The Pick Up Line
It was the kind of evening the little girl liked best.
How old are you when you are in 9th grade? 14? 15? Because that's how old I was when, first, I read that sentence. My mother was collecting books for the school book drive and there were boxes stacked at the bottom of the stairs, waiting to be transported to school. Early, one morning, waiting for the schoolbus, I saw a slim paperback on top, the cover illustration of which captured my attention. I pulled the volume out of the pile and began to read THE LITTLE GIRL WHO LIVES DOWN THE LANE. It was one of those times in my life when I read a book until I was finished. I read it on the bus. I read it in all of my classes, under my desk. I read it during recess and lunch and on the bus on the way home. I read it in my room, after school, and refused to come to the dinner table until I finished it. It has remained, all these years, one of my most favourite books.
Among the other books to capture me like this are PSYCHO, MAGIC (trust me, both of these books I read, straight through til dawn, too terrified to stop and go to sleep) and BLOODLINE ( that took an entire weekend, locked up in my room ); all of which I read in my childhood - that is to say, before I graduated school and moved into my first bachelor pad.
A precocious child and a friendless one, I spent most of my youth reading books far more advanced than the usual schoolboy. Indeed, when I was in the 5th grade, my teacher called my mother at home.
"Mrs. Mosher, I'm a little concerned about Stephen."
"Why?"
"The book he is reading in school..."
"Yes?"
"It's James Michener's HAWAII."
My mother lectured the teacher about her misplaced sense of priority, citing that she needed to find something of greater concern with which to focus herself, rather than my overdeveloped sense of literature.
A similar happening in another school, a few years later; this time, the 7th grade.
"Mrs Mosher... about Stephen's extra curricular reading..."
"Yes?"
"He has brought Sidney Sheldon's THE OTHER SIDE OF MIDNIGHT to school and is reading it during his time outside of class."
"I know. He borrowed it from me."
I am very fortunate to have grown up in a house where people read. My father always had books of great literature, at my disposal: The Last of the Mohicans, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Tom Sawyer. My mother had a soft leather bound copy of Shakespeare's plays, which I read but didn't understand. Aside from the classics, though, my father loved Leslie Thomas and John Clancy (Leslie Thomas was far too sophisticated for me but I read him anyway) and my mother introduced me to my favourite writer, the great Sidney Sheldon. My tastes always varied, from my earliest days. I read everything from Laura Ingalls Wilder ( I did, truly) Alan Dean Foster, from Elizabeth Goudge to Oscar Wilde. I remember 6th grade and being obsessed with THE OUTSIDERS, 7th grade and being obsessed with Arthur Hailey's HOTEL. I remember the 8th grade and reading, over and over, WHO STOLE SASSI MANOON and the 9th grade, when I discovered a book written for young girls called UP A ROAD SLOWLY. I spent hour after hour pouring over that wonderful artform, the movie tie-in novelization, reading the film versions of movies I was too young to see ( until, finally, I was the appropriate age for admittance ). There were the book versions of Star Wars, For Pete's Sake, The Sting (a particularly good novelization), Lucky Lady, Heaven Can Wait... and even better, the books upon which my favourite movies were based, like The Film of Memory by Maurice Druon, which was turned into the terrible film A Matter of Time. Whether I was a pre-teen or a teenager proper, I always loved children's series like the HALF-MAGIC books by Edward Eager or THE TALKING PARCEL by Gerald Durrell. I loved the books of Beverly Cleary and Judy Blume (TALES OF A FOURTH GRADE NOTHING and ELLEN TEBBITS remain books that I re- read, to this day). Nothing was too childish, nothing was too lofty, nothing was too advanced and nothing was off limits.
Hello, my name is Stephen Mosher and I am a bibliophile.
I love books. I love the written word but I also love picture books. I love to hold them in my hand and feel their binding, the embossing of the words on hardcovers, the slick dust jackets, the raised letters on the page. I love to open them as though I am opening the wardrobe door into C.S. Lewis' world and walk right in, smelling the new (or, even better, old) paper. I love to see the notes someone else has made in their copy of THE MOVIE LOVER before putting it on the table at their garage sale. I love the history of every book I might acquire at a flea market or swap meet. I am in love with the written word, in love with the publishing world, in love with the book.
THE. BOOK.
Recently, I revisited an old cinematic friend. Sparked by a conversation Pat and I had about Sararh McLachlan, I climbed up on the banquet in my living room and pulled down the dvd of THE END OF THE AFFAIR. I watched it, from beginning to end, over three days time; and then I got down my copy of the novel by Graham Greene. It is not my most marked up book; but it is marked. There, sporadically, are words scribbled like "good page"; and that is all. Not many notes herein...instead there are sentences, underlined, passages, boxed. It is more interesting than my copy of THE GREAT GATSBY (my favourite book), which seems to be nothing but underlines and margin notes. This book is more an exercise of restraint, giving way to what is important by showing what really jumped out at me...
