Songs that call forth certain times, certain places. I have three of them:
Wichita Lineman by Glenn Campbell
Photograph by Nickleback (the only song of theirs I have listened to more than once, and still do)
Set Fire to the Rain by Adele
Wichita Lineman reminds me of Florida, the sonic vibrations in the song meant to evoke wind blowing across wires bringing back those long roads seemingly to nowhere, even though we always knew where we were going there. There was an orange juice stand that I swear was halfway between Pembroke Pines and Naples, where we went sometimes to visit Dad's aunt and uncle. I don't remember the name, but I do remember the free orange juice samples, and the seemingly endless cups available.
I also think of Orlando, those roadside shack tourist attractions, and Old Town in Kissimmee, with that candlemaking shop I always stood inside in awe, watching those candlemakers draw forth colors from that wax that somehow was possible after dipping the wick in those different colors numerous times, carving them, and showing off wax rainbows. I do think about Walt Disney World during this song, and that one trip to Universal Studios in 1994, but mostly, while listening to this song, I think of the land of Florida, what was always there when Walt Disney World couldn't always be there. I remember our backyard in Casselberry, running out there through the patio to see the space shuttle take off, so close that you could see the American flag and "USA" on one of the wings. I remember the large tree in front of our house there that I always thought of building a treehouse in, but that didn't happen, not least because I fell out of that tree once. And there was the basketball hoop at the side of the driveway, the only time I had a basketball hoop of my own, but I don't mind it because I spend more time these days watching basketball than playing it. I was never one of those who went on a tour of the Everglades, but I remember the gnarled branches and the small canal, and the mess of leaves and all that was behind our condominium in Coral Springs, and, when walking to Borders back then, seeing that canal with all of nature around it, the fortunate mess it created and not always by litter.
I also think about The Bubble Room in Captiva, that beautifully-kitschy restaurant with bubbles blowing all around and pop culture memorabilia, the toy train running throughout, and incredible cakes I haven't been able to match either in Southern California or here in Nevada. The list goes on, but Wichita Lineman always brings all of Florida back to me.
Photograph was a coincidence when we first visited the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley. It was playing on my mp3 player when we were riding up the winding hills to the Library, happy to be away from the nothingness of the Santa Clarita Valley (to do anything interesting there, you have to leave). I was not yet as deep in my love of presidential history, but I was curious to see what a presidential library looked like, what it had about a presidency, and I was especially interested in an entire presidency being summarized in one library. Not every event could be covered at length in the museum, but they made sure Reagan's love of jellybeans was prominently displayed, in the souvenir store in jars you could buy, on the desk in the Oval Office replica, and aboard the old Air Force One.
Photograph is about looking back at the past, wondering if you should have done things differently, and missing all of it. I guess it's the music that gets me thinking about the Reagan Presidential Library, that reaching back, and I think about every single time we've been there. We went once for the museum and the Air Force One exhibit, and every other time, it's always been for the greatest freshly-made potato chips we've ever had at Reagan's Country Cafe, which is one of the two reasons we went back often. The other reason was the view from the South Lawn replica, of those small mountains in the haze, of the building going on in the hills below the Library, unrelated to the Library.
Mostly, whenever I listen to that song, I think of the exhibits in the Library, which are positively primitive compared to the digital upgrades the Library has had, which happened after we moved to Las Vegas. I liked the State Dinners exhibit as it was, the table replica, the place settings, the information about the various State Dinners held in the Reagan White House. I also particularly remember a covered, outdoor exhibit that showed off Nancy Reagan's many dresses, and the fabric and the designs made me wonder how closely she kept tabs on the making of each dress. Probably very closely.
And of course I think about Air Force One because of my love of aviation, walking through the tight quarters of that Boeing 707, marveling at how many hundreds of thousands of miles that plane had traveled, and also looking at the adjacent exhibit diagonal from the plane which tallied up those miles and pointed out exactly where Reagan went in his eight years.
I of course have my opinions about presidents, about their effectiveness as leaders. But for me, a president is a president is a president and they all interest me no matter their political affiliation, no matter what they've done or didn't do for the country. I think the Reagan Library is what set me off on my lifetime goal of visiting every presidential library in the nation. A few years after that first visit, we went to the Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda, and I marveled at the stark differences between the Nixon Library and the Reagan Library, namely that the Reagan Library had a lot more wealthy donors and was therefore able to create an essentially theatrical experience of Reagan's presidency, whereas because of the shadow that Nixon left under, his library did not have as many wealthy donors, although they were undoubtedly devoted to him, and so there seemed like a more honest assessment of his presidency, or at least one in progress, being that the Watergate exhibit was being torn down to make way for a more straightfoward, non-biased one, which the previous one had been, mounted by Nixon loyalists. There, I liked the exhibit on Pat Nixon, the gifts sent to the Nixons that were in glass cases, the replica of his desk in his New Jersey office, stacked with books (I once e-mailed someone high up in the Nixon Library, asking for a list of the titles that were on Nixon's desk, but I never got an answer back. I was genuinely curious, always interested in what a president reads). I liked the films they showed about Nixon's life, and the low-key feeling of the entire library, that you could explore whatever you wanted, go back to it twice or three times, and you'd have all the time you needed without being prodded by theatrics. There was also the house Nixon was born in, right on the property, as well as the helicopter that Nixon flew off in from the White House lawn during his final morning as president on that day, also the one used for the same scene in Frost/Nixon.
Set Fire to the Rain is the newest addition to my list of reminder songs, and one that seemed fairly obvious from the start. If you walked through our massive mobile home in Las Vegas on an idle Saturday afternoon (so massive that the air conditioning bill was $300 a month and I hesitate to think about what heating costs were during the winter), there was always a radio on in the second living room that we never used extensively, near my parents' bedroom door, and Sunny 106.5 was always the station, which had, and still has, the habit of playing the same songs over and over throughout the day. When Skyfall the latest James Bond movie, was preparing to come out that November, they played Adele's song constantly when it was released, at least 20 times that day.
Now when I hear Set Fire to the Rain, I think about all of Valley Vista All-Age Mobile Home Park. I think about walking our two dogs at night, past that one streetlight that always winked off, the bulb going but no one replacing it until it was nearly time for us to move out and move on. I remember the bushes I always liked, the tall ones that for some reason reminded me of Boulder City and the Boulder City Library, which I always thought about whenever I saw them. I remember the tiny carport we had, when Dad had to stop the PT Cruiser (and then the Toyota Corolla) just before the stairs leading up to the laundry room, which was our entrance, because the car was right there and it wasn't worth walking around to the front door stairway. We'd walk up to the back door, walk through the laundry room, and there was the media room (where we kept the big-screen TV I owned, the DVD player, the VCR, the collection of DVDs, and not much else, not even a chair or a couch. It was easier to sit on the floor), my room, Meridith's room, and to the left was the kitchen, so it was always easy to bring in groceries. Plus, we always stored water bottles on the floor of the laundry room, another reason why it was easier entering that way.
Hearing that song, I also think about the few times Meridith and I walked around the entire park, and those days when it was cool enough outside that many mobile home front doors were open, and we passed one mobile home just past the clubhouse, and from inside were these incredible cooking smells, not just of dinner being made, but a history there. It smelled like someone was reaching from deep inside their heart and soul and bringing forth what they remembered fondly, what they wanted to recreate in their kitchen. I was so tempted to tell Mom and Dad that we wouldn't be home for dinner, to try to convince those inside that mobile home to invite us over for dinner. I wanted to taste what they clearly loved so much. There wasn't sauce out of a jar or defrosted meat coming from that kitchen. It all smelled fresh. It smelled like a brown sauce with something else, because a red sauce is noticeable right off, but a brown sauce takes time to understand.
