I share your high regard for Old Man and the Sea. I first read it in the '60s but really delved into it in the mid-90s when I was teaching English in Chile. I love reading the book in Spanish and will pick it up again now, thanks to your reminding me of it.
I've seen the movie, Zodiac many times and I will watch it many more. Very well done and great actors. I remember as a kid, everyone being scared to go out at night and people talking about it so much it seemed like a normal part of life. Seeing the movie as an adult, I'm glad I didn't know more as a child.
Now I want to read that novella you are working on! Hemingway is unique, and The Old Man... is a masterpiece. It's been too long since I've read it. Putting it on my list for this summer.
One of my favorite Skinny Puppy songs, Warlock, has a recording of Charles Manson singing a piece from the Beatles Helter Skelter. Ah, to be twenty something again and discovering Skinny Puppy for the first time! Back when the Northwest was isolated enough to make our own kind of cool. At least until all them out-a-staters converged on Seattle. They'll tell you Skinny Puppy was Canadian. But hey, even Twin Peaks' David Lynch included Canadian Vancouver as a part of the Northwest. Because those spooky black forests don't have a border. They just go on and on. That's where you'll find Zodiac. Living in some lean to, next to a 200 foot pine. Dreaming of the perfect Detective who will finally find him. He hopes they're coming soon. He's getting awful tired.
I spent the first 28 years of my life in what is now considered to be the smallest town in the state of Tennessee. The county seat, Paris, had a population of about 10,000. It was not an enlightened Shangri La by any stretch of the imagination. A couple of years before I left for Texas, I befriended the local genius/artist/weirdo who loaned me a copy of Tropic of Capricorn by Henry Milller. I read it in a couple of days and it changed the way I thought about literature, art, sex, life, death...everything.
Just for fun I put together my list. Movie--One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Song--Comfortably Numb- Pink Floyd. Book-- Jitterbug Perfume- Tom Robbins. Poem--For Calling Back From Wandering The Earth In It's Human Feet- Joy Harjo, Found on your Falls Apart site. Sorry none of this is yours, but I still love your work.
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle (David Wroblewski) had me hooked deep---I loved his every sentence, and savored that story a long time.
Even when it wandered around, when the story became complicated and almost more metaphorical than I could stand---I loved it. I cried often. I was fascinated by every scene... it surprised me over and over again. Oh, man, I just effing loved it...
Read The Old Man and the Sea out loud to my son years and years ago---we fell together into H's mesmerizing scenes---and never quite forgot how we felt after we finished: quiet and sad and somehow like we were, or would forever be, intensely brave...thank you for reminding me...
OK! (present company excluded) I'll keep this short so...cracking my knuckles in excitement here : Robinson Crusoe at 8 (for several years opening the book at random places would keep me re-reading and getting lost in the adventure -- I was clueless about anything else in the book... sorry...kid) For Whom the Bell Tolls at 14 (my first Hemingway. It showed me that nerdy-brainy is not all there is and H's passionate abandon to everything he wrote about stunned me) Antigone by Jean Anouilh at 16 (I saw a play and for years I was obsessed with the dilemma of compromise for the greater good for which the price is to sin, or no compromise and to hell with the greater good.) Anna Karenina and then War and Peace (W&P ruined me for any books for almost a year, everything else seemed boring and trivial) A Woman Called En (little known gem of a book) Never Let me Go, all of Dostoevsky except for the ending of Crime&Punishment, most of Kafka, and now this is a really long note and I didn't even get to the movies so The Third Man and now I'll stop and apologize for the long-winded rant.
This is great! My husband and I used to do a best of the year newsletter every year. We need to revive it.
Manson and Co. were seriously depraved. What’s amazing is how people can be part of something like that so fully that it completely overrides all of their own humanity. I guess people getting all ideological and hating the “other” over politics is another manifestation of that kind of madness, albeit to a lesser degree.
Never watched Zodiac - stuff like that gives me nightmares. Especially the thought that so many murderers go unpunished. Cop shows have us believing everything is eventually solved.
Iris Elba was so completely riveting in The Wire that after that I have a hard time feeling anything else is worthy of him.
I’m almost disappointed that you included a song among the things that sang to you. 🙂 I loved that poem by Andrea Cohen. Thanks, Sherman!
Thank you for this. Things to delve into!
Have fun!
I share your high regard for Old Man and the Sea. I first read it in the '60s but really delved into it in the mid-90s when I was teaching English in Chile. I love reading the book in Spanish and will pick it up again now, thanks to your reminding me of it.
