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Russell Mokhiber: A Dream Foreclosed

2013-05-23T18:33:49Z

How different are the big Wall Street banks circa 2008 from the loan sharks of the 1970s?

Not very.

Laura Gottesdiener has written a remarkable book that hits hard against the big Wall Street banks.

It's called A Dream Foreclosed: Black America and the Fight for a Place to Call Home (Zuccotti Park Press, August 2013).

At base, it's a book about corporate crime.

Remember redlining?

Thirty years ago, banks were drawing imaginary red lines around inner city neighborhoods.

The banks refused to give mortgages to people living in those neighborhoods.

"For decades, the federal government and banks refused to lend in these communities," Gottesdienertold Corporate Crime Reporter in an interview last week. "Finally, when these communities were completely starved for mortgages, they broke it open and pushed the most ridiculous and predatory mortgages they could come up with. And of course, people bought them because it was the first time that mortgages were ever being guaranteed by the government and by big mainstream banks in those communities."

When did that switch over -- from redlining to reverse redlining?

"In the early to mid 1990s," Gottesdiener said. "And later that was really pushed aggressively by the Bush administration. President Bush gave this nice speech at the 2002 Minority Council on Homeownership. He was saying that banks and the federal government were going to start aggressively lending to minorities."

"The mortgage market for white Americans was flush. There was no more money to be made from issuing mortgages to white Americans. I think the mortgage rate for white Americans hit 70 to 80 percent in the early 1990s. You started to see that almost any American who could have a mortgage and wanted to have a mortgage would have a mortgage. There was no market there."

"The banks needed new consumers. So, they moved into the minority market. But they weren't selling the conventional loans. They were selling these incredibly exploitative predatory loans."

"When you had redlined neighborhoods, there were mortgages. But you had loan sharks pushing them. They would buy mortgages and peddle them in minority neighborhoods with these terribly marked up fees -- crazy late fees, ballooning payments. If you miss one payment, your house gets repossessed. They were these incredibly onerous contracts."

"You see pretty clear parallels between the predatory mortgages that were issued in the late 1990s and early 2000s by the major banks -- by the Wall Street top banks -- and what you were seeing the loan sharks pushing in these neighborhoods the 1960s and 1970s. They are very similar contracts."

So the big banks became the loan sharks. But they were never criminally prosecuted?

"Exactly," Gottesdiener said. "And that became the new normal."

"My book is about African Americans in the foreclosure crisis. But more white Americans have been foreclosed on. You start to see the types of contracts that would never have been imposed on white Americans, did go mainstream. And you started to see them being pushed in nice white suburban communities as well."

What's one of the most egregious mortgages you came across?

"There are loans called interest only negative amortizing adjustable rate loans," Gottesdiener says.

"If you break it down it means you are only paying the interest on your loan. You are never paying your loan off. Negative amortization means that instead of getting smaller, it gets larger. And adjustable rate means the amount of interest can rise and fall."

"What that means in a practical sense is that you could be paying your mortgage for 20 or 30 years and one day realize that at the end of that time you owe more on your mortgage than the original loan amount."

Gottesdiener says there have been 4.8 million completed foreclosures since the crisis began in 2007.

"Those are homeowners and families who have been evicted from their homes," she said. "There is not a good count on how many people are involved."

"No government agency feels the responsibility to track that information. The statistics on that are incredibly spotty."

"They often rent. Sometimes they will look for a new house to take out a mortgage on. Sometimes they become homeless. A lot of times, they will have a transition where they will live with family or friends, or temporarily live in a homeless shelter. And then they might get on their feet and start renting."

Out of the 4.8 million, a handful fight back and refuse to leave.

"There might be hundreds, maybe thousands," Gottesdiener says. "The success rate varies."

"There is a group called City Life/Vida Urbana. They are an anti-foreclosure group in Boston. They have an incredible success rate. They have staged more than 30 foreclosure blockades. They have been successful at almost every single one of them."

"That's an example of an established community organization that has been in the community for over 30 years. It has a large support network. And they ask members to sit in the homes, but also to bring out neighbors and others. City Life brings out its people. And they have a mass of people that creates a blockade."

And the bank just turns over the house?

"Not always," she says. "You will often see a back and forth."

"One example in my book is that of Bertha Garrett. She did this at her home and ultimately won her house back."

"When there is a blockade, the media comes into play. If the media starts to pick up on the story, it starts to become a local phenomenon. And pressure builds on the bank at a national level. And the bank is forced to deal with the situation to get the bank out of the news and out of the limelight."

"Wells Fargo and Bank of America or these other big banks, they don't want the negative media attention.

After one blockade or a few blockades, the banks will usually just leave the house alone."

"When there is a well established housing organization coordinating the blockade, you will usually see a specific demand attached. You will see -- this family needs a loan modification for this amount, then they can pay. And we can help them pay."

"Bertha Garrett's house had been sold at the sheriff's sale for $10,000. Her ask was -- I actually just want to buy my house back. That felt fair to her. It was what the bank had just paid to buy it back."

"She was in Detroit, because housing prices had tanked."

"In a place like Boston, you will often get a loan modification. In a place like Detroit or the South Side of Chicago, usually they will renegotiate the sale of the home, or sometimes just leave it in foreclosed status."

"If just one person wants to stay in their house and they are not necessarily connected to the broader community or a housing organization, or a demand that feels intelligible to the bank -- if they just barricade themselves in their homes, the situation can and has ended up quite violently."

"And people have been shot and died. These are not necessarily incalcitrant people sitting in their homes waiting to see what will happen. It's part of an overall strategy to make it apparent that the banks contracts are not immutable, that there is a possibility that homeowners and everyday people can renegotiate their contracts in the same way that banks, and major financial institutions and governments do all the time."

"The big banks were pushing a bigger scheme. On one hand they were pushing predatory loans that many people knew were never going to be paid back. And it didn't matter to the big banks, because of securitization process."

"The banks, under the securitization process, could sell the loan off and receive the money pretty much immediately. It didn't matter to the big banks if that loan ever got repaid."

"There is clear cut fraudster behavior. And then there is broad collective fraudster behavior of the big banks. The broad collective fraudster behavior of the big banks was that they knew housing prices couldn't go up forever. And yet they created a system and perpetuated it and sold it into infinity. And in that system, housing prices would have to go up forever. They knew it was a house of cards."

Cross-posted from Corporate Crime Reporter.

(For complete q/a format Interview with Laura Gottesdiener, see 27 Corporate Crime Reporter 20(12), May 21, 2013, print edition only.)

