Harold Ramis

Groundhog Day book club?

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Ok campers, rise and shine! And don’t forget your booties cause it’s COOOLD out there today. It’s cold out there every day.

I just watched the behind the scenes of my favorite movies of all time, Groundhog Day.

Turns out, I’m not special in liking Groundhog Day.

Over the years, yogis, Hasidic Jews, and psychotherapists, along with many others, have all latched on to Groundhog Day and used the film to mean something for them, at that exact moment.

Groundhog Day director Harold Ramis put it this way:

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Films are really interesting because of the fact that they’re frozen.

It’s not like going to see the same play over and over where the actor may change his performance. The film is the film. It’s done.

It’s like Jews reading the Torah every year. The Torah doesn’t change. We change.

So every time people come to Groundhog Day, they are coming to it at a different age and time of life, their circumstances may have changed and they may find something different in it.

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That’s always been my argument for rereading books. I change, and find something new in the book that simply didn’t see before. That’s why rereading a few particularly valuable books, year after year, has been a very valuable habit for me.

I realized this morning that it’s been years since I’ve picked up one of the copywriting classics that I used to read and reread regularly.

I feel my life and my emails are suffering for it.

I’m gonna get back into rereading some classic copywriting and marketing books… but I was thinking, maybe turn it into some kind of group activity? A book club? A naked book club? A naked book club in a bathtub?

I have no idea. Maybe you can tell me if you are currently or have previously been in a book club? If so, what did you like and what did you not like?

Sexy stories = dogs and cats living together

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“You could believe Mr. Pecker,” says Bill Murray, “or you could accept the fact that this city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportion.”

That’s from a scene in the original Ghostbusters. The Ghostbusters are at the mayor’s office, trying to convince the mayor to let them do their work. But what’s this biblical proportion stuff?

Dan Aykroyd: “What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor. Real wrath-of-God-type stuff. Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies. Rivers and seas boiling…”

Harold Ramis: “40 years of darkness, earthquakes, volcanoes…”

Ernie Hudson: “The dead rising from the grave…”

Bill Murray: “Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!”

Funny scene. But here’s something deadly serious:

Have you heard it’s good to include stories in your copy? That the human brain loves stories… and that stories have a way of sneaking around our inborn “So what?” and “Bullshit!” detectors?

It’s true. But here’s the deadly serious thing a lot of people fail to grasp. Your stories have got to be sexy. And what is sexy?

Well, all that stuff the Ghostbusters talk about.

Of course, maybe your story doesn’t literally involve fire and brimstone, or dogs and cats living together. So that’s where your job lies. Even if your story covers a mundane event, you’ve got to find the drama… the high stakes… the life and death in this situation. Fail to do so, and your sales letter is headed for a disaster of biblical proportion.

And here’s something even more deadly serious:

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