Agent Palmer

Apparently, I did not know Dr. Seuss. I thought I did. I thought I knew that he wrote a lot of books and that his real name was Theodor Seuss Geisel (Ted Geisel works when playing trivia night) and that he wasn’t just a writer but an illustrator as well.

That’s barely the tip of the iceberg.

If that’s also all you know, or even if you know more than that, it’s worth picking up Becoming Dr. Seuss by the biographer Brian Jay Jones, to get the whole story.

Until I became a self-sufficient consumer, there was only one movie I had ever watched on opening weekend. In fact, until I could buy my own tickets, it was the first film I’d seen within the first few weeks of release: Jurassic Park.

It was wet. It might have been raining when we arrived or at some point during the film or earlier in the day, but that’s how I remember it. What I know for sure is that I was 10 years old and going to the drive-in with my parents to see Jurassic Park on the big screen. That kind of memory sticks with you.

How proud are you of your home’s impact on film? Are you so proud of your city address that you’d write a book about your city and all the things that were filmed there?

Author Margo Donohue has done just that with her beloved Brooklyn. This isn’t just a list of movies, although it has that, too. It’s a history of film in Brooklyn which is not only rich in industry history, it’s basically the start of it all.