I also think about that one mobile home in the back row, which made up the spine of the park, with all the Western decorations, including defunct kerosene lanterns, vases with steer skulls carved into them, statues of howling coyotes, and those beautiful statues of Indian women with baskets, kneeling at the river. I would have been curious to see how they decorated their home on the inside, but I saw from afar once that the couple who lived there were smokers, and I would have stayed on the outside just to ask. Last we went there, when the entrance gate was open because of a party in the clubhouse, all the Western decorations were gone. Things always change quickly after you leave.
And of course I think about the neighbors, the ones next door who were always loudly repairing air conditioning units (not ones connected to our park), and cars and whatever else their skilled hands could repair, as well as the family of neighbors diagonal from us who were always good for screaming at each other outside, but most of the time inside loudly enough that you could hear it. And also the guy I talked to occasionally who worked, and probably still does, as a custodian at the Thomas & Mack Center. When we were there this most recent time, I was tempted to get out of the car and knock on the door to see if he was available for a few minutes, but I surmised that he was likely sleeping, having to go in later that night. I wanted to see how he was doing, what was going on since he left, but maybe it's better that the past as it was remains that way.
I'm sure I'll have more to write about individual aspects of that mobile home park, and in fact, I should write more here anyway. It's been too long, and I always seem to let this blog go on too long without anything new. But this is a good start, the first inspiration I've had in a long time for this blog. With the latest book review for BookBrowse still to edit, and two books to read and review soon, perhaps it'll light a fire in writing more here. I hope so.
Showing posts with label presidents. Show all posts
Showing posts with label presidents. Show all posts
Monday, June 9, 2014
Saturday, April 19, 2014
Why Nixon?
I've finished reading the exhaustive, the enormously-illuminating, the thoroughly-researched, the continually-fascinating Pat and Dick: The Nixons, an Intimate Portrait of a Marriage by Will Swift, and I find myself yet again craving more about Richard Nixon. Despite extensive chores still to do today, such as cleaning the mirrors, sinks, and toilets in the two bathrooms of this apartment, and vacuuming in the bathrooms and in my parents' bedroom so their mattress can be turned and their new sheets put on, I put Frost/Nixon, starring Michael Sheen as David Frost and Frank Langella as Richard Nixon, in the DVD player to watch for the umpteenth time. I'm also thinking about Oliver Stone's Nixon either after that or in the days to come, since I also have that on DVD. And on hold on my library card is 31 Days: Gerald Ford, The Nixon Pardon, and A Government in Crisis by Barry Werth, to reread, and The Conviction of Richard Nixon: The Untold Story of the Frost/Nixon Interviews by James Reston, Jr., whose writing I was in awe of the first time, and a second reading might spur me to order it for my collection afterward. Oh, and I also have the C-SPAN documentary series on DVD about all the presidential libraries, including Nixon's, which I went to once when my family and I existed in Southern California (though we went to the Reagan Presidential Library more often because of the beautiful, expansive view from the replica of the South Lawn, as well as the incredible potato chips made fresh at Reagan's Country Cafe, pretty much the main reason we went there toward the end of our years in Southern California), as well as the American Experience: The Presidents DVD set, which includes a documentary about Nixon.
In my floating book collection (books I haven't read yet that may or may not become part of my permanent collection), I have JFK's Last Hundred Days: The Transformation of a Man and the Emergence of a Great President by Thurston Clarke, and 1948: Harry Truman's Improbable Victory and the Year that Transformed America by David Pietrusza, who makes these historical events come vividly alive again, as if they were happening again.
This past week, I read Eleanor And Harry: The Correspondence of Eleanor Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman edited and with commentary by Steve Neal, and I always eye David McCullough's biography of Truman, which sits on the same shelf of the bookcase on the left side of the wall directly next to my reading chair. And of course, Robert Caro's epic look into the life of LBJ prods and pokes at me, while I hate not being in New York City so I can see Bryan Cranston play LBJ in All the Way. Andrew Jackson hangs around the edges, and I would like to know what FDR's presidency was like for him in the middle years, not the famous final ones.
Why is it then that Nixon keeps taking control of my passion for presidential history, even booting out William Howard Taft for a time, even though I want to know if Taft truly did not want to be president and if his wife, Nellie, pushed him into it because she wanted to be First Lady? Why am I consistently fascinated by a dark, shadowy figure who regained some measure of political respect in his later years, with his brilliant foreign policy analysis?
It's got to be the contradictions and the complexities of the man and his presidency, wondering if he was a good president, if he would have been even better had it not been for Watergate? My dad insists that he was a good president, but he just got caught. Well, there was the increase in funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, and the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, but I still wonder how much of that was him. I read from conflicting sources that he either spearheaded the legislation for both or that others led the charge for it instead of him, and all he did was blankly sign his name to them. I don't know. Is it even possibly to find the clearest, unvarnished truth about Richard Nixon? Probably not. But in my reading, I would hope to get as close to it as possible, what sounds reasonably certain, and Will Swift comes close in Pat and Dick, particularly in focusing on his and Pat's marriage. I was curious about what their marriage was like when the Checkers speech happened, and Watergate, and his years in political exile. I got my answers to all those questions, seeing a marriage that used to be considered cold and distant, and there were moments like that, but they never lasted long there. There seemed to be a love that didn't need public confirmation, that was content to just be. Of course, I was born during President Reagan's re-election campaign, so these books and those documentaries and the footage to be found online are all I have to learn more about Nixon's life and presidency and post-presidential life. I do have my parents' insight to some degree, but my dad's insight only goes so far, and my mom's insight isn't extensive, being that she wasn't as interested in politics as my dad was at that time, in seeing history being made right then and there.
It's like with Frost/Nixon, which places Nixon (Langella) in the hospital at the time that Gerald Ford pardons him on television. Not true, according to Will Swift, who simply states that "On Sunday morning, September 8 [1974], Pat and Dick drove through Southern California fog on their way to the secluded and lush 220-acre Palm Springs estate of their friends Walter and Lee Annenberg. While they were en route, President Ford addressed the nation on television, announcing he was granting Nixon a full pardon for all offenses he had committed or might have committed during his term in office."
A shot of the Nixons driving to Palm Springs, intercut with a shot of Gerald Ford granting the pardon, then the pardon speech as a voiceover during that shot of the Nixons driving, wouldn't have been as dramatic as Nixon lying in that hospital bed from that attack of phlebitis, slowly opening his eyes as he hears Ford grant him the pardon, as is portrayed in Frost/Nixon. Any historical movie should not be taken as gospel anyway, but should hopefully fuel interest in learning more about the events potrayed. As I read that bit from Swift, I remembered that scene in Frost/Nixon, understood the dramatic license taken, and moved on. To at least understand history, if not convinced that the truth is apparent, you have to read so many different perspectives. And while I strive to read more about Richard Nixon, to understand more about him, to see the extent of the Constitutional peril he brought upon the country, Calvin Coolidge remains ignored. Rutherford B. Hayes finds himself sitting next to Ulysses S. Grant and both are eyeing Coolidge warily in the same ignored space, be it a parlor or a bar or whatever in my imagination. I imagine that people had the same visceral reaction as they watched the Watergate hearings. They were hooked on them, just as I am through all this history of a man who was not easy to know to begin with. The reason I'm so passionate about presidential history is because I want to know how these men handled being in power, suddenly having these great responsibilities thrust upon them, whether through elections or taking over from their mostly-slain predecessors (William Henry Harrison seems to be the sole exception, dying from pneumonia). I've always seen the presidents simply as men in powerful positions. They've obviously changed in many ways by the time they leave office, but they're still like you and me. Still human. Still getting up in the morning like we do. Still getting dressed like we do. Still eating like we do. Who were they before they became president? Who were they after? In the cases of Carter, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, and eventually Obama, who are they now? Do they wish they were back in that Oval Office, even those Constitutionally ineligible now? Or are they relieved to be done with all of that, content in their roles as elder statesmen, just like Nixon eventually became?