Stephen Hawking Given Superhero Status

2013-05-23T17:15:35Z

By: Megan Gannon, News Editor
Published: 05/23/2013 11:44 AM EDT on LiveScience

Living legend Stephen Hawking has already achieved superhero status in the eyes of many science geeks, and now his ideas are being honored in comic book form.

"Stephen Hawking: Riddles of Time & Space" (Bluewater) details the life story of the physicist, from his early days at Cambridge and struggles with a body-wrecking disease to his academic achievements and current fame.

Hawking, 71, is widely considered one of the greatest scientific minds since Albert Einstein, and he has greatly enriched our understanding of the universe over the past several decades. His work with fellow cosmologist Roger Penrose helped unite Einstein's general theory of relativity and quantum theory. Hawking also studied black holes, with a groundbreaking theory that the cosmic monsters do actually emit a faint glimmer of radiation. [The 10 Best Time-Traveling Heroes of All Time]

But his life has been marked by physical challenges. At age 21, Hawking was diagnosed with the motor neuron disease called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. The disease eventually robbed him of his mobility and later his ability to speak; today, Hawking uses a speech-generating device controlled by the muscles in his cheek.

"The very concept of making an engaging comic book where the protagonist is essentially immobile is a pretty tall order, but I think the key to us keeping it exciting was being able to get inside his mind (one of the greatest of our time) and show some of his most abstract concepts in a visual and dynamic way," artist Zach Bassett said in a statement.

One page detailing Hawking's ideas about black holes puts the scientist into conversation with Einstein, picturing him as Michelangelo's Adam reaching out to Einstein as God.

"Additionally, we got several chances to tip our hat to many famous artistic icons of pop culture, as well as famous people that he's met, taken inspiration from or even inspired himself," Bassett added. Hawking has been featured on "Star Trek: The Next Generation," "The Simpsons," "Futurama" and "The Big Bang Theory."

"The most surprising thing about Stephen Hawking is his razor wire wit that is sometimes withering and other times matched with a puckish sense of humor," the comic book's writers, Michael Lent and Brian McCarthy, said in a statement.

The scientist is indeed prone to pithy comments. Lent and McCarthy said their favorite Hawking quote is: "I have noticed that even people who claim everything is predetermined and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road."

The comic was released on April 21 and is also available as an e-book.

Follow Megan Gannon on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on LiveScience.com.

READ: Exclusive Excerpt From New Stephen King Novel

2013-05-23T17:09:04Z

It's been 40 years since a 26-year-old man from Maine wrote his first novel — "Carrie" — and one year since he released his last, and 62nd, book. (He is now 65. Who here can do math?) This summer alone, the crazy prolific suspense author has another novel coming out, and a show that looks like the first respectable television adaptation of his work. (Meanwhile, J.J. Abrams is jonesing after the rights for another.)

Here, we present an exclusive excerpt from the opening pages of King’s forthcoming novel: "Joyland." The scene: It’s 1973, and a summer job as a carny at a small-town amusement park forces college student Devin Jones to confront death in a number of unusual different ways.

♥

I had a car, but on most days in that fall of 1973 I walked to Joyland from Mrs. Shoplaw’s Beachside Accommodations in the town of Heaven’s Bay. It seemed like the right thing to do. The only thing, actually. By early September, Heaven Beach was almost completely deserted, which suited my mood. That fall was the most beautiful of my life. Even forty years later I can say that. And I was never so unhappy, I can say that, too. People think first love is sweet, and never sweeter than when that first bond snaps. You’ve heard a thousand pop and country songs that prove the point; some fool got his heart broke. Yet that first broken heart is always the most painful, the slowest to mend, and leaves the most visible scar. What’s so sweet about that?

♥

Through September and right into October, the North Carolina skies were clear and the air was warm even at seven in the morning, when I left my second-floor apartment by the outside stairs. If I started with a light jacket on, I was wearing it tied around my waist before I’d finished half of the three miles between the town and the amusement park.

I’d make Betty’s Bakery my first stop, grabbing a couple of still-warm croissants. My shadow would walk with me on the sand, at least twenty feet long. Hopeful gulls, smelling the croissants in their waxed paper, would circle overhead. And when I walked back, usually around five (although sometimes I stayed later—there was nothing waiting for me in Heaven’s Bay, a town that mostly went sleepybye when summer was over), my shadow walked with me on the water. If the tide was in, it would waver on the surface, seeming to do a slow hula.

Although I can’t be completely sure, I think the boy and the woman and their dog were there from the first time I took that walk. The shore between the town and the cheerful, blinking gimcrackery of Joyland was lined with summer homes, many of them expensive, most of them clapped shut after Labor Day. But not the biggest of them, the one that looked like a green wooden castle. A boardwalk led from its wide back patio down to where the seagrass gave way to fine white sand. At the end of the boardwalk was a picnic table shaded by a bright green beach umbrella. In its shade, the boy sat in his wheelchair, wearing a baseball cap and covered from the waist down by a blanket even in the late afternoons, when the temperature lingered in the seventies. I thought he was five or so, surely no older than seven. The dog, a Jack Russell terrier, either lay beside him or sat at his feet. The woman sat on one of the picnic table benches, sometimes reading a book, mostly just staring out at the water. She was very beautiful.

Going or coming, I always waved to them, and the boy waved back. She didn’t, not at first. 1973 was the year of the OPEC oil embargo, the year Richard Nixon announced he was not a crook, the year Edward G. Robinson and Noel Coward died. It was Devin Jones’s lost year. I was a twenty-one year-old virgin with literary aspirations. I possessed three pairs of bluejeans, four pairs of Jockey shorts, a clunker Ford (with a good radio), occasional suicidal ideations, and a broken heart.

Sweet, huh?

This story appears in the special Summer Issue of our weekly iPad magazine, Huffington, in the iTunes App store, available Friday, May 24.

Read Leonard Nimoy's Angry Letter About Spock's Death

2013-05-23T15:53:12Z

"No, there is another." This one line spoken by Yoda during "The Empire Strikes Back" set off three years of speculation before it was revealed in "Return of the Jedi" that Leia was Luke Skywalker's twin sister and, therefore, the "other" hope to defeat the Dark Side. Yet there was no Internet to post every hare-brained theory like there is today, so where did self-respecting nerds go for their dose of rumors? There's where the great "Starlog" magazine came in.

J.W. Rinzler's wonderful "The Making of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi" (to be released Oct. 1) recounts a disagreement between George Lucas and his collaborators over Luke Skywalker's new lightsaber -- basically, "how did he get it?" In the end, Lucas shrugged off the need an explanation, pointing out that the worst that could happen is that someone would write a letter to "Starlog."

