John Updike

Updike's name came up at dinner last night, and I thought I should post something given that he was one of my favorite writers. The Wrap (new industry blog) has some nice coverage and links here.

In terms of Updike and film, Scott Foundas (LA Weekly) knows how to eulogize someone by letting their words speak for themselves. Reminds me of what I liked about Updike in the first place:

During the summer Clarence took his own defeat indoors, deserting the sunny harsh streets of door-to-door rejection for the shadowy interiors of those moving-picture houses that, like museums of tawdry curiosities, opened their doors during the day....When Clarence had paid his nickel -- one of the brand-new Indian-head nickels, with a buffalo hulking on the reverse side -- and settled into his hard chair in the dark, carefully placing his leather salesman's case upright between his ankles, it was as if his eyes drank a flickering liquor. The passionate, comical, swift-moving action on the screen, speckled with bright scratches, entered him like an essential food which he had been hitherto denied.