It all matters to me, and yet, I keep going back to Nixon. Maybe it's trying to understand how he could be so cynical about all the groups and particular people he lambasted in those recordings in the Oval Office, the inherent racism. Where did it all come from? How did the insecurities develop? I know some of it, but I still want to know more. It's not so much a search for the truth about Richard Nixon, without all the competing viewpoints, but more fascination with how it's not easy to really know. One book will say this, and another book will say that, and another book will come far out of left field to presume this. I feel like I should be reading about Bill Clinton's presidency because that's the one I grew up in. I was 5 when George H.W. Bush became president, and then 9 when Bill Clinton took office. Now would be the right time since enough time has passed in order to really consider it from all different angles.
But Nixon remains at the center of my passion for all this. It could also be because he was brilliant, but the insecurities and the nastiness (though mellowed years later) crowded it out. Did one emotion dominate the others for a while? He was known to become depressed at times, so how did it affect him during the presidency? There are so many questions, and not all of them will yield easy answers. I know that for sure. For me, it could be that the search is endlessly interesting. I want to know many presidents' administrations from beginning to end, possibly all of them if I hopefully live long enough (I'm hoping for well over 100 years old), but perhaps I want to start with this one because it was a mysterious administration at the same time. A political monolith, as his handlers tried to present.
So I will watch Frost/Nixon later. Maybe even Nixon to marvel at Anthony Hopkins again. There are still lots more books about Nixon that I haven't read, including his memoirs, so once I get out of the way of Watergate (which seems impossible, but it still confounds me enough that I at least want to understand more the entire arc of it before I move on to earlier events of his presidency, including his attempts to end the Vietnam War) after 31 Days and reading James Reston, Jr's book again, I'll get to those.
Or maybe it should be like a wheel. Spin it and find out which president I should spend time with for a while. Because I have a feeling if I keep this going, I'm never going to get to the others. Not that I haven't read about FDR and Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln and William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson and Andrew Jackson and John Adams and Thomas Jefferson and the others already, but just like Nixon, I want to know more about them too. I'll extract myself somehow. Eventually.
In my floating book collection (books I haven't read yet that may or may not become part of my permanent collection), I have JFK's Last Hundred Days: The Transformation of a Man and the Emergence of a Great President by Thurston Clarke, and 1948: Harry Truman's Improbable Victory and the Year that Transformed America by David Pietrusza, who makes these historical events come vividly alive again, as if they were happening again.
This past week, I read Eleanor And Harry: The Correspondence of Eleanor Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman edited and with commentary by Steve Neal, and I always eye David McCullough's biography of Truman, which sits on the same shelf of the bookcase on the left side of the wall directly next to my reading chair. And of course, Robert Caro's epic look into the life of LBJ prods and pokes at me, while I hate not being in New York City so I can see Bryan Cranston play LBJ in All the Way. Andrew Jackson hangs around the edges, and I would like to know what FDR's presidency was like for him in the middle years, not the famous final ones.
Why is it then that Nixon keeps taking control of my passion for presidential history, even booting out William Howard Taft for a time, even though I want to know if Taft truly did not want to be president and if his wife, Nellie, pushed him into it because she wanted to be First Lady? Why am I consistently fascinated by a dark, shadowy figure who regained some measure of political respect in his later years, with his brilliant foreign policy analysis?
It's got to be the contradictions and the complexities of the man and his presidency, wondering if he was a good president, if he would have been even better had it not been for Watergate? My dad insists that he was a good president, but he just got caught. Well, there was the increase in funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, and the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, but I still wonder how much of that was him. I read from conflicting sources that he either spearheaded the legislation for both or that others led the charge for it instead of him, and all he did was blankly sign his name to them. I don't know. Is it even possibly to find the clearest, unvarnished truth about Richard Nixon? Probably not. But in my reading, I would hope to get as close to it as possible, what sounds reasonably certain, and Will Swift comes close in Pat and Dick, particularly in focusing on his and Pat's marriage. I was curious about what their marriage was like when the Checkers speech happened, and Watergate, and his years in political exile. I got my answers to all those questions, seeing a marriage that used to be considered cold and distant, and there were moments like that, but they never lasted long there. There seemed to be a love that didn't need public confirmation, that was content to just be. Of course, I was born during President Reagan's re-election campaign, so these books and those documentaries and the footage to be found online are all I have to learn more about Nixon's life and presidency and post-presidential life. I do have my parents' insight to some degree, but my dad's insight only goes so far, and my mom's insight isn't extensive, being that she wasn't as interested in politics as my dad was at that time, in seeing history being made right then and there.
It's like with Frost/Nixon, which places Nixon (Langella) in the hospital at the time that Gerald Ford pardons him on television. Not true, according to Will Swift, who simply states that "On Sunday morning, September 8 [1974], Pat and Dick drove through Southern California fog on their way to the secluded and lush 220-acre Palm Springs estate of their friends Walter and Lee Annenberg. While they were en route, President Ford addressed the nation on television, announcing he was granting Nixon a full pardon for all offenses he had committed or might have committed during his term in office."
A shot of the Nixons driving to Palm Springs, intercut with a shot of Gerald Ford granting the pardon, then the pardon speech as a voiceover during that shot of the Nixons driving, wouldn't have been as dramatic as Nixon lying in that hospital bed from that attack of phlebitis, slowly opening his eyes as he hears Ford grant him the pardon, as is portrayed in Frost/Nixon. Any historical movie should not be taken as gospel anyway, but should hopefully fuel interest in learning more about the events potrayed. As I read that bit from Swift, I remembered that scene in Frost/Nixon, understood the dramatic license taken, and moved on. To at least understand history, if not convinced that the truth is apparent, you have to read so many different perspectives. And while I strive to read more about Richard Nixon, to understand more about him, to see the extent of the Constitutional peril he brought upon the country, Calvin Coolidge remains ignored. Rutherford B. Hayes finds himself sitting next to Ulysses S. Grant and both are eyeing Coolidge warily in the same ignored space, be it a parlor or a bar or whatever in my imagination. I imagine that people had the same visceral reaction as they watched the Watergate hearings. They were hooked on them, just as I am through all this history of a man who was not easy to know to begin with. The reason I'm so passionate about presidential history is because I want to know how these men handled being in power, suddenly having these great responsibilities thrust upon them, whether through elections or taking over from their mostly-slain predecessors (William Henry Harrison seems to be the sole exception, dying from pneumonia). I've always seen the presidents simply as men in powerful positions. They've obviously changed in many ways by the time they leave office, but they're still like you and me. Still human. Still getting up in the morning like we do. Still getting dressed like we do. Still eating like we do. Who were they before they became president? Who were they after? In the cases of Carter, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, and eventually Obama, who are they now? Do they wish they were back in that Oval Office, even those Constitutionally ineligible now? Or are they relieved to be done with all of that, content in their roles as elder statesmen, just like Nixon eventually became?
It all matters to me, and yet, I keep going back to Nixon. Maybe it's trying to understand how he could be so cynical about all the groups and particular people he lambasted in those recordings in the Oval Office, the inherent racism. Where did it all come from? How did the insecurities develop? I know some of it, but I still want to know more. It's not so much a search for the truth about Richard Nixon, without all the competing viewpoints, but more fascination with how it's not easy to really know. One book will say this, and another book will say that, and another book will come far out of left field to presume this. I feel like I should be reading about Bill Clinton's presidency because that's the one I grew up in. I was 5 when George H.W. Bush became president, and then 9 when Bill Clinton took office. Now would be the right time since enough time has passed in order to really consider it from all different angles.
