laura Hillenbrand, and I can’t think off the top of my head of another author whose work I would so universally recommend. Read, please!
The book is the true story of Louis Zamperini, Olympic athlete and at one time America’s best hope to break the four-minute mile. He’s the kind of guy who goes to Berlin to compete in the 1936 Olympics and hands his camera to Joseph Goebbels to snap a picture of Adolf Hitler for him. Goebbels complies! Louis enters the Army Air Corps at the beginning of World War II, and that’s about all I want to say about the story because you need to read it for yourself. Let me know when you have.
I’m fascinated by Laura Hillenbrand, by the way. She’s the author of two books, Unbroken and Seabiscuit. Both books are absolutely captivating and are also built on mountains of research. What fascinates me about Laura Hillenbrand is that she is homebound, battling Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, while putting out a wonderful book once every ten years. Unbroken describes Loius Zamperini, and when you have read his story you’ll feel fortunate your life has been so soft in comparison. But “unbroken” is also an apt word to describe Laura Hillenbrand, and I can’t think off the top of my head of another author whose work I would so universally recommend. Read, please!
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Oh the Humanity
What I’m writing today are some devotionals for Words of Hope. I have some devotionals currently running in Words of Hope (as of March 16), which you can access at:www.woh.org/word/devotionals. You can read stunning and lyrical devotionals by me at that spot for the rest of the month. (Except they can only be 250 words long, and it is a challenge to be stunning and lyrical in 250 words – but I do my best.)
Today I’m writing a new set of devotionals for them that hopefully will run in 2012 on the topic of trust and I was just writing about Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane praying for “the cup to pass from him.” He understood the torture coming his way and didn’t welcome it. Who would? I wrote “He was as human as any of us.”
Of course Christians believe more than that about Jesus, but I want to stop at “as human as any of us” for a moment and tie that line back to what I wrote this weekend about Gandhi and the nature of truth. I understand my Gandhi post is too long, too detailed, and too esoteric for a lot of interactive comments. (Not to mention being about a guy who’s been dead for 60+ years and a 28-year-old movie – I “get” that that topic’s nowhere near as cool as Nick Hornby.) My daughter Amanda wrote a long comment, and I wanted to take this opportunity to respond by publicly saying I will mark March, 2011 in my calendar as the month I surrendered to the fact that my daughter is smarter than me. (My son Jesse is smarter than me, too, which he demonstrates by not following my blog. Don’t tell him I wrote this and we’ll see if he ever says anything to me about it.)
Anyway, enough about our twisted familial relationships. Here’s what I’m trying to say: in addition to her posted comment, Amanda also sent me an email with this line in it: “Your Blog entry hopefully will get some readers to think about Gandhi in a way more reflective of humanity and less of perfection.”
We worship perfection (hence my feeling the need to remind people that Jesus was human) and are sorely disappointed in our heroes when they insist on being human. For exhibit A I will present Tiger Woods.
Wouldn’t it be better for us if it were the other way around, if we understood our heroes were human and not perfect? I am reminded of an assignment I gave in my past life when I was involved in training a group of new Young Life staff and we were reading a book full of stories about the founder of the organization. One day I asked our training group what part of the book resonated deepest with them. (To be honest, the book was heavy on the side of presenting perfection more than humanity. There were plenty of heroic stories in the book about all-night prayer meetings, powerful public speaking, and stuff like that.) In response to my question one of the people in the training group said, “The thing that struck me the most in the book was the story about the day he went to a house where a club meeting was supposed to take place and there weren’t any cars out in front and he told the guy driving the car to keep going – he didn’t feel like going in if there weren’t going to be very many kids there. I feel like that, too.” We were required to use that book every year, and without fail, every year someone in the training group would make the same comment. They identified much more with humanity than perfection.
