Magical Memoir Moments

The Blind Side and Invictus: Two Movies Worth Watching

I have always been a sucker for a good sports story–even though as a Mennonite farm girl I was not allowed to play competitive sports myself. One Saturday afternoon in the mid 1960’s, while I was performing one of my weekly chores–vacuuming my parents’ bedroom–I tuned the radio dial to the local station hoping to…

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Michael Moore's Own Life–Does it Undermine His Message?

Capitalism: A Love Story opened nationwide yesterday, and Stuart and I made the movie our Friday night date. If you have not seen this film yet, I encourage you to do so. Of course, I was watching and listening with a memoir lens. In this film we see pictures and home movies of little Michael…

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Roger Ebert: His Drinking/Recovery Memoir

You know Roger Ebert as a film critic, one of the best in the business. But on August 25, Roger Ebert came out to the world as a recovering alcoholic in his blog in the Chicago Sun-Times called “Roger Ebert’s Journal.” After 30 years of sobriety and an operation that left him physically unable to…

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Parker Palmer on Bill Moyers Journal: Ground On Which It's Safe to Stand

If you missed Parker Palmer’s appearance on Bill Moyers Journal last Friday, cheer up.  Here it is. Apparently, the broadcast about illusion and reality in our current economic crisis, which included Parker talking about depression in his own life, cheered many people.  Funny how truth does that–in just the paradoxical way that Parker himself explains…

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This American Life: What Has Kept You Together?

If the 21st century is the memoir century, then the job of this blog is to catalogue, comment, and critique.  In the next weeks, you can expect to see more posts about the uses of memoir in the media world, whether that world is “mainstream,” “social media,” book publishing, online publishing, radio, television, film or…

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Slumdog Millionaire: A Metaphor for the Power of Memoir

Well, folks, it may be time to create a new category.  I saw a lot of good movies this holiday season.  Did you? Here’s the list of ones I saw:  Slumdog Millionaire, Frost/Nixon, Doubt, Milk,and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I recommend each of these films, and all of them have connections to memoir,…

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