But Nixon remains at the center of my passion for all this. It could also be because he was brilliant, but the insecurities and the nastiness (though mellowed years later) crowded it out. Did one emotion dominate the others for a while? He was known to become depressed at times, so how did it affect him during the presidency? There are so many questions, and not all of them will yield easy answers. I know that for sure. For me, it could be that the search is endlessly interesting. I want to know many presidents' administrations from beginning to end, possibly all of them if I hopefully live long enough (I'm hoping for well over 100 years old), but perhaps I want to start with this one because it was a mysterious administration at the same time. A political monolith, as his handlers tried to present.
So I will watch Frost/Nixon later. Maybe even Nixon to marvel at Anthony Hopkins again. There are still lots more books about Nixon that I haven't read, including his memoirs, so once I get out of the way of Watergate (which seems impossible, but it still confounds me enough that I at least want to understand more the entire arc of it before I move on to earlier events of his presidency, including his attempts to end the Vietnam War) after 31 Days and reading James Reston, Jr's book again, I'll get to those.
Or maybe it should be like a wheel. Spin it and find out which president I should spend time with for a while. Because I have a feeling if I keep this going, I'm never going to get to the others. Not that I haven't read about FDR and Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln and William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson and Andrew Jackson and John Adams and Thomas Jefferson and the others already, but just like Nixon, I want to know more about them too. I'll extract myself somehow. Eventually.
Monday, October 8, 2012
Former Presidents, the Painting, the Backpacker and the Banana All Lead to This
Logically, after three weeks of radio silence (the three weeks that we have been residents of Las Vegas), I should begin with the night before our move, sleeping on the floor, the entire house empty, and then the next morning, driving from Santa Clarita to Las Vegas, stopping in Barstow and Baker on the way, and, four hours later, reaching our new home, our mobile home.
But I can't. Not yet. I've an image I can't get out of my mind, and I need to write about it. However, it begins with something solved, the reason why, whenever I have a reasonable stretch of time, I log onto Amazon and watch 'The Stormy Present,' the episode of The West Wing that has President Bartlet, Former President Newman (James Cromwell), and Former Acting President Walken (John Goodman), flying to the funeral of President Lassiter, who, it seems to me, served eight years before Bartlet took office. Lassiter's presidential library is in Costa Mesa, California, and so we get these views of gardens, vines wrapped around poles, very pleasant, and very sad. I watch it all the time to absorb that atmosphere, to think about what it must be like for a former president to have his entire life and political career encapsulated in a library, a museum, a place for people to come and examine his life, however he, the library director, and other staff members, want the public to examine it. There are two books about post-presidential lives, one called Second Acts: Presidential Lives and Legacies after the White House by Mark K. Updegrove, and the other called After the White House: Former Presidents as Private Citizens by Max J. Skidmore. I donated these two books to our future mobile home park, sending them along with Mom and Dad on what would be their final trip to Las Vegas as tourists, to cement our arrangements in moving here, to be sure that they were still holding property for us. It's a rental; no more dealing with a house, but just the same, we wanted to be absolutely sure that everything was ready, that we wouldn't have to stay somewhere else in the meantime. That would have been too much with two dogs and two birds in tow, as it was on the day we moved, September 14th, by the way.
I think I read Second Acts many years ago, but I need to reread it because yet again, I have an idea for another novel. I want to see where this one goes because there are two presidential history books I want to write, but this one can really get me into the area I want to be in. This spark began on Saturday, when we went to Colleen's, a consignment store in Henderson. (By the way, as a resident of Southern Nevada now, Henderson feels a lot more vast, a lot more spread out. It's good to visit, to pass through on the way to see Lake Las Vegas, as we also did on that same Saturday, or to visit Boulder City, but I'm glad we ended up where we are, surrounded by apartment complexes, another mobile home park nearby, and businesses all around.) We walked around, looking at bookcases and wooden wall units for living rooms, and dining room tables, and chairs, and recliners, and everything else that was being sold "as-is," "All Sales Final."
On the far back wall, way back, directly across from the front door, I saw a painting of a courtyard, with columns and vines and flowers, a small sliver of a lake showing, and a quiet, elegant white house pressed against the right side of the painting. I stared at it for a few minutes. Then I showed the painting to Mom, stayed a few minutes more after she left to look around some more, went back to Mom and Dad and Meridith to look at everything else the store had, then went back to the painting. What did it mean to me? Was it the presidential library aspect of that West Wing episode I was thinking of? Could this courtyard portrayed in this painting be part of a presidential library? Would any former president want something like this, so peaceful and unencumbered by who he once was?
Toward the end of our walkaround, Mom found a side table for $18 that she wants to put in a section of our home that needs something there. I'm not sure if she means next to the laundry room or somewhere in the hallway that leads to my room and Meridith's room, but her wanting that side table spurred me on. I went back to that painting, took it off the wall, and carried it back to where we all had been sitting. It was $38. Helen, who was a great help to us, did the figuring and the total, with 8.1% Clark County sales tax (worlds better than the 9.8475858757% sales tax prevalent in Los Angeles County), was $41. I didn't hesitate for a second in giving Helen my debit card. I needed this painting. It was mine.
Either later today, after Dad gets home from work, or during the week (he works from 7:15 a.m., I think, to 2 p.m.), we're going back to that Colleen's location to pick up the end table and the painting, since we couldn't take it with us right then because neither could fit in the trunk with all four of us in the car, still the PT Cruiser by the way, which Dad will soon trade in for another car.
Once I have the painting, I'll take a picture and post it here. I'm not sure yet where to hang it, since Mom likes it too. It may be best suited for the living room, and I'll be able to see it whenever I want, to probably study it even more closely than I already have.
The painting was only the beginning, though. Last night, at Smith's, which is our home supermarket (they have everything we need every week and the Kroger brand is excellent in cereal, yogurt, bottled water, and so many other things), Dad got ham, American cheese, olive loaf, head cheese, and Buffalo Monterey Jack cheese (for Meridith), and while that was going on, I went back to the produce section to get a slicing tomato for my daily salads. I had already gotten bananas, but I knew also that I needed to get a bag of Kroger spinach, which also has never steered me wrong in these three weeks, and I don't expect it to in the years to come.
I was examining the tomatoes, looking for the one with the least bumps or anything else on it, and a backpacker went to the bananas, the section right in front of me, took a small banana off a bunch, and presumably walked to the register. He had this look of grim confidence on his face. He looked like he didn't mind being alone, as he must be for days, maybe even weeks at a time. I wanted to know where he was going. Was he going to walk part of the way, get to the road where he knew the traffic was consistent, and hitchhike? Or was he heading for the Greyhound bus station on Fremont Street? Was he traveling the country? Did he have a destination?
I can't forget the vibe that came off of him, that utter self-sufficiency, like he knew to be wary of people, to rely on them insofar as conversation or brief company, but never placing his life in their hands. And I realized, watching him walk away, what I wanted to do: I want to write a novel about a former president. I want to research what Truman did, what Eisenhower did, what all the others did after they left office. How did they feel? Were they relieved? Did they miss having that power? Did they seek to keep people's attention on them or were they satisfied with relative obscurity? I want to know all of this, and then I want to tie it into what I think will be a story about a somewhat dissatisfied former president. Not so much dissatisfied with not being in power anymore, but not having been able to really do what he set out to do as president, what he was so passionate about that was lost in the screaming jet engine of the presidency. I'm not sure what that is yet, but it's part of what drives him in this novel, and I'm also going to research the cost of presidential libraries, wondering if the courtyard that's in my painting could actually be part of a presidential library. I'm also thinking of doing something with that house in that painting as part of this novel. Just yesterday alone, I devoured The Conviction of Richard Nixon: The Untold Story of the Frost/Nixon Interviews by James Reston, Jr. It shows that not only do I need to dive deeply into my passions and stay there, but I need to see where this goes. Fictional presidents have always fascinated me as much as the real ones. Now I need to explore what I can possibly do with my own creation.
