Well-Read Life™

Behind the Designs:A Dash of Ogden Nash

Periodically, I like to take readers behind the designs of some of our products. Meet Ogden Nash’s Porpoise Paperweight, our 3-D tribute to an American icon of humor. I’ve asked Mim Harrison, the editor of Levenger Press, to take you behind its design.

                   - Steve

As so often happens in the design world, we were tootling down one road and found it led us to another.

Ogden Nash’s purposeful porpoise had its beginnings in the authors’ introduction of our Levenger Press book Rare Words II. At least, that was where we got our first Ogden glint in the eye.

In their introduction, our authors, Jan and Hallie Leighton, explained how they were adapting a verse form known as the clerihew to help explain the meaning of many of their rare words. Clerihews are whimsical rhymes that an Englishman named Edmund Clerihew Bentley (1875-1956) created. One of my favorite adaptations in Rare Words II is the rhyme that Jan and Hallie fashioned to describe perpending, which means to ponder:

Hamlet, perpending,
delayed sending
the evil king to kingdom come,
but finally he killed the bum.

But clerihews weren’t our authors’ only inspiration. As Hallie wrote, “Many of our rhymes are written with a nod to the Nashian spirit.”

And we at Levenger found ourselves nodding as well and saying, “Yes! Ogden Nash. We love Ogden Nash.”

Abandon spell-check—Nash is back!

For the boomers among us, Ogden Nash (1902-1971) was the funny poet we recalled our parents laughing about when we were kids. So we started down our rediscovery road, helped enormously by the collection of poems that Nash’s daughters, Linell Nash Smith and Isabel Nash Eberstadt, compiled in The Best of Ogden Nash.

It made us appreciate all over again why it was that Ogden Nash so captivated. He had a singular gift for not only rhyming words but bending them to his playful wishes—turning oughtn’t into ortant to rhyme with important. Only a master of the English language could do what he did with such grace and grin-power.

Since we know many of our customers are word lovers, we figured they may well be Nashophiles as well. So our purposeful porpoise gives you a dash of Nash, with his charming rhyme about this creature:

I kind of like the playful porpoise,
A healthy mind in a healthy corpus.
He and his cousin, the playful dolphin,
Why they like swimming like I like golphin.

We hope it also gives you a reason to smile.

                    - Mim

Sometimes by sheer serendipity the timing of a product is right. In these tough economic times, having Ogden Nash to lighten our mood can be a happy respite.  Comments? I’d love to hear your thoughts about Nash’s poetry or a favorite line or two. Just click on the Comments link below. (If you’re reading this as an email, click here and you’ll connect to Comments).

                        - Steve

Ogden Nash poem “The Porpoise” Copyright © 1941 by Ogden Nash.

Boovie-Book-in-the-Making: We Want Your Reviews

The 2009 Oscar nominees for best adapted screenplay were…

THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON
DOUBT
FROST/NIXON
THE READER
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE

Slumdog was the winner, but what I find more interesting is the diverse original material that begat this year’s nominees.

Doubt was first a play. Frost/Nixon was first broadcast on television; later, the TV interviews were worked into a play and finally to the movie.  Only The Reader and Slumdog Millionaire were books originally, while The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

For those of you helping us develop the material for the forthcoming Levenger Press boovie book, our quest is to see the movie first and then read the original material (when it started as a book or short story), in order to experiment with this uncustomary approach.

The first reason we might want to read the book after seeing the movie is to gain more detail and perspective. As we read for the eight or ten hours we can take in the richness that the typical 100-page screenplay must leave out. But what about for a short story? They often aren’t any longer than scripts. Is there any benefit to be had from reading them after the movie?

Should we bother reading original short stories?

For the 2008 Oscar nominees, two were adapted from short stories. I’d like now to report on my own experience of reading these short stories after seeing the movies.

I found reading “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” unrewarding. For those who saw the powerful movie, you know how hard it was to watch as this man in the prime of his life is reduced to a vegetative state and forced to communicate by blinking one eye.

The movie is stronger than the written form for its remarkably imagery. Reading the short story did reinforce the gratitude I feel for my physical self, and my admiration for Jean-Dominique Bauby for his nobility of spirit. That said, the movie was not only more powerful, but sufficient, at least in my opinion.

The movie Away from Her was originally a short story titled “The Bear Came Over the Mountain” by Alice Munro. Here too, the movie captured nearly all the material in the short story. It’s interesting that the relationship between Grant and Miriam, which was left ambiguous in the story, was explicit in the movie. But is that enough to merit the time of reading the short story? Perhaps not. But one thing was for me.

