Now, a couple of quick notes. While all the records below were released in 2011, the books are just ones that I read in 2011; I’m not that current with literature. We also didn’t get to the movies much this year so I’m only listing three of those. I’ve also added some recommendation fields, including suggested tracks to download or whether a book is worth buying or borrowing. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

The Best Music of 2011:

1. The Whole Love – Wilco: The Chicago Sextet’s 8th studio release marks a return to their Summerteeth-era pop roots, straying (mostly) away from the frantic, post-rock jams of their last few records. I lost track of time humming and tapping my foot along with The Whole Love, now one of my favorite release from one of my favorite bands. Download: Dawned on Me

2. Bon Iver – Bon Iver: In an era where the indie cutting edge prefers the erratic to the beautiful, Bon Iver managed to make the genre’s best of the year the most beautiful, as well. I dare you to find another record this side of 1990 that uses electric piano and soprano sax without the faintest sense of irony. Download: Holocene

3. So Beautiful or So What – Paul Simon: When you’ve written as many songs as Paul Simon, the fact that he has enough material to do a new record is remarkable enough. The fact is, Paul Simon is experiencing a bloom in late life creativity. His last two records are stunning masterpieces of lyric and texture, and this album is proof that unlike most of his old singer/songwriter peers, he’s still got it. Download: Dazzling Blue

4. Build a Rocket Boys!  – Elbow: While the rest of British rock has spent the last 10 years trying to out-art Radiohead or tap into Coldplay’s anthemic success, Elbow has managed to thrive swimming upstream, writing gorgeous pop music better suited to a concert hall than a rock club and owning the radio anyway—at least in Britain. Not only is it my favorite album title of the year, but it also features my favorite track. Download: Lippy Kids

5. The King of Limbs – Radiohead: I make no effort to hide that Radiohead is my favorite band so a new record, even one as short and confusing as this one, is a very big deal. With each listen, order has emerged in the chaos and Limbs holds its own with the best of their catalog. Download: Give Up The Ghost

Honorable Mention:

21 – Adele: The best mainstream pop album of the year, hands-down. Download: Rolling in the Deep

The Cold Still – The Boxer Rebellion: A perfect winter record. I love this band. Download: The Runner

The Best Books of 2011:

1. The Power and the Glory – Graham Greene: This story of a disgraced, alcoholic priest is not only the best book I read this year, but probably one of the best I’ve ever read. Greene’s stunning storytelling and poetic use of prose left me speechless and moved me to tears. Buy it.

2. The War of Art – Steven Pressfield: The best book on writing I’ve ever read. If you’ve ever struggled with any discipline, this book is a must read. Buy it.

3. Where Men Win Glory – Jon Krakauer: I reviewed this on the blog a few weeks back, but I’ll recap by saying that there’s no writer of non-fiction I enjoy more than Krakauer. He managed to tell a story to which we all know the ending in a way that sucked me in and broke my heart just the same. Pat Tillman was quite a man. Borrow it.

4. The Dogs of Riga – Henning Mankell: This Kurt Wallander mystery is a captivating tale of civil unrest in the former Soviet republic of Latvia that I couldn’t put down. Contrary to what the bestseller list says, Mankell is Sweden’s best mystery writer, thanks to the deep social and cultural awareness of his stories, and his use of a fragile, human hero that defies hard-nosed noir stereotypes. Borrow it.

5. The Girl Who Played with Fire – Stieg Larrsen: I read the whole series this year, but the second installment is definitely the best. These are brutal stories, but not for brutality’s sake. Instead, they shed a light on abuse and sex trafficking, and manage to make a journalist and a computer hacker into believable action heros. Borrow it.

The Best Movies (I saw) of 2011:

1. Midnight in Paris: Woody Allen’s latest inspired so many good feelings in me that I still can’t stop gushing over it, nearly 8 months later. I wrote about it at length when it came out so instead I’ll just say, watch it, then watch it again.

2. Senna: To a motor racing fan, the name Ayrton Senna invokes the same sort of feeling that Muhammad Ali might a boxing fan, or Jackie Robinson a baseball fan. This extraordinary documentary is the first of its kind, using nothing but archive footage to tell the story—no present-day narration—most of it from Senna, himself. This man of deep faith was a hero to his native Brazilians, and a reckless, brilliant talent behind the wheel of an F1 car. This is worth more than one viewing, whether you like racing or not, and the telling of the great Senna/Prost rivalry is up there with the best in all of sports history. As one review stated, Senna was, “The best superhero movie of the year.”

3. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2: It’s a rare gift to experience a series of stories that actually rewards the effort in the end. I love these stories, and the cinematic conclusion was everything I go to the movies for. If you read and saw them, you’ll agree. If you’re on the fence about whether or not its worth your time, it is. The movies let us live in the stories just a little bit longer, and I’m sad to see Harry, Hermoine, Ron, and the gang go.

The Best of Everything Else:

1. Pregnancy – Did I mention we’re having a baby? The roller coaster ride of finding out your wife is pregnant is a rare and exceptional joy.

2. California – Sometimes I think the coast of Central and Northern California is some sort of spiritual home to me. Sarah and I’s last pre-parent vacation was simply sublime.

3. A New Job – I always wanted to be a professional writer. 2011 is the year that became a reality. It’s harder than I thought, but worth every second.

4. The 2011 Formula One Season – This season saw more overtaking and better competition in the mid-field teams than any season in history. I actually managed to watch every single race. So good.

5. Kairos – I started playing guitar at this young adult ministry over the summer, and have found a musical outlet I didn’t even realize I needed.

No doubt this is a special time of the year. Music sounds happier, lights look prettier, and good will has a way of pouring out of even the most sour of lips. Any other time of year, these sort of things would be downright miraculous. At Christmas, they’re the norm. I like the way Christmas makes me feel.

But Christmas is also the busiest time of year. As Ray Charles sang, “Christmas is the time of year to be with the ones you love.” This is true, and my wife and I are fortunate to love and be loved by many. Getting all of these people into our lives, however, is no easy task. Add to it gifts that need bought, work that needs done by year’s end, parties that need planning, and so on, then tie it all together, and you’re left with one hot mess of a holiday with a month’s worth of activity crammed into a week. Don’t get me wrong, these are all very good things, but I’m sick of what Christmas has become.

I can’t blame anyone. it’s not the stores’ fault, putting out their decorations in September. We support them with our money—it’s an expectation we’ve set. It’s not the fault of people who say Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas. I can’t expect people who don’t believe in the Christian origins of Christmas to uphold its sanctity. And it’s not the giving of gifts. In fact, if we give gifts the right way, we should be reminded of God’s gift to us—Jesus.

The blame, it seems, is entirely my own. I commit to too much. I worry too much about buying the right gifts without overdrafting. I spend too much time thinking about what I want. While we Christians are quick to remind people that Christmas is really about Jesus, if we’re being honest with ourselves, we will see that this holiday is really all about us.

Jesus…just saying it out loud as I type feels like a breath of fresh air.

Next Christmas will be different; we’re already talking about it and what we will do differently. A plan is in place and we’re excited—there will be a time to talk about that later. This is the last year I think about Christmas and wonder what in the world happened. Even still, there are three days left, and this much is clear: Christmas is not about me. When I make it about me, I stress and run myself ragged, wondering where the season went.

This year, with the time we have left, may we be like the magi. They didn’t miss Jesus because they were looking for his sign in the stars. Rather than buckling down and trying to find the path of least resistance through these next three days, I’m going to look to the sky.

The writing of Jon Krakauer, whose work illuminates the motives—and fate—of those who live on the ragged edge of humanity, has long been among my favorite. As a writer of non-fiction, I hold him in esteem with the most eloquent and compelling writers of contemporary fiction. It is this principle reason, not the subject, that led me to first open his most recent work, Where Men When Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman. But is the subject, not the writing, that haunts me now that it is finished.

Like most every other person in this country, I heard a great deal about Pat Tillman, the undersized, star defensive back for the Arizona Cardinals who turned down a career in the NFL to enlist in the army after 9/11. I knew that he had died in Afghanistan. I knew that he detested celebrity and did not want his career in the Army documented. I knew that he was an atheist, a point noted with sadness, disappointment, and even disdain in some Christian cultures after his death.

