Cinema Nirvana
[email protected]
I'm reading Cinema Nirvana, by Dean Sluyter. It's subtitle is
"Enlightenment Lessons fromt he Movies," and I'm having a great time with it. It's a
connect-the-dots idea book full of trivia, spirituality and popular culture, my
favorite subjects!
I wanted to quote a paragraph for here. It's not typical of the whole book,
but is interesting on its own merits. It was in the chapter called "I
Believe in America," which follows the movie "The Godfather," though each chapter
also quotes and connects things other than the particular movie being
discussed. (The *I* was just an italicized "I" in the book, but I didn't think
italics would go through the e-mail.)
-=- It's pretty easy to see how dangerous "God's will" is in the hands of a
bin Laden or a Bush. What's harder to accept is that the danger can start
with a Gandhi or a Dr. King. If you say God tells you to treat others with
decency and compassion, why can't I say God tells me to fly planes into
buildings? Who's going to adjudicate, who's going to listen to both of our
answering machines and decide who got the right message? That's why *I* believe in
America. Not so much America as a place, but the America of the mind, the
place within us (no matter where we live) where we don't have to bend the knee
to anyone's invented king, whether on the earth or in the sky, where we treat
others with decency and compassion because that's what we freely choose--and
where Tom Paine and Chuck Berry, Walt Whitman and Susan B. Anthony, Emily
Dickinson and Henry Thoreau, Frederick Douglass and Alfred E. Neuman, Mae West
and Lenny Bruce all teach us in various ways to shake our booty for freedom.
-=-
It's a fun book with serious bits of Buddhist teachings and Bible quotes and
quotes from rock'n'roll songs and movies. As parenting books go (it isn't
one), it's like Whole Child, Whole Parent. The writing is not as dainty as
Berrend's (who is addressing parents of newborns and toddlers), but it uses the
same style of varied sources, and calls forth the same mindfulness and
attention.
I really like Dean Sluyter's other books, Why the Chicken Crossed the Road
and The Zen Commandments, so I ordered this one before it came out and got it
last week. It went on sale Tuesday. There's more info and some quotes at
_http://deansluyter.com_ (http://deansluyter.com)
It's easy to have thoughts sparkling like fireworks, reading this stuff.
The movies he's chosen to use (though many others are referenced) are
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
THe Biig Sleep
Independence Day
The Graduate
Easy Rider
Jaws
The Truman Show
Memento
The Godfather
Goldfinger
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Fistful of Dollars
Jailhouse Rock
A Night at the Opera
Casablanca
I've read half the book, but not the first half straight. I'm going to the
chapters on movies I liked best first. Some films I haven't seen, and I
might want to watch them before reading those chapters(or not). When I've
finished the whole book I'll probably put a review at Amazon.
I love this stuff!!
Sandra
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
"Enlightenment Lessons fromt he Movies," and I'm having a great time with it. It's a
connect-the-dots idea book full of trivia, spirituality and popular culture, my
favorite subjects!
I wanted to quote a paragraph for here. It's not typical of the whole book,
but is interesting on its own merits. It was in the chapter called "I
Believe in America," which follows the movie "The Godfather," though each chapter
also quotes and connects things other than the particular movie being
discussed. (The *I* was just an italicized "I" in the book, but I didn't think
italics would go through the e-mail.)
-=- It's pretty easy to see how dangerous "God's will" is in the hands of a
bin Laden or a Bush. What's harder to accept is that the danger can start
with a Gandhi or a Dr. King. If you say God tells you to treat others with
decency and compassion, why can't I say God tells me to fly planes into
buildings? Who's going to adjudicate, who's going to listen to both of our
answering machines and decide who got the right message? That's why *I* believe in
America. Not so much America as a place, but the America of the mind, the
place within us (no matter where we live) where we don't have to bend the knee
to anyone's invented king, whether on the earth or in the sky, where we treat
others with decency and compassion because that's what we freely choose--and
where Tom Paine and Chuck Berry, Walt Whitman and Susan B. Anthony, Emily
Dickinson and Henry Thoreau, Frederick Douglass and Alfred E. Neuman, Mae West
and Lenny Bruce all teach us in various ways to shake our booty for freedom.
-=-
It's a fun book with serious bits of Buddhist teachings and Bible quotes and
quotes from rock'n'roll songs and movies. As parenting books go (it isn't
one), it's like Whole Child, Whole Parent. The writing is not as dainty as
Berrend's (who is addressing parents of newborns and toddlers), but it uses the
same style of varied sources, and calls forth the same mindfulness and
attention.
I really like Dean Sluyter's other books, Why the Chicken Crossed the Road
and The Zen Commandments, so I ordered this one before it came out and got it
last week. It went on sale Tuesday. There's more info and some quotes at
_http://deansluyter.com_ (http://deansluyter.com)
It's easy to have thoughts sparkling like fireworks, reading this stuff.
The movies he's chosen to use (though many others are referenced) are
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
THe Biig Sleep
Independence Day
The Graduate
Easy Rider
Jaws
The Truman Show
Memento
The Godfather
Goldfinger
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Fistful of Dollars
Jailhouse Rock
A Night at the Opera
Casablanca
I've read half the book, but not the first half straight. I'm going to the
chapters on movies I liked best first. Some films I haven't seen, and I
might want to watch them before reading those chapters(or not). When I've
finished the whole book I'll probably put a review at Amazon.
I love this stuff!!
Sandra
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]