Of course now that I think about Tiger Woods (and I really don’t think about Tiger Woods very much), might we say his problem is that he rarely lets us see he’s human and so, when he fell so ignobly a lot of people enjoyed it? What if instead of sticking to corporate image management when his life blew up he would have said a few authentic, genuine comments about his behavior … something like, “Yeah, I really like sex.” I’m writing off the top of my head here, without any reflection, and I’m following my train of thought about being transparent about your shortcomings and now find I’m contemplating Charlie Sheen. Okay, I guess we don’t really want to know everything about someone’s full humanity, do we?
There, I’ve done it. I’ve put Jesus Christ, Mahatma Gandhi, Tiger Woods and Charlie Sheen into the same blog post. Let’s see you write something clever about that, Amanda!
My open invitation for the rest of you is to write any comment you want about Jesus, Gandhi, Tiger or Sheen. I look forward to it.
Today I’m writing a new set of devotionals for them that hopefully will run in 2012 on the topic of trust and I was just writing about Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane praying for “the cup to pass from him.” He understood the torture coming his way and didn’t welcome it. Who would? I wrote “He was as human as any of us.”
Of course Christians believe more than that about Jesus, but I want to stop at “as human as any of us” for a moment and tie that line back to what I wrote this weekend about Gandhi and the nature of truth. I understand my Gandhi post is too long, too detailed, and too esoteric for a lot of interactive comments. (Not to mention being about a guy who’s been dead for 60+ years and a 28-year-old movie – I “get” that that topic’s nowhere near as cool as Nick Hornby.) My daughter Amanda wrote a long comment, and I wanted to take this opportunity to respond by publicly saying I will mark March, 2011 in my calendar as the month I surrendered to the fact that my daughter is smarter than me. (My son Jesse is smarter than me, too, which he demonstrates by not following my blog. Don’t tell him I wrote this and we’ll see if he ever says anything to me about it.)
Anyway, enough about our twisted familial relationships. Here’s what I’m trying to say: in addition to her posted comment, Amanda also sent me an email with this line in it: “Your Blog entry hopefully will get some readers to think about Gandhi in a way more reflective of humanity and less of perfection.”
We worship perfection (hence my feeling the need to remind people that Jesus was human) and are sorely disappointed in our heroes when they insist on being human. For exhibit A I will present Tiger Woods.
Wouldn’t it be better for us if it were the other way around, if we understood our heroes were human and not perfect? I am reminded of an assignment I gave in my past life when I was involved in training a group of new Young Life staff and we were reading a book full of stories about the founder of the organization. One day I asked our training group what part of the book resonated deepest with them. (To be honest, the book was heavy on the side of presenting perfection more than humanity. There were plenty of heroic stories in the book about all-night prayer meetings, powerful public speaking, and stuff like that.) In response to my question one of the people in the training group said, “The thing that struck me the most in the book was the story about the day he went to a house where a club meeting was supposed to take place and there weren’t any cars out in front and he told the guy driving the car to keep going – he didn’t feel like going in if there weren’t going to be very many kids there. I feel like that, too.” We were required to use that book every year, and without fail, every year someone in the training group would make the same comment. They identified much more with humanity than perfection.
Of course now that I think about Tiger Woods (and I really don’t think about Tiger Woods very much), might we say his problem is that he rarely lets us see he’s human and so, when he fell so ignobly a lot of people enjoyed it? What if instead of sticking to corporate image management when his life blew up he would have said a few authentic, genuine comments about his behavior … something like, “Yeah, I really like sex.” I’m writing off the top of my head here, without any reflection, and I’m following my train of thought about being transparent about your shortcomings and now find I’m contemplating Charlie Sheen. Okay, I guess we don’t really want to know everything about someone’s full humanity, do we?
There, I’ve done it. I’ve put Jesus Christ, Mahatma Gandhi, Tiger Woods and Charlie Sheen into the same blog post. Let’s see you write something clever about that, Amanda!