Back in December, I went through the three years of "Starlog" issues published between the release of "Star Wars" and "The Empire Strikes Back" and reprinted all of the crazy rumors that were floating around in an attempt to prove that we are not that much different today. (My favorite will always be "Han Solo crosses lightsabers with Darth Vader. Although Han doesn't really know how to use the weapon, he's doing fairly well when suddenly the light beams are 'fused' together and Han's and Vader's 'life forces' are intermingled. Luke has a chance to come to the rescue -- but if he kills Vader, might he not kill his friend too?")

For the 30th anniversary of "Return of the Jedi" and the release of "Star Trek Into Darkness," I revisited the New York Public Library and combed through every issue of "Starlog" between 1980 and 1983 -- which covers all of the rumors and the published letters from readers in the "Communication" section for both "Return of the Jedi" and "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" (with some "Raiders of the Lost Ark" thrown in, too).

The rumors are not as out of control as they were before "Empire" -- probably because viewers were left with fairly specific questions after "Empire" -- but, yes, there are still some bizarre ones. And the mailbag includes one letter from a rather miffed Leonard Nimoy responding to a crazy rumor about Spock's death in "The Wrath of Khan." Here, without further ado, is what I found:

July 1980: This prediction given during an interview with "Star Wars" producer Gary Kurtz was a little off. If Lucas and Kurtz had doubled their time estimate, they would have been just about right.

Lucas and Kurtz estimate that it will take up to 20 years to film all nine of the "Star Wars" stories. Which adds up to an 18-hour serial -- surely the longest ever conceived, much less filmed!

August 1980: In an interview with Harrison Ford, he gives away what might have been a spoiler in 1980, even though he doesn't think so.

"It doesn't spoil anything for people to know I'm coming back," said Ford in his suite at New York's Plaza Hotel. "They know I'm gonna get out of that carbon stuff. But it's how I do it, not if -- but when.

August 1980: Starlog polled a group of people who had been waiting in line to see "The Empire Strikes Back." One of them was an actor by the name of Jerry Orbach, who would go on to play Det. Lenny Briscoe on "Law & Order" 12 years later. (Orbach was with his son, Chris.)

Jerry Orbach, actor: When I was his age we'd go to the serials on Saturday afternoon. You'd see the movie, then be left up in the air until the next Saturday. Now, you have to wait three years or until the next one comes out. I think from a little more adult point of view, that this internal fight between good and evil and the way of a Jedi master, that sort of Zen philosophy, is a fascinating thing and it came out much more strongly in this picture. It's quite easy to see how Luke's father could have taken the so-called path of darkness and turn himself into Darth Vader and now Luke has to fight those same temptations. It's a fascinating story. I think it was more adult than "Star Wars."

September 1980: A Starlog reader doesn't quite buy that Vader is Luke's father, then somehow at least partly guesses the relationship between Luke and Leia.

Is Luke related to Vader? Most think so now that Vader came out and said it. Well, I say, do you believe everything you hear? Vader may have lied just to enlist Luke to his side. Vader would then dispose of Luke once he got what what he wanted. About the love triangle: For the moment, let us say Han gets the girl. What of poor Luke? Where does he fit in? He fits in very nicely. Luke is Leia's half-brother. Luke and Leia could share a common mother. She might have left Vader on his turning to the dark side. He may have cast her and his infant son away. This theory works whether Vader is really Luke's father or not. The concept of lovers turning out to be brother and sister was a popular device in classical mythology and Arabian tales. I hope that I have offered some fun food for thought for the next three years.

September 1980: Another reader was not happy with the end of "Empire" and seems quite concerned about what happened to Bespin.

The movie should not have ended until Han was either killed by Boba Fett or Jabba or rescued by Lando Calrissian or Chewbacca, the former, preferably. Also, the fate of Bespin is not told? Was it taken by Lando's troops, taken by Imperial troops or destroyed by Vader?

September 1980: Speculation on "the other" that Yoda mentioned during "Empire."

And, one of the biggest questions in my mind is who is Yoda's "other" student? Could it possibly be a girl -- a love interest for Luke?

September 1980: A reader is not a fan of Han Solo's now iconic response.

Somebody should tell Harrison Ford that when a woman passionately tells a man, "I love you," "I know" is not an an acceptable response. That scene was not funny, it was infuriating.

October 1980: More speculation on "the other."

I suggest Princes Leia. She is young enough for the training; she withstood Darth Vader's tortures; she is dedicated to the cause; Princes Leia, not Lando, "heard" Luke's cries for help; Han Solo is not in shape to be going anywhere for a while and he is too old. I wouldn't be surprised if in the third film, Leia, instead of Luke, destroys the Emperor. Of course, it will be the year 2000 before we find out.

October 1980:

Could it be Vader himself? Considering that there was an equilibrium of power between the good and dark sides of the Force, it would not be impossible to turn Vader into the antithesis of what he is now, especially if Luke (who, except for Yoda may be the most powerful member of the good side of the Force) is truly his son.

November 1980: Mark Hamill asked George Lucas if Hamill would have been replaced if Hamill had been killed in a car accident.

He said, "No." There'd be a script change that would have found a long lost brother or sister, something genetic, so that the Force would be with them.

November 1980: Hamill also speculated on "the other." Also: oops. (Remember this one for later.)

But George insisted it has always been part of the storyline, though he never told me who it might be. Somebody suggested it might be the Princess, but I think that would be a letdown.

July 1981: Even more speculation on "the other." Maybe it's Han Solo?

Many "Star Wars" enthusiasts have speculated that Solo will survive his frozen ordeal because he is Yoda's "other one" capable of harnessing the Force. Upon analysis, such a development seems to have been foreshadowed in Han's dialogue exchanges with Luke and Obi Wan in the first film, and in the space pirate's continuing personal growth in both SW movies.

July 1981: In an interview with George Lucas, he downplays expectations for the next movie, then titled "Revenge of the Jedi."

I think that "Revenge," for better or worse, is going to put the whole thing in perspective. I don't know whether people are going to like it that much, but the truth of it is, that's the way the film was originally designed.

September 1981: A reader can't wait for more Indiana Jones adventures after seeing "Raiders of the Lost Ark." George Lucas explains that both sequels are to be prequels. (Only "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" was a prequel.)

I truly hope that it is just the first of many Indiana Jones adventures!
George Lucas reports that it's actually the third of Indy's adventures.