---the last word is written before the first word appears on paper.
---a handsome actor's face - a face that looked at itself too often in mirrors...
---I've caught belief like a disease.
This is my pattern; to draw attention to the poetry that, most, struck in me a chord. I think I highlight them so that, from time to time, I can revisit these old sentences, quickly, without having to go through an entire volume to find them. I do read books over and over; but sometimes, in this world, there simply isn't enough time. There are just too many new books and not enough luxury time. The words, though, the sentences, the themes, the poetry, stays inside of me. Days, I find myself thinking of a sentence, a passage, a thought, an emotion, and praising (in both my head and my heart) the author of that sentence, passage, thought, emotion. What better praise than to pull down that book and touch the words?
---Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter - tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther... And one fine morning -So we beat on, boats against the current, bourne back ceaselessly into the past.
Those are the extraordinary final words of what some call (and some of us agree) the greatest American novel ever written. I was a boy in high school when, first, I read THE GREAT GATSBY and I didn't get it. Not until my adulthood did I discover the great poetry of the novel; and even now I know that there are aspects of it that I don't, fully, understand. Yet that is the joy of having it as my favourite - like every time I learn something new about my best friend, even after all these years; Gatsby never stops surprising or nurturing me - our relationship never stops growing.
Interestingly, it is these final words of Gatsby that speak to me the most, while, usually, I pay more attention to that all important opening sentence. I believe (and have for some time) that the first line of the book is the most important. It is where we are captured. It is our first impression, our introduction to the world, to the author, to the characters, to the journey. I do love the opening of THE GREAT GATSBY; but not the way I love the closing.
---In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.
It's a good opening, it truly is. BUT. That final passage..
What of the opening sentence of THE END OF THE AFFAIR?
---A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.
Good stuff.
Now look at the closing.
---O God, You've done enough, You've robbed me of enough, I'm too tired and old to learn to love, leave me alone forever.
Damn. Powerful goods, man.
I don't read enough. I'm too busy living. I'm too busy working out, writing, cooking, cleaning, tending my garden... my garden of personal relationships. It has, though, come to my attention that I have neglected, badly, one of my most treasured personal relationships - one that is as old as I am. It is my relationship with the written word, my relationship with the story, my relationship with the opening line.I intend to correct this mistake and begin working, once more, on that relationship today. There is no excuse for having ignored it for so long. Artists create these beautiful works and somebody needs to pay attention to them. I know that there are others who find, no - make, the time to pay attention to them. Today, I rejoin their ranks. I have started by pulling down some of my favourites, to remind myself of how much a part of my personal history The Book is.
Often, I ask people to tell me their favourite first line of a book or story. I hope some of the people who read this will share theirs with me because, true to form, I intend to share some of mine with them. I think it says something about a person, about their "interesting" factor, about their intellect, about their character,; a storyteller, I am all about the character....
"When was it that first I heard of the grass harp?" Truman Capote, THE GRASS HARP
"Several years ago, during the spring semester of my junior year in college, as an alternative to either deserting or marrying a gril, I signed a suicide pact with her." John Nichols, THE STERILE CUCKOO
"The panther glove lay on the lawyer's desk; a strange claw with its palm of black velvet, so old that it looked as if the lines of fate had left their imprint on the material." Maurice Druon, THE FILM OF MEMORY
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." Jane Austen, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
"She hurries from the house, wearing a coat too heavy for the weather." Michael Cunningham, THE HOURS
"All children, except one, grow up." J.M. Barrie, PETER PAN
"Last night, I dreamt I went to Manderlay again." Daphne Du Maurier, REBECCA
"When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow." Harper Lee, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
"I guess I am just a plain dumbkopf, as my former friend N.B. would say." Bernard Glemser, THE FLY GIRLS
( Just get down and read the first line of CATCHER IN THE RYE. It's brilliant but too long to type here)
"Ellen Tebbits was in a hurry." Beverly Cleary, ELLEN TEBBITS
"There was this sweater..."
My favourite, my very favourite opening line of all time comes from a short story written by one of my very favourite writers, Faye Lane. I never actually read the story. I only know about the opening line because, once, while discussing our mutual projects, she told it to me. From the moment I heard it, it has held the top spot:
"Someone's head was sweating on my black velvet skirt and it wasn't my husband's."