My open invitation for the rest of you is to write any comment you want about Jesus, Gandhi, Tiger or Sheen. I look forward to it.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Musing on the Mahatma and the Nature of Truth
TS Eliot called April the cruelest month of all, but he obviously didn’t live in Michigan. February, our cruelest month, ended 11 days ago, and I was happy to see it go. At the same time, sadly, one of the month’s few redeeming virtues, Turner Classic Movies’“31 Days of Oscar” also came to a close.
Among the award-winning movies I watched on TCM last month was Sir Richard Attenborough’s epic Gandhi, which won eight Oscars including Best Picture in 1983. I was spurred on to watch because I had also been reading Arthur Herman’s interesting book Gandhi & Churchill, which is sort of a combination biography of both men intertwined with the story of the collapse of the British Empire.
The movie is long, three plus hours, but it pales in comparison to the book, which weighs in at over 700 pages (including footnotes and index – there are +/- 600 pages of actual text). But if you consider Gandhi lived for 78 years it’s pretty obvious that neither the book nor film will do him justice. And yet … each of them works well, in their own way.
Like any good moviemaker, Richard Attenborough doesn’t let the facts get in the way of a good story. Slogging though Herman’s book and then watching the movie left me gasping at the omissions and inaccuracies of the movie. For example:
• You get no idea that Gandhi lived in South Africa for 25 years.
• You also get no idea that originally his goal was equality with the British, not independence.
• Gandhi was married at age 13, took a vow of celibacy at 37 (which he honored the remaining 41 years of his life), and was estranged from his alcoholic oldest son. His family paid a heavy price for his work and his family relationships were often very difficult and decidedly less-than-flattering for a man known as “The Mahatma.” (“Great Soul” in Sanskrit.) Rather than portray any of this complexity, the filmmakers simply ignored it.
• Gandhi experienced bitter defeats and, on the whole, more failure than success in his life. He was tormented by the failure of the Indian population to adopt his principles of ahisma (non-violent resistance), and was frustrated that eventually the British rulers figured out how to manage him. If he announced he was going to start an ahisma, they put him in prison and the protest would fizzle without leadership. If he decided to go on a hunger strike to protest their successful defusing of his protest, they would release him so he wouldn’t die in prison. Dramatic moments shown in the movie where the entire Indian population and the British authorities wait in suspense to see if he will take nourishment never quite happened like that in real life.
• His most successful ahisma was the Salt March of 1931 – yet, if one reads the facts carefully, the Salt March didn’t actually change anything in India. The British gave up India in 1947, a result of their Empire collapsing under its own weight following World War II. It’s an oversimplification to say that Gandhi drove the British out of India. It’s more accurate to say he helped wake the world up to the evils of colonialism and oppression.
• Finally, the movie doesn’t explain what motivated the people who assassinated Gandhi. If you don’t know the details, you may find yourself scratching your head asking “Why did they do that?” His death wasn’t the work of a madman like, say, John Lennon’s, it was a combination of both political and religious forces in India that are a huge part of that nation’s history.
And yet again … given all this and many more examples one could list of ways the movie compresses and distorts, the movie still works mightily. I’ve seen it three or four times and found myself moved once again by it. Really good movies are not about getting the facts straight, they are about telling a compelling story by capturing your emotions, and I found myself in tears three times while watching it. For the emotional wallop alone, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend the movie.
Is it accurate?
Not so much.
But is it true?
Absolutely.
So that’s my conundrum of the moment, the gap between the facts and the truth. I know it’s a slippery slope to take a stand on, but that’s where I find myself standing these days. Remember how in the book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe there is a chapter called “Deep Magic from the Dawn of Time” and then later there’s another chapter called “Deeper Magic from Before the Dawn of Time”? That’s the way I’m feeling about truth today. There’s truth and then there’s something deeper called TRUTH. The Gandhi book deals more in the first, the movie more in the second. They are both important.
