Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, & Cats, the Musical

I loved the Play "Cats". It tells a story based on the poems from T.S. Eliot’s book- “Old Possum’s, Book of Practical Cats. My very favorite part of the play was the beginning of the second act. As it started out it said- “We had the Experience but missed the meaning”. We don't want our lives to be like that, we want to find the meaning of our experiences.

The story is of a tribe of cats called the "Jellicles" and the night they make "the Jellicle choice", which was to decide which cat will ascend to the Heaviside Layer and come back to a new life. 

Andrew Loyld Webber produced the play. Late in the production, and probably not part of the original plan, the director, Trevor Nunn, wrote the song Memory.  He based it on T.S Eliot’s poems, “Preludes” and “Rhapsody on a Windy Night”. The song, "Memory",  proved to be the most popular song from the play. It was sung by the cat character Grizabella who was once a glamour cat but had become only a shell of her former self. The song is a remembrance of her glorious past and of her wish to start a new life. It is presented in the first act, but then again near the beginning of the 2nd Act.  The song results in Old Deuteronomy choosing Grizabella to be able to go back and have another life.

Music has a way of taking us back to a time and a place. Memories are found by the music, as it seems to activate the brain. This happens in the medial prefrontal cortex region of the brain, which is one of the last to be changed with Alzheimer’s disease. That may help to explain why music can elicit such strong responses from people with Alzheimer's disease.

Many songs will bring back specific memories for us.  Musicals often introduce songs, that are so powerful years later they easily bring back the first time you heard them. Examples of musicals that do this well are: Les Miserable, Phantom of the Opera, and Cats.  

 Memory

Barbra Streisand recorded “Memory” in 1981.  Her presentation was awesome. It seems like it was made just for her to sing. The song took Grizabella and those that heard it back to a time and place and those memories expressed earned her another life. 

In 2009 when Scottish singer Susan Boyle performed this song, at her audition for the third series of the British reality TV show Britain's Got Talent, her career sky rocketed.  She seemed in many ways to be the character Fantine.

The Song

Midnight, not a sound from the pavement, Has the moon lost her memory, She is smiling alone In the lamplight, The withered leaves collect at my feet. And the wind begins to moan

Memory, all alone in the moonlight, I can dream of the old days, Life was beautiful then, I remember the time I knew what happiness was, Let the memory live again

Every street lamp seems to beat, A fatalistic warning, someone mutters and the street lamp sputters, and soon it will be morning

Daylight, I must wait for the sunrise, I must think of a new life, And I mustn't give in, When the dawn comes, tonight will be a memory, too, and a new day will begin.

Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, & Cats, 

Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats

By T. S. Eliot

Buy on Amazon

Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe

It has been at least 20 years since I first read “Things Fall Apart” and discovered it's author, Chinua Archebe. The book must have resonated with others because today it is the most translated African work of all time. It has been translated into 50 languages and has sold over 8 million copies.

In “Things Fall Apart” the main character was Okonkwo from a village in Nigeria. He was a warrior, father, and husband. A single minded hard man. 

In the beginning of the book the Africans appeared uncivilized. As the book proceeded we understand that they were indeed a African tribe with strong traditions and values.

The dignity and humanity of their lives just falls away with the influence of the white missionaries and intruders, whose teachings are foreign to the tribe and of which resistance is impossible. The Christian salvation just doesn't resonate. 

Okonkwo can't change himself, and seems to be alone in his understanding of what is happening, and he commits suicide. The culture is lost and a civilization is lost

Quotes

“The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.”

 “There is no story that is not true, [...] The world has no end, and what is good among one people is an abomination with others.”

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People /Are you understood?

Several years ago I had an opportunity to speak to a group as one of two planned speakers. The other speaker was Stephen Covey. Yes, it was a little intimidating and before I mention one of his books I will tell you a little about it. It was at a Singles Ward in our Church.  He was the invited speaker and I was the assigned speaker from our Stake. I had no idea that I was going to precede him that day. I sat by this bald guy on the stand and wondered who he was at first.

At the time we were living in Salt Lake City and it was easy enough to pull a speaker from the Provo area if someone had a connection. I wish I could tell you what I talked about that day, or even what he talked about. I just don't remember but I do remember how I felt. This is sort of the flip side of Maya Angelo. Remember she said:

“At the end of the day people won't remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel.” Well I could change that to read like this: At the end of 20 years you won't remember anything about what you said when you were the first speaker with a man like Stephen Covey, but you will remember how you felt. I remember clearly that no matter what I said as the first speaker that no one would want me to be taking up the time.

When I was in college I took a speech class. The last time we each presented a talk to the class was a big factor in our grades. I had a very good speech ready and knew I would do well. What I didn't know was that the speech before me was so good it blew everyone away.  We were awestruck.  When I got up I just gave my speech. I should have gotten an A. It was a good. When the instructor discussed my talk with the class afterwards he said the lesson to be learned was that when you follow a amazing speech the only chance you have is to diffuse the excitement. He said don't just jump in with your message but comment on how wonderful the other message was and let the excitement come down a little. I got a B because I didn't do that.

When I preceded Stephen Covey I did think of that. I figured the excitement was coming, so I shortened my talk some. I also mentioned that I was excited to hear from him. It seemed to work.

I wrote a new post in the Creativity Tab about "The Habit of Creativity". In that post I mentioned Stephen Coveys book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I do want to recommend that book. Those habits can help creativity, and also help us develop personal excellence.

Aristotle said “Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives. It is choice, not chance that determines your destiny.” It seems clear that excellence can be the end result of good habits.  

The 7 habits are listed below. The book was first written in 1989 just a couple of years before my speaking event happened. These habits are still of value and I would recommend the book and these habits for your study.