Have fun!
I will watch Idris Elba in anything.
Yup
Old Man and the Sea is also a classically great movie. Merde and break legs on your new writing adventure !
Thank you!
I've seen the movie, Zodiac many times and I will watch it many more. Very well done and great actors. I remember as a kid, everyone being scared to go out at night and people talking about it so much it seemed like a normal part of life. Seeing the movie as an adult, I'm glad I didn't know more as a child.
I read the Robert Greysmith Zodiac books when I was a kid
Oh, The Old Man and the Sea... Wow.
Now I want to read that novella you are working on! Hemingway is unique, and The Old Man... is a masterpiece. It's been too long since I've read it. Putting it on my list for this summer.
I have so many writing, songs, movies in my head I can't narrow it down.
Guess now, in this moment, they all sing to me.
I love the idea of a pop group named after one of the bad children in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
One of my favorite Skinny Puppy songs, Warlock, has a recording of Charles Manson singing a piece from the Beatles Helter Skelter. Ah, to be twenty something again and discovering Skinny Puppy for the first time! Back when the Northwest was isolated enough to make our own kind of cool. At least until all them out-a-staters converged on Seattle. They'll tell you Skinny Puppy was Canadian. But hey, even Twin Peaks' David Lynch included Canadian Vancouver as a part of the Northwest. Because those spooky black forests don't have a border. They just go on and on. That's where you'll find Zodiac. Living in some lean to, next to a 200 foot pine. Dreaming of the perfect Detective who will finally find him. He hopes they're coming soon. He's getting awful tired.
I spent the first 28 years of my life in what is now considered to be the smallest town in the state of Tennessee. The county seat, Paris, had a population of about 10,000. It was not an enlightened Shangri La by any stretch of the imagination. A couple of years before I left for Texas, I befriended the local genius/artist/weirdo who loaned me a copy of Tropic of Capricorn by Henry Milller. I read it in a couple of days and it changed the way I thought about literature, art, sex, life, death...everything.
Ah, yes, that one book that introduces our young souls to the world!
Just for fun I put together my list. Movie--One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Song--Comfortably Numb- Pink Floyd. Book-- Jitterbug Perfume- Tom Robbins. Poem--For Calling Back From Wandering The Earth In It's Human Feet- Joy Harjo, Found on your Falls Apart site. Sorry none of this is yours, but I still love your work.
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle (David Wroblewski) had me hooked deep---I loved his every sentence, and savored that story a long time.
Even when it wandered around, when the story became complicated and almost more metaphorical than I could stand---I loved it. I cried often. I was fascinated by every scene... it surprised me over and over again. Oh, man, I just effing loved it...
Read The Old Man and the Sea out loud to my son years and years ago---we fell together into H's mesmerizing scenes---and never quite forgot how we felt after we finished: quiet and sad and somehow like we were, or would forever be, intensely brave...thank you for reminding me...
OK! (present company excluded) I'll keep this short so...cracking my knuckles in excitement here : Robinson Crusoe at 8 (for several years opening the book at random places would keep me re-reading and getting lost in the adventure -- I was clueless about anything else in the book... sorry...kid) For Whom the Bell Tolls at 14 (my first Hemingway. It showed me that nerdy-brainy is not all there is and H's passionate abandon to everything he wrote about stunned me) Antigone by Jean Anouilh at 16 (I saw a play and for years I was obsessed with the dilemma of compromise for the greater good for which the price is to sin, or no compromise and to hell with the greater good.) Anna Karenina and then War and Peace (W&P ruined me for any books for almost a year, everything else seemed boring and trivial) A Woman Called En (little known gem of a book) Never Let me Go, all of Dostoevsky except for the ending of Crime&Punishment, most of Kafka, and now this is a really long note and I didn't even get to the movies so The Third Man and now I'll stop and apologize for the long-winded rant.
This is great! My husband and I used to do a best of the year newsletter every year. We need to revive it.
Manson and Co. were seriously depraved. What’s amazing is how people can be part of something like that so fully that it completely overrides all of their own humanity. I guess people getting all ideological and hating the “other” over politics is another manifestation of that kind of madness, albeit to a lesser degree.
Never watched Zodiac - stuff like that gives me nightmares. Especially the thought that so many murderers go unpunished. Cop shows have us believing everything is eventually solved.
Iris Elba was so completely riveting in The Wire that after that I have a hard time feeling anything else is worthy of him.
Life is too short for such...... But who am I to judge obsessions?