Can things be true but not factual? Before all of you liberal arts majors answer yes, think about what happens in a courtroom or about scientific investigation. The question isn’t as simple as it seems. I want to say yes to my own question -- but at the same time when I’m on trial I don’t want a witness against me answering “Yes, metaphorically speaking” when asked to swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Anyway, if you haven’t seen the movie Gandhi and have three hours, watch it. It’s a great, great movie. Yes, it’s hagiography, but its good hagiography.
If you have three weeks or so to give to a reading project, tackle Herman’s book. You will learn a lot about India, Gandhi, the British Empire and Winston Churchill (another giant personality unmentioned by me but prominent in the book.)
If you have a chance, do both and join me in contemplating the elusive nature of truth.
Among the award-winning movies I watched on TCM last month was Sir Richard Attenborough’s epic Gandhi, which won eight Oscars including Best Picture in 1983. I was spurred on to watch because I had also been reading Arthur Herman’s interesting book Gandhi & Churchill, which is sort of a combination biography of both men intertwined with the story of the collapse of the British Empire.
The movie is long, three plus hours, but it pales in comparison to the book, which weighs in at over 700 pages (including footnotes and index – there are +/- 600 pages of actual text). But if you consider Gandhi lived for 78 years it’s pretty obvious that neither the book nor film will do him justice. And yet … each of them works well, in their own way.
Like any good moviemaker, Richard Attenborough doesn’t let the facts get in the way of a good story. Slogging though Herman’s book and then watching the movie left me gasping at the omissions and inaccuracies of the movie. For example:
• You get no idea that Gandhi lived in South Africa for 25 years.
• You also get no idea that originally his goal was equality with the British, not independence.
• Gandhi was married at age 13, took a vow of celibacy at 37 (which he honored the remaining 41 years of his life), and was estranged from his alcoholic oldest son. His family paid a heavy price for his work and his family relationships were often very difficult and decidedly less-than-flattering for a man known as “The Mahatma.” (“Great Soul” in Sanskrit.) Rather than portray any of this complexity, the filmmakers simply ignored it.
• Gandhi experienced bitter defeats and, on the whole, more failure than success in his life. He was tormented by the failure of the Indian population to adopt his principles of ahisma (non-violent resistance), and was frustrated that eventually the British rulers figured out how to manage him. If he announced he was going to start an ahisma, they put him in prison and the protest would fizzle without leadership. If he decided to go on a hunger strike to protest their successful defusing of his protest, they would release him so he wouldn’t die in prison. Dramatic moments shown in the movie where the entire Indian population and the British authorities wait in suspense to see if he will take nourishment never quite happened like that in real life.
• His most successful ahisma was the Salt March of 1931 – yet, if one reads the facts carefully, the Salt March didn’t actually change anything in India. The British gave up India in 1947, a result of their Empire collapsing under its own weight following World War II. It’s an oversimplification to say that Gandhi drove the British out of India. It’s more accurate to say he helped wake the world up to the evils of colonialism and oppression.
• Finally, the movie doesn’t explain what motivated the people who assassinated Gandhi. If you don’t know the details, you may find yourself scratching your head asking “Why did they do that?” His death wasn’t the work of a madman like, say, John Lennon’s, it was a combination of both political and religious forces in India that are a huge part of that nation’s history.
And yet again … given all this and many more examples one could list of ways the movie compresses and distorts, the movie still works mightily. I’ve seen it three or four times and found myself moved once again by it. Really good movies are not about getting the facts straight, they are about telling a compelling story by capturing your emotions, and I found myself in tears three times while watching it. For the emotional wallop alone, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend the movie.
Is it accurate?
Not so much.
But is it true?
Absolutely.
So that’s my conundrum of the moment, the gap between the facts and the truth. I know it’s a slippery slope to take a stand on, but that’s where I find myself standing these days. Remember how in the book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe there is a chapter called “Deep Magic from the Dawn of Time” and then later there’s another chapter called “Deeper Magic from Before the Dawn of Time”? That’s the way I’m feeling about truth today. There’s truth and then there’s something deeper called TRUTH. The Gandhi book deals more in the first, the movie more in the second. They are both important.