But I can't. Not yet. I've an image I can't get out of my mind, and I need to write about it. However, it begins with something solved, the reason why, whenever I have a reasonable stretch of time, I log onto Amazon and watch 'The Stormy Present,' the episode of The West Wing that has President Bartlet, Former President Newman (James Cromwell), and Former Acting President Walken (John Goodman), flying to the funeral of President Lassiter, who, it seems to me, served eight years before Bartlet took office. Lassiter's presidential library is in Costa Mesa, California, and so we get these views of gardens, vines wrapped around poles, very pleasant, and very sad. I watch it all the time to absorb that atmosphere, to think about what it must be like for a former president to have his entire life and political career encapsulated in a library, a museum, a place for people to come and examine his life, however he, the library director, and other staff members, want the public to examine it. There are two books about post-presidential lives, one called Second Acts: Presidential Lives and Legacies after the White House by Mark K. Updegrove, and the other called After the White House: Former Presidents as Private Citizens by Max J. Skidmore. I donated these two books to our future mobile home park, sending them along with Mom and Dad on what would be their final trip to Las Vegas as tourists, to cement our arrangements in moving here, to be sure that they were still holding property for us. It's a rental; no more dealing with a house, but just the same, we wanted to be absolutely sure that everything was ready, that we wouldn't have to stay somewhere else in the meantime. That would have been too much with two dogs and two birds in tow, as it was on the day we moved, September 14th, by the way.
I think I read Second Acts many years ago, but I need to reread it because yet again, I have an idea for another novel. I want to see where this one goes because there are two presidential history books I want to write, but this one can really get me into the area I want to be in. This spark began on Saturday, when we went to Colleen's, a consignment store in Henderson. (By the way, as a resident of Southern Nevada now, Henderson feels a lot more vast, a lot more spread out. It's good to visit, to pass through on the way to see Lake Las Vegas, as we also did on that same Saturday, or to visit Boulder City, but I'm glad we ended up where we are, surrounded by apartment complexes, another mobile home park nearby, and businesses all around.) We walked around, looking at bookcases and wooden wall units for living rooms, and dining room tables, and chairs, and recliners, and everything else that was being sold "as-is," "All Sales Final."
On the far back wall, way back, directly across from the front door, I saw a painting of a courtyard, with columns and vines and flowers, a small sliver of a lake showing, and a quiet, elegant white house pressed against the right side of the painting. I stared at it for a few minutes. Then I showed the painting to Mom, stayed a few minutes more after she left to look around some more, went back to Mom and Dad and Meridith to look at everything else the store had, then went back to the painting. What did it mean to me? Was it the presidential library aspect of that West Wing episode I was thinking of? Could this courtyard portrayed in this painting be part of a presidential library? Would any former president want something like this, so peaceful and unencumbered by who he once was?
Toward the end of our walkaround, Mom found a side table for $18 that she wants to put in a section of our home that needs something there. I'm not sure if she means next to the laundry room or somewhere in the hallway that leads to my room and Meridith's room, but her wanting that side table spurred me on. I went back to that painting, took it off the wall, and carried it back to where we all had been sitting. It was $38. Helen, who was a great help to us, did the figuring and the total, with 8.1% Clark County sales tax (worlds better than the 9.8475858757% sales tax prevalent in Los Angeles County), was $41. I didn't hesitate for a second in giving Helen my debit card. I needed this painting. It was mine.
Either later today, after Dad gets home from work, or during the week (he works from 7:15 a.m., I think, to 2 p.m.), we're going back to that Colleen's location to pick up the end table and the painting, since we couldn't take it with us right then because neither could fit in the trunk with all four of us in the car, still the PT Cruiser by the way, which Dad will soon trade in for another car.
Once I have the painting, I'll take a picture and post it here. I'm not sure yet where to hang it, since Mom likes it too. It may be best suited for the living room, and I'll be able to see it whenever I want, to probably study it even more closely than I already have.
The painting was only the beginning, though. Last night, at Smith's, which is our home supermarket (they have everything we need every week and the Kroger brand is excellent in cereal, yogurt, bottled water, and so many other things), Dad got ham, American cheese, olive loaf, head cheese, and Buffalo Monterey Jack cheese (for Meridith), and while that was going on, I went back to the produce section to get a slicing tomato for my daily salads. I had already gotten bananas, but I knew also that I needed to get a bag of Kroger spinach, which also has never steered me wrong in these three weeks, and I don't expect it to in the years to come.
I was examining the tomatoes, looking for the one with the least bumps or anything else on it, and a backpacker went to the bananas, the section right in front of me, took a small banana off a bunch, and presumably walked to the register. He had this look of grim confidence on his face. He looked like he didn't mind being alone, as he must be for days, maybe even weeks at a time. I wanted to know where he was going. Was he going to walk part of the way, get to the road where he knew the traffic was consistent, and hitchhike? Or was he heading for the Greyhound bus station on Fremont Street? Was he traveling the country? Did he have a destination?
I can't forget the vibe that came off of him, that utter self-sufficiency, like he knew to be wary of people, to rely on them insofar as conversation or brief company, but never placing his life in their hands. And I realized, watching him walk away, what I wanted to do: I want to write a novel about a former president. I want to research what Truman did, what Eisenhower did, what all the others did after they left office. How did they feel? Were they relieved? Did they miss having that power? Did they seek to keep people's attention on them or were they satisfied with relative obscurity? I want to know all of this, and then I want to tie it into what I think will be a story about a somewhat dissatisfied former president. Not so much dissatisfied with not being in power anymore, but not having been able to really do what he set out to do as president, what he was so passionate about that was lost in the screaming jet engine of the presidency. I'm not sure what that is yet, but it's part of what drives him in this novel, and I'm also going to research the cost of presidential libraries, wondering if the courtyard that's in my painting could actually be part of a presidential library. I'm also thinking of doing something with that house in that painting as part of this novel. Just yesterday alone, I devoured The Conviction of Richard Nixon: The Untold Story of the Frost/Nixon Interviews by James Reston, Jr. It shows that not only do I need to dive deeply into my passions and stay there, but I need to see where this goes. Fictional presidents have always fascinated me as much as the real ones. Now I need to explore what I can possibly do with my own creation.
Monday, March 5, 2012
How Will It Feel This Time?
I became a former film critic in 2009 because I was tired of the hamster-wheel feeling, such as Hollywood's release schedule, reliably awards contention-heavy at the end of the year, and the summer movie season having a lot of loud noise and empty vessels. That was only part of it, the other part being that as a member of the Online Film Critics Society, I had to participate in the year-end voting of which movies and actors and others we deemed to be the best of the year. We received awards screeners in the mail, and I always felt compelled to watch everything I got because I wanted to feel at least 10% well-informed, and I didn't review mainstream releases like other critics do, including attending press screenings. I did when I wrote for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel's now-defunct Teentime pages, but it was a novelty to me back then, just like receiving awards screeners were in my first and second years as a member of the OFCS. Back then, writing for Teentime, I wanted to be a full-time film critic some day.
In my third year of receiving awards screeners, I began to feel like I was on a hamster wheel. The same activities the same time every year. I was having some fun with it, but not as much as I should have if I was really into it. And there was no way to become a full-time film critic like Ebert or Anthony Lane of The New Yorker, or Josh Bell of Las Vegas Weekly, because those jobs weren't there anymore. Journalism had caved in on itself. There was no way to receive a paycheck and medical benefits for writing movie reviews. I didn't want it anymore anyway. I wanted to write books, to explore other topics that fascinate me, and then came What If They Lived?, with its crash course in research. And here I am now, working on my second book, and thinking of the books and novels and plays to come. This is what I want to do. This is where I belong. But what if I could review movies as I probably should have during those 10 years, not taking it as deadly serious as I did, and having more fun with it?
