I, Disciple

Much love to Amanda Emily for her donation of a hefty tome to the Lenslinger Library. Actually, I was on something of a reading sabbatical; having devoted my scant downtime to the far less enjoyable task of assembling a book proposal. Still, when the tattered but loved copy of Alley's 1941 autobiography appeared in my mailbox, I knew I could safely file this hardcover under 'Research'. After all, the man known as "Mr. Newsreel" accomplished my goal 26 years before I was even born: he turned his time under glass into a crisp narrative people clamored to acquire. Then again, Norman William Alley was no mild mannered mid market master-hack. He was THE pioneering lenslinger whose early newsreel work helped shape the very globe it covered. The man rode with Pancho Villa, shot vital footage of the U.S. gunboat Panay as it sank beneath him, recorded the German invasion of Poland and covered every earthbound skirmish from the Spanish Civil War to the protracted one in Vietnam. Not bad for a high school dropout. His mid-career memoir, I Witness, was a best seller of its day and while I'd read about it before, I never expected to be holding such a delightfully dog-eared First Edition of this sacred text. Thanks, Amanda. Know that it will soon join other seminal works on my shelf of mentors' memoirs - just as soon as I finish parsing every word...

Then, I'll post a review.