Can things be true but not factual? Before all of you liberal arts majors answer yes, think about what happens in a courtroom or about scientific investigation. The question isn’t as simple as it seems. I want to say yes to my own question -- but at the same time when I’m on trial I don’t want a witness against me answering “Yes, metaphorically speaking” when asked to swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Anyway, if you haven’t seen the movie Gandhi and have three hours, watch it. It’s a great, great movie. Yes, it’s hagiography, but its good hagiography.
If you have three weeks or so to give to a reading project, tackle Herman’s book. You will learn a lot about India, Gandhi, the British Empire and Winston Churchill (another giant personality unmentioned by me but prominent in the book.)
If you have a chance, do both and join me in contemplating the elusive nature of truth.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Finding Nick Hornby
What I’m reading today is a collection of essays called Songbook by Nick Hornby, my new favorite writer. I stumbled onto Nick Hornby because my Comcast bill was too high. Here’s how that happened: an AT&T salesman came to the door a while back and put together an equivalent internet and TV package for $40 a month less than what I was paying. Not wanting to switch service, I called Comcast, and lo and behold, it turns out that for $40 less a month I could keep my service and add a phone line and a premium TV channel called Starz. Having lived in Europe for a bit I can tell you stuff like this is why I love America!
Not that I’m not irritated by the overbearing “z” in Starz, but what are you going to do? I started exploring the On Demand Starz movie listings and didn’t get too far in the alphabet when I found a movie called An Education. I saw Carey Mulligan had been nominated for a best actress Oscar for it, so I decided to watch a while and see if it captured my attention. Within the first few minutes she’s walking home from school in a downpour carrying her cello and a guy in a sports car pulls up and says something like, “Look, I don’t think you should get in a car with a stranger, but I’m a music lover … so could I give your cello a ride home while you walk alongside?” That was all it took to hook me.
You’ve probably never heard of the movie because there are no explosions or guns or car chases, but it is funny, intelligent, heartbreaking, joyful, real and well worth giving a couple of hours of your life to. The cast includes two actors whom I always seem to enjoy: Emma Thompson and Alfred Molina.
Further exploring the “A” section of my new toy, I found the Hugh Grant movie About a Boy. Somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind I knew I’d been told that this was a good movie, so I watched it and was delighted. If I still had my old job in youth ministry I would make everyone I worked with watch this movie. The film’s title has two meanings, you see, because it’s not only about a needy twelve-year-old boy named Marcus but it’s also about the equally needy adult boy played by Hugh Grant, and if you are doing youth work and don’t realize there is just as much redemption going on for you as for the kids you are working with, well then you aren’t being honest with yourself. Anyway, if you’ve seen the movie, you will understand that I will never hear “Killing Me Softly with His Song” the same way again, nor ever again feed bread to a duck without laughing.
As is my habit, I went online to learn more about these two movies and discovered they were both written by Nick Hornby. I looked him up and found out that he is my doppelganger – almost exactly my age, bald, and he writes a lot about sports and music. Never mind that he’s British, an atheist, and very successful as a writer. I won’t let a few details like that bother me, my brother!
I found another book of his had been made into a movie called High Fidelity, and, as with About A Boy, I knew I’d heard it was good. I watched that courtesy of my son’s girlfriend’s free trial of Netflix, and liked it, too. John Cusack convincingly plays a record store owner who knows more about music than relationships. I suppose the genre of the film is “romantic comedy,” but it’s not very romantic and at times is starkly painful rather than funny. Like the other two movies it is intelligent and real, and really better than at least 95% of the stuff filling our theaters.