But there were things that I didn’t know. For instance, prior to 9/11 and his last season in the NFL, Tillman, who was making league minimum playing for the pitiful Cardinals, was offered $9 million to go play for the St. Louis Rams. He turned it down, saying that he owed his career to the good faith of the Cardinal’s franchise and the people of Arizona. It was the later, multi-million dollar contract extension by the Cardinals he turned down to become an Army Ranger most of us know about. I was unaware of Tillman the philosophy-loving intellectual, or the fiercely loyal friend, or the man who genuinely regarded doing the right thing to be the most important thing and actually did it—a belief that led him to enlist, despite his disapproval of the war. And finally, prior to reading Krakauer’s book, I also did not know that Tillman was killed by friendly fire, nor that the details of his death were covered up by the Pentagon.

After his death, Tillman was paraded through the news as a hero. While his actions were certainly heroic, the reality in which he died, and my unawareness of it, is just the first glimpse of one of the most nauseating, infuriating accounts of cover-up and propaganda I have ever encountered. Not only was the truth hidden from the Tillman family, Rangers present at the incident were ordered by superiors to lie, orders that can be traced—and documented—all the way to White House. The various accounts, testimonies, letters, and emails found by Krakauer and the Tillman family bear witness to the length people are willing to go to cover their own butts. It’s a conspiracy more fascinating than fiction.

Krakauer is a remarkable writer, and Where Men Win Glory is a remarkable book. The combination of biography, Southern Asian history, descriptions of battle, and investigative journalism is second to none.

But more than that, I am humbled by Pat Tillman, the man. On the surface, he is the very ideal of the sort of hero boys dream of becoming. Below the surface, it is Tillman’s reality, his humility, reckless temper, unbridled passion, and desire to respect and understand others that makes him endearing to readers. It is the Pat I did not hear about on TV that made this book worth reading—and the reality of his death all the more disturbing to read.

I highly recommend it.

Why is it that when a holiday comes around, such as Veterans Day, July 4th, or…ahem, Thanksgiving…one that serves as a reminder to be grateful, we feel the need to not only voice our gratitude but to do so regretfully, typically saying, “I know we shouldn’t need a day to be grateful for this, but…” We do. Perhaps it is because we are much better at expressing desires, or frustrated desires, than we are at expressing gratitude. I know that I am.

The simple truth is that I have a remarkable number of things to be thankful for each and every day. I hate that it takes a work holiday to make me stop and think about it, but it is necessary. And until the day in which my life becomes rooted in gratitude and this fourth Thursday in November becomes focused solely on enjoying my loved ones, I will do my best on this day to remember.

For these things I am thankful, today and everyday:

• My wife, the most extraordinary woman I’ve ever known. Our love is new every day.
• Our baby boy, Oliver Reuel. March 23rd can’t get here fast enough.
• The gospel. It is making all things new.
• My wonderful parents, Bill and Janice Stiles, and their 40 years of marriage.
• My beautiful sister, Lesley, her husband Daniel, and their sweet, hilarious children Sam and Charlie.
• Mike and Stephanie Moseley, the best in-laws a guy could hope for.
• The Ohio clan, Chris and Emily Moseley, and their precious boys Noah and Owen.
• Friends too numerous to count. If you think this is you, it is.
• A job I believe in that challenges me every day.
• A boss that believes in and supports my creative development.
• Rivers full of trout, mountains low and high, wooded trails, Radnor Lake, the Gulf Coast, the Pacific Coast Highway, Chapman’s Peak Drive, the elms in Central Park, my porch, and all of the sacred spaces the world over.
• Michael Chabon, Jon Krakauer, Kurt Vonnegut, J.R.R. Tolkien, Lee Clow, David Ogilvy, and the remarkable staffs at Wieden + Kennedy, Wired, and National Geographic that every day fill me with the desire to write.
• Those who reject cynicism.
• Home, whether it’s the condo we now rent, or the foundation that will soon become our first house.
• Eric Johnson, Gerry Leonard, Mike Campbell, Duke Levine, Michael Lockwood, Pat Metheny, Phil Keaggy, Michael Hedges, George Harrison, Alex Lifeson, and all the players who amaze and compel me to be better.
• The various craftsmen who turn my joy, insecurity, and worship into music—Bill Wise, Fred Taccone, Bob Taylor, Paul Reed Smith, and the (massive) crews at Gibson, Gretsch, and Fender.
• Coffee. Dripped, french-pressed, or instant, I don’t really care.
• Leaves and the beautiful display of struggle they give each fall.
• Food and the incredible blessing that something so essential to life can be so sacramental.
• Imagination and those grown-ups who dwell in it proudly.
• Movie theaters and their sticky floors and warm smell of popcorn.
• The fearless, if not crazy, men of Formula One, MotoGP, and WRC that make sports worth watching.
• Matt Groening and his shows’ abilities to make me laugh and think for so many years.
• The always faithful Honda Accord I affectionately call Michael (long story).
• The red curry tofu at Sukho Thai.
• Goose-down clouds on these late fall days.
• Comfy shoes.
• You.
• And the list goes on and on…

A very happy Thanksgiving to you and your family. God bless.

