This is an outstanding guide. My parents bought me this book when I was just starting out in Jr.showmanship...I read this book every night, studied it 24/7. It tought me every thing I needed to know to win in the ring. I remember quizing my self in the A-reveiw, thanks to that I was always prepared! I must thank Marsha Hall Brown and Bethny Hall Mason, as they created a well rounded, complete guide to the world of Jr. Showmanship! It helped me.... I became One of Canada's top Jr.'s...with records that still have not been broken.I retired from Jr's in 98' thankful for all that I have acheived!

This book provides easy-to-understand answers to the who, what, why, when and HOWs of junior showmanship. It discusses the importance of your appearance in the ring, your dog's grooming, potential careers for junior handlers, and many other subjects, in addition to the basic patterns used in the junior showmanship ring. I highly recommend it if you are able to find it!

I can see why it was nominated for a Grammy!!! I absolutely love Dreyfuss and Mason. I couldn't stop listening to the play and I was so "into" it!!!

I can see why The Prisoner of Second Avenue got a Grammy nomination. Marsha Mason and Richard Dreyfuss have great chemistry and give top notch performances. A fabulous listen with plenty of laughs. Not to be missed!

This collections gathers classic sketches from 1959-present, and they're mostly fabulous. This material has been created by some of our country's sharpest comedic minds (John Belushi, Bill Murray, Martin Short, Mike Myers, etc.) and are performed here by current troupe members. The satire still cuts. There's a reason these scenes have been kept around for so long - they're hilarious! Everything from women in the military to parent-child mind games come in for ribbing during the course of (4) cassettes. Look for Ed Asner, Marsha Mason, "Saturday Night Live"'s Tim Kazurinsky, "The Daily Show"'s Stephen Colbert, "Strangers With Candy"'s Amy Sedaris and Paul Dinello, "The Secret Lives Of Men"'s Mitch Rouse, "Mr. Show"'s Jill Talley, and "Whose Line Is It Anyway"'s Ron West.

The Second City has lasted for 40 years by offering up biting social satire performed by unknowns who usually go on to become huge comedy stars. Every member of the SCTV Network show and most of the original cast of "Saturday Night Live" are Second City alums. The material covered in these tapes ranges from newer scenes to bits that have recurred since the '60s! Here, they are performed by some lesser-known, but no less hysterical, Second City vets. Chief among them: Tim Kazurinsky (from "Saturday Night Live"), "Strangers With Candy" cast members/writers Stephen Colbert, Paul Dinello, Amy Sedaris, & Mitch Rouse, Ron West ("3rd Rock From the Sun"), and Jill Talley ("Mr. Show"). Every bit is strong (this is a greatest hits, after all) and none outstay their welcome. Many of the scenes were created & originally performed by such heavy hitters as Belushi, Farley, Murray, etc. An incredible sampler of some of the best comedy of the past 40 years. And, it's live, too!

Marsha Mason has long been one of Hollywood's most underappreciated talents. When people begin listing the best/most influential American actresses of the last quarter-century, the usual suspects arrive: Streep, Field, Keaton, Fonda. But, criminally, few mention Mason. Despite four Oscar nominations, 2 Golden Globe wins, and as fine a body of work as any of the others, Mason's recent scanty film appearances do serve as adequate reminder that she is still a force to be reckoned with.

Her book does lose a bit from the use of the alter-ego personalities that are part of her emotional make-up; though the initial use of them is charming, after a while they just seem to get in the way of the narrative. But then one wouldn't expect Ms Mason to produce a typical, trashy, self-serving bio. In fact, she is as hard on herself as any of us can be, but as with her greatest film creations (Maggie in "Cinderella Liberty" and Georgia in "Only When I Laugh"), her self-deprecation makes her even more endearing. The sections on Neil Simon and her beloved stepdaughters are honest and touching, adding even more resonance to her stunning performance in "Chapter Two"; and her relationships with the 'Garys' is frank and poignant.

Marsha Mason's body of work as an actress means a great deal to me. Her work in "Chapter Two" and "Only When I Laugh" helped me work through a very trying period in my own life and I owe her a debt of profound gratitude for this. Her book now takes its place beside them on my shelf of very special contributions from a very special actress and profoundly important human being.

A sweetness and a sadness cling to Marsha Mason like the ghosts of Christmases Past and Yet To Come. Unlike Scrooge, she seems generous to others. Yet her book shows she has uncovered a Scroogelike harshness towards herself. She speaks about learning to be more compassionate regarding her self-growth, any naivete.

Regarding format, early on, Marsha alerts us that her book is uniquely structured. Good warning. Her past-, future-, as well as her present moment-thoughts whirl about, bombard us. It's as if the reader becomes a passenger in Marsha's racing car. Just when you're enjoying a stretch of intriguing scenery -- a descriptive passage about her childhood or one of her marriages -- she shifts gears, swerves, and swiftly tears along a different pathway of thought. I grew to like this choppy, unpredictable quality. It's different, refreshing; just ride with it, and you'll probably enjoy the kaleidoscopic text-patterns, and her multi-voice, inner characters.

