Rediscovering a classic
Seeing Bruce Springsteen in concert a few weeks ago gave me a new appreciation for the song “The Ghost of Tom Joad.” If you haven’t heard a live version with Tom Morello, it’s worth seeking out. There’s one on Apple Music here.
That sent me down a bit of a rabbit hole. I found myself Googling “Tom Joad” and rediscovering that he’s the central character in The Grapes of Wrath—one of those books many of us were assigned in high school. A few days later, I was standing in Barnes & Noble buying a copy.
What a great book! It makes me smile to write something so obvious.
There’s a reason books like this stick around. But when you’re 16, it’s hard to appreciate them. You’re reading for the test, skimming for themes, trying to figure out what the teacher wants you to say. It’s a very different experience than reading it decades later, when you have at least some sense of what it means to carry responsibility, to worry about provision, to navigate uncertain times.
So here’s my takeaway: every once in a while, it’s worth going back and picking up a classic.
More timely discoveries
One of the central themes of The Grapes of Wrath is the tension between community and individualism. I’ve heard it summed up in that familiar line: If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.
That idea showed up in a couple of things I watched this week.
Hoppers is a recent animated movie about a scientist who invents a way to enter into the animal kingdom. A human’s essence is placed into an animal robot, giving the human the ability to observe and understand the animals. It’s light and funny, but it carries a surprisingly strong message about interconnectedness. We’re in this together and all from one place, come up more than once—and land.
This is a Gardening Show is a Netflix series by Zach Galifinakis in which he shares he love for gardening. Each 15-minute episode features real gardening information about how to grow tomatoes, the history of corn, grafting to create apple varieties — mixed with hilarious conversations between Galifinakis and grade-school children who are also learning about these topics. It’s an enjoyable blend of silly and informative.