Second chances -- presents from past
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I don't know what I was doing when "16 Blocks" was playing in theaters, but somehow, I missed it.
And I don't know how the Jack Reacher thrillers escaped my notice until the ninth in the series was published last year.
I do know what I was doing, however, when Yes and Cressida and Pink Floyd were making their music. I was so deeply immersed in Bach, Prokofiev and Ginastera that there was no time or attention left to devote to then-current rock 'n' roll.
Whatever the reason for my missing things the first time around, lately I've been getting second chances at all kinds of good stuff.
Second chances, almost by definition, bring you good things. They arrive after time has begun to sort the merely new from the truly worthwhile, and the awareness that you could have missed them only heightens the pleasure.
Some of it my kids have discovered, gems from my generation that are new to them and to me, too. Some have just floated across my horizon, a remembered fragment of a positive review triggering a rental or purchase.
That's how I happened to see "16 Blocks." Who knew Bruce Willis had acting abilities beyond his habitual smug simper? Mos Def is a revelation, too, funny and endearing as Eddie Bunker, the witness that washed-up cop Jack Mosley (Willis) has to transport 16 blocks to a grand jury ending its deliberations in less than two hours. The movie unfolds at a pace nearer to "real time" than television's much-vaunted "24."
Though it's in some ways a standard-issue crime thriller, the movie's biggest thrill is the conflict it portrays between two propositions: "People don't change," Jack Mosley's world-weary mantra, and "People can change," Eddie Bunker's desperate hope. The action reveals many ways in which the pessimistic view ("People don't change") is an excuse for not even trying.
"The Constant Gardener" and "The Interpreter," both set against the genocidal political corruptions of sub-Saharan Africa, are other excellent movies I had missed quite a while ago but found and enjoyed during this stifling July.
Last summer's doldrums brought me Jack Reacher. He's the creation of British author Lee Child, but he's an unmistakably American hero: Army brat and former MP, rootless loner prone to vigilante justice, a big, handsome man with the deductive powers of Sherlock Holmes and the terse style of Dirty Harry.
When my husband stumbled across Reacher via a glowing book review and an airport newsstand, "One Shot" was just out in hardback. He passed it on to me, and it was so compelling that I bought the eight previous Reacher books in paperback and read them all in less than a month. Now I have to wait a year between installments and fork over the cash for hardbacks. I just devoured "The Hard Way" in one long evening.
You lucky readers can find Reacher this summer and have nine terrific read-a-thons (that's lots of second chances) before catching up to the publishing cycle.
A world away from Reacher's spare speech is the romanticism of Walt Whitman. Until last month, the only thing I knew of "O Captain, My Captain" was the title, the author and the fact that it was a lament for Abraham Lincoln. Not a single teacher in my 16 years of public education required me to memorize a poem, dramatic monologue or speech.
What an incalculable loss, mitigated only, but substantially, by my church's insistence on Sunday school-goers learning hundreds of Bible verses from the King James version of 1611.
While my kids learn their Bible verses in the less poetic New International Version of 1973 (or the "Nearly Inspired Version," as we throwbacks call it), they're enriching me through the poems and monologues their father and schoolteachers have challenged them with.
It's my second chance at a rudimentary classical education.
"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"
"She walks in beauty, like the night."
"O Captain, my Captain! Our fearful trip is done."
I'm lightening their load by asking them to join me in learning "Jabberwocky."
Another light touch is the 1970s progressive rock that captivates my elder son. Yes and Cressida, in particular, are bands whose intelligent passions blend the symphonic tradition I love and the more popular rock traditions that blanket the radio.
They're the best of both worlds, and they've endured enough years to merit that praise.
Not many of the items on my second-chances list are masterpieces for the ages. The poems are, and maybe some of the prog-rock music, but I doubt "16 Blocks" or the Jack Reacher thrillers will join the pantheon of Western civilization.
Sometimes you don't want greatness, though; sometimes "good" is good enough, especially during the summer's punishing heat.
First Published August 17, 2006 12:00 am
