Quotes from Tara Ison

We all need the comforting illusion of stability and security in this shaky rooftop of a thing we call life. Tevye is right; we are all fiddlers, trying to scratch out a simple tune without breaking our necks.

And sometimes those remembered images aren't even accurate; in revisiting some of the movies I discuss here, I've been surprised to realize that what I remember about a particular movie moment, the influential lesson that has stayed with me—how to kiss in the rain, what to say to my shell-shocked parents about their divorce, where in the linen closet to hide the liquor—sometimes doesn't actually exist in the film. It's a trick of memory

Joshua trees, he said. This is the only place in the world they live. And they live hundreds of years. The Mormons called them that. They drove out in their wagons to California and suddenly saw all of these and said they looked like Joshua, his arms up, welcoming them to the Promised Land.