Daily Dialogue — April 9, 2012

“Ray, people will come, Ray. They’ll come to Iowa for reasons they can’t even fathom. They’ll turn up your driveway not knowing for sure why they’re doing it. They’ll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. Of course, we won’t mind if you look around, you’ll say. It’s only $20 per person. They’ll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and peace they lack. And they’ll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They’ll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they’ll watch the game and it’ll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they’ll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come, Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it’s a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh… people will come, Ray. People will most definitely come.”

— Terence Mann (James Earl Jones), Field of Dreams (1989), screenplay by Phil Alden Robinson, based on a novel by W.P. Kinsella

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week is inspiration, suggested by Summer Johnson, who also suggested today’s movie.

Trivia: In the novel, instead of seeking fictional author Terrance Mann, Ray Kinsella seeks real-life 60s author ‘J.D. Salinger. In 1947, Salinger wrote a story called “A Young Girl In 1941 With No Waist At All” featuring a character named Ray Kinsella. And in his most famous work, the novel ‘The Catcher in the Rye’, one of Holden Caulfield’s classmates is Richard Kinsella. (In the original novel, Ray has a twin brother named Richard.)

Dialogue On Dialogue: And in point of fact, people did come. And still do come. To that actual field in Iowa. You can read about it here.

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