The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit - Michael Finkel

Well here goes another review about a book about which I'm not sure how to feel. On the one hand, I like the journalistic straight-forward delivery of The Stranger in the Woods. The book tries to avoid stating a belief one way or the other in the morality of Christopher Knight and what he did surviving in the woods for 27 years on his own. And it presents views of those who both admire and despise him. 

The story is about Christopher Knight. A Maine man who walks away from society and carves out a camp for himself in the Maine woods, close to a cottage community from whom he steals in order to survive. Is he a parasite on this community? Yes. But was his attempt to live alone the most simple life he could muster admirable? Maybe. Hard to say and it probably depends on what traits in other humans you admire. 

And all of this conflict is fine and should exist in a book like this. The part I didn't enjoy was near the end, where the author becomes more of a character in the story and less an observer. It had the intrusive questionable ethics feeling of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood. Christopher Knight walked away into the woods and stayed there for 27 years, never even lighting a fire in the dead of winter in order to be alone and unobserved. I admit it's fascinating, but clearly this is how this man lived and would have continued to want to live had he not been caught in the midst of a burglary. 

So when a journalist continually visits the man in jail and goes to visit even after the man has told the journalist that his deepest desire is to be left alone, where should the line be drawn? When does the quest for the story steamroll over the man's privacy? He did not inject himself into the public limelight, indeed he did the opposite. I can feel the author's own struggle with this question in the last chapters, but ultimately it just left a bad feeling for me. Like I, in reading this book, have participated and assisted in the intrusion into a deeply private person's life. 

Towards the end of the book, Knight tells the author that he can write whatever he wants, "after [Knight] is gone." But since he hasn't died, I would suspect that the publishing of this book is exceptionally painful to him and his family.

3/5 Stars. 

Hamilton: The Revolution - Lin Manuel Miranda (with notes on an unforgettable night in New York City)

I'm not entirely sure if this book took me so long to read because I was savoring every minute of it, or because at parts my eyes were too watery to keep reading (I'm looking at you "It's Quiet Uptown"). In any case, I absolutely adored this book. Reading it both before and after seeing the live show in person was pretty much the best decision I've made in my entire life (aside from saying yes to marry my husband, without whom the trip may have been a lonely pilgrimage and the only person who really looks at my strange obsessions and just shrugs them off without judgment).

In any event, if you are a fan of the cast album, and you've been reading the annotated genius.com lyrics, and you've read article after article on the internet wondering what indeed does the show LOOK like, not just sound like, this book is definitely for you. Also, do you like funny stories and great pictures? Yeah, this book is for you too.

The book begins at the beginning, at the forming of the cabinet - Lin Manuel Miranda (writer), Tommy Kail (director), Jeffrey Seller (producer), and Andy Blankenbuehler (choreographer). From this hefty brain trust grew the words, music and ideas that shaped the entire show. And really, if you haven't heard of Hamilton yet, google it, watch the 2008 White House Poetry Jam, and I dare you to not be intrigued. 

The book is full of great anecdotes regarding all the principle actors and contributors, how they came to be involved with the show and how they felt/feel about their role. It's fascinating. I saw an interview with Lin Manuel Miranda when the book first came out a few weeks ago and he said that so many times historians have to go far back in time to recreate these types of stories, and to piece together the information from surviving fragments of history, but this book does all that work up front and while it feels fresh, it also feels really special. In under a month, the original cast will splinter and begin to go their separate ways. The original cast will be filmed this month to save the performance for posterity (I haven't seen any notations regarding the footage to be released for general consumption - still gotta sell those tour tickets y'all). But if and until that footage is released, this book and it's amazing photographs are the keepsake album you wish you could have scrapbooked yourself. 

Also the annotations are amazing because LMM references Harry Potter in several locations, basically cementing the fact that he is my patronus, you know if such things were real. Also, this is pretty much the most physically beautiful book I own, so there's that.

5/5 Stars.

I'm fairly certain I don't have to explain that actually seeing the show on Broadway on June 10th was an experience I will NEVER forget? We arrived in NYC on June 9th and after finding our hotel and mostly navigating the subway system, we dropped the bags and decided to have lunch and then walk into Times Square. In what I promise was a completely random event, we chose 46th Street as our path and walked past the Richard Rogers theater for the first time. 

As you can see, there were brave folks in their sleeping bags waiting for last minute cancellations (I'm not entirely sure who gives their tickets up last minute without trying to garner the $1,500 per ticket price for which they are now going on stub-hub, but hope springs eternal). That evening we attended a Yankees game. Our seats were less expensive than our Hamilton tickets, but only because I chose to sit up in the outfield, along the third base line. It was chillier than we had anticipated, but luckily we wore jackets and the home team won.

