I created DailyRoutine.com, so please check it out! --AAron
alt.tv.northern-exp, 1992
Reading
By: Unknown public contributors
Yes, somebody please post a list of books read on the
program! The one I'd like to know more about was a
children's book called "Paddle to the Sea" or something
like that.
NX probably boasts more books read on the air than any
other program on TV. As an incurable bookworm, I
approve wholeheartedly.
"Oakland Tribune"
July 16, 1992
Section B, Page 1
HEAR'S WHAT THE ERUDITE CHRIS READS
By Harriet Swift
If the "Northern Exposure" character you particularly miss during
the off season is hyper-literate disc jockey Chris Stevens, you could join
him on the intelectual plane.
Diane Frolov, "Northern Exposure's" supervising producer and the
show's Chris specialist gave the following list to the New York Times as the
highlights to the library of Cicely's resident philosopher.
Frolov, who attended UC-Berkeley and majored in Russian literature,
also admitted to the Times that she and husband Andrew Schneider, a
co-executive producer of the series and her writing partner, are not as well
read as Chris and have to put in some extra library time to keep the
dialogue up to Chirs' standards.
What Chris Stevens reads:
Edna St. Vincent Millay, "Renascence and Other Poems"
Joseph Campbell, "Power of Myth"
Shakespeare, the complete works
Stephen Hawking, "A Brief Histor of Time"
Hegel, "Early Technological Writings"
Kierkegaard, "Sickness Unto Death"
Emmanuel Kant, "Critique of Pure Reason"
Walt Whitman, the complete works
Nietzsche, "Logic," and "The Metaphysics of Morals"
Tolstoy, "War and Peace"
Maurice Sendak, "Where the Wild Things Are"
Baudelaire, "Flowers of Evil" (in translation, Chris does
not read French)
"The Papers of Thomas Jefferson"
Alexis do Tocqueville, the complete works
A book from my youth, by Holling C. Holling. As I remember, it's sort of
a tour of the Great Lakes basin/drainage, featuring a toy canoe released by
a kid on Lake Superior. Gee, it's been 30 years (or 25 for the fabulous
"Moomin" books by Tove Jansen that charmed me when I reread them as an early
teen).
I haven't read the book, but I did see the film based on it at least
2 or 3 times during my elementary school life. In it a Native Canadian
(American??) boy carved a small wooden canoe, inscribed a message on it
to the effect of "If found please return me to the water", then let it
slide down a snow-covered slope into the St. Lawrence River system. The
canoe, called "Paddle to the Sea", is shown to have quite an exciting
journey, narrowly missing being crushed by huge ships and their propellers
in the locks of the canal system, etc., etc., and finally ending up
on a beach where a fisherman or someone finds it, repaints it, and finally
heeds the message and returns it to the water. I really enjoyed the
film as a child.
I saw a book called "Letters from Cicely" in a local
bookstore today. I scanned it for a few moments: it's full of
letters written in the 'talking' styles of the various characters.
Doesn't seem to be much point to it, though. Also, there was
quite a bit of dialogue put into the letters, as if the book's
creators wanted to write straight prose, but had to fit it into
their chosen format. Bad choice, I'd say.
Last Saturday I saw a copy of "Paddle to the Sea" at a flea market. Now
WHY didn't I buy it??????