September 1981: A reader is not thrilled about the rumor of Han Solo's death.

I was shocked to read that Han Solo will be dropped in the next chapter of "Star Wars," "Revenge of the Jedi." I'm not going to pay four or five dollars to see him get saved then lost all in one movie!

September 1981: In an interview with Harrison Ford, he states that he will never do a "Star Wars" movie again -- then leaves the door open for (what I'm sure he didn't realize would be) 34 years later.

The only thing I know for sure is that "Revenge" is my last one, although there's been some talk ...

October 1981: In an interview with "Empire" writer Lawrence Kasdan, he makes it clear that he won't be writing "Return of the Jedi." Kasdan and J.J. Abrams should get along well. (By press time of this particular issue, Starlog had reported that Kasdan would indeed be writing the next "Star Wars" movie.)

I can say, though, that I won't be writing the next "Star Wars" or Indiana Jones film, although I am interested in how Indy can be developed.

January 1982: A Starlog reader named Leonard Nimoy is not thrilled about the way Starlog printed a rumor that Spock would die in the upcoming "Star Trek II."

In the November issue you report that the death of Spock was "brought about by Leonard Nimoy's request."
In your January issue you reiterated the same report and then you quoted "Star Trek II" executive producer Harve Bennett as saying "... Nimoy did not insist on killing the character as a prerequisite to his appearing in the second film."

I was not contacted for a statement, but here it is: Harve Bennett was right, you were wrong ...... twice.

Yours for more accurate journalism,

Leonard Nimoy

January 1982: Unlike today, people knew the villain in "Star Trek II" would be Khan (his name is in the title), but the guesses on the film's plot were wild.

The "Star Trek II" rumor mill has been working overtime lately. It now appears that Khan Noonian Singh (Ricardo Montalban) and his group of terrorists steal a weather controlling machine from the Federation for their own doomsday uses, which include trapping the Enterprise in a cloud.

January 1982: A fan was so mad about Spock's rumored death, he wrote an open letter to Paramount. (I'm glad that we live in a world today in which we don't overreact about "Star Trek" movies.)

They cannot afford to lose a projected $28 million if the "Trek" fans do not view, or care to view the movie sequel. I believe I have a plausible solution. The following is an open letter to Paramount containing my resolution.
Why not have Mr. Spock, a superior philosophical being (a member of the Vulcan race) evolve to a higher plane of existence (consciousness, if you will) rather than just die? During this evolution, he can cast-off his body like so much snake skin and grow spiritually ... As Leonard Nimoy is finally freed of his earthly bonds to Mr. Spock, the fans will begin to pick apart the "newcomer." Who knows, maybe even learn to love again. Our curiosity will bring us to the theaters but you, Mr./Ms. Paramount, must keep us there!

May 1982: Reports are that Obi-Wan Kenobi will appear "in the flesh" in (the still titled) "Revenge of the Jedi." Also, a report on what will become the prequels.

According to producer Howard Kazanjian, Kenobi will appear "in the flesh ... Our dead is a different sort of thing," he told Variety ... Some word on the first/next trilogy: All new characters are in order; however, young counterparts to Han Solo, Princess Leia, and Luke Skywalker may make an appearance.

July 1982: Starlog reports that Star Trek II has been renamed, as to not conflict with "Revenge of the Jedi."

Paramount Pictures has changed the name of "Star Trek: The Vengeance of Khan" to "Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan." The change, which came in early April, was made to avoid confusing the audience between the second "Star Trek" feature film and the third chapter of George Lucas' "Star Wars" series, "Revenge of the Jedi." The "Trek" film's original title was "Star Trek: The Genesis Project" which was almost immediately redubbed "Star Trek II."

July 1982: As a joke, Starlog looked ahead to the year 2000 and what a story might look like then.

Star Wars 12, "The Sons of Skywalker," has completed production. It will be projected entirely in 3-D laser-holovision, and will have 27-channel stunsurround sound. Audiences will be required to present proof of medical fitness before entering the theater.

July 1982: Starlog columnist David Gerrold reported that multiple endings were filmed of "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan." The director of "Khan," Nicholas Meyer, took exception with that and wrote Starlog a letter.

David Gerrold in your May issue states that "Star Trek II" was filmed with multiple endings and implies that which of these putative endings was going to be used was in question and depended on a number of variables.
As the director of the film I would like to state for the record that this is untrue. The shooting script for "Star Trek II," (subtitled, "The Undiscovered Country"), had only one ending and only one ending was filmed. That ending was subsequently enhanced with the addition of some special effects but the meaning of the story remained unchanged.

What IS true is the Paramount Pictures bruited about the multiple ending rumor for whatever publicity value they felt it was worth. At no time did I participate in any of this rumor-manufacturing.

Nicholas Meyer

February 1983: Then there's this strange rumor that the prequels would be filmed out of order.

Sidney Ganis, Lucasfilm's V.P. for Advertising and Publicity, announced that following "Revenge of the Jedi"'s release on May 25, 1983, the firm will begin plans for the next trilogy of films in the nine-part saga. Unlike this trilogy, the second of three, the first trilogy will be filmed in reverse order.
Ganis also told the press that following the first trilogy, the third and final trilogy will be filmed in chronological order.

May 1983: A reader is not happy about a rumor that Leia is killed in "Return of the Jedi."

A trailer for the film showed Leia falling down a trapdoor of some kind. Carrie Fisher said in a recent interview that this was the end of "Star Wars" for her. I know none of the original characters are going to be in the next sequel, but I expected them in the future films. If Princess Leia dies, it will be unforgivable, and I refuse to see "Jedi" as many times as I've seen "Star Wars" and "Empire Strikes" back.

June 1983: Starlog reports that Steven Spielberg will make "Schindler's List" after he completes the second Indiana Jones movie. "Schindler's List" would eventually get made in 1993.

Steven Spielberg will direct the screen adaptation of the best-selling novel, "Schindler's List." Universal made the announcement in March as Spielberg toiled on pre-production for the next Indiana Jones saga ... "Indiana Jones & the Temple of Death."

July 1983: Remember what Hamill said about Leia being "the other"? Hamill gives another interview post-"Jedi."

At first, I felt one of the plot developments was too obvious and conventional. Then I realized you must take into account the trilogy which comes before and the trilogy which comes after this one.

September 1983: So, how did the fans react to Luke and Leia being siblings? Not the best.

