He wrote Downtown: My Manhattan, which we read in class, and talked to us about his life, his writing career, and what went into his book. He’s covered New York City longer than my parents have been alive, so his memories in the Big Apple are incomparable. Who else can say they lived down the block from Jimi Hendrix or used to hear Thelonius Monk play a set at the corner bar?
Hamill’s musings in Downtown have a certain lyrical quality to them. They're a bundle of emotions and experiences and poetry. He confirmed that idea during his visit, and said he always asks himself as he writes, “What’s the music of this piece? What’s the beat?”
It was fascinating to hear that he still hand-writes parts of his books: he uses a yellow legal pad to pen down his initial thoughts, and then fleshes them out on the computer. He also said that the best way to get to know a place is by foot. Even though he’s 73 years old, he takes a walk every day, finding new marvels in a city he’s known all his life.
Hamill is old enough to remember life before the Twin Towers were even built, so I was interested to hear what he thought about life after the towers were destroyed. Since the Freedom Tower is an issue on everybody’s minds down here, I asked him about that. He said that it wasn’t the worst idea in the world, but with the economic crisis it didn’t look like it was going to happen anytime soon.
He also had a suggestion for Ground Zero re-developers: “I always thought they’d be better off with a park – a place for kids to learn how to play stickball. You could have one tree from every country that lost people in 9/11. That would give it some sense of privacy, some place where old guys can read Yeats and kids can learn to hit spaldeens.”
2 comments:
What a beautiful summary of his visit to class. So glad that you enjoyed it.
Your description of Hamill really makes him come alive! He sounds awesome!
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