On Saturday, I received a message on Facebook from Rebecca Wright, who I talk with occasionally. She runs a DVD and Blu-Ray review site called Movie Gazette Online, posting links to her reviews on her Facebook account, which I see. I don't think a great deal about it because I've got my own work to do and I'm more deeply into books nowadays.
She asked if I wanted to contribute the occasional DVD review to her site, being that she gets a lot of DVDs and Blu-Rays now, and is adding more writers. She's read my past reviews, which I assume is why she contacted me.
I thought about it for a bit. I didn't want to get tied up in reviewing again. There was a lot of work to do for Film Threat, and I wasn't even getting paid for that. I wanted the experience and the clips so I could possibly parlay that into finding a full-time position as a film critic, which never happened. I'm not disappointed about that, since it led to What If They Lived?. But now, I'm busy writing books.
It might be good, though. Rebecca's site reminds me of the five reviews I wrote in 2005 for a site called The DVD Insider. I decided to be totally uninhibited in those reviews because I had nothing at stake. I looked at those reviews while I considered Rebecca's offer, and while the writing is embarassingly rough in spots, I clearly had fun writing those. That's what I should have been doing all 10 years, and also not putting all of my energy in those reviews like I did, because eventually, no one at Film Threat really did anything for me like I did for them, save for Phil Hall and my first book. That's what made it worth it.
Despite the Movie Gazette Online writer's agreement stating a requirement of 4-6 reviews per month, Rebecca told me that I could contribute as much or as little as I wanted. The number didn't matter, but she hoped I would feel comfortable enough to contribute something on a monthly basis. That's markedly different from the pressure I felt throughout those 10 years, pressure that I should have realized I was bringing on myself, but was too ambitious to notice.
There was another difference between this offer and my 10 years' worth of work: I'm not greedy anymore about DVDs. When I began writing for Film Threat, and requested DVDs from various PR firms while writing reviews of totally independent movies (Movies that not even the smallest label in Hollywood knew about), I was so impressed at just being able to get any DVD so easily. I overused this benefit with such zeal, that I got many DVDs every single day from UPS and FedEx and in the mail. The house filled up with them. Of course, where the DVDs used to be, books now reside, but I'm happier with the books.
I don't want DVDs anymore like I used to, so there's that benefit of writing for Movie Gazette Online. Plus, the site feels as comfortable as The DVD Insider was to me, and as if Rebecca wasn't already doing her best to try to reel me in, the writer's agreement states that "submissions must be 500-1,000 words." Oh god, what a relief! For me, it's like the hour or two I spent writing guest posts for Janie Junebug and Bloggerati, followed by careful, focused editing. Not only can I do this, I can use it as relaxation while working on my books! I can finally relax while writing reviews!
I accepted Rebecca's offer, promising her an up-to-150-word biography for my staff page, as well as signing up for an account on Gravatar, in order to produce a photo that can accompany my reviews. She then sent me press releases announcing forthcoming DVDs from Lionsgate and A&E, and told me to let her know if I wanted to review any of them.
The first press release announced Lionsgate's release of Gwyneth Paltrow, Nicole Kidman, and Renee Zellweger 4-Film Collections, coming out April 3. Re-releases of movies previously released on DVD, this time under the Lionsgate banner. I immediately scrolled down to the listing for the Renee Zellweger Collection, since she's one of my favorite actresses for various reasons (including being one of the leggiest actresses in Hollywood), and I had seen Bridget Jones's Diary and Chicago, both of which are included in this collection. Cold Mountain and New in Town are also here, neither of which I've seen, but I was already forming a review in my head, analyzing Zellweger's career choices, not how good or bad they are, but how she seems willing to do what other Hollywood actresses would probably be horrified about, such as the granny panties bit in Bridget Jones's Diary. She's adventurous, and willing to explore. I e-mailed Rebecca with my request, and it was done. This one's mine to review. And I think I want Chicago in my DVD collection again.
Next, a press release from A&E announcing its April releases. Rebecca sent me a separate e-mail with a list of DVDs she has right now, and not even Titanic: The Complete Story interested me. Quite different from when I also wrote reviews for NP2K, and was maniacally excited about the DVDs to be split up amongst us three reviewers. That was how I got the Clerks X DVD set that's in my collection next to Clerks II.
I scrolled through the A&E press release, stopping dead at The Presidents DVD set, which is merely being re-released in thinner packaging, but is still available for review. With my passion for the history of the presidency, this one's MINE! And Rebecca acknowledged it.
When I wrote for Screen It, Jim Judy, the owner, lived, and still does, in Germantown, Maryland. Rebecca lives in Vermont. I seem to have a great deal of luck with movie reviewers on the east coast from all the way over here. It's even more fortunate that I can write about what interests me, since I don't see movie reviewing as a potential future anymore. Renee Zellweger movies and an eight-part documentary about the presidents is an auspicious start. Plus, since I've ended my obsession with free DVDs, I have far less work to do now! I can finally have fun with this.
In my third year of receiving awards screeners, I began to feel like I was on a hamster wheel. The same activities the same time every year. I was having some fun with it, but not as much as I should have if I was really into it. And there was no way to become a full-time film critic like Ebert or Anthony Lane of The New Yorker, or Josh Bell of Las Vegas Weekly, because those jobs weren't there anymore. Journalism had caved in on itself. There was no way to receive a paycheck and medical benefits for writing movie reviews. I didn't want it anymore anyway. I wanted to write books, to explore other topics that fascinate me, and then came What If They Lived?, with its crash course in research. And here I am now, working on my second book, and thinking of the books and novels and plays to come. This is what I want to do. This is where I belong. But what if I could review movies as I probably should have during those 10 years, not taking it as deadly serious as I did, and having more fun with it?
On Saturday, I received a message on Facebook from Rebecca Wright, who I talk with occasionally. She runs a DVD and Blu-Ray review site called Movie Gazette Online, posting links to her reviews on her Facebook account, which I see. I don't think a great deal about it because I've got my own work to do and I'm more deeply into books nowadays.
She asked if I wanted to contribute the occasional DVD review to her site, being that she gets a lot of DVDs and Blu-Rays now, and is adding more writers. She's read my past reviews, which I assume is why she contacted me.
I thought about it for a bit. I didn't want to get tied up in reviewing again. There was a lot of work to do for Film Threat, and I wasn't even getting paid for that. I wanted the experience and the clips so I could possibly parlay that into finding a full-time position as a film critic, which never happened. I'm not disappointed about that, since it led to What If They Lived?. But now, I'm busy writing books.
It might be good, though. Rebecca's site reminds me of the five reviews I wrote in 2005 for a site called The DVD Insider. I decided to be totally uninhibited in those reviews because I had nothing at stake. I looked at those reviews while I considered Rebecca's offer, and while the writing is embarassingly rough in spots, I clearly had fun writing those. That's what I should have been doing all 10 years, and also not putting all of my energy in those reviews like I did, because eventually, no one at Film Threat really did anything for me like I did for them, save for Phil Hall and my first book. That's what made it worth it.
Despite the Movie Gazette Online writer's agreement stating a requirement of 4-6 reviews per month, Rebecca told me that I could contribute as much or as little as I wanted. The number didn't matter, but she hoped I would feel comfortable enough to contribute something on a monthly basis. That's markedly different from the pressure I felt throughout those 10 years, pressure that I should have realized I was bringing on myself, but was too ambitious to notice.
There was another difference between this offer and my 10 years' worth of work: I'm not greedy anymore about DVDs. When I began writing for Film Threat, and requested DVDs from various PR firms while writing reviews of totally independent movies (Movies that not even the smallest label in Hollywood knew about), I was so impressed at just being able to get any DVD so easily. I overused this benefit with such zeal, that I got many DVDs every single day from UPS and FedEx and in the mail. The house filled up with them. Of course, where the DVDs used to be, books now reside, but I'm happier with the books.
