Anja, Sheida,
The dogwoods are blooming in Maryland.
Five years more than 16 years ago, Steve Antin and his crew began shooting
Young Americans at Havre de Grace and various sites in and around Baltimore.
Time to start planning the 5th iteration of
YA's 16th anniversary.
My wife, having had the wisdom to marry a gentlemen, never has birthdays of higher number than 16; instead, we celebrate anniversaries of her 16th birthday.
I suggest that we do likewise for
Young Americans. No teen drama should ever turn 21 -- especially
YA. The penultimate episode ends with a 16th birthday party for a reason. And the setting's called "Rawley Academy" for a reason, which is arguably the last verse of Sir Walter Raleigh's best and best-known poem, arguably the best Elizabethan poem:
But could youth last and love still breed,
Had joys no date, nor age no need,
Then these delights my mind might move
To live with thee and be thy love.
The whole point of the show is that by dreaming, by imagination, youth
can last and love still
can breed. The last shot, the Dean's you-can-come-back note to Will, is shot in a mirror for a reason, the same reason why all the anachronisms are at Bella's gas station: to convey that one is never to old to go back to Rawley, a school of true love for which the entrance exam to to reprise the humility of youth.
So let's not let
YA turn 21. Let it stay 16 forever. This year, let's celebrate the 5th iteration of
YA's 16th anniversary.
Best regards,
Finnegan