Are they joking? Making Vader Luke's father is bad enough, but Leia as Luke's TWIN sister! Come on, Mr. Lucas, get serious. Soon, instead of the "Star Wars" saga, it will be referred to as "The Brady Bunch of Outer Space." Next thing you know, we'll be expected to believe that Han, Lando and Chewie are cousins.

November 1983: And just like on the message boards of today, readers of Starlog expressed their love for "Jedi" and, yes, their disappointment. Yes, here are the letters to Starlog that George Lucas predicted.

And how about the way Ben Kenobi sits Luke down and gives him a crash in all the long-awaited secrets in one five-minute scene, then it's back to the Muppets. We also can't forget how an army of laser-armed warriors is thrown into chaos by a bunch of stone-throwing teddy bears. I mean, come on. It's a big world out here. Some of us have to be intelligent.

I heard "I have a bad feeling about this" at least twice. it was a good line in the first movie, but it's a little tired now.

I would like to have seen Darth Vader as the clone of Luke's father, Anakin Skywalker. So what if Leia is Luke's twin sister! It's a nice idea, but nothing is done with it.

Sure the Ewoks are cute, but they make Han, Luke and Leia look like idiots ... it even appears that Harrison Ford cannot keep a straight face in many parts of this battle scene.

The script was terrible. Not only was it completely inconsistent with the first two films, but it lacked originality. Half of the dialogue was simply lines culled from the other films. The main threat, the Death Star, was a rerun. The major surprise of the film was that two people we had thought unrelated were related, as in "Empire."

Mark Hamill says in Starlog #72 that there were a number of fake scenes written for "Return of the Jedi," in order to keep the movie's secrets from leaking out. Apparently one of those fake scenes, the one in which it is revealed to Luke that Leia is his sister, got filmed and was put into the real movie. This has to be a fake scene.

This bit about Luke and Leia being Twins??!?! ... I had always wanted Luke to end up with Leia, but I realized she would run off with Han ... Just for once, I would like to see a strong male/female relationship that resembles Starsky & Hutch rather than Romeo & Juliet. But, no, Lucas had to make them family.

Mike Ryan is senior writer for Huffington Post Entertainment. You can contact him directly on Twitter.

Dianne K. Salerni: 7 Creepy Unsolved Mysteries

2013-05-23T15:48:16Z

The moment I saw the photograph--a grave enclosed in an iron cage--I knew there was a book in it for me. The online article I'd stumbled across was brief and uninformative, claiming that this girl's family caged her grave because they thought she was a vampire (or maybe a werewolf). Even the location of the grave was obscured in the article, listed as "near Rorhbach's outside Catawissa, Pennsylvania."

I had to see it. No matter what the explanation for this grave was, I knew it wouldn't satisfy me. This was going to be one of those stories that left me chilled in spite of anyone's attempt to debunk it. I'm attracted to unsolved mysteries, especially bizarre ones. If there's a "rational explanation," so much the better, because it's somehow even creepier when a reason is given and it makes no sense.

I wrote my first novel, We Hear the Dead, about Maggie and Kate Fox, teenage sisters who claimed the strange rapping noises that followed them everywhere were messages from spirits. In 1848, they were contacted by the ghost of a murdered man supposedly buried in the basement of their house. Forty years later, Maggie Fox admitted that she and her sister created the rapping noises by cracking the joints in their toes. Mystery solved. Except ... witnesses claimed the spirits proved their otherworldly knowledge by rapping out the ages of everyone in the room. How many times in a row can a person crack a toe joint? Is it possible to do it 33 times, as testified in numerous accounts? And under the observation of a physician, no less? History has dismissed the Fox sisters as frauds, but no one has ever satisfactorily explained everything they did.

As for the caged grave, my husband tracked down the cemetery with Google Earth, and we took a drive to Catawissa. The Hooded Grave Cemetery was just beyond Rorhbach's Farm Market (Aha!) and when we pulled the car up beside the gravestones, we found not one, but TWO caged graves.

The article never said there were two.

Both graves belonged to young women. They were related. The married name of one was the maiden name of the other, and they died within a couple days of each other. Instantly captivated, I started making notes for The Caged Graves even as my husband drove away from the cemetery.

Research turned up possible explanations, and they were as unsatisfying as I expected. Were the cages mortsafes, meant to protect the graves from "resurrection men?" Most mortsafes are removed within a few weeks. Were they decorative, meant to display the affluence of the family? No amount of delicate filigree can change the fact that these are cages. As for vampires, that word didn't enter popular lore in North America until Dracula was published, several decades after these young women died.

When it comes to these graves and other mysterious events, I think the truth lies somewhere between the "rational" explanation and the dark flights of our imagination. And if not the truth, then at least a really good story.

Dave Astor: Why We Tolerate Many Deaths in Literature

2013-05-23T15:09:43Z

With all the real-life carnage in the world -- from the war in Afghanistan to the factory disaster in Bangladesh to the tornado in Oklahoma -- how painful is it to also read about fictional deaths in literature? Pretty painful, especially if we're fond of the characters whose lives end.

But it's hard for readers to avoid expired characters. Death is as ubiquitous as taxes and blog posts, and literature reflects this. Also, the passing of people is a major dramatic device (along with romance, ambition, etc.) that many fiction authors use to keep us riveted.

Another big pull is knowing that death in literature is of course make-believe -- meaning readers are consciously or subconsciously relieved that they and other real-life people aren't the ones shedding their mortal coil. We're still breathing as we mourn the deaths of likable characters and perhaps enjoy the demise of evil ones.

The most memorable deaths in literature? There are so many to choose from, and I'll mention some before asking you to name others. But to partly avoid spoilers, I won't give the names of the characters on my kick-the-bucket list.

In Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, the title character has a schoolmate who dies -- a death made even more poignant by Jane's proximity to that event during the girl's final night.

The passing of one of the four sisters in Louisa May Alcott's Little Women is among the most tear-jerking events in 19th-century American literature, partly because this character is so kind and stoic.

Several die when a bridge collapses in Thornton Wilder's The Bridge of San Luis Rey, which muses about why that tragedy happened and why those particular people perished.

Some other memorable deaths? The accidental murder in Richard Wright's Native Son, the demise of a scary warrior in Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe, a character falling into Mount Doom in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and a prominent wizard being zapped by the killing curse in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series.

Kate Chopin's The Awakening features a dramatic death by drowning, as does Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Blithedale Romance and Jack London's Martin Eden.

Speaking of London, he and other novelists (including Emile Zola in Germinal) sometimes depict the heartbreaking demise of animals. Isn't it a shame that a bird is part of the death spiral at the end of Herman Melville's Moby-Dick?