There is a passage when Grant is wondering how much of the beauty he sees in his failing Fiona is because he knew her when she was a beautiful young woman, a perspective that a newcomer could not have. For me that single realization is worth the whole reading, for it gives me a larger perspective about the musty needlepoint adage, “Grow Old With Me, The Best Is Yet To Be.”

So my verdict is still out on whether it’s generally worth reading the original short stories that give life to a movie you’ve already seen. With great anticipation, I look forward to watching The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and then reading, Fitzgerald’s story. And I look forward to hearing your perspectives on this question.

The Reader

I never know how much I like a movie until the morning after. If I arise thinking about it and discovering new layers of meaning—that’s a movie I like, or at least admire. And this was the case in spades with The Reader. Lori and I discussed it quite a bit both after seeing it that evening and again the next day, as gradually we saw how pieces fit together and made sense.

Now I’m reading the book, written originally in German by Bernhard Schlink. It is marvelous so far because of all his observations on life, from which the movie could only pick and choose. The man writes in first-person, remembering his life-transforming affair with the woman old enough to be his mother—the woman with a horrific past not yet known to the boy.

He reflects about happiness and whether ugly truths discovered much later must irreversibly tarnish memories that otherwise would gleam, or whether it’s possible for old memories to remain beautiful. This and many other nuances and scenes, beautifully expressed in Schlink’s writing, were necessarily left out of the film.

For a different perspective, I’ve heard that some viewers of the movie were upset at what they saw as a glamorization, or at least humanization, of a former Nazi. For them, I would think they would have little, if any, interest in devoting the hours involved in reading the book.

Revolutionary Road

Although not nominated in the adapted-screenplay category, this movie was first a book by Richard Yates that was a National Book Awards finalist in 1962. I greatly admire the bleak tragedy about 1950s angst, but it doesn’t make me want to spend more hours with the subject matter.
I just read the publisher’s review of the novel, which confirms that the theme of the book is the same as the movie. I’ll skip it. And isn’t this just the point of seeing the movie first? We can devote a couple of hours and take in a beautiful piece of storytelling art, and then decide whether we want to devote more time to understanding the themes.

Please let us hear from you, dear moviegoer and reader. What do you observe about this year’s adaptations (or any others)? We’d love to hear. Just click on the Comments link below. (If you’re reading this as an email, click here and you’ll connect to Comments).

Join me at the ‘Getting Things Done’ Summit(and we'll get organized together)

I've been a fan of David Allen and his Getting Things Done methodology for many years now, so it was with pleasure that I agreed to be a panelist at his first GTD summit this March in San Francisco.

His new book, Making it All Work: Winning at the Game of Work and the Business of Life, came out just recently and I'm enjoying reading it. 

David and his team offer practical solutions for navigating the overload of information most of us suffer from. He is smart, experienced, sincere—and his method is genuinely helpful, as has been borne out by his growing list of marquee clients in the U.S. and internationally. 

So if you're able to attend the GTD Summit, March 11 to 13 in San Francisco, I'm sure you'd get a lot out of it—and it would be my pleasure to meet you there. 

Click here to register.

And click on the Comments link below if you’d like to post a note. (If you’re reading this as an email, click here and you’ll connect to Comments).

Laugh with Lincoln on his 200th Birthday

On 12 February 2009, 200 years after his birth, Lincoln is a figure cast in bronze and chiseled in white marble. The cover of the recent USA Weekend magazine featured a photo of his monumental memorial and proclaimed that “this great president’s legacy remains immortal.”

The problem with immortality is that by placing someone there, we risk losing sight of the real human. And thus we look to our trusted historians to bring us the depth behind the frozen images, to—in the words of David McCullough—make the past as interesting as it actually was.

One facet of Abraham Lincoln often left out of sober remembrances was the man’s dry humor.

Immortal laughter

The famous historian of images, Otto Bettmann, would often begin his speeches the following way: “Abraham Lincoln said, ‘No short speech can be all bad.’”

Years ago Levenger sold a set of refrigerator magnets sporting food quotations. One was by Lincoln: “If this is coffee, please bring me tea. If this is tea, please bring me coffee.”

Amidst all the great histories of Lincoln, including Ron White’s new bestselling biography and Jay Winik’s captivating April 1865, I’m proud that Levenger is playing a small role through our loving revival of an elegant biography from 1893. It was written when Lincoln was still remembered by living people as a flesh-and-blood person. It serves as a fascinating, feet-on-the-ground account that those who admire the tall man will savor. And we were fortunate to have Ron White write the foreword to our new edition.

Like many Americans, I can’t read, or hear, the Gettysburg Address without choking up. But let’s laugh, too, along with our beloved president. (And in February 2009, most of us could use a laugh.)

In one of Lincoln’s debates, his opponent accused Lincoln of being two-faced. Lincoln paused and then replied, “If I had another face, do you think I’d wear this one?”