Today is a special day. In fact, it’s the most special of days. That’s because 30 years ago, today, my wife and best friend, Sarah Beth (formerly Moseley) Stiles, was born. So in honor of her birthday, I have compiled a list of 30 things that make her awesome—things that I love and reasons that I am thankful for her today.

1. Every day with Sarah is new and surprising.

2. She is fearless and lives her life with abandon.

3. She is wise, well beyond her years.

4. She is perceptive. Nothing gets by her.

5. She is absolutely gorgeous (I am absolutely lucky).

6. She is hilarious, and makes me laugh every day.

7. She feels deeply and is not ashamed to show it.

8. She is always sincere in her emotions, never hiding anything.

9. She is an incredible cook and keeps me happily fed.

10. She watches all those Real Housewives shows, but watches with empathy. Well, not New Jersey, but the rest of them.

11. She is intensely loyal. You want her in your corner.

12. She loves Jesus—honestly and free of religious trappings.

13. She steals the covers but somehow manages to do it in a way that I don’t care.

14. If I leave the bed, even for a minute, she rolls over and takes my spot.

15. She loves the movie “Honey”, starring Jessica Alba, and watches it every time it’s on TV.

16. If nothing good (i.e. nothing fun) is in the mail, she leaves it in the box. Even if it’s been a week.

17. When we exercise together, she sets the pace. I can barely keep up.

18. She hates the superficial.

19. Even after five and a half years together, she still says, “I’m just going to close my eyes for a minute” when I know she’s actually going to take a nap.

20. She keeps me honest, and desires nothing less than all of me.

21. She makes me desire to be nothing less than my absolute best.

22. She somehow manages to eat breakfast cereal out of a cup, with milk and everything, while she’s driving, without ever getting into trouble.

23. She loves children who are not her’s as if they were.

24. The tint of green in her eyes varies based on light and the shades of clothing she wears.

25. She still waits for me at the airport security checkpoint when I’m traveling home.

26. She loves girl pop—Kelly Clarkson, Avril Lavine, Adele, Katy Perry and the like—and listens to each new album like it’s her favorite.

27. She has a beautiful voice. I could listen to her sing all day.

28. She never finishes a drink. Ever.

29. She has a keen eye for style and decoration and makes our home feel special.

30. She loves to be surprised and makes special occasions a joy to share.

This list could go on and on, but hey, that’s what future birthdays are for. So here’s wishing you a very happy birthday, my love! May it be the best one yet!

*The final launch of the shuttle Atlantis this morning stirred in me a number of emotions. As the space shuttle program endures its final mission, I thought I would repost a blog I wrote a few years ago on the first incarnation of this site. These thoughts bring feelings of gratitude for both the road I have traveled since first writing these words, as well as the road that lies ahead.*

David Bowie wrote this song that made me sad as hell the first time I heard it. You know it, the story of Major Tom and his ill-fated trip into outer space. Everything starts so courageously, but as “Space Oddity” continues, Major Tom’s space craft slowly shuts down and hope is lost. He tells his wife he loves her, then drifts into eternity in the ever darkening and cold expanse of space. It’s such a lonely song.

I’m watching Apollo 13 on AMC, and I cannot help but think about Bowie’s song. This is a different kind of story, though, a true story of one of this country’s greatest feats of ingenuity and quick thinking. It’s a remarkable tale of a time when the world rallied in support of three astronauts floating powerless in space. The pope led prayer for thousands in Rome while others gathered at the wailing wall in Jerusalem, and I don’t know if so much attention has even been given so few people in the history of this country.