Now I’m reading Songbook, which I bought for a penny online, so I have to apologize to Nick Hornby and say that although I’m a new fan, I haven’t actually spent any money supporting your work yet. But give me time. Last night I read a line that made me envious. I wish I could write like he does. In a discourse on why love songs are the only type of songs that really work, he goes off on a riff about social conscience songs and writes, “And how does a mandolin solo illustrate or clarify the plight of Eskimos anyway?” Exactly.
He knows way more music than I do. Since “new music” for me tends to be anything Paul McCartney has done since the breakup of The Beatles, I find myself listening to songs I’ve never heard before in order to understand what he’s writing about. Last night I listened to songs by both Nelly Furtado and Rufus Wainwright, which, I’m guessing, might have made me one step closer to cool if I’d been listening to them eight years ago when this book was published. Oh well.
Look for the name Nick Hornby. You won’t regret it.
Not that I’m not irritated by the overbearing “z” in Starz, but what are you going to do? I started exploring the On Demand Starz movie listings and didn’t get too far in the alphabet when I found a movie called An Education. I saw Carey Mulligan had been nominated for a best actress Oscar for it, so I decided to watch a while and see if it captured my attention. Within the first few minutes she’s walking home from school in a downpour carrying her cello and a guy in a sports car pulls up and says something like, “Look, I don’t think you should get in a car with a stranger, but I’m a music lover … so could I give your cello a ride home while you walk alongside?” That was all it took to hook me.
You’ve probably never heard of the movie because there are no explosions or guns or car chases, but it is funny, intelligent, heartbreaking, joyful, real and well worth giving a couple of hours of your life to. The cast includes two actors whom I always seem to enjoy: Emma Thompson and Alfred Molina.
Further exploring the “A” section of my new toy, I found the Hugh Grant movie About a Boy. Somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind I knew I’d been told that this was a good movie, so I watched it and was delighted. If I still had my old job in youth ministry I would make everyone I worked with watch this movie. The film’s title has two meanings, you see, because it’s not only about a needy twelve-year-old boy named Marcus but it’s also about the equally needy adult boy played by Hugh Grant, and if you are doing youth work and don’t realize there is just as much redemption going on for you as for the kids you are working with, well then you aren’t being honest with yourself. Anyway, if you’ve seen the movie, you will understand that I will never hear “Killing Me Softly with His Song” the same way again, nor ever again feed bread to a duck without laughing.
As is my habit, I went online to learn more about these two movies and discovered they were both written by Nick Hornby. I looked him up and found out that he is my doppelganger – almost exactly my age, bald, and he writes a lot about sports and music. Never mind that he’s British, an atheist, and very successful as a writer. I won’t let a few details like that bother me, my brother!
I found another book of his had been made into a movie called High Fidelity, and, as with About A Boy, I knew I’d heard it was good. I watched that courtesy of my son’s girlfriend’s free trial of Netflix, and liked it, too. John Cusack convincingly plays a record store owner who knows more about music than relationships. I suppose the genre of the film is “romantic comedy,” but it’s not very romantic and at times is starkly painful rather than funny. Like the other two movies it is intelligent and real, and really better than at least 95% of the stuff filling our theaters.
Now I’m reading Songbook, which I bought for a penny online, so I have to apologize to Nick Hornby and say that although I’m a new fan, I haven’t actually spent any money supporting your work yet. But give me time. Last night I read a line that made me envious. I wish I could write like he does. In a discourse on why love songs are the only type of songs that really work, he goes off on a riff about social conscience songs and writes, “And how does a mandolin solo illustrate or clarify the plight of Eskimos anyway?” Exactly.
He knows way more music than I do. Since “new music” for me tends to be anything Paul McCartney has done since the breakup of The Beatles, I find myself listening to songs I’ve never heard before in order to understand what he’s writing about. Last night I listened to songs by both Nelly Furtado and Rufus Wainwright, which, I’m guessing, might have made me one step closer to cool if I’d been listening to them eight years ago when this book was published. Oh well.
Look for the name Nick Hornby. You won’t regret it.
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