Neil Diamond, Bob and Writing
According to Bill Murray in the movie “What About Bob?”, ‘there
are two types of people in this world: Those who like Neil Diamond, and those
who don't. My ex-wife loves him.’
It was just a few minutes before Neil took the stage at the
Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center Coliseum in Birmingham, Alabama a few years
back when the power of artistic creation hit me in a way that I had never
realized before. There was an aura of excitement and anticipation in the air
that surrounded you, even soaked into you…whether you were a fan or not.
As I sat in the upper deck, I looked around the arena and
thought about exactly what I was experiencing. The audience of over 18,000
ranged from young teens to men and women in their 70’s, all wearing similar Neil
Diamond merchandise. Some had signs. Women in the first few rows down on the
floor had bouquets of flowers, stuffed animals and other gifts that they planned
present to Neil once the show started and they could get his attention for a few
seconds.
Suspended above the stage was over 100,000 pounds of lighting
and sound gear worth at least half a million dollars.
Then the most fascinating, incredible aspect of the entire
scenario occurred to me. Everything I was seeing and would soon experience was
the product of one man’s imagination. More specifically, his art. A seed had
been planted in his soul and he had exercised the courage to water it, face the
vulnerability to expose it to the light, care for it, prune it and allow it to
grow and mature.
Whether you side with Bob or his ex-wife concerning Neil
Diamond, you owe it to yourself to experience his classic song ‘I Am…I Said’ in
a live setting. The power, the emptiness, the longing and the painful struggle
of self-assertion move you in a way that you just don’t experience very often in
this life. It moves you. The force and range of emotion you experience is not
what you could have imagined just a few minutes earlier looking at inanimate
instruments on a dark stage.
That’s why we read fiction; more importantly, it’s why authors
write it. The very same experience is what we both are looking for, and it comes
from the same place that a Neil Diamond show originates.
It’s where all art comes from that reaches us. Painting, music,
film, sculpture, photography, writing and many others all originate in the
imagination of an eternal soul inhabiting a body on a journey through this life.
Asking questions, finding answers, seeking solutions, sharing, laughing, hurting
and healing.
A single person with an idea, a belief, a story, an experience,
and a blank canvass. The brush can take many forms; chalk, oils, a chisel, or
words...in the hands of an artist, anything can become a brush.
When a person decides to face the vulnerability and pick up his
or her personal brush and make that first stroke, indescribable beauty and power
can be unleashed. For a writer, it is often a story that reveals us to
ourselves.
For the reader, it’s that feeling you get when you hit page 20
and realize that this one is speaking to you…yes, this one is special. By page
50, you’re a part of a situation, a town, a life, a challenge that calls you
back every time you leave to take care of necessities like work, relationships
or buying groceries. It’s not just some character in a book who falls in love,
wins the lottery, loses a loved one, meets someone special…it’s you doing those
things and it’s hard to distinguish where the character ends and you
begin.
All the emotion, the introspection, the sheer glee of breaking
through, solving the problem, reaching the goal…it all takes place in a most
unique, incredible medium.
No words have been spoken. There was no music or special effects
to guide the senses. Often, the characters and towns never existed in our world
in a physical sense. The writer silently writes or types and the reader silently
reads. Only silence and intimacy, and the world changes.
That’s why we write; it’s why we read. ~ M. Thomas Long
Please don't forget to check back tomorrow for my review of M. Thomas Long's latest novel Blue Monday sponsored through Pump Up Your Book Tours. You will definitely LOVE this one!
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