This and That

September’s Calendar, startling declines in reading and attention span, Terence Stamp and Secretariat’s jockey, Maroon 5’s new album and a new poem for Leonard Peikoff

Here are some important or marginalized dates to note next month:

• September 1st: In 1983, Soviet Russia shot down a passenger jet—a Boeing 747 aircraft—carrying 269 passengers and crew, including a United States congressman. America, led by President Reagan, did nothing to retaliate. Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window debuted in U.S. theaters on this date in 1954.

• September 3rd: Ayn Rand arrived in Hollywood, where she became a screenwriter whose screenplay was nominated for an Oscar, from Chicago on this date 99 years ago.

• September 4th: Los Angeles was founded on this date in 1781.

• September 5th: Palestinian terrorists, a band of thugs known as Black September led by Arab terrorist Yasser Arafat, an offshoot of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) created and funded by Soviet Russia in 1964, attacked the Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany on this date in 1972, seizing Jews and Israelis competing in the Olympic games and eventually slaughtering 11 Israeli athletes. The siege began at 4:30 a.m. “They’re all gone,” ABC Sports journalist Jim McKay later told the audience. Read more about my remembrance of this unavenged atrocity here.

• September 11th: Islamic terrorists attacked America on this date in 2001 in an act of war, seizing passenger jets to be used as missiles, destroying America’s tallest skyscrapers, striking the nation’s military headquarters and committing mass murder of nearly 3,000 Americans. Leonard Peikoff named the date Black Tuesday. Daring Greatly by Brené Brown debuted in the U.S. in 2012, the same date that Islamic terrorists attacked the U.S. at a consulate in Benghazi, Libya, committing mass murder including the U.S. ambassador.

• September 14th: An illegal adaptation of Ayn Rand’s first novel, We the Living, debuts in movie theaters in 1942. Read my movie review, originally published in the November 2009 issue of Impact, newsletter of the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI). Read my short essay, originally published in the Providence Journal and the Korea Times and distributed by Scripps Howard in 2009, about the novel. Stand by for an 80th anniversary book review on Autonomia, coming this fall.

• September 15th: Oliver Stone and Agatha Christie were born on this date.

• September 16th: Frasier debuted on NBC on this date in 1993.

• September 18th: Greta Garbo was born.

• September 26th: Olivia Newton-John was born.

• September 27th: Screenwriter and director Robert Benton’s Feast of Love, featuring Morgan Freeman and an ensemble cast, debuted in 2007. Read my review here. Read my interview with Benton about the film here.

• September 29th: Celebate Robert Benton’s and actress Lizabeth Scott’s birthdays.

• September 30th: The breathtaking Robert Zemeckis movie about the Twin Towers (1973-2001), The Walk, debuted in limited release in the United States of America 10 years ago today. Read my review based on my viewing at Sid Grauman’s Chinese theater on Hollywood Boulevard in IMAX. Speakeasy, the short story which is the basis for my novel about a family, art in dystopia and the crusade for freedom of speech, was published in an anthology (Garden Variety Grimoire, The Word’s Faire Press, Ohio) on this date last year. To listen to an exclusive reading of this short story coming in the near future, become a paid subscriber and subscribe to Short Stories by Scott Holleran.

Update: My First Book

After I announced pending publication of my first book, a collection of short stories, on my fiction podcast for the paid Short Stories by Scott Holleran subscriber, several readers have asked about the new book. It’s in production. The cover, title and stories have been selected. There will be an introduction and an author’s preface.

Will you support my first book with a pre-order? I’ve received a first pledge for pre-order from one of my mentors—I’ll disclose details for subscribers to Short Stories by Scott Holleran on September 2—and among those reviewing and endorsing the book are an Oscar-winning screenwriter and director, one of the nation’s top communications scholars, my former Writing Boot Camp student who became a film director and a literary scholar. Listen to me read my fiction aloud and get book news when you become a paid subscriber to Short Stories by Scott Holleran.

Announcement: My Book of Tales

Reading

A new science journal report casts an ominous forecast. Reading—time spent reading among Americans, including time spent reading to children—as well as attention span, is drastically down 40 percent in 20 years, dropping three percent per year, according to iScience.

“Reading less could affect health, well-being and literacy,” the article by an ABC News medical doctor, states. “Reading has been linked to stronger language skills, reasoning and empathy.”

I think it's important for people to understand that reading for pleasure is actually a health promoting activity," [Dr. Jill] Sonke said. "We know that participating in the arts is a health behavior because it statistically results in improved health outcomes including well-being, social cohesion, mental health.”

The article reports that those who do read—as you’re doing right now—spent more time doing so, averaging more than 90 minutes daily. Read my recent Autonomia post about the vitality of reading.