Shari Della Penna
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"Small acts of kindness can change and humanise our world."
   Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks 1948-2020
   ​Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, 1991-2020
                         Author, Advocate, Advisor

February 28th, 2017

2/28/2017

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. . . Mrs. Vancil said we live in a culture where fame is too important and that because of this, people will do all kinds of things to show off.
            . . .
       When you are showing off, you stop thinking about other people.
       I hope being in a play [or movie] isn’t showing off.
       It might be.
       I think that true art isn’t showing off, but maybe bad art is.
       Only, how do you tell the difference?
                                                                     from: Short
                                                        by: Holly Goldberg Sloan
                                         Dial Books for Young Readers, 2017
  
       I don’t usually watch the Oscars and I didn’t watch Sunday night. I look for the winners in the newspaper and listen to the soundbites. So what happened during those two and a half minutes when everyone thought the best picture was La La Land, but then found out it was really Moonlight? We may never know. But, then, we might.
       I really do like the movies, though. My brother and I would sometimes go on a Saturday afternoon. My parents didn’t like us to go if the weather was nice. We had to play outside on those days. We saw some classics: It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Fantastic Voyage, The Pink Panther. I think we saw a James Bond film, maybe Goldfinger.         We were allowed to buy candy. I liked Goobers and Sugar Daddy and Boston Baked Beans. I don’t remember what my brother got.
       We were not allowed to buy popcorn. It had something to do with a bad experience my dad had when he bought popcorn at the movies when he was young. Something to do with a creepy-crawly.
       I buy popcorn now. Almost every time I go.
       Our parents and grandparents took us to see The Sound of Music, Swiss Family Robinson, Heidi. Mary Poppins. Others, too.
Most of the movies I watch now are either on the TV or on CD borrowed from the library and played on the TV. Some of my favorites (alphabetical) Casablanca, Clash of the Titans, Dr. Zhivago, Forrest Gump, Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, La La Land, Man of LaMancha, and of course, The Wizard of Oz.
       The Wizard of Oz was also a yearly event on TV. We would all gather around watching for our favorite parts. Speaking along and singing along were encouraged.
       When my girls were small we saw E. T. and Annie on consecutive weekends. When they were much older the movie adaptation of The Secret Garden came out. We saw that, too.
 
       I cut the list out of the paper, I will catch up on some I missed, but I still haven’t seen Singin' in the Rain or Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang or Fantasia, Despicable Me. I watched the first Rocky movie last year.
 
       By the way, just in case you’re wondering, I discovered a mystery around the Oscar statue itself. No one knows who Oscar really was. “According to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the origins of the name are uncertain, but ‘a popular story has been that an Academy librarian and eventual executive director, Margaret Herrick, thought it resembled her Uncle Oscar and said so; and that the Academy staff began referring to it as Oscar.’” http://www.infoplease.com/askeds/called-oscar.html and according to the official site  http://www.oscars.org/oscars/statuette “No model was used during the design process.”
       So there you have it.
                                                                   --stay curious!

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         I'm a children's writer and poet intent on observing the world and nurturing those I find in my small space .

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