Click the link below for the trailer!

The Book Thief

http://www.berkshireeagle.com/berkshiresweek/ci_23927016/norman-rockwell-museum-finds-heart-fairy-tale-monsters?source=rss

I had a great conversation with Lauren Bender of the Berkshire Eagle about the exhibit at the Norman Rockwell Museum.

The “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” exhibit is there until October 27, 2013.  The Museum itself is an architectural gem, brilliantly designed by Robert A.M. Stern.

http://www.ramsa.com/en/projects-search/cultural/the-norman.html

The setting is magnificent and the tour guides for the Museum are first-rate.  And you will see “The Problem We all Live With,” before it goes on the road again.  Below a fascinating piece about the the painting and its trip to the White House.

http://www.masslive.com/living/index.ssf/2011/07/legacies_unite_in_white_house_to_underscore_rockwell_message.html

The New York Times reports that J.D. Salinger may have left five posthumous works that will be published, possibly as soon as 2015.  A documentary directed by Shane Salerno is scheduled for release on September 6, at which point we may know more about “The Last and Best of the Peter Pans.”

One collection, to be called “The Family Glass,” would add five new stories to an assembly of previously published stories about the fictional Glass family, which figured in Mr. Salinger’s “Franny and Zooey” and elsewhere, according to the claims, which surfaced in interviews and previews of the documentary and book last week.

Another would include a retooled version of a publicly known but unpublished tale, “The Last and Best of the Peter Pans,” which is to be collected with new stories and existing work about the fictional Caulfields, including “Catcher in the Rye.” 

The 12- page typed manuscript is evidently in Princeton’s Firestone Library and may not be photocopied.  Access is restricted, although it is unclear exactly what that means.  Restricted to whom?  Salinger’s estate stipulates that the work may not be published until 2051!

For a summary of the story, click on the link below, and you learn about the curious ending:

Vincent then retreats to his room. There, he contemplates what has just happened, profoundly sorry. He is sorry for all the people in their ivory towers, sorry for all the soldiers who can’t keep their caps on right, sorry for all of the second-bests in the world. But most of all, Vincent is sorry that he almost compared his mother to Svengali, when in actuality she is the last and best of the Peter Pans.

http://deadcaulfields.com/Unpublished.html

If you are in the Berkshires this week, don’t miss “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: The Creation of a Classic,” the stunning exhibit of story sketches and drawings that led up to the making of the 1937 Disney film.  The exhibit runs through October 27, 2013, and I’ll be there on August 22 at 5:30 for a talk about the origins and afterlife of “Snow White.”

Guided by the vision of a master storyteller, 32 animators, 1032 assistants, 107 inbetweeners, 10 layout artists, 25 background artists, 65 special effects animators and 158 inkers and painters and countless production staff came together to create an enduring masterpiece of the moving image. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs:The Creation of a Classic explores the making of the film through more than 200 original works of art―from conceptual drawings and early character studies to detailed story sketches and animation drawings. Meticulously-rendered pencil and color layouts, rare watercolor backgrounds, colorful cels, and vintage movie posters, and a variety of interactive  stations will bring Walt Disney’s unforgettable animated story to life.