In eighth grade, I was one word away from going to D.C. in the Decatur regional spelling bee, but missed. What was worst is that the other speller and I had to keep going after I'd let them off the hook because we'd both missed our word in the round. I think I managed to get a couple more and then missed again. My Nick Anderson moment.
L-A-S-S-I-T-U-D-E. I'll remember that word until the day I die.
Thanks, as always, Will, for these newsletters. And congrats to you for the UGA win. Maybe one year the B1G will win one...
I like the mic technique William used in the photo - he's truly the son of a media personality 😉Now I want to go find Spellbound...
That's great you got to work, albeit shortly, with Darren Sutton. His dad, and his kindness and generosity, is a huge reason I'm a 50+ year Dodger fan.
“That’s one of the main reasons I got into this in the first place: It gave me a clear route to try to say exactly what I wanted to say. I found that hard in the real world, which moves too fast, which has all this exterior stress on you, which can all fall apart if you say the wrong thing at the wrong time. Writing was a way to get the world to slow down, to take a step back, to try to find some form in the chaos. The world didn’t make sense. But writing allowed me to attempt to wrangle it into some coherent narrative—to try to find a beginning, a middle and end … to try to tell a story. To make it make sense.”
The movie Spellbound made me feel so patriotic and optimistic about our wonderfully diverse country. Much more than any fighter jet fly over or pointless flag waving.
One of the kids featured in Spellbound (Harry) was in my older son’s class. He was brilliant but socially inept. He had trouble making friends, but during that run to the finals of the Spelling Bee he was a rock star to those kids.
He’s actually 35 now. The movie was shot during the 1999 Bee when he was 12. The last I heard Harry got his PhD. in Mathematics from Michigan and was doing research there.
In eighth grade, I was one word away from going to D.C. in the Decatur regional spelling bee, but missed. What was worst is that the other speller and I had to keep going after I'd let them off the hook because we'd both missed our word in the round. I think I managed to get a couple more and then missed again. My Nick Anderson moment.
L-A-S-S-I-T-U-D-E. I'll remember that word until the day I die.
It is not the least bit surprising that you remember that word, still, and always will. For what it's worth, "lassitude" is a dumb word.
Thanks, as always, Will, for these newsletters. And congrats to you for the UGA win. Maybe one year the B1G will win one...
I like the mic technique William used in the photo - he's truly the son of a media personality 😉Now I want to go find Spellbound...
That's great you got to work, albeit shortly, with Darren Sutton. His dad, and his kindness and generosity, is a huge reason I'm a 50+ year Dodger fan.
He’s actually 35 now. Last I heard he was doing research of some sort at the University of Chicago.
I loved everything about this piece.
I’m saving this paragraph:
“That’s one of the main reasons I got into this in the first place: It gave me a clear route to try to say exactly what I wanted to say. I found that hard in the real world, which moves too fast, which has all this exterior stress on you, which can all fall apart if you say the wrong thing at the wrong time. Writing was a way to get the world to slow down, to take a step back, to try to find some form in the chaos. The world didn’t make sense. But writing allowed me to attempt to wrangle it into some coherent narrative—to try to find a beginning, a middle and end … to try to tell a story. To make it make sense.”
Thank you!
Great piece
The movie Spellbound made me feel so patriotic and optimistic about our wonderfully diverse country. Much more than any fighter jet fly over or pointless flag waving.
Right? It made me feel good about the future. Though it is now been 21 years, which means it's now the future, which means ... well ...
One of the kids featured in Spellbound (Harry) was in my older son’s class. He was brilliant but socially inept. He had trouble making friends, but during that run to the finals of the Spelling Bee he was a rock star to those kids.
That's awesome. And shoot, now he's in his mid-twenties!
He’s actually 35 now. The movie was shot during the 1999 Bee when he was 12. The last I heard Harry got his PhD. in Mathematics from Michigan and was doing research there.
You are such a good father.....
I misspelled Route, not because I didn’t know how to spell it, but because I choked and misinterpreted the definition. R-O-O-T. You lose!
I hate it when they include homonyms ...