the groundhog day project

The only time Harold Ramis ever worried about his career was in 1972. He was living in Encino, California with his first wife, Anne. He had $40 in the bank. He'd written a novel with Michael Shamberg. An editor sent back the manuscript alone with a copy of The Elements of Style . He recounts the story in GQ , July 2009. "My wife said to me, 'Has it occurred to you that you might not be successful?' She wasn't saying I wouldn't be. She was just posing the question. And I said, 'Oh man. It's occurring to me right now .'" The reporter, Brett Martin, asked, "How long did you beat yourself up over it?" Ramis responded: I swear this is true: At that moment, the phone rang, and it was the owner of Second City asking me to come back and produce the television show that reconnected me with Bill Murray [Ramis had covered the troupe in 1968 while writing freelance for the Chicago Daily News and had worked with Murray on The National Lampoon ...

There's a force in the universe that makes things happen. All you have to do is get in touch with it. Stop thinking. Let things happen and be... the ball... Find your center. Hear nothing. Feel nothing. That's Chevy Chase as Ty Webb in Caddyshack . I get the impression from quotations in articles or interview clips that Harold Ramis was a bit zen like Webb. He didn't "want to be the Buddha," though, he told Perry Garfinkel of Shambhala Sun . "I just want to admire him." Brett Martin, writing for GQ in 2009, calls Ramis a "sympathetic, though nonpracticing, Buddhist." With that one character in Caddyshack , with his own understated performance as Egon Spengler in Ghostbusters , and most obviously with the entirety of his cinematic masterpiece Groundhog Day , Ramis infused his films with a relaxed sort of zaniness that makes them hold up quite well long after the fact of their releases. Despite his success, he didn't particularly buy in...

On the one hand, I've got nothing in particular to write about tonight. Phil has just figured out that he can take advantage of the time loop on my TV, and just punched Ned. I got back from hanging out at a speech tournament less than an hour ago (and it's 11:21 PM right now), and I've been out most of the day. (I wasn't judging, and didn't snag any sheet of impromptu topics, either, so I won't be connecting Groundhog Day to a bunch of random quotations.) On the other hand, I've been meaning to get back to critiquing Benesh and I've still got a handful of Groundhog Day -related articles nearby that I could write about or in response to. In particular, the manila folder that holds articles I haven't stuck in one of my Groundhog Day Project binders, is open to " Seeing the Shadow " by Dairyu Michael Wenger Sensei. It's a Buddhist piece. I was thinking about writing about the Buddhist take on Groundhog Day again. I didn't end up...

Late Sunday night in Woodstock, with no plans to head into the square again before driving to the airport Monday morning, I realized I had neglected a location marked on my downtown map… this one: See it on the right. I had briefly walked past the spot where Phil steps in front of the moving truck but that was on the trek to Cherry Street during the second tour, and that particular spot is not part of the tour, and I didn’t even notice where we were… at the time. Realized it later but neglected to get back. So, late Sunday night, I knew I was headed into the square one more time before I left. Monday morning, I got shots in both directions (north and south) at that corner. Also, I parked right where Larry parked the van. Aside from the library photos, today’s post should exhaust, finally, my collection of photos from Woodstock. First, some random stuff (a couple of which did get on Twitter but haven’t been in this blog yet… I don’t think). First, the Groundhog Day pin ma...

To begin today, I nitpick: Benesh (2011) summarizes Groundhog Day in chapter one of her dissertation. And, in making a link between the film--or rather, all film--and our active imaginations, she mentions the phrase "no consequences." She calls it "a phrase that Phil Connors... uses at one point to describe his unique situation" (p. 8). She's wrong. That's Gus' line, not Phil's. But, I don't really intend to nitpick Benesh today (it just fits my character to do so). In fact, I rather like her first chapter. I like the approach she takes to connecting film and dreaming. I particularly appreciate a line she quotes from Beebe (2008): ...in addition to wanting to be entertained, the mass audience is in constant pursuit, as if on a religious quest, of the transformative film. (p.20) Thus a film can be a metaphor that teaches us something about how to live, not in a prescriptive way, but in an evocative one, by allowing us to vicariously expe...

Yesterday , I started the latest war here at The Groundhog Day Project . I've already had my one-sided arguments with Daughton (1996), Faust (2013), Bacha (1998) and Foley (2004). My latest target is Benesh (2011). Julie Ellen Benesh wrote her doctoral dissertation on Groundhog Day . It's entitled "Becoming Punxsutawney Phil: Symbols and Metaphors of Transformation in Groundhog Day ." You can purchase your own copy on Amazon . (Or buy me a nice bound copy to replace this two pages per sheet printout I've got, though if you've got $62 burning a whole in your pocket with my name on it, I'll take the cash at the end of the month to get some cool stuff in Woodstock.) For the record, I haven't read "Becoming Punxsutawney Phil" yet, at least not from front to back. I have been avoiding it because I want this project and my master's thesis next year to share a topic (in some way, at least) and I didn't want Benesh's research or evalu...