1. Be Proactive

2. Begin with the End in Mind

3. Put First Things First

4. Think Win Win

5. Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood

6. Synergize

7. Sharpen The Saw

How Bad Writing Destroyed the World by Adam Weiner / Any Rand and the Literary Origins of the Financial Crisis

Adam Weiner's book, "How Bad Writing Destroyed The World" takes some of the thinking that has influenced the world for the last 75+ years and ties it to a surprising source. 

The "Bad Writing" refers to a Russian author, Chernyshevsky.  In 1863 he wrote a book "What is to Be Done". One chapter in the book, "The most atrocious work of Russian literature", sums it up.

Chernyshevsky socialist philosophy was called "rational egoism". How this philosophy became the foundation of Ayn Rand, the arch-capitalist, is the shared belief that "the rational pursuit of selfish gain on the part of each individual must give rise to the ideal form of society".  The book also caught the attention Lenin, Dostoevsky, and Nabokov. How their philosophies (also?) meshed with the book was also also discussed in the book.

Ayn Rand's fled to the south where she went to the University of Petrograd. Years later she came to the United States.  

She is best known for her book "Atlas Shrugged" and "Fountainhead". Capitalism, limited government, the individual, the free market, and eventually trickle down economics, were her areas of focus.

Her book "Atlas Shrugged" was reviewed by Whittaker Chambers who, with William Buckley, were the other well known conservatives of the last century.  When Chambers said of her book that it was a "fairy tale" their relationships ended.   (I think he was right)

In other writings Rand said of herself that she was the smartest philosopher the world had ever had, except Aristotle.  She also said that with a free market that, the rich get richer and the poor are hurt sometimes, but then "they deserve it". For her the free market rewarded brains. She thought people would naturally do the right think in a free market, because self interest meant people would protect their reputation.

A early disciple of her's was Alan Greenspan. He would later say he knew economics but didn't know why people acted the way they did. He felt Ayn Rand had helped him with that.  

By the time he served as Chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006 he was very much in her influence. After the banks crashed in 2008 the congress called him in and asked him why he had reduced all the regulation that was in place that seemed to have caused the crash?  He said he had made a mistake. He said he knew economics but didn't understand people, and felt that the free market would cause people to do the right thing for the sake of their reputation.  He misjudged greed, and admitted it.

The book is interesting, relevant, and worth reading. 

Humans of New York & Why we write about ourselves

Humans of New York, by Brandon Stanton came out in 2013.  It was the next step for a blog that had been started in 2010.  Currently the blog, including social media, has almost 25 million followers.  

The appeal of the book was of course the quality of the photography, but it also was the real interest in the people in the pictures. People wanted to know more about their lives. Brandon must have gotten a lot of feedback telling him that and that lead to the most recent version, Humans of New York, Stories. The key thing is that stories telling more about the lives of the people were added. 

We want to know more about each other and that has come up in many of this blog's posts. My very first post on this blog talked about experiences I had with a group of men listening regularly to their life stories. We grew closer together and we saw our own lives differently.  The success of Humans of New York and our interest in personal stories points to the rise of the the literary genre of Memoirs. 

This blog contains a lot of pictures in the various tab sections. This is because the visual images take you out of where you are, and  stimulate thoughts, so that you can then connect with the images. 

The author/editor, Meredith Maran, put together a book on the subject of life stories and memoirs; her approach is a good next step looking into why this is so interesting.  

 “Why we Write About Ourselves, Twenty Memoirists on Why They Expose Themselves (and others) in the name of Literature. 

She wrote the introduction and provided comments in the book.  She presented twenty successful and interesting authors thoughts on "why they wrote works of memoir". She compared this to the age-old tradition of oral history as well as their strong popularity. 

I can relate to the idea of learning life stories through oral histories. My father told me stories of all our ancestors, as he recalled them.  Great Grandparents, Uncles, Aunts, Cousins and more. He told their stories and I should add that he did it over and over again.  I often thought that I might just tell him, “Dad, I heard that story before” but I never did. I'm glad I didn’t.

The twenty writers chosen by Merideth presented their thoughts in similar formats. They each answered the question of "why they wrote about themselves". 

One author, Ishmael Beah, is well known for his memoir “A Long Way Gone: Memories of a Boy Soldier”. I remember when this was released, some critics said it wasn't authentic. It was about the author having been pushed into service in the army of his country, Sierra Leone, as a 12 year old boy.  This author talked in Merideth's book about how that made him feel to be called a fake. He also addressed the question of why he wrote, saying he wrote his memoir to “prove his existence”.

Kate Christensen has written several books, and her comments about her memoir caught my attention, particularly when she discussed her divorce at about age 50, and then marrying a man 20 years younger than her. She said it worked out great and talked about it some.  She said that over her years as a writer, journal-keeping had really helped her develop her skills. She also said that at a young age she became enthralled with autobiographies, biographies, and journals, especially of famous people, and that she wanted to explore the existence of others. (She wrote The Great Man and other books)

Kelly Corrigan, explained that “she had an insatiable hunger to know the intimate details of other people’s lives”. It seemed like that helped her to understand that her readers could want to know more about her. A lot of what she is about relates to her family. (She wrote Glitter and Glue: A Memoir and others)

Jesmyn Ward tells her story of being a poor black women growing up in rural Mississippi. It is a success story, even though her life had plenty of challenges. She started out as a fiction writer. Like so many good writers she had a purpose. She said “that there were other people out there living through (what she did) who were wondering why nothing of their experience was being reflected back to them in the media, TV, books, or anything.” They couldn’t see themselves in the outside world and she wanted her book to reach them.   (See wrote Salvage the Bones: A Novel and others)

These books have similar implications.  They show the interests we have in each other. The book  “Why we Write About Ourselves" was well worth it.