Marsha's anecdotes are heart-felt and discreet. Sometimes it seems that her racing stream-of-consciousness technique was created as protective buffer, screening the author from readers, sustaining privacy -- never dwelling too long on detailing the causes or effects. Still, Martha wonderfully reveals an abundance of material per her spiritual awakenings.

A book, The Play Goes On, by her ex-husband, playwright Neil Simon, exploring his version of their marriage, complements Marsha's work. I'd hoped Marsha would someday publicize her experiences, including per Siddha Yoga (my ex-path). Marsha entitles one chapter, "Be Careful What You Ask For." I'd say, "be grateful for what you wish." I'm glad I've been given her insights into life, her owning of her perception and experiences of spirituality, linked to creative-expression, marriage, etc.

Yet it was odd that she writes of the oppressive nature, the authoritarian, punitive aspects, in her eyes, of her Catholic upbringing, and of her father -- and yet sees no possible parallels to her ongoing guru connection. I also wondered about the gaps: Marsha states she was away from her guru lineage for nine years. Why? And what brought her back?

As she mentions, Marsha was one of many well-known people who flowed to Baba, the "guru to the stars." I remember how, as an impressionable young girl, star-struck, being new to the monastery in India, I spent my early months leaping up like Lucy Ricardo inside the Brown Derby. Marsha seemed non-elitist, warm, down-to-earth, while doing "seva" (working). In India or America, she appeared unattached to the jockeying for position. While she sometimes attracted perks (close seat to the throne; private guru discourse, the staff later publicized; some glamorous, high-profile, rainproof work-assignments, etc) she radiated humility unshown by various meditators with ambitious plans -- The participants in CBS' first "Survivor" series (Marsha = Jenna plus Sonja) would have fit right in! (I'd love to produce a t.v. reality-based series called "Ashram!"). This journal seems truly to reflect Marsha's camaraderie and genuineness.

The bulk of the book explores her acceptance of the concept of "surrender." I appreciated her poignant mention of a mutual friend, the late writer Paul Zweig. Yet here, Marsha seems to have missed what Paul was beginning to contemplate. She praises him as a "devotee" in an effort to highlight Siddha Yoga. Yet per my memory, Paul Zweig had reappraised Siddhahood. Before his illness prevented him from doing so, Paul would travel to the countryside, and give lectures to a small group of us creative artists, who gathered regularly. In his quiet kitchen-chats with a few of us after each session, I remember how intensely blunt he'd become, his illness emboldening him to question Siddha Yoga's desire-denying code, usefulness, where meditation worked, where it didn't, and however it failed to comfort, heal. I don't know if or how he ultimately resolved these doubts. I only know his self-inquiry was instrumental in my growing up, and away, from the guru-disciple framework, to which Marsha evidently still adheres. His insights led to my desire to rationalize no longer the unsavory behind-the-scenes organizational atmosphere, the silencing of backtalk-questions per rumours of impropriety; the concentric alliances of power-play, per the guru; then between the twin-appointed guru successors (siblings: sister vanquished brother); and among member-levels. It was time to re-evaluate repressive aspects to Eastern philosophy in general. Thus, to leave, forego the top prize of enlightenment. So it's natural to wonder why Marsha omitted these aspects, and if she might not be in denial, and how this particular "unowned" yogi-voice will ultimately affect her.

So the book-ending evokes a theme, the mystery about Marsha: Is she truly happy now? Healed? Is she setting herself up for further spiritual claustrophobia? I wish her well. What wonderful blessings she has received now -- to work with plants, being immersed in the beauty of nature, befriending animals. For most readers, spiritually inclined or not, this book would be a worthwhile read. The author seems determined to find her way, somehow, to what a philosopher I like, Paul Ricoeur, terms, "second naivete:" innocence within matured wisdom.

Typical readers of theatrical autobiographies will not find what they are looking for in Marsha Mason's JOURNEY. They will not find the exposes, the invasions of privacy, the "lurid" details that spice most works of this genre. Marsha's most outstanding atribute continues to be "kindness" and here she treats everyone she writes about with that virtue, plus the love and understanding that have inwardly grown with her on her odyssey through life. The dark sides of her childhood and adolescence and of her marriage to Neil Simon and subsequent divorce are not avoided but she chooses not to address the cruelty, selfishness and just plain meanness with which she was treated after that marriage ended. The false glitter of the inner world of Hollywood and what happens when it turn against one of its own is a story she has wisely chosen not to write - one that Gary Dale says needs to be told, "but by someone else." Marsha knows about bad karma.

