Books I Read in 2022, Vol. V

 

ALL FOR THE BEST: How Godspell Transferred from Stage to Screen
Andrew Martin

The Off-Broadway hit musical Godspell emerged as a worldwide cultural phenomenon in 1972 when, just over a year after its award-winning emergence on stages around the world and with the Top 20 Billboard hit "Day by Day," Columbia Pictures decided to film and release it on the silver screen across the globe. In [this book], film historian Andrew Martin has captured every step of the show's journey, from school play to an indelible part of modern culture, and depicts in glowing detail all the highs...and lows...of a production that will always live on in the hearts and minds of all who watch and enjoy.

Notwithstanding the author's overestimation of Godspell's lasting impact, this is still an interesting read. I bought it at the same time as the far-superior The Godspell Experience and I think this smaller book suffered in the comparison between the two. My biggest "complaint" would be how the author had to stretch the material to make it book-length. For instance, instead of listing the movie's production credits in an appendix, he put it in paragraph form: "They hired so-and-so to do this job and found such-and-such to fulfill these duties." And all without adding any information beyond the names and job positions. Other than that, the cast member quotes derived from Martin's interviews were revealing and sometimes even heartwarming.

First line: The weather was warm and seasonable on the evening of May 17, 1971, and the small cul-de-sac of Commerce Street, in the western part of New York's Greenwich Village, had become suffused with the energy of a brand-new musical hit Off-Broadway, known as Godspell.

Page 56/Sentence 5: In light of the fact that different portions of New York would be the easel upon which the cast and crew would ultimately paint the picture (pardon the pun), it made perfect sense in the long run.

Last line: Ergo, as guessed, it was all for the best.

Books I Read in 2022, Vol. IV

 

THE HOLE IN OUR GOSPEL: What Does God Expect of Us? The Answer that Changed my Life and Might Just Change the World
Richard Stearns (President, World Vision U. S.

Is our faith just about going to church, studying the Bible, and avoiding the most serious sins  -  or does God expect more? Have we embraced the whole gospel or a gospel with a hole in it?

[This book] is the compelling true story of a corporate CEO who set aside worldly success for something far more significant, and discovered the full power of the gospel of Jesus Christ to change his own life. He uses his journey to demonstrate how the gospel  -  the whole gospel  - was always meant to be a world-changing social revolution, a revolution that begins with us.

I am WAY late to the party in terms of coming to terms with this book (published in 2009). And the thing is, I'm not sure what I'm going to do as a result of reading it. I was certainly shocked and moved by the way Stearns brought the reality of poverty and its effect on the planet into crystal clear focus. But I admit to being guilty of feeling so small in the face of such a huge problem.

The encouragement that hit home toward the end of the book is that God has equipped each person to contribute to the cure in his or her own way. What do I do best, and how can that be useful to the poor, the starving, and the subjugated? Lead on, O King Eternal.

First line: His name was Richard, the same as mine.

Page 56 / Line 5: This sounds a lot like what I described earlier as the "whole gospel," the good news inherent in a kingdom based on the character of God rather than of men.

Last line: We have work to do, and it's urgent. Join Me...

The Adam Project: Blood, Sweat, and Tears

 

There's plenty to enjoy in the Netflix Original movie, The Adam Project, starring Ryan Reynolds, Jennifer Garner, and Mark Ruffalo: Flying time machines, thrilling sky battles, fast and furious hand-to-hand combat, and the clever quips of Ryan Reynolds.

Netflix describes it thusly: "After accidentally crash-landing in 2022, time-traveling fighter pilot Adam Reed teams up with his 12-year-old self on a mission to save the future."

I watched it by myself because that description would have totally turned off Beloved. However, that description isn't totally accurate. Yeah sure, that's the plot...that's what happens in the movie, but The Adam Project isn't just a sci-fi action comedy. In fact, to get the most out of it, don't waste too much energy trying to keep all the time travel stuff straight in your head.

What the movie is really about is the relationship between Ryan Reynolds' character and each of his parents.

A scene close to the end had me sobbing, when Mark Ruffalo, playing Reynolds' dad (don't worry, the time travel aspect makes it make sense), declares his utter love to his son.

Yes, they used enough four-letter words to earn its PG-13 rating, but if that doesn't bother you too much, this flick is a fun hour and a half with a deeply satisfying emotional payoff.

1883: The Wild West Through the Eyes of a Poet

 

I finished watching the Paramount+ series, 1883, last night. It didn't bring me to tears, but a deep sense of life, liberty, and the acceptance of bad things happening to good people.

It's the story of a just-entering-adulthood young woman and a group of people heading to Oregon in a wagon train. The series had me interested when I saw Sam Elliot was in the cast, but it set the hook with the opening scene's narration, spoken in a soft Tennesee drawl:

I remember the first time I saw it. Tried to find words to describe it... but I couldn't. Nothing had prepared me... no books, no teachers, not even my parents. I heard a thousand stories but none could describe this place. It must be witnessed to be understood. And yet... I've seen it, and understand it even less than before I first cast eyes on this place. Some call it the American Desert, others, the Great Plains. But those phrases were invented by professors at universities surrounded by the illusion of order and the fantasy of right and wrong. To know it, you must walk it. Bleed into its dirt. Drown in its rivers. Then its name becomes clear. It is hell, and there are demons everywhere.

Don't want to spoil anything by saying more, but if you can put up with some harsh-but-not-overwhelming language, I recommend 1883 with as many thumbs up as I can round up.