How old are you when you are in 9th grade? 14? 15? Because that's how old I was when, first, I read that sentence. My mother was collecting books for the school book drive and there were boxes stacked at the bottom of the stairs, waiting to be transported to school. Early, one morning, waiting for the schoolbus, I saw a slim paperback on top, the cover illustration of which captured my attention. I pulled the volume out of the pile and began to read THE LITTLE GIRL WHO LIVES DOWN THE LANE. It was one of those times in my life when I read a book until I was finished. I read it on the bus. I read it in all of my classes, under my desk. I read it during recess and lunch and on the bus on the way home. I read it in my room, after school, and refused to come to the dinner table until I finished it. It has remained, all these years, one of my most favourite books.
Among the other books to capture me like this are PSYCHO, MAGIC (trust me, both of these books I read, straight through til dawn, too terrified to stop and go to sleep) and BLOODLINE ( that took an entire weekend, locked up in my room ); all of which I read in my childhood - that is to say, before I graduated school and moved into my first bachelor pad.
A precocious child and a friendless one, I spent most of my youth reading books far more advanced than the usual schoolboy. Indeed, when I was in the 5th grade, my teacher called my mother at home.
"Mrs. Mosher, I'm a little concerned about Stephen."
"Why?"
"The book he is reading in school..."
"Yes?"
"It's James Michener's HAWAII."
My mother lectured the teacher about her misplaced sense of priority, citing that she needed to find something of greater concern with which to focus herself, rather than my overdeveloped sense of literature.
A similar happening in another school, a few years later; this time, the 7th grade.
"Mrs Mosher... about Stephen's extra curricular reading..."
"Yes?"
"He has brought Sidney Sheldon's THE OTHER SIDE OF MIDNIGHT to school and is reading it during his time outside of class."
"I know. He borrowed it from me."
I am very fortunate to have grown up in a house where people read. My father always had books of great literature, at my disposal: The Last of the Mohicans, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Tom Sawyer. My mother had a soft leather bound copy of Shakespeare's plays, which I read but didn't understand. Aside from the classics, though, my father loved Leslie Thomas and John Clancy (Leslie Thomas was far too sophisticated for me but I read him anyway) and my mother introduced me to my favourite writer, the great Sidney Sheldon. My tastes always varied, from my earliest days. I read everything from Laura Ingalls Wilder ( I did, truly) Alan Dean Foster, from Elizabeth Goudge to Oscar Wilde. I remember 6th grade and being obsessed with THE OUTSIDERS, 7th grade and being obsessed with Arthur Hailey's HOTEL. I remember the 8th grade and reading, over and over, WHO STOLE SASSI MANOON and the 9th grade, when I discovered a book written for young girls called UP A ROAD SLOWLY. I spent hour after hour pouring over that wonderful artform, the movie tie-in novelization, reading the film versions of movies I was too young to see ( until, finally, I was the appropriate age for admittance ). There were the book versions of Star Wars, For Pete's Sake, The Sting (a particularly good novelization), Lucky Lady, Heaven Can Wait... and even better, the books upon which my favourite movies were based, like The Film of Memory by Maurice Druon, which was turned into the terrible film A Matter of Time. Whether I was a pre-teen or a teenager proper, I always loved children's series like the HALF-MAGIC books by Edward Eager or THE TALKING PARCEL by Gerald Durrell. I loved the books of Beverly Cleary and Judy Blume (TALES OF A FOURTH GRADE NOTHING and ELLEN TEBBITS remain books that I re- read, to this day). Nothing was too childish, nothing was too lofty, nothing was too advanced and nothing was off limits.
Hello, my name is Stephen Mosher and I am a bibliophile.
I love books. I love the written word but I also love picture books. I love to hold them in my hand and feel their binding, the embossing of the words on hardcovers, the slick dust jackets, the raised letters on the page. I love to open them as though I am opening the wardrobe door into C.S. Lewis' world and walk right in, smelling the new (or, even better, old) paper. I love to see the notes someone else has made in their copy of THE MOVIE LOVER before putting it on the table at their garage sale. I love the history of every book I might acquire at a flea market or swap meet. I am in love with the written word, in love with the publishing world, in love with the book.
THE. BOOK.
Recently, I revisited an old cinematic friend. Sparked by a conversation Pat and I had about Sararh McLachlan, I climbed up on the banquet in my living room and pulled down the dvd of THE END OF THE AFFAIR. I watched it, from beginning to end, over three days time; and then I got down my copy of the novel by Graham Greene. It is not my most marked up book; but it is marked. There, sporadically, are words scribbled like "good page"; and that is all. Not many notes herein...instead there are sentences, underlined, passages, boxed. It is more interesting than my copy of THE GREAT GATSBY (my favourite book), which seems to be nothing but underlines and margin notes. This book is more an exercise of restraint, giving way to what is important by showing what really jumped out at me...