I don't want DVDs anymore like I used to, so there's that benefit of writing for Movie Gazette Online. Plus, the site feels as comfortable as The DVD Insider was to me, and as if Rebecca wasn't already doing her best to try to reel me in, the writer's agreement states that "submissions must be 500-1,000 words." Oh god, what a relief! For me, it's like the hour or two I spent writing guest posts for Janie Junebug and Bloggerati, followed by careful, focused editing. Not only can I do this, I can use it as relaxation while working on my books! I can finally relax while writing reviews!
I accepted Rebecca's offer, promising her an up-to-150-word biography for my staff page, as well as signing up for an account on Gravatar, in order to produce a photo that can accompany my reviews. She then sent me press releases announcing forthcoming DVDs from Lionsgate and A&E, and told me to let her know if I wanted to review any of them.
The first press release announced Lionsgate's release of Gwyneth Paltrow, Nicole Kidman, and Renee Zellweger 4-Film Collections, coming out April 3. Re-releases of movies previously released on DVD, this time under the Lionsgate banner. I immediately scrolled down to the listing for the Renee Zellweger Collection, since she's one of my favorite actresses for various reasons (including being one of the leggiest actresses in Hollywood), and I had seen Bridget Jones's Diary and Chicago, both of which are included in this collection. Cold Mountain and New in Town are also here, neither of which I've seen, but I was already forming a review in my head, analyzing Zellweger's career choices, not how good or bad they are, but how she seems willing to do what other Hollywood actresses would probably be horrified about, such as the granny panties bit in Bridget Jones's Diary. She's adventurous, and willing to explore. I e-mailed Rebecca with my request, and it was done. This one's mine to review. And I think I want Chicago in my DVD collection again.
Next, a press release from A&E announcing its April releases. Rebecca sent me a separate e-mail with a list of DVDs she has right now, and not even Titanic: The Complete Story interested me. Quite different from when I also wrote reviews for NP2K, and was maniacally excited about the DVDs to be split up amongst us three reviewers. That was how I got the Clerks X DVD set that's in my collection next to Clerks II.
I scrolled through the A&E press release, stopping dead at The Presidents DVD set, which is merely being re-released in thinner packaging, but is still available for review. With my passion for the history of the presidency, this one's MINE! And Rebecca acknowledged it.
When I wrote for Screen It, Jim Judy, the owner, lived, and still does, in Germantown, Maryland. Rebecca lives in Vermont. I seem to have a great deal of luck with movie reviewers on the east coast from all the way over here. It's even more fortunate that I can write about what interests me, since I don't see movie reviewing as a potential future anymore. Renee Zellweger movies and an eight-part documentary about the presidents is an auspicious start. Plus, since I've ended my obsession with free DVDs, I have far less work to do now! I can finally have fun with this.
Monday, January 9, 2012
Thank Goodness for Julie Hyzy
Before I get to what this is all about, I just discovered that my workload on Tuesday at the Margaret Herrick Library has increased considerably, though I'm not complaining because there could be even more treasure to unearth.
I searched the library catalog again for the scripts of the movies I'm writing about, to check the date on one of them, and left the search terms at "keyword," rather than "exact beginning of title." I found the listing of that particular script, but further down that page, I saw the listing of the papers of a man who was an art director on one of the sequels, and then the production designer of the following sequel. According to the listing, there's "eight production design drawings," (and I've got to see if any of them are related to my movies), as well as an album assembled by this man and his wife of their careers in Hollywood.
Below that listing was one for the papers of a man who was a set decorator on the first movie I'm writing about, which turns out to have been his last movie. His papers include the script of that first movie and I want to see if there's any notations by him on it, perhaps any insight into his thinking during production, maybe even communication with the writer/director of the film, of whom I can't find much, at least not yet, so I'm relying on other sources to hopefully give me something about him.
Each listing says that these papers are "Available by appointment only," so I'm going to call the library later today and make an appointment. I'll be at the library for hours anyway, more than I thought now with these papers potentially available to me.
Ahead of this important research visit (I'm still stunned that I'm allowed to do this), I began reading the novel that the first movie is based on. I started yesterday afternoon, but by page 136, I'd had it. I know I have to keep reading to get a good grasp on this since I haven't read it in many years, and I respect the author because his insights into various institutions are generally unmatched, but he dumps all his research into his novels, and character descriptions go far beyond what's necessary in the service of the story. There were instances where 20-30 pages passed before getting back to other characters, most of those pages taken up by explanations. The author doesn't think his readers are morons, far from it. He wants them to know what he knows, what they might not know and might be interested in. But there are so many times in this novel that I want him to get on with it already.
I couldn't take this cement block of a novel anymore and went looking for something else to read. I needed a break from the world of my second book, and in one stack near my bed, I found State of the Onion by Julie Hyzy, billed on the paperback cover as "First in the new White House Chef Mystery series." I've been looking for a series I could get into, because I want characters I can go back to often, for as long as an author writes them. I'm trying the Nero Wolfe series again because though I was bored by the mysteries themselves, I liked Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. I liked Wolfe's schedule of life, and I liked the rapport he and Archie have. I have the first two novels in a stack somewhere in my room, but I know where they are when I'm ready.
I also want a series of some kind that I can relate to. I still have the latter two novels of Ridley Pearson's Kingdom Keepers series to read, and that may become automatic because it revolves around the Disney empire. With State of the Onion, I would have a fictional White House to read about (For me, fictional presidencies count, as The West Wing is my favorite show of all time), and maybe whatever mystery is involved would be more interesting because it would be happening in the White House.
Thank goodness for Julie Hyzy! She cured me of nearly-punishing boredom and gave me much happiness in reading about this White House. Hyzy has clearly done a lot of research, and she threads it throughout her story; she doesn't dump all of it in one place. I like novelists who remember that they're writing a novel. Olivia "Ollie" Paras, the White House Assistant Chef, is most enjoyable to know. At the beginning, she carries no baggage and is not a detective in any way. She gets caught in the middle of a major security breach on the grounds of the White House and begins to think that something's not quite right about it after footage on the news is different from what she saw. She digs from there.
Hyzy also fully draws the rest of the kitchen staff, including retiring White House Executive Chef Henry Cooley, and even those characters who are assholes as soon as they walk in, namely Peter Everett Sargent III, head of the White House's Etiquette Affairs department (He prefers "Sensitivity Director"), are fun to hiss at and hope for a swift-enough demise. Hyzy does that very well because you can't be angry at them for too long. There's so much else going on. Hyzy also makes the fictional names of Middle Eastern countries seem plausible. It's not like Hollywood Novelist Syndrome where the names of big stars in that universe seem so far-fetched, even though it's all fiction.
It's rare lately that I read a 301-page novel in one sitting, but this was that novel. And I've already ordered the second novel in Hyzy's series. It makes going back to the novel for my research easier to bear. I've got strength again because of Hyzy.
I searched the library catalog again for the scripts of the movies I'm writing about, to check the date on one of them, and left the search terms at "keyword," rather than "exact beginning of title." I found the listing of that particular script, but further down that page, I saw the listing of the papers of a man who was an art director on one of the sequels, and then the production designer of the following sequel. According to the listing, there's "eight production design drawings," (and I've got to see if any of them are related to my movies), as well as an album assembled by this man and his wife of their careers in Hollywood.
Below that listing was one for the papers of a man who was a set decorator on the first movie I'm writing about, which turns out to have been his last movie. His papers include the script of that first movie and I want to see if there's any notations by him on it, perhaps any insight into his thinking during production, maybe even communication with the writer/director of the film, of whom I can't find much, at least not yet, so I'm relying on other sources to hopefully give me something about him.