The next day was Hamilton day, also, our 10th wedding Anniversary. We went to a diner in the morning and then headed uptown to the Met to see some great art and hopefully keep me distracted from watching my watch every second as the longest countdown ever to Hamilton. This was good in theory, but Hamilton kept popping up wherever I went, including the large collection of John Trumbull paintings at the Met, including this annoyingly described one:

Don't worry Met, I know you meant Angelica Schuyler Church, not Mrs. John B. Church.

Anyway, finally, the evening approached and we showered, changed and headed out to dinner where we were surrounded by giddy theater goers, some who would be attending Hamilton that night. The funny thing is, all the anticipation of seeing it, all the barely contained glee I had felt in the MONTHS leading up to this trip, I felt serenely calm once we sat down to dinner. I was going to see the show, it was really happening. I wasn't going to need to wonder anymore if the real life event would live up to my expectations. 

So after dinner we headed back to the Richard Rodgers theater and waited in line with the other theater goers. Once inside, it was a bit of pandemonium as patrons thronged the souvenir booths and purchased hats, shirts, coffee mugs, books, pins, cards, CD's, all kinds of stuff to remember the show by. We then found our seats in the rear of the orchestra, under the mezzanine overhang, which meant that some of the stage would be partially obstructed, the top portion, from where some of the chorus sings during songs. The funny thing about partially obstructed views at Hamilton though, is that no one cared. I mean, you're in a room with people who either paid a lot of money for the privilege, or forewent a lot of money for the privilege and there we all were. Watching the show together. The vibe was fairly electric. 

Then the show started and I forgot to keep breathing. With each principle actor who started a verse of the opening number the crowd applauded. Then LMM came on-stage in answer to "What's your name man?" and when he said "Alexander Hamilton" the place erupted. Somewhere during Aaron Burr, Sir, I remembered that breathing was important and began doing that laborious task again. But the spell, the feeling, was still there and my whole self tingled with the sensation of sheer joy. 

At intermission I fought my way downstairs to the ladies room (don't freak out ladies, the line is long but it moves fast, everyone wants to get back to their seats in time). I was so focused on reliving the first act in my brain that I almost missed the fact that I was standing next to Magic Johnson as he tried to make a phone call in the small hallway where the ladies room queue is formed. He's hard to miss though because he's huge.

Act II was glorious and I was nervous that I might sob my way through Blow us All Away, Stay Alive (Reprise) and It's Quiet Uptown, but my tears were held to silent streams and occasional sniffles. So I was kind of proud of myself. I read on LMM's twitter that sometimes he looks out in the crowd and see a stranger crying and that makes him more emotional. What a softie, but also what an experience to look out and see that something you created touches people so deeply. Sigh. The night was incandescent (I was told amazing was too pedestrian an adjective to use). 

Afterwards, me and hundreds of others who had seen and not seen the show that night, lined up outside to try to get a moment to say hello to the actors as they left the theater. First Phillipa Soo came out but I was too far back in the crowd to get an autograph. Same for other minor actors who came out the door. Finally the crowd thinned and I was able to snag a 'graph from Rory O'Malley (King George the III, the fourth). 

Then the stage manager announced that no more actors would be coming out to sign anything, and we walked the two blocks back to our hotel. Upon arriving back, even though I usually am asleep by 10 p.m. and it was now well past midnight, I could not sleep, my brain was too awake playing and replaying the scenes from the show, the moments I knew were coming, and those that came as a total surprise. My body felt warm like after a day in the summer sun and eventually sleep claimed me. 

The rest of the trip was so fun, visiting the top of the Empire State Building, perusing J.P. Morgan's Library, visiting Alexander and Eliza's graves at Trinity Church (Angelica is there in an unmarked grave she shares with a Livingston), silently sobbing to myself in the corner of the south excavations of the 9/11 Memorial and Museum (seriously so moving, so sad), and then an amazing dinner with my first friend, my sister, brunch on sunday morning and a visit to the High Line park in Chelsea before heading home. The trip managed to make time slow down for once. The week after returning seemed to fly by in comparison, but for those four days, in addition to being in the Room Where it Happens, we also caught some moments for ourselves and managed to make time slow down and Take a Break. 

9/11 Museum. Original steel from the building bent like a twig.

 Reading this book over the past week has made me relive so many of the events of our trip and the night seeing Hamilton. It was the perfect way to keep the images and thoughts fresh in my head. Aside from being one of the most physically beautiful books I own, it will be a book I return to again and again to remind myself of how lucky I am to be alive right now.