Actually, it is — it is still bragging, even if it’s true — but that’s just an expression. Speaking of expressions: I’m not sure where “point of personal privilege” comes from. I’m not even entirely sure what it means. But I’d like to claim this point, or privilege, or whatever. I want to reproduce, below, the last item in my Impromptus today. I think you’ll forgive me. I’m not even going to put it in a “block quote.” Here is that item, straight-up and in normal type:
Let me close with a film — a short called Lake Stacey, here. It’s by a young man I know, and adore: my cousin Pasquale Greco, whom I sometimes call “Pasqui,” and whom others call “’squale.” In due course, we will all be calling him “sir,” I have a feeling. He is a movie director, a moviemaker, a movie craftsman — always has been, since he was a squirt.
You know how we all have enthusiasms when we’re young — enthusiasms that pass, sooner or later? We want to be an astronomer. So we ask our parents for a telescope. We get one for Christmas, play with it for about two weeks — then go on to the next enthusiasm.
Pasquale always wanted to be a filmmaker, and always made films. I remember one he made when he was in junior high: It was impressive. Wacked and scary, and also impressive. Pasquale never lost his enthusiasm: He just marched right on, and is in the business today.
He and his gang made Lake Stacey in 2008, when he was 21 or 22. That summer, it screened in Cannes. Pasquale was kind of an apprentice at the elite film festival, part of a special program for up-and-comers. He has worked on some feature films: Adventureland. And Unstoppable, a Denzel Washington flick that’s coming out soon. And I Am Number Four, also coming out soon. Right now, he’s in New York working on Men in Black 3D.
It was only the other week that Lake Stacey popped up on the Internet — giving me a chance to ballyhoo it, and brag a little. I would not waste your time. And I can’t wait to see Pasquale Greco’s next movies, many of them, as the years roll on. I admit a bias, but I don’t think the whiz from Wheeling, W.V., can miss.