Stories of space are compelling. Nothing in this country’s history gives me a greater sense of awe and hope as the space program. With so much of our country’s attention devoted to fixing things, NASA continues to pursue dreams and do the extraordinary. In a lot of ways, it stands for our best, one last bastion of the American Dream that continues to dream. In a time where nuclear warheads sat poised on missiles, we stuck a man on a rocket, put him on the moon, and brought him home safely. Not to say we didn’t put some nukes on some rockets either, but still, that’s incredible no matter how you look at it.

It’s pretty clear we take this for granted, even forgetting it’s there. Major news outlets treat launches and landings like the local bake sale, or the World’s Ugliest Dog pageant – passing coverage at best. We’re so busy pointing fingers at our government, whether justly or unjustly, that we fail to remember the people who daily pursue the impossible. It is clear we’ve forgotten, that is, until the bottom falls out.

I still remember the morning the shuttle Columbia disintegrated in our atmosphere. It was February 1st, I had an audition that morning, and my father called, the tone of his voice still present in my memory. He said he just wanted to call, that news like that was always hard to hear; we were both sad. The event was a shadow across my heart the entire day, and I felt like I had lost something. Remembering that day, it felt like a dream had been broken.

As I sit here on this couch watching the actors retell the story, I ask myself, When did we stop dreaming? When did our country quit pursuing things that make us feel alive? When did we trade our heroes in for binge-drinking actors and adulterous athletes? I start to think about all the garbage I hear about on the news every day, and all the fear that spins from the headlines. John Kennedy’s words have long since been ignored as we continue to moan about what we think this country should do for us. It is quite clear we quit dreaming.

Driving in my car later in the evening, I find myself praying and asking the question, When did I stop dreaming? As we plan and plot the course of our lives, from grade school to high school, to college and all its preparation for the first job of the rest of your life, we settle into this linear model of living that will continue unabated unless we do something.

God never intended us to take the safe and prosperous way out, yet we live in a day where preachers teach and Christians live a faith that says the blessing of God is safety and prosperity. Christians grow richer and more complacent, all the while enabled with new tools from the church to cope with it. The Bible teaches the poor will be blessed, and that spiritual poverty is an injustice. This American church has turned their dreams into buildings, and attendance, and the injustice of it all spills out into the community around it. It was never supposed to be this way.

Watching Tom Hanks and the rest of the actors, I am aware of my own guilt, the physical, emotional, and spiritual safety I pursue everyday. Before I know it, I too am drifting through space like Major Tom, bound for an endless and lonely journey. I long to cast my dreams upwards to the heavens, just like some courageous men in this country once did. In the classic film, Sunset Boulevard, a fallen star famously responds to a critic. “You used to be big,” he said, and Norma Desmond responds, “I am big. It’s the pictures that got small.” Looking through my little TV at a remarkable view of this planet, I am convinced it is not the pictures that got small, but rather us.

June 20, 2009 was the hottest day of the year, and I was sweating like a pig. I sweat about as well as I do anything, but there were three outside factors kicking my body’s natural temperature regulation into overdrive: I was frantically running errands, I was wearing a black tuxedo in open sunlight, and I was about do the most important thing I had ever done. On June 20, 2009, I got married.

But would marriage alone be a cause to celebrate? Honestly, no. It takes the right person, and boy did I find her. When my friend Ryan told me that I would like his friend Sarah Moseley, I was simply not prepared. She was naturally beautiful with no trace of make-up, perfect posture, and quiet yet exuding all kinds of confidence. In a matter of moments, Sarah very gently became the center of my attention and has stayed there ever since.

Sarah is a walking, talking dichotomy of heart and mind. She laughs freely, tells jokes with the best, and talks to people with lightness and sincerity. Her heart is always on the outside—she grieves as freely as she laughs and is never dishonest or insincere in her emotions. She never allows an unspoken frustration to fester and create a wedge between her and anyone else, and she is fiercely loyal. I cannot tell you what a blessing it is to be married to a woman who is so lovingly open with her thoughts and emotions.

But for everything my lovely wife so openly feels, she digests, dissects, and informs her own thought and behavior to the same degree. Sarah has a beautiful mind that is always pursuing depth. She is always working to be the best version of herself, as well as working to be a guide for those close to her who are wrestling with something. She is deeply insightful—in the five plus years I’ve known her, I cannot think of a single time that she’s been off base about the source of a behavior. In short, she sees things that others often don’t and I am a better man because of it.

