Self Promotion
How's the Moon?
moon phases |
--MacBeth V.v.
“Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings.”
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I was listening (as I do) to WBUR's Here and Now, and the host, talking about our fun little financial crisis (more on that later) said, "I don't mean to keep mention him, but I'm not the only one" and then mentioned that scene from It's a Wonderful Life when the town makes a run on the Savings & Loan, and George Bailey spends his honeymoon money to save the business. What struck me is that she pointed out how often that film has been invoked during this crisis.
There are lots of films--and books, often from books--set during (or filmed during) the Great Depression: The Grapes of Wrath, To Kill a Mockingbird, even more recent films like Oh Brother Where Art Thou? (the title itself comes from another film about/during the Depression, Sullivan's Travels). But it's It's a Wonderful Life and that scene of the bank run that I've noticed people returning to.
I suppose its historical ubiquitousness (hey, triple word score?) during Christmastime helps, but it's still striking. What is it about that movie, that it keeps being refered to? I don't think it's just that everyone's seen the film, though that's part of it. To be honest, I'm not sure what it is--I feel like it's a little deeper than it just being a familiar film. Maybe, though, because it's such an overwhelmingly familiar film, so ingrained in mid-late 20th century American consciousness, that for the most of us who didn't live through the Depression, it's held up as a defining image, just as much as--or even more than--the fabled stock brokers leaping to their deaths in 1929.
I don't really know what the future holds; I suppose as long as I have a job, we're OK. But part of me will always be superstitious, waiting for the other shoe to drop, hoping my bank actually has money on hand to give me. Right now, it's a matter of (weak) faith in the system--and that's the problem, I suppose. The economy runs on faith: faith in credit, faith in green paper having intrinsic worth, faith that loans will be paid back.
As with everything else in my life, I'm agnostic.
posted by Mary, 8:30 AM
Happy Birthday to the Telescope
I'm a little late with this, but yesterday was the 400th anniversary of the patenting of the telescope.
I think it was the Christmas when I was ten that I was given a telescope. I remember the first time looking at the moon through it, and being shocked--there it was, right in front of me, and I could see the craters, the shadows, all sharp and bright in ways that I'd only ever seen in photographs or National Geographic maps of the moon.
When I was a kid, I went to the Fels Planetarium a lot. Growing up in Philly, it was hard to really see many stars; I remember my dad pointing out Orion's Belt, but I couldn't see much else of the constellation, and in retropsect, I'm surprised we even saw the Belt. But when I went to the planetarium, I saw all the stars--stars and the Milk Way, which I've still never been anywhere dark enough to see. Sitting there in the dark, I was filled with wonder at what was for me an unseen universe.
And so, when I was ten, we moved to the edge of the Megalopolis, to a small town in Pennsylvania, where I could suddenly go out on the back porch and see the stars. I know now that it was no great number, that what I saw was only a fraction of what the rest of mankind could see any night up till the invention of the lightbulb. But for me, it was like seeing the whole universe. And I could see Orion, I could see Gemini, I could see Pegasus, I could see, most amazingly for me, the Big Dipper--though I couldn't make out the rest of Ursa Major. I saw the North Star--and, like most people, was disappointed that it wasn't brighter, more prominent.
So my mom gave me a telescope for Christmas, and suddenly the universe openned that much wider. The moon, Jupiter and its moons, distant stars were suddenly there, close up.
posted by Mary, 8:30 AM
This is Banned Books Week. I suppose there are themes to the books which are challenged, but they're so vague: magic? sex? race? challenging authority? profanity? violence? uh... life as it's actually lived? Really, can you name a book written beyond the third grade level that doesn't introduce some theme that will offend someone? Like, I don't know, a current vice-presidential candidate?
Here's a list of the most-challenged books of the 21st century (admittedly a young century)
I guess from this list the Harry Potter books are my current favorite; as a kid, it would've been the Scary Stories series (still think that's a great collection). And of course I've read The Chocolate War, Of Mice and Men, and most Judy Blume books.
There's a reason I have that quote at the top of the page; books, like all art, are mearly an expression of humanity. To ban the expression, to marginalize thought, marginalizes our humanity.
By the way, my toss-up between favorite banned books are either The Catcher in the Rye or To Kill a Mockingbird.
posted by Mary, 8:30 PM EDT