Getting back to humans, literature includes many auto-accident deaths, such as in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. And of course there's the carnage of war in novels like Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front, and the carnage of the Holocaust in books like Remarque's Spark of Life and William Styron's Sophie's Choice.

Then there are novels that contain many varieties of death, such as those in The Hunger Games. And lots of characters in Suzanne Collins' trilogy die young, as does a protagonist in Nicholas Sparks' A Walk to Remember. Death from old age? The ancient matriarch in Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude is one of countless examples.

Especially strange, inventive and/or horrific deaths? A married couple is killed by rampaging logs as they frolic in a river in The Cider House Rules by John Irving (an author many HuffPost commenters urged me to read). A man in Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway is impaled on a fence. Characters commit ritual suicide in James Clavell's Shogun. The guillotine claims its victims in Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. Death by vat occurs in T.C. Boyle's The Road to Wellville. A man is beaten to death by authorities in Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things. A character entering an outhouse in Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian is surprised by another character and...

Then there are novels in the horror, detective, mystery and dystopian genres that feature so many corpses a separate blog post could be written about them. Think authors like Stephen King, Edgar Allan Poe, Wilkie Collins, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Agatha Christie -- the last in fare such as And Then There Were None and Death on the Nile.

Among the many other literary works with titles containing "Death" or a variation of that word are Willa Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop, William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, Nikolai Gogol's Dead Souls, John Grisham's A Time to Kill, James Joyce's "The Dead" and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.

What are your "favorite" (if that's the right word!) deaths in literature?

Dave Astor's memoir Comic (and Column) Confessional (Xenos Press, 2012) includes a preface by Heloise; back-cover endorsements by Arianna Huffington, "The Far Side" cartoonist Gary Larson and others; appearances by Hillary Clinton, Walter Cronkite, Coretta Scott King, Martha Stewart and others; and a mix of humor and heartache. If you'd like to buy a personally inscribed copy (for less than the Amazon price), contact Dave at dastor@earthlink.net.

Kunal K. Das: Can You Find The Perfect Love Match Using Science? (NEW BOOK)

2013-05-23T15:04:16Z

People have been trying to understand this business of love and relationships forever, and have tried just about everything - art, poetry, literature, psychology, sociology, biology, you name it. Yet we seem to be as confused as ever; why else would we be spending so much time talking, writing and worrying about it? The trouble is that our analysis is almost always subjective, biased by our experiences. So, how about trying something completely different that has never been tried before - the laws of quantum physics? Certainly, that's about as objective as we can get, with no ties to anything or anyone we ever encounter.

Quantum physics is really all about waves, so much so that it used to be called wave mechanics in its early days. It essentially tells us that at a fundamental level everything behaves like waves of energy and chance. Now, if waves truly underlie all of reality, it stands to reason that the rules that govern wave dynamics could certainly give us a few pointers about the dynamics of human behavior too, particularly as regards how and why our relationships fail or succeed.

Waves are really just patterns that repeat themselves - like ripples in the water or habits that people have. All waves are characterized by three features, illustrated in the picture below: Amplitude (the depth from crest to trough, which determines how strong it is), wavelength (the distance over which the pattern repeats) and phase (its relative sideways position from a vertical reference line). The favorite shape for a wave is the smooth undulating type, pictured here, known as a sine wave. Keep in mind though, the picture shows only a section of each wave, you should imagine they go on forever in either direction.

With these features in hand, the crucial step is to map people's personalities to waveforms, and we will use a simple recipe for that: We represent each facet of life by a sine wave of a particular wavelength - different wavelengths mean different facets. If a quality is strong and important in someone we give that wave a big amplitude, and if not, a weak or even no amplitude. For example, in the picture shown above, waveforms all of the same wavelength represent people's tastes in music. Different musical tastes are tracked by the phase shift sideways. Notice that since the pattern repeats after one wavelength, a relative shift of a half-wavelength is the maximum difference in phase that two waves can have, when the crests of one line up with the troughs of the other. We set up a sliding scale over that range, marking a taste in classical music at 0 for no shift at all and a taste for heavy metal at 10 for the maximum phase shift (assuming that they define the extremes of musical tastes). Everything else -- rock, pop, new age, country, folk, jazz, taiko drums, bhajans, and so forth -- are arranged in between, with similar tastes having proximate values, as shown for a few examples.

Now, suppose you happen to be an ardent lover of classical music, you have your car radio set to NPR and have lifetime memberships at all the major opera houses within a two hundred mile radius. One day, while sipping wine between the movements of a symphony you form a bond with another classical music diehard and it blossoms into a relationship. What happens when we combine the waveforms for your musical tastes? They have the same phase and so they line up perfectly, crest to crest and trough to trough, so the crests add up and become higher still and troughs deeper, resulting in a happier stronger wave. In the language of quantum physics your musical tastes are in constructive interference.

Now, consider the diametrically opposite scenario - by an odd twist of fate, you end up dating someone who is into heavy metal, who likes to play it loud enough to induce temporary deafness and refers to symphonies as elevator music. When we bring your musical waveforms together, now crests line up with troughs everywhere and so they cancel out and the amplitude of your combined waveform is very much diminished and almost disappears. Your musical tastes are in absolute destructive interference.

Well you get the idea - we could do this for literally every facet of your life, since there are infinite possible different wavelengths available to represent them. There are easy mathematical algorithms to combine all the waveforms for all possible facets, to create composite waveforms to represent even the most complex of personalities. Then, in order to see how you match up with someone, all we would have to do is combine your two individual waveforms, either facet by facet (one wavelength at a time as we did here) or all of them as a composite whole. Either ways, if the result of combining is a general increase in amplitude overall, you have found a good match; if on the other hand the combination turns out to be significantly diminished in amplitude due to destructive interference all round, then head for the door, for you just found the anti-you. What this tells us is that, don't fall for that 'opposites attract' bit - really, initial attractions aside, if you are dating someone with tastes and inclinations completely opposite to yours in everything, what would you ever enjoy together, what would you share - it is rather unlikely that it can ever lead to relationship bliss. It is just quantum mechanics.

Kunal K. Das is the author of The Quantum Guide to Life.

Backstreet Boys Member Opens Up About Substance Abuse

2013-05-23T14:48:16Z

NEW YORK — Nick Carter isn't only writing songs – he's written a book.

The Backstreet Boys singer will release a memoir, "Facing the Music and Living to Talk About It," on Sept. 24 via Bird Street Books. The 33-year-old is the first in the group to release a book.