Framed within the physical journey of her move from Hollywood to her new digs in New Mexico, these series of flashbacks are just that - brief glimpses of parts of a life that have touched many people. Almost thirty years after her star first began to rise and twenty years after it set, she is still not only remembered but deeply loved by everyone who saw in her performances a beauty, an emotional honesty and a courage that few actresses have revealed. She was and is equally adept in comedy and drama, in period and in contemporary pieces. She is an artist first and foremost. She also has never stopped working. We continue to see her in television roles and in theatrical offerings, which she interweaves with her work on the medicinal herb farm she runs with Gary Dale.

The key words in this work are courage and honesty. In the first chapter she matter of factly reveals her multiple personalities, introduces us as it were to the cast of characters that populate her inner life. This is courageous. This is saying, "Here I am. Take me or leave me." She is also brutally honest in taking responsibility for what she considers her mistakes. The little girl is ever present in the mature woman - the vulnerable, innocent, young hopeful - entering a tiger's den known as Hollywood.

When Marsha, the Garys and I all lived in a block long W.72 St NYC apartment building in the early 70s, you could expect to see Marsha, about to leave for the coast, newly married and newly nominated for an Oscar, picking out a variety of cat food in the supermarket so that her critters would be well cared for in her absence. With about a dozen dogs surrounding her early morning walks on the N.M. estate, she still surrounds herself with the animals she has always loved and nurtured and will break dinner dates with the rich and famous if one of her brood is ailing. She knows who her friends really are.

This is a marvelous memoir, written with insight, self-awareness, and humor. Her style is breezy and conversational. It was fun for me to learn about the "missing pieces" - they help round out her character and they explain a great deal about her personality.

BUY THIS BOOK - there, I've said it.

Now, a few words about Gary Dale. Gary Dale Campbell is not only Marsha's "prince" but a good and loyal friend. He is the sun her planet revolves around. Before "angels" became trivialized by modern writers, I considered him to be a true one. Those whose lives he's touched feel the same, I'm sure. Balancing a kindness equal to her own with a common sense and practicality that anchor both Marsha and his life partner, Gary Dontzig, Gary Dale emanates warmth, love, compassion and understanding. His kindness and gentleness provide a rock of healing, a touchstone whose personal loyalty assures his constant presence. He deserves a book of his own.

Enough said. Marsha Mason is in the final analysis, like Blume's farewell line in her second feature, BLUME IN LOVE, "a nice lady." We maybe don't deserve her, but I'm glad she's here.

I admit, I didn't get it. I bought this book on the strong recommendation of a psychology major, who praised He, She & We (all three books by Johnson). Perhaps my lack of understanding of Jungian theory interfered with my ability to glean meaning from the text.

The book is a short, readable eighty pages, developed around the Greek myth of Eros and Psyche. In Johnson's explanation of how femininity evolves (including the man's feminine side, or anima), a person must go through certain rites of passage, in sequential order, to develop fully as a woman. Psyche must complete four tasks assigned by Aphrodite. Failure to complete any task before nightfall will result in death. The tasks include sorting a pile of many different seeds, collecting golden fleece from rams, filling a crystal goblet with water from the river Styx, and collecting a cask of beauty ointment from Persephone, goddess of the underworld. Johnson explains how each of these tasks represents an evolution in a woman's life (choosing one of the many seeds a man gives to a woman to begin the miracle of birth, gathering the fleece as acquisition of a bit of masculinity necessary to survive in the world, the single goblet of water from Styx as focusing on a single item at once from the vast choices in the universe). The text is rich with metaphor -- marriage as both death and resurrection for a woman, a beautiful oil-burning lamp as a woman's natural consciousness, etc. Interesting, but (at least for me) not particularly enlightening. Overall, I enjoyed the story, but I didn't come away with an enhanced understanding of female psychology.

I picked up this book because I wanted to know more about women. I've been fascinated by them, and irresistably, magnetically attracted to them all of my life. I wanted to understnad a little more about this powerful pull. Women are beautiful, mystical, and wonderfully different. There's that quality in a woman's voice that just doesn't exist in a man's that can make all of the world feel like it's suddenly become light as a feather. There's always been that bewitching paradox about the sexes. We're all human, but our perspectives are inherantly different.

In this slim but nourishing volume, Johnson lucidly examines the Greek myth of Psyche and Cupid. Using Jungian pysychology, he shows that the trials a girl must undertake to become a woman are no different today than they were in the ancient world. Johnson tells us why myth is so important to us as humans. It's one of the truest, clearest records of ourselves. When a myth is passed on from one generation of storytellers to another, it is refined and slowly given its truest shape. The parts that glow are given more emphasis and the parts that don't are left along the way.