Each listing says that these papers are "Available by appointment only," so I'm going to call the library later today and make an appointment. I'll be at the library for hours anyway, more than I thought now with these papers potentially available to me.
Ahead of this important research visit (I'm still stunned that I'm allowed to do this), I began reading the novel that the first movie is based on. I started yesterday afternoon, but by page 136, I'd had it. I know I have to keep reading to get a good grasp on this since I haven't read it in many years, and I respect the author because his insights into various institutions are generally unmatched, but he dumps all his research into his novels, and character descriptions go far beyond what's necessary in the service of the story. There were instances where 20-30 pages passed before getting back to other characters, most of those pages taken up by explanations. The author doesn't think his readers are morons, far from it. He wants them to know what he knows, what they might not know and might be interested in. But there are so many times in this novel that I want him to get on with it already.
I couldn't take this cement block of a novel anymore and went looking for something else to read. I needed a break from the world of my second book, and in one stack near my bed, I found State of the Onion by Julie Hyzy, billed on the paperback cover as "First in the new White House Chef Mystery series." I've been looking for a series I could get into, because I want characters I can go back to often, for as long as an author writes them. I'm trying the Nero Wolfe series again because though I was bored by the mysteries themselves, I liked Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. I liked Wolfe's schedule of life, and I liked the rapport he and Archie have. I have the first two novels in a stack somewhere in my room, but I know where they are when I'm ready.
I also want a series of some kind that I can relate to. I still have the latter two novels of Ridley Pearson's Kingdom Keepers series to read, and that may become automatic because it revolves around the Disney empire. With State of the Onion, I would have a fictional White House to read about (For me, fictional presidencies count, as The West Wing is my favorite show of all time), and maybe whatever mystery is involved would be more interesting because it would be happening in the White House.
Thank goodness for Julie Hyzy! She cured me of nearly-punishing boredom and gave me much happiness in reading about this White House. Hyzy has clearly done a lot of research, and she threads it throughout her story; she doesn't dump all of it in one place. I like novelists who remember that they're writing a novel. Olivia "Ollie" Paras, the White House Assistant Chef, is most enjoyable to know. At the beginning, she carries no baggage and is not a detective in any way. She gets caught in the middle of a major security breach on the grounds of the White House and begins to think that something's not quite right about it after footage on the news is different from what she saw. She digs from there.
Hyzy also fully draws the rest of the kitchen staff, including retiring White House Executive Chef Henry Cooley, and even those characters who are assholes as soon as they walk in, namely Peter Everett Sargent III, head of the White House's Etiquette Affairs department (He prefers "Sensitivity Director"), are fun to hiss at and hope for a swift-enough demise. Hyzy does that very well because you can't be angry at them for too long. There's so much else going on. Hyzy also makes the fictional names of Middle Eastern countries seem plausible. It's not like Hollywood Novelist Syndrome where the names of big stars in that universe seem so far-fetched, even though it's all fiction.
It's rare lately that I read a 301-page novel in one sitting, but this was that novel. And I've already ordered the second novel in Hyzy's series. It makes going back to the novel for my research easier to bear. I've got strength again because of Hyzy.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Feeling Like It Can Be Done
I don't know how many books I'm going to pore through this time for either that 1930s Hollywood history writing project or one of my presidential writing projects. I don't know how many newspapers I'm going to root through online, nor what libraries I'll need to get in touch with for records I seek, or, if it is one of those presidential writing projects, presidential libraries too.
I do know that I'm ready. I want to do this. It's going to be a lot of fun, whichever one it will be. But I have to get to work on it. After What If They Lived? was published, I vowed to be published again by the time I turned 30. I'm 27, and I'm going to be 28 in March. Two years left by then, so I still have some cushioning in these final months of 2011.
I finished reading The Men Who Would Be King early this evening, and instead of beginning The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh (The switch from nonfiction to fiction and back and forth), I began The Agenda: Inside the Clinton White House by Bob Woodward, documenting the first year of the Clinton administration's economic policy. I have three tall stacks of presidential books in the living room, and this one has been prodding me over the past week, even though I've had it since December 2009 (http://scrapsofliteracy.blogspot.com/2009/12/spontaneous-evening.html). Every book in time, I guess. As with The Men Who Would Be King, I'm reading this one to see what my enthusiasm is for those presidential writing projects. Is it higher than the Hollywood project? Or should I set it aside until I'm done with that one?
I love all these ideas, but I still have to pick one because it's the only way anything's going to be written. I don't think I could work on simultaneous projects. One book and then another. I'm not Danielle Steel.
I do know that I'm ready. I want to do this. It's going to be a lot of fun, whichever one it will be. But I have to get to work on it. After What If They Lived? was published, I vowed to be published again by the time I turned 30. I'm 27, and I'm going to be 28 in March. Two years left by then, so I still have some cushioning in these final months of 2011.
I finished reading The Men Who Would Be King early this evening, and instead of beginning The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh (The switch from nonfiction to fiction and back and forth), I began The Agenda: Inside the Clinton White House by Bob Woodward, documenting the first year of the Clinton administration's economic policy. I have three tall stacks of presidential books in the living room, and this one has been prodding me over the past week, even though I've had it since December 2009 (http://scrapsofliteracy.blogspot.com/2009/12/spontaneous-evening.html). Every book in time, I guess. As with The Men Who Would Be King, I'm reading this one to see what my enthusiasm is for those presidential writing projects. Is it higher than the Hollywood project? Or should I set it aside until I'm done with that one?
I love all these ideas, but I still have to pick one because it's the only way anything's going to be written. I don't think I could work on simultaneous projects. One book and then another. I'm not Danielle Steel.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Haunting Poetry in History
There are countless moments in history that stop you short of getting through the rest of your day, making you really think about your place in the world in relation to great and terrible political figures, events in various histories, and those small moments that sometimes show that those you would believe to be above you in the annals of government really don't possess anything more special than simply being alive and living through the same emotions and day-to-day decisions that we do, though ours tend to be far less momentous, yet no less important.
What I'm driving at is from Going Home to Glory: A Memoir of Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961-1969 by David Eisenhower with Julie Nixon Eisenhower. Eisenhower chronicles growing up as the grandson of Dwight D. Eisenhower, and all that entailed for his family, including John, his father, who served him for decades, including his eight years in the White House.
It's a fascinating story, full of those details that show that presidents, even with all that burden, are indeed human. And there's one particular sobering moment in that vein, toward the end of the book, in which news of Eisenhower's forthcoming death has gone through Washington and triggered many preparations, including a eulogy being written for Nixon to deliver at the memorial service in the Capitol Rotunda, and Lyndon Johnson at work as well:
"At the LBJ Ranch in Austin, Texas, a melancholy Lyndon Johnson drafted a statement beginning: "A giant of our age is gone." Four days later, he would stalk Eisenhower's funeral in Abilene like a ghost, barely noticed by many, eyes glistening in sorrow at the passing of a good friend."
During his presidency, Johnson consulted Eisenhower regularly, and also gave standing orders that a helicopter be provided for him to and from his farm in Gettsyburg, Pennsylvania, that he be permitted use of Walter Reed Army Hospital, and also Camp David.
That is indeed sad poetry, and it's also a testament to David Eisenhower's skilled writing that he can convey that and make one stop reading for a few moments to really think about that, between the Johnson that existed in the White House early on and the Johnson that endured such personal carnage as he oversaw a devastating war, such turmoil that extended to that point in his post-presidential life.
That's not meant to diminish the importance of those who fought and died in the Vietnam War, but as my focus for at least three books is the presidents, that's what I emphasize here.
As to my research, this book included, I don't skim the pages looking for keywords that crucial to the books I plan to write. I read each and every book because I love this subject. What better opportunity to go deep into all of this history?
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