The autobiography and self-help book will include stories about Carter's teenage years in the multiplatinum Backstreet Boys, his struggles with substance and alcohol abuse, and the hardships of his family. His younger siblings include Aaron and Leslie Carter. Leslie, who battled with substance abuse, died last year.

Carter is engaged to Lauren Kitt. The Backstreet Boys will release their eighth album, "In a World Like This," on July 30.

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Online:

http://www.backstreetboys.com/splash

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Follow Mesfin Fekadu at http://www.twitter.com/MusicMesfin

Why Literary Criticism Matters

2013-05-23T14:28:33Z

Which of the following constitute objective, literary criticism? Which constitute literary marketing? And which are neither of the above?

15 New Books For Your Beach Bag

2013-05-23T14:02:28Z

These 15 new books for May include stirring new fiction from Isabel Allende, a memoir from a 6'7" librarian struggling with Tourette's syndrome, a hilarious novel of a young man's job as a bird tracker and more.

Brad Pitt Makes Surprise Appearance

2013-05-23T14:01:59Z

Brad Pitt made an unannounced appearance at a screening of "World War Z" on Wednesday night in Hoboken, N.J., delighting those fans in attendance.

The actor strolled out before the start of the movie, and the audience erupted into cheers for the unexpected guest of honor. Pitt tossed a few T-shirts into the crowd and briefly introduced the movie, calling it "epic," "scary as hell" and "the most intense thing you'll see all summer."

Pitt explained that he was asked to do a screening in Manhattan for friends and the media but wanted to do one for the fans as well. They surely appreciated it, too, as the video features uproarious screams and the constant flash of cameras while the audience reacts to the actor's sudden arrival.

"We can't do it without showing it to the people we made the film for," he said. "We decided no better place to do that than Jersey."

"World War Z," the big-budget apocalyptic horror film about a zombie outbreak, is slated for a June 21 release. Expected to be a tentpole summer blockbuster, the movie is directed by Marc Forster ("Quantum of Solace," "Finding Neverland") and co-stars Mireille Enos, Matthew Fox and many zombies.

Oh, and about those "friends" Pitt mentioned were at the Manhattan showing? Among the familiar faces The Huffington Post spotted in the crowd were Bruce Willis and Emma Heming, Kevin Bacon, Katie Couric, Sting, Darren Aronofsky, Jemima Kirke, Oliver Stone and Terry Richardson.

Penny C. Sansevieri: Ten Deadly Marketing Mistakes Almost Every Author Makes

2013-05-23T13:57:42Z

People always ask me what's the single biggest mistake authors make. I'm not sure it's just one mistake, though the truth is that one mistake can sink your entire book. Often when I tell a group of authors what I'm about to share with you they shake their heads in disgust, yet so many authors continue to make mistakes that can be fatal to their book's success. Most of the time, though authors know that publishing a book is like starting a business, they're still shocked when they their book is a failure, despite the fact that they didn't market it. "I don't have the time." They'll say. Well, guess what? If you don't have the time to market then don't spend the time to publish it. Unless it's just a "thing" you wanted to do, then fine. Publish away, but don't expect success beyond your immediate family and close friends. Most authors, however, seek to publish for other reasons, most of them tied to their platform, business, or speaking. If you fall into this category, here are ten things you should avoid like the plague:

Waiting to see what happens: Often authors will put stuff out there and wait. They'll wait to see if it works, wait to see what comes back, or wait to see what kind of sales they make. Authors often tell me this, too when they hire us. "I'm going to wait till your work is done before I market." Why do they do this? Sometimes they want to measure the effectiveness of what we've done which I totally get. But it's just not a good idea to wait, at least not in this climate. You should keep working, whatever you can do
Feeling like you have to do everything: You don't. Yes, I know it often feels like you need to do everything. There are social media sites calling your name, blog posts to be written, book events to attend, blogs to read. There's a lot that you can be doing but focus on what you should be doing and, to that end, make sure you're doing the right things. Spend your time wisely. Don't get distracted by the latest big social media craze. If you can't be on both Goodreads and Library Thing then pick one. You're better off being in one place and having a solid presence there than just dabbling in networks. Dabblers typically don't make sales.
Not putting out enough content: The reason that it's important to pick your battles in social media and marketing is not just because of the "dabbling factor" but also because you have to create content. Lots of it. Blog posts, Twitter updates, YouTube videos, engaging pins on Pinterest, and the list goes on. Creating content can be a full time job if you let it, but there are hundreds of articles out there that can teach you simple ways to create helpful, engaging content for your readers. Good content is the single biggest driver of audience attention. Don't have time to create content? I was listening to a talk by Gary Vaynerchuk on social media and content. Someone asked him, "But what if someone doesn't have time to create a lot of content?" He smiled and said "Then you shouldn't be doing this." I couldn't agree more.
These rules don't apply to me: I was doing a series of speaking events last week and after I was done, an author came up to me and told me about his book. I asked him what he was doing to promote it, he said: nothing, really. Not because he didn't have the time, but he felt that his topic was such a hot trend, he didn't need to. This might be the worst mistake authors make and the most frequent. The basic rules of marketing today do apply to you. I don't care if you are somehow connected to someone who is famous, writing about someone who is famous, or slightly famous yourself. If you don't work for it, the results will still be the same: crickets.
Not staying on top of trends in your industry: The basic idea here is that you stay on top of not just your industry, but the industry you're in, too. That is: publishing. Why should you stay on top of what's going on in publishing? Because the trends might affect you. Let's say you have a book you want to put out and because it's short, you figure it's not substantial enough to warrant publication. Guess what? If you'd been staying up on trends you'd know that for a variety of reasons short is the new long. Thanks to consumers who want quick bites of information and things like Kindle Singles, consumers love short. I just published a book called How to Sell Your Books by the Truckload on Amazon.com. Every single email I've gotten back from readers is that they love it because it's packed with information, no frills and, most of all, short.
Lack of engagement: If someone (a reader) writes you a note or an email, are you responding to them? Often times the answer to this is no, which surprises me. Reader engagement is crucial, not because you need to be polite (didn't your mother teach you that?) but because in an age where bloggers are inundated with review copies and review space is shrinking, guess who will be your next best ally? Yes, your reader. Engage with them, thank them but most of all, respond to them.
Waiting till the book is done to launch the website: This is one of my favorites actually. Well, not really. I speak with authors all the time who are a week away from having a book and have no website. "It's coming" they tell me. When? I ask. The answer is often, "Oh, when the book is out." That's about three months too late. Now, granted, sometimes this can't be avoided, I totally get that. Delays happen. But in 90% of the cases when I hear this, it's because the author didn't know that it can take months (and in some cases years) to get traffic to a website. Start early and the minute the site is up, start blogging, too.
Being in a rush: A few weeks ago I got an email from an author who asked me for my recommendations on a publisher. I told her and the next day she emailed back and said "I got so excited that I just uploaded it. I didn't have it edited but that's ok, I still have a book!" Well, I'm not sure of that. Ok, yes, you still have a book but in the long run, did this really benefit you? She said she was using this book to promote herself. Let me ask you this: would you send a potential employer a resume that wasn't edited? Likely not, right? Yet many authors have published books that aren't edited, either. While I know there are a lot of options for publishing and a lot of very quick ways to get your book "out there" fast is not always good, sometimes it's just fast. If you just want a book for family and they won't judge you on your horrible editing, then go ahead and rush to publish. But if you want something that you can be proud of, that's going to help you build your platform, don't rush. Just because you can publish quickly, doesn't mean you should.
Ask for what you want: I was speaking with a group of authors recently and there was an author in the crowd who said that every book event she does always has a great turnout (lucky her!). I asked her how she was using these events and she looked at me sort of confused. "What do you mean?" she asked. I told her that with that kind of a turnout, she should be signing folks up for her mailing list and then following up with them (think reader engagement). I asked her what she really, really needed for her book. She said she needed more reviews. I told her to ask her readers for help. "You can do that?" she asked. You bet you can. Readers really do want to help authors they love so let them and tell them. Whether you're doing live events, online promotion or whatever. If you want reviews for a book ask your readers. I have an author who, every time someone writes her about her book, she will thank them and ask them to review it. Almost all of them do this. It's a fantastic way to build your reviews on Amazon. Because of this she now has hundreds of reviews on Amazon. Wouldn't you like to have that? Just ask.
Wanting to make a fast buck: With all the news around eBooks and the money some authors are making in this industry, it's tempting to think, "Hey, I need some cash, let me publish something." But as with any industry, these stories are the exception, not the rule. Yes, many authors are doing very well but they're also working on it every day. This isn't a "set it and forget it" type of market. You can't just throw content out there and wait for the sales to roll in but you'd be surprised how many people do this.