As the author stresses, this book is not really about women, but rather about the 'feminine' that exists in both women and to a lesser degree men. In learning to understand the psychological imperatives of the female, not only will a man be more adept in his relationships with women, but he will also better understand his own complex nature.

This is a short, easy read (about 80 pages) of large-typed, generously-spaced, amply-margined words. Johnson's style is light and casual. Whilst not as in-depth as Marie-Louise Von Franz' treatments, for example, it is also much more approachable and less academically inclined. Still, it provides a concise forray into Jungian thought as related to færy tales and myth.

Whilst the readers of Von Franz might find it too light, I suggest it simply adds to the analytical repertoire. If you enjoy Clarissa Pinkola Estes' work relative to færy tales, you should also enjoy this, too.

After reading this book for a project in AP Psychology, I found that Robert Johnson's much-vaunted connections between mythology and the psychology of men are ultimately incoherent and insubstantial. The underlying concepts may be reasonable, if difficult to follow, but Johnson fails to achieve a solid connection between said concepts and his metaphorical writing. His writing style relies heavily on excessive repetition and oversimplified platitudes which insult the reader's ability to comprehend basic metaphor, and his constant implication that Christianity is an absolutely essential element of all masculine psychology is deeply offensive. Carl Jung has written numerous works on this same subject which are more intelligible and avoid the incomprehensible web of mythological allusions Johnson uses which bewilder and alienate the reader. In brief, Robert Johnson's 'He' is a waste of trees and effort.

1 out of 5 stars because Amazon does not offer the option to assign 0.

Robert Johnson is a life changer. I have read everything he has done several times. HE and SHE should be a required read for everyone. I recommend you read the book on your own sex first so that you become familiar with Johnson's style before prying into the opposite sex's mind. :) If you find some of the other self help books too trite and not very thought provoking, Robert Johnson is for you!

Robert A. Johnson took me on a journey through my inner world. I read it several times, and review it periodically. The book is short and concise, yet leaves me wondering exactly where I am on my journey.

As much as I enjoy Chekhov, I'm not a big fan of THE CHERRY ORCHARD; it never made much sense to me. However, this adaptation by David Mamet makes the play easier to follow and understand. The play itself is often labeled as a tragedy, but really isn't. As Mamet points out in the introduction to this adaptation, the closest form of drama THE CHERRY ORCHARD's structure resembles is the farce. In fact, if all the characters weren't so depressing, the play would be hilarious. Perhaps that is what Chekhov originally intended, that as we would see the outrageous, pitiful existence of the characters in this play we would laugh at their mopping and folly and strive to make our lives more meaningful. This isn't the best work to introduce one to the genius of Chekhov, but it is a classic and if one can get past all the whining (or to use a more pc term "reminiscing") it's worth the read.

As I read this play, my family is in the process of moving a thousand miles away from the farm where I grew up. Though I am so far away from the Russian culture and time of this play, the themes of place, tradition, and inevitable change resonated inside of me, and I am grateful to Chekhov for the way he has handled them.

The Cherry Orchard is a play about change, and the symbolism is pretty easy to recognize. What makes it stand apart, I think, from a thousand other plays on the same theme is its wonderful sense of comedy, of smiling sadness. Chekhov all his life insisted it was a comedy. As the Cherry Orchard slips away from the Ranevskys, they seem to smile at its going. As they are unable to change their habits -- still lending money they don't have, still spending extravagantly -- they quietly laugh at their own foolishness. The change comes, and they leave, heartbroken -- but embracing the change at the same time, only feebling struggling against it. One feels saddest, in the end, for Lopakhin, the new owner of the Cherry Orchard. He seems to believe he has bought happiness and friends, but is quickly discovering the emptiness of money and possessions, as no one wants to borrow from him, and no one seems to pay him much heed at all.

Chekhov paints with a fine brush, and I appreciate that. There is no thunderstorming, no ranting and raving in this work. There is a fine and subtle, sad and comedic portrayal of a family and a place encountering change. It is a heartbreak with a smile.

The translation, though the only one I've read, seems good. It is easy to follow and rich in simple feeling.

if you'd like to discuss this play with me, or recommend something i might enjoy, or just chat, e-mail me at williekrischke@hotmail.com.

"How should one live?" is the fundamental question driving most of Chekhov's work, and it is very overtly laid bare in The Cherry Orchard. Should the aristocratic family in decline stick to owning their cherry orchard (representative of the grandiose trappings of Russian aristocracy), or give in to modern commercialization in order to survive? What is the value of tradition, and how many trees should one own? Chekhov will not answer these questions for you, but he poses them in most interesting ways. In addition to wise insights into such fundamental dilemmas, Chekhov also provides a lot of witty banter, and a great slice-of-life view at 19th century Russian high culture. But this is not just a Russian play or a 19th century play; its themes, questions, and prospective answers are relevant for individuals coping with society and history in any place, and at any time.