When the last shot on Martha's Vineyard was slated to be filmed, Spielberg heard a rumor that the crew was planning to toss him off the side of the boat to celebrate. "He dressed in his best leather and suede outfit, hoping that it would serve as a deterrent," Gottlieb writes. Then he planned his escape. "He made sure to set up the shot with the cameraman the night before, so he wouldn't have to be present for the morning setup and light," according to Gottlieb. "When the shot was finally ready, after lunch, Steven came out to the boat... Steven checked the shot through the lens, saw that it was good, and walked quietly around the deck whispering goodbyes to the New York crew (the Hollywood contingent would be reconvening in L.A. in three weeks to finish the picture). This done, Steven sprinted to the side, jumped into a waiting boat, and sped to the shore, where the car sped him to the ferry, which was scheduled to leave within minutes after they got there... From the speedboat pulling away from the set, Steven shouted, 'I shall NOT RETURN!'"
Mark Sappenfield
Dear Reader,
About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:
“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”
If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.
But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.
The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.
We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”
If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.