---the last word is written before the first word appears on paper.
---a handsome actor's face - a face that looked at itself too often in mirrors...
---I've caught belief like a disease.
This is my pattern; to draw attention to the poetry that, most, struck in me a chord. I think I highlight them so that, from time to time, I can revisit these old sentences, quickly, without having to go through an entire volume to find them. I do read books over and over; but sometimes, in this world, there simply isn't enough time. There are just too many new books and not enough luxury time. The words, though, the sentences, the themes, the poetry, stays inside of me. Days, I find myself thinking of a sentence, a passage, a thought, an emotion, and praising (in both my head and my heart) the author of that sentence, passage, thought, emotion. What better praise than to pull down that book and touch the words?
---Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter - tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther... And one fine morning -So we beat on, boats against the current, bourne back ceaselessly into the past.
Those are the extraordinary final words of what some call (and some of us agree) the greatest American novel ever written. I was a boy in high school when, first, I read THE GREAT GATSBY and I didn't get it. Not until my adulthood did I discover the great poetry of the novel; and even now I know that there are aspects of it that I don't, fully, understand. Yet that is the joy of having it as my favourite - like every time I learn something new about my best friend, even after all these years; Gatsby never stops surprising or nurturing me - our relationship never stops growing.
Interestingly, it is these final words of Gatsby that speak to me the most, while, usually, I pay more attention to that all important opening sentence. I believe (and have for some time) that the first line of the book is the most important. It is where we are captured. It is our first impression, our introduction to the world, to the author, to the characters, to the journey. I do love the opening of THE GREAT GATSBY; but not the way I love the closing.
---In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.
It's a good opening, it truly is. BUT. That final passage..
What of the opening sentence of THE END OF THE AFFAIR?
---A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.
Good stuff.
Now look at the closing.
---O God, You've done enough, You've robbed me of enough, I'm too tired and old to learn to love, leave me alone forever.
Damn. Powerful goods, man.
I don't read enough. I'm too busy living. I'm too busy working out, writing, cooking, cleaning, tending my garden... my garden of personal relationships. It has, though, come to my attention that I have neglected, badly, one of my most treasured personal relationships - one that is as old as I am. It is my relationship with the written word, my relationship with the story, my relationship with the opening line.I intend to correct this mistake and begin working, once more, on that relationship today. There is no excuse for having ignored it for so long. Artists create these beautiful works and somebody needs to pay attention to them. I know that there are others who find, no - make, the time to pay attention to them. Today, I rejoin their ranks. I have started by pulling down some of my favourites, to remind myself of how much a part of my personal history The Book is.
Often, I ask people to tell me their favourite first line of a book or story. I hope some of the people who read this will share theirs with me because, true to form, I intend to share some of mine with them. I think it says something about a person, about their "interesting" factor, about their intellect, about their character,; a storyteller, I am all about the character....
"When was it that first I heard of the grass harp?" Truman Capote, THE GRASS HARP
"Several years ago, during the spring semester of my junior year in college, as an alternative to either deserting or marrying a gril, I signed a suicide pact with her." John Nichols, THE STERILE CUCKOO
"The panther glove lay on the lawyer's desk; a strange claw with its palm of black velvet, so old that it looked as if the lines of fate had left their imprint on the material." Maurice Druon, THE FILM OF MEMORY
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." Jane Austen, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
"She hurries from the house, wearing a coat too heavy for the weather." Michael Cunningham, THE HOURS
"All children, except one, grow up." J.M. Barrie, PETER PAN
"Last night, I dreamt I went to Manderlay again." Daphne Du Maurier, REBECCA
"When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow." Harper Lee, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
"I guess I am just a plain dumbkopf, as my former friend N.B. would say." Bernard Glemser, THE FLY GIRLS
( Just get down and read the first line of CATCHER IN THE RYE. It's brilliant but too long to type here)
"Ellen Tebbits was in a hurry." Beverly Cleary, ELLEN TEBBITS
"There was this sweater..."
My favourite, my very favourite opening line of all time comes from a short story written by one of my very favourite writers, Faye Lane. I never actually read the story. I only know about the opening line because, once, while discussing our mutual projects, she told it to me. From the moment I heard it, it has held the top spot:
"Someone's head was sweating on my black velvet skirt and it wasn't my husband's."
posted by StephenMosher at 9:50 AM
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