I often find myself telling authors that "publishing is a business" so much I feel like I should get it tattooed to my forehead (and what a conversation piece that would be!). But the reality is that it is and, though many who are reading this will feel like this article is written for beginners, that's not true. I've seen authors who have spent years in this industry, struggling for success because they keep making the same mistakes over and over. Many mega bestselling authors are turning to self-publishing as a way to get content to market quicker. I heard a formerly traditionally published author speak about this recently and during the talk she said "I don't have time to do anything other than write the book. I just can't do anything else." I was sort of surprised that she said this, but coming from the traditional world and having been published for years that way I can see how she might have lived a somewhat sheltered life. Even for traditionally published folks the world is a different place and no one, even the biggest names, are immune to this. As to point #4, the rules apply to everyone. Yes, that means you.

LOOK: The Most Memorable People Who Never Lived

2013-05-23T13:44:41Z

Here at TIME, we think a lot about the question of influence. Our annual TIME 100 issue takes a close look at the most influential figures in the world in any given year -- from activists and actors to politicians and pop stars.

FOUND: Pricey Comic Book Inside Wall Of Man's House

2013-05-23T13:39:27Z

Remodeler David Gonzalez found quite the unique treasure in a fixer-upper home he purchased in Elbow Lake, Minnestota.

While examining the insulation of his $10,100 property, the man discovered a pricey copy of the 1938 Action Comics #1 hidden in the wall of his house, reports The Star Tribune. Best known as the first appearance of the Krypton-born hero, Superman, the issue has already fetched a bidding price over $113,000 on the online auction site ComicConnect.

The price of the comic book tallies in at over 10 fold the amount Gonzalez paid for the house. “It’s so hard for anyone to fathom that, in this day and age, you could still discover a comic book that nobody has known about because this book was in a wall of a house for more than 70 years,” Gonzalez said to the Tribune. “It’s pretty miraculous that it even survived.”

The copy would be worth even more money if he and his in-laws hadn't been so shocked to pull the super-find out from amongst old newspapers in the wall. In the heat of the moment, the group tore the back cover, prompting experts to downgrade the comic book's condition to 1.5 on a scale of 10, writes The Daily News. Comic nerds might remember the last time an Action Comics #1 went up for auction -- that more pristine copy sold for over $2 million.

Scroll through the slideshow of other miraculous finds below and let us know what you think of Gonzalez's lucky discovery in the comments.

Gregoris Kalai: The Jay Gatsby in All of Us

2013-05-23T12:45:14Z

There is a Jay Gatbsy in all of us. Despite our best efforts to be content and happy with what ever our current circumstances are, we have evolved to want more. More what?

Well, more of anything and everything. After all, that is the American dream, embodied in the smell of a new car or that of new shoes. The list goes on and on.

After watching Baz Luhrmann's recent depiction of Fitzgerald's masterpiece, I saw a side of Gatsby that is rarely zeroed in on. After practically restructuring his life to fit into Daisy's vision of an ideal man, they eventually hug. Though while they are caught in an embrace, Gatsby seem to have forgotten about Daisy and had instead shifted his focus on a faraway green light.

"Daisy put her arm through his abruptly but he seemed absorbed in what he had just said. Possibly it had occurred...Now it was again a green light on a dock.
His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one."

That moment is possibly where we see Gatsby at his purest. He has pursued someone for a long time and the moment he held them close, they were no longer good enough. That feeling, isolated, is a part of human psyche wired so deep in all of us that we cannot help but fall victim to it.

While Gatsby's opulence and grandiose is foreign to many, that feeling is something all we are all familiar with. In light of the American Dream, that seems perfectly okay. However, deep inside it is clear that if we all appreciate the feats we have achieved, we would be happy with them for longer.

This is not to say ambition is a bad thing. We, as a society, are hardwired to be ambitious and to achieve. But if we were ever going to be truly happy, we need a little more. That extra mile is appreciation. Because either one without the other is not enough for a fulfilling life. Tim Ferriss puts it nicely:

"Achievement without appreciation makes you ambitious but miserable.
Appreciation without achievement makes you unambitious but happy."

So if that means making a few extra hours each week to spend with loved ones, or calling the grandmother you rarely get around to calling--then great. That is what it takes to appreciate the people and things responsible for where you are today.

Then, as you grow to appreciate what you already have, you can think about maybe building it into something bigger and better.