Happy Birthday, Abe!

How about you, dear reader? Is there a favorite quote that brings you both solace and smiles? Just click on the Comments link below. (If you’re reading this as an email, click here and you’ll connect to Comments).

Re-Living Your First Literary Love Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell

The twelve-year-olds were hot and boisterous funneling back into their classroom after lunch recess. They had been dodging balls and swinging on bars out on the playground of crushed granite. Standing at the door, shooing them inside, was a gray-haired woman with a kindly smile. She had little trouble because the kids knew it was time to hear her read the next chapter of the book that had captured their imagination over the previous weeks.

The woman’s name was Mrs. Geissler and she taught the sixth grade at San Miguel Elementary School in Lemon Grove, California. The book she was reading was Island of the Blue Dolphins, and one of those students eager to hear the next chapter was me. (That's me in the second row from the bottom, second from the right with the blue shirt.)

 

When I started in Mrs. Geissler’s class I hadn’t been doing well in school, nor was I much of a reader. I spent more time watching Batman and the space program on TV, listening to my transistor radio, and annoying our unfortunate neighbors with my new trumpet. But Mrs. Geissler’s reading of Island of the Blue Dolphins caught me. For the first time, I was in book love—I couldn’t wait to hear what happened next.

What led me to recollect this long-ago time was Facebook. Through Facebook, I reconnected with former classmates from my San Miguel Elementary Class of 1966. We got to reminiscing and lit upon the subject of Mrs. Geissler’s after-lunch readings.

I remembered only a few details of the book—that an island girl and her brother had become stranded on an island, that he had died, and something about dogs. Mostly I remember the feeling of the story. There was beauty and desolation, and the girl had to do everything herself or die.

One of my classmates from San Miguel is Paula Novell Straus, who is now a teacher herself. She remembered Mrs. Geissler’s reading this way:

She used to read after lunch, usually a chapter, but we occasionally got her to read more because we were so engrossed in the plot. She fell for it when we begged her. If a chapter was really long, we didn't get to hear the whole thing, and were impatient for the next day. It took us a good month to get through the book it seems. We didn't have to stop and discuss it like I now have to do as a teacher. We just got to lay our heads down on our desks and be carried away to another time. She didn't ask us the author's purpose, have us look for similes or metaphors, find supporting details, or figure out the resolution of the conflicts. We just got to be.....

Four decades later, still in love

It occurred to me during these Facebook exchanges that I should read the book again—42 years later—and see what I thought of it today. Because I’m such an audiobook fan, and because originally we heard the book, I downloaded Island of the Blue Dolphins from Audible. Also, I ordered two copies of the printed book—an original 1960s-era version with its familiar dust jacket, and a modern hardcover, beautifully illustrated by Ted Lewin.

After I hit play on my iPod, it took only moments to be taken in again. A few bars of music set the stage and then the magical voice of Tantoo Cardinal carried me back to the island that had captured my imagination as a lad.  Cardinal is a Canadian film and television actress, with Dances with Wolves and Legends of the Fall to her credit. Her first-person reading of the young Karana is perfectly cast.

As for the writing, it has a spare, simple, E. B. White style that is well-suited to a story as it might actually have been told by a young Native American. As an adult, I can see why the book has lasted. It deals with enduring themes of wilderness versus civilization, peacetime and war, lives balanced with nature versus nature’s exploitation, gender prejudice and smashed stereotypes.

When he penned this tale, the author Scott O’Dell was in his 60s. He was a career newspaperman and local historian. He had sailed the waters off the California coastline and heard a story of a young girl who had been stranded on her island. The Island of the Blue Dolphins was his first children’s book and it won the Newbery award in 1961. He wrote plenty of children’s books afterwards, but this remains his most well known. I see from the old dust jacket that O’Dell had lived in Julian, California, a few miles inland from our school. He could have driven over after breakfast and visited when Mrs. Geissler was reading.

How do you thank a teacher?

It was in Mrs. Geissler’s class that I started, for the first time, doing well in school. We had to write a paper on a country. I chose Mexico and got an A. Another student accused me of being “a brain.” It was the first time anyone had cast such an aspersion my way, and it shocked me.

Mrs. Geissler gave me my first drink of literature and it was salty and wild tasting. It came with the sound of waves crashing and the iridescence of clothes made of cormorant feathers. My classmate Paula looked up Mrs. Geissler in school records and found she passed away in 1978, long before I thought to thank her.

Now I’m buying Island of the Blue Dolphins for some parents I know. Perhaps if they read it to their children, they too will be transported.

Have you re-lived your first book love? I’d like to hear your story. Just click on the Comments link below. (If you’re reading this as an email, click here and you’ll connect to Comments).