I just read the sweetest review of anything I've ever read. It was A.O. Scott's NY Times review of Steve Martin's Shopgirl. About 5 years ago I read a cute little novella by Mr. Martin called Shopgirl and thought not as much of it. His comedy is smart and forward and to the point without many layers. You just have to know where he's coming from and you get it. His collection of short funnies in Pure Drivel were hillarious and forced me to write out of sheer respect for the written word that Steve Martin put into me. But Shopgirl is retrospective, introspective, speculative, ironic, sardonic, whispy, unsure, but still from the same brain. This is true with The Pleasure of My Company, his new book where he dares write 50 or so more pages thereby leaving novelladom behind for an actual book.
But back to my point of this little blog. I was halfway through reading this glowing review when I realized what A.O. Scott was doing, the same thing I do when I am in awe of something, try to bring myself up to its level. Not in quality necessarily but just in a sense that how can I talk about something so great unless I convey greatness in every word I speak? Ever in search of the right words I never seem to find I either shut up or never stop talking searching for the right thing to say worthy of the experience just had. And that's what I noticed A.O. Scott doing as he kept delving into the movie's layers that he called so timidly put together they were like a house of cards. It's as if he were reviewing a desert so delicatly made, if you even breathed wrong while tasting it you'd miss alltogether what the chef's purpose was. I love that feeling that A.O. Scott seemed to be having, and that, beyond any words he actually wrote or I read in the book is why I am greatly anticipating seeing one of my favorite writers put his little words on the big screen.