The recent biopic of Diana Nyad depicts her affinity for Mary Oliver, but the poet's inclusion in the movie—and the marathon swimmer's life—is more complex than you might imagine.
This might be one of my favorite posts you've ever done, in part because I LOVE the sleuthing around the book prop. That is the kind of shit I can really go down a rabbit hole about, and I love that you did here! And I love that poem (who doesn't?) and can totally see how it perverts its meaning to apply it to a life that is meant on film to be special and big in a way that the poem does not prioritize.
Thank you for this! I was bothered by the use of that line in this film (and am a deep devotee of Oliver's work and can recite The Summer Day by heart). This helps me pinpoint why the use bothered me. Thank you again!
Nyad likes to use quotes to show her erudition. For instance, this from Thoreau:
"I've been living out loud the Henry David Thoreau saying: 'What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.'" (Find a Way, p. 284)
After you write that the rational response to my work is "get a life" and suggesting that my research has a misogyny component,* you write that "Slosberg is sadly correct when he notes that Oliver asked Nyad not to use the words from her poem." Since you imply that at least part of the rest is incorrect, please let me know where you found errors. I'd be glad to correct them.
*It's doesn't, but of course I would say that. Nyad is not just "boastful," as her PR army would like you to believe. She is a compulsive liar, a pathological narcissist, and probably a sociopath. Gender has nothing to do with it.
Finally, though I know you're probably not a big Nyad fan, see this from marathon swimmer/journalist Elaine Howley in the the LA Times article you cited:
“’Nyad lovers always throw back at us that we’re anti-female, anti-gay, and that couldn’t be further from the truth,‘ says Howley. ‘I have found marathon swimming to be incredibly LGBTQ+-friendly and welcoming to older women. That is all a straw man. Just because somebody is part of a marginalized group doesn’t mean you can’t ask questions when they make extraordinary claims.’”
It’s also deeply unfair to writers who did pay for permissions from the estate. The estate is very easy to work with, but permissions are quite expensive, and they come with strict guidelines that the entire poem must be used (and paid for), even if the work only uses a few lines. Other estates allow authors to pay for partial permissions, but the Oliver estate requires payment for the entire poem. So it is a large investment for scholars who want to use Oliver‘s work correctly. But it’s an important investment to respect the estate wishes and to pay for the work one uses. It’s disappointing to see Oliver‘s work so frequently ripped off without proper permissions procedures. If I could pay for the work I used, this production companies certainly could
Ahh, this is so good! It reminds me of my own pet peeve topic, how everyone misinterprets the quote "Well-behaved women seldom make history."
This might be one of my favorite posts you've ever done, in part because I LOVE the sleuthing around the book prop. That is the kind of shit I can really go down a rabbit hole about, and I love that you did here! And I love that poem (who doesn't?) and can totally see how it perverts its meaning to apply it to a life that is meant on film to be special and big in a way that the poem does not prioritize.
Thank you for this! I was bothered by the use of that line in this film (and am a deep devotee of Oliver's work and can recite The Summer Day by heart). This helps me pinpoint why the use bothered me. Thank you again!
Thank you for investigating this. And thanks for adding "embellishment" to my list of euphemisms for what Nyad does.
An important link in "He sources this fact with Nyad’s own words from a 2019 interview" needs updating. Here's the clip with Nyad's words:
https://nyadfactcheck.com/audio/2018.11.18.generation-bold-book-title.mp3.
The full episode is also here:
https://overcast.fm/+RP304FjiE/12:35
And here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2xNkXGPJSOSEPluBUNncNc (12:36)
. . .
Nyad likes to use quotes to show her erudition. For instance, this from Thoreau:
"I've been living out loud the Henry David Thoreau saying: 'What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.'" (Find a Way, p. 284)
Except it's not Thoreau; it's Zig Ziglar. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/12/06/reach-goal/
Nyad also folds some unattributed Nabokov into her most disturbing fabrication, the one that shows she will lie about anything:
https://nyadfactcheck.com/details_holocaust.html
. . .
After you write that the rational response to my work is "get a life" and suggesting that my research has a misogyny component,* you write that "Slosberg is sadly correct when he notes that Oliver asked Nyad not to use the words from her poem." Since you imply that at least part of the rest is incorrect, please let me know where you found errors. I'd be glad to correct them.
*It's doesn't, but of course I would say that. Nyad is not just "boastful," as her PR army would like you to believe. She is a compulsive liar, a pathological narcissist, and probably a sociopath. Gender has nothing to do with it.
Finally, though I know you're probably not a big Nyad fan, see this from marathon swimmer/journalist Elaine Howley in the the LA Times article you cited:
“’Nyad lovers always throw back at us that we’re anti-female, anti-gay, and that couldn’t be further from the truth,‘ says Howley. ‘I have found marathon swimming to be incredibly LGBTQ+-friendly and welcoming to older women. That is all a straw man. Just because somebody is part of a marginalized group doesn’t mean you can’t ask questions when they make extraordinary claims.’”
It’s also deeply unfair to writers who did pay for permissions from the estate. The estate is very easy to work with, but permissions are quite expensive, and they come with strict guidelines that the entire poem must be used (and paid for), even if the work only uses a few lines. Other estates allow authors to pay for partial permissions, but the Oliver estate requires payment for the entire poem. So it is a large investment for scholars who want to use Oliver‘s work correctly. But it’s an important investment to respect the estate wishes and to pay for the work one uses. It’s disappointing to see Oliver‘s work so frequently ripped off without proper permissions procedures. If I could pay for the work I used, this production companies certainly could