{"id":66,"date":"2008-11-14T12:13:38","date_gmt":"2008-11-14T12:13:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/textmessages\/2008\/11\/three-things-from-steve-martin.html"},"modified":"2008-11-14T12:13:38","modified_gmt":"2008-11-14T12:13:38","slug":"three-things-from-steve-martin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/textmessages\/2008\/11\/three-things-from-steve-martin.html","title":{"rendered":"Three things from Steve Martin"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Steve Martin&#8217;s <span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-style: italic\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Born-Standing-Up-Comics-Life\/dp\/1416553649\">Born Standing Up<\/a><\/span>\u00a0is the most fun weekend reading I&#8217;ve done in a long time. Pensive yet page-turning. Three moments I&#8217;ll remember:<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>1. While studying Wittgenstein in college&#8211;which Martin was paying for by doing standup comedy&#8211;Martin was wrestling with whether to be a stage performer or an academic philosopher. He soon makes a discovery: &#8220;I felt that a career in the irrational world of creativity not only made sense but had moral purpose.&#8221; Amen to that.\u00a0<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>2. As he becomes a successful television writer, Martin struggles with the fear that he&#8217;ll soon run out of comedic ideas, and therefore write himself out of a job. &#8220;I assuaged myself with my own homegrown homily: Comedy is a distortion of what&#8217;s happening, and there will always be something happening.&#8221; Somehow, this made me feel better about my own (paltry, and so far mostly private) creative writing efforts.\u00a0<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>3. His first love was Stormie Omartian. Yes, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/Video\/Preachers-and-Teachers\/Christianity\/Stormie-Omartian\/Stormie-Omartian--Help-For-Your-Marriage.aspx\">that Stormie Omartian<\/a>.\u00a0<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Steve Martin&#8217;s Born Standing Up\u00a0is the most fun weekend reading I&#8217;ve done in a long time. Pensive yet page-turning. Three moments I&#8217;ll remember: 1. While studying Wittgenstein in college&#8211;which Martin was paying for by doing standup comedy&#8211;Martin was wrestling with whether to be a stage performer or an academic philosopher. He soon makes a discovery:&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Three things from Steve Martin - Text Messages<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/textmessages\/2008\/11\/three-things-from-steve-martin.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Three things from Steve Martin - Text Messages\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Steve Martin&#8217;s Born Standing Up\u00a0is the most fun weekend reading I&#8217;ve done in a long time. Pensive yet page-turning. Three moments I&#8217;ll remember: 1. While studying Wittgenstein in college&#8211;which Martin was paying for by doing standup comedy&#8211;Martin was wrestling with whether to be a stage performer or an academic philosopher. He soon makes a discovery:&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/textmessages\/2008\/11\/three-things-from-steve-martin.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Text Messages\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-11-14T12:13:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Patton Dodd\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Three things from Steve Martin - Text Messages","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/textmessages\/2008\/11\/three-things-from-steve-martin.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Three things from Steve Martin - Text Messages","og_description":"Steve Martin&#8217;s Born Standing Up\u00a0is the most fun weekend reading I&#8217;ve done in a long time. Pensive yet page-turning. Three moments I&#8217;ll remember: 1. While studying Wittgenstein in college&#8211;which Martin was paying for by doing standup comedy&#8211;Martin was wrestling with whether to be a stage performer or an academic philosopher. 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