And when you add these things together, you get a remarkable whole…and one incredibly lucky guy. So to my beautiful, captivating bride, I say Happy Anniversary! Two years has felt like two days and it truly keeps getting better. I love you…

Whit

The Earth in all its splendor—a deluge of beauty and sorrow, kingdoms of creatures and humanity, and the vast intravenous network of waters and divides we all call home—is reduced to a snapshot, pieces of perspective strung together. It is the unfortunate reality in which we live: moments of grandeur in an incomprehensible whole we will never fully grasp. But that should never stop us from trying.

Every Christmas, without fail, my grandmother hides a little white envelope about the size of a deposit slip in a bag full of goodies, my name on the front in delicate cursive. Melba Blount is remarkably consistent and quietly sweet to a heartbreaking degree, and I know what is in the envelope—my dad and brother-in-law each get one, as well. It is another year of the monthly journal of nature and exploration called National Geographic.

The National Geographic Society, in its patronage of conservation and exploration, has grown into a media empire of sorts, from television networks to the web and an active social media enterprise. But I still prefer the magazine. For more than a century, it has provided readers with one aureolin-bordered snapshot of our world after another. Wildlife, ecology, conservation, science, and sociology—it’s all there. On this Saturday morning it is my companion of choice on our porch with coffee.

It is cool for summer—I am wearing both long pants and sleeves—yet warm enough to enjoy the persistent, almost coastal breeze; for a moment I shut my eyes and imagine Bodega Bay and the morning stroll for coffee my dad and I once took there. It is cool because it is overcast, clouds thick enough to hide any trace of blue, yet thin enough to provide ample morning light. The breeze smells of rain—I know it’s coming and I’m glad. It’s anything but dreary.

When most people consider summer, they think hot, sunny afternoons with blue skies for days, but days like today are my summer of choice. As a kid, I spent every day at our little neighborhood’s community pool, even the rainy ones. When a storm would blow in, we would sit under the pool house canopy and play cards or tell stories while wrapped in our towels because of the cool breeze—the sound of rain sweet as music. So pure was our enjoyment of the rain and gentle distant thunder.

“The clouds look so much closer than they really are,” says Sarah, my wife, who is sitting with me now. “Like if I were in a hot air balloon I could reach out and touch them.” She pauses for a moment. We watch the squall line drift toward the horizon, the shrinking glow beyond—it’s raining now. “Maybe it’s God’s way of reminding us that He’s closer than we often think.”

God is close. I feel Him in this breeze, see Him in these clouds. I read about Him and all His permanence and creativity in these pages. Each snapshot of life is an attribute of the divine, pieces of an incomprehensible whole. I wonder if these scientists and conservationists know their labors are rooted in divine mystery? I feel shame for all of these religious conservatives who recklessly blast environmentalists to promote their contrary agenda. Yes, science has often been embellished to enhance political causes and create vast social fears, but these conservatives do the same with their religion every day. I find this disturbing. The partisan avoidance of common ideological ground betrays what I view as a fundamental spiritual—not religious or political—truth: to not view matters of environment and conservation as spiritual concerns is to ignore the very presence of God within them—a presence, I believe, that exists to help answer that most fundamental of mysteries: Is there a God and what is He like?

Just as the pages of this magazine, one month after another, piece together a collage of Earth I’d never otherwise comprehend, this present view of cloud and rain helps build upon an ever-growing portrait of the divine. Both are inspiring snapshots of an utterly humbling whole, but the Earth in its entirety is still just a snapshot of the even more inspiring expanse of space. And if the Universe in all its impossible depth is, itself, still a snapshot of the divine, then…

There are moments when heavenly stereotypes of puffy clouds and golden roads fade and I imagine myself sitting sopping wet in a gentle rain from low, fast and endlessly intricate clouds above. The passing front draws a distant band on the horizon and reveals a brilliant light; somewhere beyond is the sea, unending and shimmering under the sun. And we all worship.

Paris is calling my name. Right now. Even before I finished the first sentence I was searching the web for a wallpaper image of a Parisian street in gloaming—before the thought of a scowling Steven Pressfield, chain-smoking with his arms crossed, sent me back to the task at hand. Paris is calling my name because of the cinematic love letter to the city I recent watched. It began as a video montage—each shot showed the storied city in perfect balance, both a modern, bustling metropolis and the ancient, romantic seat of art and revolution history celebrates it for. It goes on for several minutes under a bed of lovely Parisian music. Immediately, it calls to mind the opening of Woody Allen’s “Manhattan”, a gritty homage to America’s Paris. And perhaps that’s what Allen was wanting me to recall.

Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris” is the most I’ve enjoyed a movie in a long time. I wont spoil it for you, but here’s the gist as any preview would disclose: an American screenwriter (Owen Wilson) visits Paris with his fiancé and her parents, typical self-absorbed tourists with more money than self-awareness. Wilson is an in-demand screenwriting talent, particularly gifted at churning out forgettable Hollywood sap that makes millions. As he wanders Paris searching for inspiration for a novel he hopes will change the course of his career, he dreams of Paris in the 1920′s, a golden era when Fitzgerald and Hemingway, Stein and Picasso passed their days and nights in, what he believes, their creative prime. Life would be better then, he thinks, and suddenly, as the clock strikes midnight, he is transformed back in time and comes face to face with his artistic heroes—not to mention a few of mine. You’ll have to see the movie to find out where it goes from there, but a few days later, it’s still working me over.

Isn’t that such a natural reaction to our surroundings, the belief that somewhere or sometime else is a better environment for our dreams, desires, or whatever than the present? When I’m faced with the insecurity of my creative worth, I’ll catch my consciousness drifting to a coffee shop with soft light and rich aromas and suddenly believe that whatever I could write there would be better than what I’m writing here and now. Or maybe I’ll find myself in Chet LeSourd’s freshman English, rethinking that pitiful short story about the kid who accidentally runs someone over with his car. Or maybe it’s a hill overlooking the Presidio in San Francisco—it’s 1959, I have on a three-piece suit and Hitchcock is filming…okay, back to reality. But reality is a scary place to be when you’re trying to express yourself.

Imagination is an elusive beast in adulthood, at least the sort of imagination I’m looking for. It is no mystery that I love books and my favorite books are fiction. Presently, I am introducing myself to Graham Greene and his apparent masterpiece, “The Power and the Glory”. Thirty pages in and I am amazed, as I often am by any great storyteller, by his courage and conviction of plot—his protagonist is a whisky drinking Mexican priest on the lam from a godless lieutenant and his militia, hellbent on removing all traces of religion from the state. Updike penned the introduction so I know it’s good, not to mention Greene’s reputation, and as I read, I find myself questioning, as I often do with great writing, if I would have the courage to develop an idea or such a seemingly simple character into something so much larger than itself. It requires equal parts imagination, courage, and persistence.

Now I will go out on a limb and tell you that I am writing fiction; two short stories, to be specific. I wont tell you what they are about, but I’m terrified of them. I cannot find the commitment to my characters needed to make them come alive, and the plots, basically, don’t exist beyond their present state of completion. All I have are some ideas, some feelings I want to express. But where are the words? The plot?

Scrolling down the IMDB.com listing for Woody Allen, I am simply shocked by the number of movies the man has written and directed—movies I’m very familiar with that I didn’t even know were his. My first thought is one of dismay: how can the man have enough imaginative presence and energy to produce so much work? My second thought is awe: how can he have so many ideas he deems worthy of public consumption? Are there any that don’t see the light of day? Where does he find the time? Is he miserable from all the scrutiny or is it catharsis? My mind is reeling, and suddenly Woody Allen is transformed from the bumbling, conflicted little man I’ve always imagined to a creative titan. I am dumbstruck.

Imagination is often viewed as a child’s device, but the older I get, the more valuable it seems to become. Oh, to travel through time and slap my 10-year-old videogame-playing self—what I would give now to have the kind of imagination I buried then. But I can’t. Suddenly I feel this imperative to reconnect with my so-called “inner child”. I want to wrap my idiosyncrasies and musings into figures of my imagination. I want to communicate vital truth through a world of my own creation. Just like so many of my heroes.

Ideas come and go all day long, but most are dismissed. I am beginning to wonder if I can afford to dismiss them, but I also do not want to transform them into idle charms on some creative noose; follow through is imperative. “Midnight in Paris” has inspired me to tell a story I might not consider worthy of telling at its inception. But even more valuable, it has reminded me that there is no other time to actually tell it than now. Right here. Right now. Oh dear. What a great movie.