We live in an Age of Gloom, or so I read, and some people blame electronics, but I love my cellphone and laptop, and others blame the decline of Protestantism, but I grew up fundamentalist so I don’t, and others blame bad food. Dread is communicable: healthy rats fed fecal matter from depressed humans demonstrated depressive behavior, including anhedonia and anxiety-crap is bad for the brain. Yes, I can make a list of evils and perils and injustices in the world, but I believe in a positive attitude and I know that one can do only so much and one should do that much and do it cheerfully. When my team scores, I don’t shout, Très bien!! I don’t indulge in dread and dismay. Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition, hang by your thumbs and write when you get work, whoopitiyiyo git along little cowboys-and I am an American, I don’t eat my cheeseburger in a croissant, don’t look for a church that serves a French wine and a sourdough wafer for Communion, don’t use words like dodgy, bonkers, knackered, or chuffed. Do your best and forget the rest, da doo ron ron ron da doo ron ron. Dance like you mean it and give it some pizzazz, clap on the backbeat. It’s a great American virtue, the essence of who we are when we’re cooking with gas: enthusiasm, high spirits, rise and shine, qwitcher bellyaching, wake up and die right, pick up your feet, step up to the plate and swing for the fences. “Adopting cheerfulness as a strategy does not mean closing your eyes to evil,” he tells us “it means resisting our drift toward compulsive dread and despond.” Funny, poignant, thought-provoking, and whimsical, this is a book that will inspire you to choose cheerfulness in your daily life. Drawing on personal anecdotes from his young adulthood into his eighties, Keillor sheds light on the immense good that can come from a deliberate work ethic and a buoyant demeanor. I recommend it with all my heart.Garrison Keillor's newest book, CHEERFULNESS, now available. It was also a delight to see Garrison Keillor himself playing himself, not just wonderfully but very convincingly as well. Kevin Kline does a Kevin Kline in the most enchanting way. Woody Harrelson and John C Reilly are simply glorious. They appear, look and sound as if they had been working together all their lives. Lily Tomlin and Meryl have the best moments in the film. To say that Meryl Streep is sublime seems kind of redundant but never mind, she is, sublime, surprising, funny, very funny, moving, very, very moving. My only reservation is that the film is too short. The work of an idiosyncratic artist and masterful craftsman doesn't hit the main stream screens every day of the week. Personally, I don't think I'll see a better film this year. That's what he saw, that's what it is but it's bound to be contradicted by critics and audiences alike. He mentioned that the film was about death and found that not everyone agreed not even some of his closest and more devoted collaborators. He, clearly, doesn't do it on purpose but it happens more often than not with the works of real artists where there is no room (or very little) for concessions. As usual Altman will divide his audience in a radical way.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |