Let's remember Eric Hoffer

It's been a very long time since I read anything about Eric Hoffer. Like so many great American minds, James Baldwin among them, he's forgotten at a time when his insights are not only timely but needed today. In Hoffer's case, a major book called The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, published during the Eisenhower era, still rings true for every group from Tea Party to Occupy Wall Street.

Hoffer was something rare, a blue collar philosopher, a longshoreman turned important cultural thinker. Like Baldwin, he told us true things we'd rather not hear. We still need to hear them today.

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A chilly very foggy day, as a shivering Sketch and I headed out to get coffee. Back in a warm house for the day. I look forward to reading scripts: a glance at them suggests that several students are "getting it" for the first time.

I met another student who had a former screenwriting class in which he was told screenwriting was like writing a novel. I want to kick these wrong teachers in the butt!