Wonderful Things
April 7, 2004
I am guilty of liking movies that border on sappy, especially when they involve Sicilians. Thus, I would count movies such as Cinema Paradiso, Three Brothers, and Il Postino among my favorite “sappy movies that involve Sicilians.” (Conveniently, there is usually an astonishingly beautiful woman in each movie to play to the cheap seats of my heart. Consider Maria Grazia Cucinotta in Il Postino, arguably the eighth natural wonder of the world, and the ethereal Agnese Nano in Cinema Paradiso, who appears on screen for all of eight seconds. There is a part of me that would see the movie again just for those eight seconds.)
There is a wonderful scene near the end of Il Postino where the hero, Mario Ruoppolo, goes around his island recording the sounds of the things he finds beautiful—the ocean waves, the wind. It is a beautifully expressed song of praise representing all that Mario has come to love, and, all the more poignantly, what he has learned to articulate. Mario is wise enough to know that, even though he has found his own voice, it is sometimes best to let wonderful things speak for themselves.
In a similar vein, there is a great mining exercise in The Poet's Companion where you declare what you believe. In the spirit of poetic license, I combine Mario's list and the mining exercise and list here some things that I have found to be wonderful.
- Cape Cod through the eyes of Joel Meyerowitz
- Baseball played well
- Swimming in just about any temperature water at Ferry Beach
- Greg Brown singing just about anything
- Bobby McFerrin leading the crowd in Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes
- Playing cards (the activity) and playing cards (as in, a deck)
- Being on the Acela, drink in hand, watching out the window as it rounds a bend in the Rhode Island woods at 150 mph
- A smooth touch down in your home airport after a long trip.
- Fresh, cold canteloupe and a hot cup of cream-silkened coffee.
- Robert Duvall acting, as opposed to Robert Duvall talking politics.
- Astonishing, one-of-a-kind books like The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake