#ben logan

[lovelyactors]

Aaron Eckhart | Erased

[last-tambourine]

A friend asked Ben Logan, then eighty-nine years old, what he considered the most important quality in his outlook on life. “Having curiosity,” he responded. “I still have a tremendous curiosity about things. I still have an irresistible urge to push open the door of an old deserted farmhouse to see if those who once lived there left fragments of their life story. We need to stay tuned into things, keep our minds open.” His friend then asked him what he wanted his epitaph to be. Ben answered: “He walked through open doors!”

[...]

Logan walked through open doors in both directions: inward to gather the fragments of his own life story and outward to connect his story to the life of the land that held and nurtured it. At that threshold of his inner and outer lives, Ben Logan made a world.

~ Curt Meine, Introduction to The Land Remembers by Ben Logan

[last-tambourine]

People talked of “a year without a summer” back in the early 1800s when volcanic ash from the eruption of a volcano in the Orient filled the atmosphere and blocked out the sun. But no one ever talked about a year without a spring. It was as unthinkable as trying to convince someone that they had never been born.

~ Ben Logan, The Land Remembers

[thefrendlygathering]

MEET BEN - 6.18.14

How did you get connected to the Frendly Gathering?

One week before I was scheduled to move to Washington, DC to begin a career I wasn't completely passionate about, I contacted my old frend Jack to see how he was doing. He invited me to help out at the Frendly Gathering. I took the flight I had already booked to DC, took a train up to Vermont, and had one of the best weekends of my life.

What do you love most about getting out to Vermont to support the fest?

The moment I land in Vermont I'm surrounded by frends, most of whom I haven't seen in a year, and it's as if no time has passed at all. To be surrounded by such a positive, collaborative, and welcoming environment is amazing. I also love Vermont! It is so green!

We heard that you are moving to NYC this summer, what for?

I am incredibly lucky to get an opportunity to intern at a journal of history and literature in New York later this summer. If you want to find me, I’ll probably be buried in a book in the deepest, most remote, and obscure sections of a library. I love it, though. With every book you read, you experience a person’s life.

What drives your passion for writing?

I love people, stories, and stories about people. Also, when I write and read, I am constantly learning, and that's my favorite thing to do.

What's your best life advice?

Do what you do for love, not for money. Also, every one spends 70% of their life doing the same types of things… work, friends, family, etc… it’s what we do with the other 30% that takes us to the next level. Also, “Stones want to go on being stones, too, forever and ever… and for centuries they are. Until they turn to dust.” (Jorge Luis Borges)

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Bennet Logan is a scholar, an aspiring playwright, and a contributor to the Free World Reader. Writing is no doubt his forte, and we would love to share his bio in his own words, "I once was a catcher in an 8th grade game of kickball. As the opposing team ran a train of people past home plate, I was picking dandelions, and I couldn't have been more happy about my decision. There were some really great dandelions. I'm 25 now, but I still pick flowers and I still love to find what it is that makes me happy. Currently, what makes me happy is reading stories, telling stories, and spending time with frends."

[melbintfilmfest]

MIFF 2012 Selection: 'Bad Brains: Band in DC' co-directed by Ben Logan and Mandy Stein.