Posted on 03/16/2012 2:18:23 PM PDT by SMGFan
Go up to Scott Shepherd and ask him to begin reciting from, say, the beginning of Chapter Seven of "The Great Gatsby" and he pauses for only a moment.
"'It was when curiosity about Gatsby was at its highest that the lights in his house failed to go on one Saturday night,'" he says in a soft and smooth delivery. Every word is correct. And he keeps going.
This is no mere party trick: Shepherd long ago memorized all 49,000 words of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel as part of a critically acclaimed, word-for-word theatrical adaptation called "Gatz," which has returned this month to The Public Theater.
"It's so ingrained now that once I start, I can't stop," he says.
He's not kidding. In "Gatz," Shepherd reads aloud almost the entire book in an insanely inventive theatrical show that lasts over eight hours, including three breaks. He calls it "a David Blaine-type endurance stunt-event."
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/music-arts/man-recite-49-000-words-great-gatsby-memory-article-1.1040978#ixzz1pJi4C9HO
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
And yet, the book was so boring that I didn’t bother finishing it in High School.
Useless.
“I think you mean Fahrenheit 451”
Right you are. That shows how long it’s been since I’ve seen or read it.
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