The Seventh Impossible Thing

Your fellow reader Matt Ball — whose wonderfully idiosyncratic book you can download free — reacted to Wednesday’s “Six Impossible Things” with this Seventh Impossible Thing.

And, boy is it ever.  Holy Toledo, Batman!

It’s Christmas time, which is magical, too.

I recently encountered someone who hasn’t seen It’s A Wonderful Life.

Crazy, no?

On the remote chance you are similarly deprived, please promise to give yourself that gift sometime before Sunday night.

It’s #8 on Variety’s admittedly somewhat odd list of the 100 greatest films of all time. . . . a film about our common humanity.  (Also: bank capital adequacy.*)

In which spirit I offer two Christmas-appropriate quotes.

> The late Congressman John Lewis famously said:

“We may have come here on different ships, but we are all in the same boat now.  So it doesn’t matter if we’re black or white, Latinos, Asian Americans, or Native American, gay or straight, we are one people, we are one family, we all live in the same house. Not just an American house but the world house.”

> Your fellow reader Ed Costello penned this tag-line for all his emails:

We are NOT “all in the same boat.” We are in the same “storm.” Some have yachts; others canoes; and others are drowning. Help when and where you can.”

To which I’m all but certain John Lewis would have responded: “Amen.”

I count myself awfully lucky to have readers like Matt and Ed — and you.

Happy last days of Channukah . . . and Merry Christmas, one and all!

*Nearly 50 years ago I wrote a piece for New York Magazine on that topic.  Not wanting to lose all our subscribers, we titled it “Will The Banks Fail?”  A few days later I got a call from John Reed’s secretary at Citibank — he would go on to be the Citi’s chairman and CEO, and then to chair the New York Stock Exchange — saying “Mr. Reed has read your article and wants to know who you are.”  I was the 27-year-old smart-ass who had written a book about being gay back when almost everyone was closeted (s0 I used a pen name).  “He wants to know who I am?”  “Yes, he’s giving a speech next week and . . .” All about giddy at the absurdity of the coincidence, I came this close to blurting out, “I’m John Reid!”  Which was my pen name.  How times have changed.