His Excellency - George Washington Biography

 

His Excellency by Joseph J. Ellis

George Washington was a study in self control and discipline. His life is covered in great detail. His formative years as a young officer are enlightening and gruesome. His reputation for honesty is probably exaggerated. He knew when to keep quiet when things went badly.

He also chose to marry Martha Washington over another women who was less financially endowed. His experience at near bankruptcy with items financed from England is a cautionary tale for the current fiscal problems with the US Treasury.

 

The Massachusetts School of Law Dean interviews Pulitzer Prize Winning Author Joseph J. Ellis - 60 min.

The book, His Excellency: George Washington is available from Amazon.com.

Dick Van Dyke My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business

Dick Van Dyke's book- My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business - starts at his birth and runs through the whole of his life.  He has retired from show business many times and has always come back because he loves entertaining. 

I liked his discussions that he had with Stan Laurel and Buster Keaton.  Stan told him the details of how he achieved his walk.  He took the heel off the back of his shoe.  Although he only knew the gentlemen a short time, Mr. Van Dyke delivered the eulogy at both of the men's funerals.

He was getting a bit older when he finally agreed to do Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.  He was physically worn out after the demanding dance routines.  He had a strong senses of why people like him and reined in the writers when they tried out some racier scripts on Diagnosis Murder. 

Ken Howard interviews Dick Van Dyke about dancing, Mary Poppins and Stan Laurel - 16 min.

Dick Van Dyke is now married to Arlene Silver - This occurred after the book was published.  She was his makeup artist. They make a cute couple.

The book, My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business: A Memoir is available from Amazon.com

Born Standing Up - Steve Martin

I enjoyed Steve Martin's Book, Born Standing Up.  It chronicles his life from birth through the years he spent doing stand up comedy.  Stand up comedy was a lonely life for Steve and he dropped out of it when he reached its peak.  He didn't like doing comedy for stadiums.  It lacked the intimacy of smaller clubs.

The roots of his comedy came from his work selling items at a magic store.  His love of banjo music and time spent on the road learning what worked in front of audiences.  After 10 years on the road he nearly quit.  He had a similar rock bottom experience as did Dick Van Dyke.

Steve actually found that doing movies was much more enjoyable.  He enjoyed working with Carl Reiner and liked the friendships that developed on the set.  It was much better than being with a Roadie and travelling from one college campus to another as he did one night gigs across America.

Steve talks about an early Monday night stand up gig in San Francisco - 5 min.

The book, Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life is available from Amazon.com

The Garner Files - A Memoir

The Garner Files - A Memoir cowritten with James Garner by John Winokur offers an unflinching view of James Garner's life from his alternately kind and cruel childhood to his life as a hollywood actor. 

His life is not the life of a hero but of a man who survives by standing up for himself and others who are mistreated.  He becomes emancipated at 14 when he slugs his step mother and throttles her after she attemps to beat him again with a spatula.  He was wounded twice in the Korean War first by shrapnel and again when he leaps off a hill to avoid getting shot by US war planes.   He thrives in his role as a scrounger at the base in Korea making sure his unit gets some creature comforts.

His marriage to Lois Clarke has lasted over 56 years. He met Lois and her daughter at a pool party and they married two weeks later.

He also covers his other passions in his life: auto racing and golf.  He was a pretty good golfer but would often launch his club when frustrated.  He offers a tip from a friend.  When you throw your club at least throw it in the direction of the golf ball.  He raced the Baja in Mexico several times and briefly had a racing team.  He enjoyed his work on the movie Grand Prix. 

I enjoyed the section at the end of the book where other people offered up their opinions on Mr. Garner.  Mac Davis's wife is a nurse at an LA Hospital and she was shocked at the stack of medical charts that she had to review prior to treating Mr. Garner after one of his many mishaps. 

James Garner - Audio book Excerpt - Stick to the script and react don't act

 

James Garner and Julie Andrews in the Americanization of Emily - Jim's favorite picture

 

The book, The Garner Files: A Memoir is available from Amazon.com.

The Noticer by Andy Andrews

After his parents died, Andy Andrews was a homeless man living under a pier by the ocean.  He recounts the true story of being befriended by a man named Jones (The Noticer) and how he helped him change his life.  Jones loaned him autobiographies of successful people and after reading many of them  he began to understand what it takes to succeed in life.

One of the most helpful passages in the book identifies the four languages of love (verbal expression, doing things for other people, physical contact and giving time).  People prioritize the love they need and the love they give differently.  Someone may be expressing love to another person but not in a way that the other person most appreciates.  Working this out is another piece in making a relationship work better.

Andy connects a string of events in history:  He notes the success of Norman Borlaug was made possible by the support of US Agriculture Secretary, Henry A. Wallace, who developed an interest in agriculture as a young boy while he went on field trips with George Washington Carver.  George was saved because a man traded his horse for a sack containing the nearly dead boy from the Klansmen who killed his mother.  Through this string of events billions of people's lives were saved because of Borlaug's Green Revolution.   The main point is we are all capable of making a big difference.  We often do not have the long time reference to to allow us to evaluate it.

This six minute video provides background information about Andy Andrews and his books.

The book, The Noticer: Sometimes, all a person needs is a little perspective is available from Amazon.com

Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely

Dan Ariely's book Predictably Irrational looks at quirks in human behavior that refute the theory that people usually behave in a rational manner.  He cites studies that people feel better after taking an expensive placebo rather than a cheap placebo.  This has implications for the dietary supplement industry.  They should be charging more for products that have not been proven to be clinically effective because people will feel better after taking them.

Dan's personal struggle recovering from burns over most of his body inspired his research.  He wanted to understand why nurses rapidly took off his bandages rather than doing it slowly.  The nurses thought the rapid removal would be better because the pain would be over quicker.  It turns out the nurses were also dealing with there own discomfort and wanting to shorten the time that they would cause pain in another person.  It turns out that removing the bandages slowly was a better technique.

He also conducted a study about how expectations change our perception of reality.  He had individuals blindly taste beer with balsamic vinegar added.  It turns out that more than half of the people liked it.  When told before they tasted it that in contained balsamic vinegar.  Most people hated it. They expected the addition of vinegar to make the beer taste bad.  A doctor giving you a shot of saline will cause your body produce your own morphine and you will feel better than if your three year old daughter squirted you in the face with a water pistol.

Dan Ariely at TEDx Midwest

Expectations change our physiology

The book, Predictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions is available from Amazon.com

Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi book, Flow, is a manual on how to live life with optimal experience.  His research focused on how people report feeling during random times during a day.  From this information and the research of others he has been able to determine when people are optimally engaged in life or under the presence of flow.

Interesting research tidbits include a study that found an inverse correlation between the amount of non human energy consumed and the enjoyment of the activity.  For example,  I take more enjoyment paddling a canoe with a friend than racing around the same lake in a speed boat.  Paddling requires more concentration and engages more of my body.

He strongly advocates doing what we can to become a more complex person by continuing to learn new things or learn more about a specific topic.  He calls this putting more psychic energy into a topic or a relationship.  From his research, marriages that continue to grow in complexity have a better chance of succeeding than ones that remain stagnant.   This reminds me of a screenplay axiom that heroes change and adapt and villains remain the same.

He teases out the concepts of people engaged in autotelic activities.  These are activities not done for material gain but for the pure enjoyment of the activity.  A simple example would be crossword puzzles.  A more complex example is the problem solving that motivates engineers and scientists to solve problems or conduct research. 

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi speaking about happiness and flow at a TED conference

The book, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience is available from Amazon.com