"You always have two choices: your commitment versus your fear."
Sammy Davis Jr.
"You always have two choices:
your commitment versus your fear."
Sammy Davis Jr.
For Some, The Dream Came True, The Best From 50 Years of Fortune Magazine, selected and edited by Duncan Norton- Taylor (Astounding collection of articles from the ’30s through the ’70s by writers including Archibald MacLeish, James Agee, William Whyte, and Daniel Bell.)
The Street Where I Live, by Alan Jay Lerner. If you want to understand creative collaboration (Lerner and Loewe), read this wonderful story of Broadway and musical theater.
Capitalism and Freedom, by Milton Friedman. This is the only book on economics you need to read. Yes, I’m biased.
Excellence, Can We Be Equal and Excellent Too?, by John W. Gardner. This book raised America’s standards. Mine too.
Thinking in Systems, A Primer, by Donella H. Meadows.
Beautiful Women Ugly Scenes, by CDB Bryan. I read this on Cape Cod one summer a long time ago and it had an enormous effect on me.
Solving Tough Problems, An Open Way of Talking, Listening, and Creating New Realities, by Adam Kahane. Read this after you read Meadows.
The Opposable Mind, Winning Through Integrative Thinking, by Roger Martin. After Kahane.
Sound and Sense, An Introduction to Poetry, by Laurence Perrine. All of us need to read and feel poetry and the magic of language.
Elements of Style, by Strunk and White. Because so many people don’t know basic grammar and can’t write a strong, crisp sentence.
Adventures in the Screen Trade, A Personal View of Hollywood and Screenwriting, by William Goldman. Don’t read this to understand Hollywood but to gain an appreciation for what “narrative” means and how to use scenes to make your writing more convincing.
Here is New York, by E.B. Whyte. The writing is extraordinary as is the portrait of New York in the late forties.
The Life of Samuel Johnson, by James Boswell. Samuel Beckett kept this book, and only this book, on his desk.
The Reflective Practitioner, by Donald Schon. This was a giant book for me as I sought to understand how professionals think and act.
The Innovator’s Dilemma, When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail, by Clayton M. Christensen. By the nineties, most books on management were just rhetoric, but this book is the real deal. A well-researched classic.
The Herring Gull’s World, A Study of the Social Behavior of Birds, by Niko Tinbergen. Because all business men and women should read at least one good book on sociology.
Animal Farm, by George Orwell. Just remember, “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
Capitalism at Risk, Rethinking the Role of Business, by Bower, Leonard, and Paine. There has been a lot of lousy thinking about this topic, but this book is well worth reading.
The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald. My favorite novel. “Her voice is filled with money.”
Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens. One of the greatest early novels. A poor country boy gets a mysterious gift and goes to London to learn about money and love.
Pack of Lies, by Hugh Whitemore. When does a lie become justified? This is the most compelling drama I have ever experienced. It’s about a middle-aged London couple who find out that their neighbors are Soviet spies. Then they are convinced by British intelligence to counterspy on them. I saw it on the West End when it opened with Judi Dench in the lead role.
Waiting for Godot, by Samuel Beckett. There is no better play in which nothing happens. Don’t read it; see it. It is actually hilarious as well as being very troubling.
Un homme et une femme — A Man and a Woman. Written and directed by Claude Lelouche, starring Anouk Aimée and Jean- Louis Trintignant. Unforgettable musical score by Francis Lai. I’ve seen it 20 times. A widow and widower meet, fall in love, but… Best ever love story on film.
Young Frankenstein, directed by Mel Brooks with an incredible cast that includes Gene Wilder, Peter Boyle, Marty Feldman, Teri Garr and Madeline Kahn. Sidesplittingly funny.
Birdcage. Robin Williams at his best. Based on La Cage Aux Folles. Directed by Mike Nichols and written by Elaine May — the best comedy team ever.
Shakespeare in Love. Stoppard at his best. Won seven Academy awards including best screenplay.
Groundhog Day is a truly provocative comedy directed by Harold Ramis and starring Bill Murray, who finds himself caught in a time loop in a small town in western Pennsylvania.
Vertigo. Many think this is Hitchcock’s best. Starring Jimmy Stewart and the incredibly beautiful Kim Novak. The shots of San Francisco are worth the price of the ticket. To say nothing of that Mark IX Jaguar sedan.
The English Patient. Nine Academy awards. Incredible acting by every member of the cast. Mesmerizing.
Roman Holiday. Because at least one movie with Audrey Hepburn has to be on the list. Gregory Peck isn’t bad in it either. Filmed on location in Rome.
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. Because of its time and storyline. And because at least one movie with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy has to be on this list. Along with that newcomer, Sidney Poitier.
Casablanca. Of course, because at least one movie with Bogart has to be on this list.
Lawrence of Arabia. I know this is number 11, but so what? Peter O’Toole is magnificent. I saw this movie when I was a student at Andover and hardly understood it.
Cabaret. Let’s make it an even dozen. Can there be a better musical? Liza Minelli and Joel Grey.
The Graduate was another masterpiece directed by Mike Nichols. It came out the year before I graduated from Harvard. Like Benjamin (Dustin Hoffman), I had no idea what I wanted to do. But no Mrs. Robinson, the incredibly seductive Anne Bancroft, showed up to help me see the future.
Five Easy Pieces starred Jack Nicholson. It was a classic movie of rebellion in the early seventies. If you saw it, you remember the scene in the diner. “You want me to hold the chicken?” “I want you to hold it between your knees.”
Coming Home. Both Jane Fonda and Jon Voight won best acting awards for their performances. It was an affecting movie about Vietnam and our obligation to serve our country. Voight played a paralyzed veteran. I got a high draft number and was never drafted. I still feel guilty I didn’t volunteer even though the war was a very bad decision. That’s Pittsburgh for you.
The Godfather. Of course, epic and Italian.
Saturday Night Fever. Doo-wop becomes disco, but it’s my childhood. The soundtrack is forever.
Being There. Peter Sellers and Shirley MacLaine. The film can be described as a dark comedy. It was based on a much darker novel written by Jerzy Kosiński. It recounts how a gardener becomes a nominee for President of the United States. “I like to watch.”
An American in Paris. What a movie. What dancing. What dancing by Gene Kelly. I wanted to be an astronaut when I was young. Then I wanted to be a dancer like Kelly. And get girls like Leslie Caron.
Her. A man, Joaquin Phoenix, falls in love with a software program with a sexy voice.
A Beautiful Mind. A movie about the mathematician John Nash, his mental illnesses, and him winning the Nobel prize.
If I look at the whole list, I realize that I like movies, but really love screenplays with intriguing premises.
I have always loved listening to music, of all kinds. We can divide music into several categories and they reflect my background and experiences.
Doo-wop. Growing up in the fifties and sixties in western Pennsylvania means one thing: rock and roll. I was nuts about it; it was made for dancing. The Moonglows, The Flamingos, Chuck Berry, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, Little Anthony and the Imperials, The Skyliners, The Coasters and The Five Satins. The list could go on forever and would certainly include Elvis even though he wasn’t really doo-wop.
In Pittsburgh, you got exposed to the big bands and the crooners. On the radio, you heard Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Eydie Gorme, Nancy Wilson, Dinah Washington, and Tony Bennett. I liked them all. They could sing and you could understand their words. In the early eighties, Tony Bennett came to Heinz Hall in Pittsburgh. I took my mother backstage to meet him. She was thrilled. Her picture with him held a special place in our home. Afterwards, he, I, Mario and Abby Mann (author of Judgement at Nuremberg) went to Tambellini’s for dinner — the best Italian place in town.
I wasn’t exposed to much classical music growing up. At Andover, I spent a few weekends with family friends and started to listen to their collection of LPs. I must have listened to Dmitri Shostakovich’s 7th Symphony (Leningrad) 20 or 30 times. It told me a story about Russia and war. After that I gradually became familiar with the great violin concertos and American composers such as Aaron Copland, who painted pictures for me of the American landscape as did George and Ira Gershwin. In New York, I started to listen to opera. At first to Montserrat Caballé and then to the extraordinary voice of Maria Callas. Eventually and for several years, I took a very nicely located box at Carnegie Hall and entertained friends and clients there.
I did a little amateur theater at Harvard. Mostly minor roles in musicals, so Broadway lured me to its many stages when I joined McKinsey. I walked over there one night when I first settled in the city and bought a ticket from a scalper to see A Chorus Line. After that I was hooked. Pippin, Company, Chicago, lots of good stuff. I liked the old musicals more, particularly Lerner and Loewe (My Fair Lady, Camelot, Gigi). From there, it was an easy step to Cole Porter and Noël Coward. And, of course, there was the unique and wonderful West Side Story.
Then there is what could be called “contemporary” music. For me, that covered music from the mid-sixties to the present. The sixties in Cambridge were the start of folk music. Dylan, Baez, Joni Mitchell. But then, The Beatles were established. I walked into my room at Quincy House one morning after a class and my roommate, who played drums in a local band, was going crazy over a new guy named Jimi Hendrix. Soon I was too as well as over a singer named Janis Joplin. One year after Harvard, there was a little event called Woodstock that brought us groups like Santana and Crosby Stills Nash and Young. There were so many good groups. Jefferson Airplane was one of my favorites. So was The Lovin’ Spoonful, Cream, Talking Heads, The Fifth Dimension, and (I’ll admit it) The Bee Gees. Ray Charles, George Benson, Van Morrison. Noel Pointer, Donna Summer, Michael Jackson, Eric Clapton, David Bowie and Grace Jones, and at least 50 more were all my favorites and all quite different.
There are too many to list. Pamela and I really enjoy Italian reds, particularly Barolos and Brunellos. But a big Cabernet from California is always good with a steak or a hamburger. There are lots of great Bordeauxs, of course, but our favorites tend to be Pomerols. Our favorite whites come from Alsace. Pinot gris. For breakfast for almost a decade, Pamela and I drank nothing but Elephant beer, a Danish brew made by Carlsberg. But in the last few years, we have become big fans of India pale ales. But not the citrus-flavored ones. Rather the high-alcohol, hoppy ones. Our favorites are made by Sixpoint Brewery in Brooklyn. Try the Bengali and Resin.
From Bill’s memoir, Marketing Saves The World.
Bill Matassoni | Copyright 2024
Bill Matassoni | Copyright 2024