Thoughts on the 4-8-24 Total Eclipse

I knew the eclipse would be passing my way, but I didn't give much thought other than it would be something interesting to witness. After all, I had seen a partial eclipse in 2017 and many lunar eclipses, but never one in totality. 

I live in Dayton, Ohio, but I drove two hours north to Holgate to witness the event with my parents. We switched between watching local and national news coverage of the eclipse as the path traversed across a swath of North America. Anticipation was growing that this stretch of rural Ohio would be part of a rare astronomical phenomenon.

When the afternoon arrived, there was bright sun with minimal cloud cover. The time of totality would be 3:10:49pm, as the time drew closer it began to gradually get darker. About 10-15 minutes before, it was darkening inside the house as if a storm was on the way. I kept checking with my eclipse glasses until totality arrived. 

Although I knew what was coming from a practical sense, I still wasn't quite prepared for the sensory overload of when it happened. It got dark - fast! Birds were flying lower. Insects were buzzing. Shouts and cheers could be heard around the small town. And the transformed sun in the sky, a black and simmering silver sphere, it was both wondrous and unnerving. It felt new and old at the same time.

One's eyes aren't exactly sure what to do. Gaze at the eclipsed sun (Venus also appeared) or take in the sudden darkness, your cognition is thrown out of balance. Time slows down as if in a waking dream. The mysterious and overwhelming power of the universe has revealed itself.

Part of what makes an eclipse special is that it's such a fleeting experience, a brief glimpse into eternity, a tenuous link with the past and future. I find myself playing the moment over and over, trying to replay it like a movie reel. But unless one has unlimited funds to seek eclipses out; for most it's a one-time occurrence.

For the rest of the day my parents and I reflected on what we witnessed. We all agreed it was far more profound than we expected. The sudden swift to normality was a bit jarring! My Mom cooked a chicken dinner and were glad we saw it together.

One is reminded life moves in the blink of an eye - and it can often be confusing and contradictory. We question our decisions and lament the futility of trying to find the time to do things. Yet for a few minutes the universe reminds us we exist, and it exists - and in that space we see the wonder. 

Book Review: The Path to Paradise: A Francis Ford Coppola Story by Sam Wasson

While Francis Ford Coppola is mostly known today for directing The Godfather films, Sam Wasson's latest book The Path to Paradise offers a fresh perspective on Coppola's importance to modern cinema. The book also will serve as an excellent contribution to books on the New Hollywood era. Its intense focus on Coppola also separates it from the rest, letting the reader get immersed in Coppola's bouts of megalomania and inspired moments of inspiration.

Path to Paradise is not a conventional biography, but appropriately took a cinematic approach, centering the narrative with Coppola and his family in the Philippines during the production of Apocalypse Now, while inserting flashback chapters. The prologue and final chapter provide a glimpse into Coppola's latest project Megalopolis, his decades long in the making vision of a modern Utopia. At the book's core is Coppola's film company American Zoetrope, which he started in 1969 with George Lucas.

Lucas is another major figure in the story. A star film student at USC, Lucas was an intern on Coppola's 1968 studio musical Finian's Rainbow. Both connected and shared a distaste for the studio system, leading Coppola to make The Rain People, a film mostly improvised and shot on the road. Invigorated by the experience, Coppola envisioned his own studio as an alternative to Hollywood, one that would use cutting edge technology and place art above commerce. Based in San Francisco, American Zoetrope quickly got a distribution deal with Warner Bros, and Lucas's THX-1138 was the first project.

Wasson provides a colorful account of the early years of Zoetrope, but the money quickly ran out, forcing Coppola to start directing films for the studios to save his company, which led him to The Godfather. Coppola disliked the Mario Puzo novel as a trashy potboiler, but felt there was narrative skeleton there for a great film. Lucas would eventually form his own companies, Lucasfilm and Industrial Light & Magic, and the success of Star Wars allowed him to achieve independence from Hollywood. Lucas's conservative approach to business separated him from Coppola, designing films to placate audience tastes, creating a rift in their complex friendship.

After making three masterpieces in a row, the two Godfather films and The Conversation, Coppola decided to adapt Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness for the Vietnam War. Apocalypse Now was initially Lucas's project that he developed with screenwriter John Milius, conceived as a low budget war film to be shot on location in Vietnam. With Lucas tied up with the Star Wars films, Coppola imagined an epic statement more about the nature of man with the Vietnam War serving as backdrop.

Coppola planned for a four month shoot over the summer of 1976, but it turned into a project that consumed and obsessed him. While his wife Eleanor's film Heart of Darkness remains an iconic portrait, the book provides more of a psychological rollercoaster. At one point, Coppola decided he must become Colonel Kurtz to complete the film, nearly destroying himself and his marriage in the process. Once again, the book does a fantastic job of putting the reader into Coppola's headspace.

As a coda, Wasson ends the book with an account of One from the Heart, Coppola's follow up to Apocalypse Now that was a colossal flop. An expensive musical filmed on soundstages designed as an artificial Las Vegas, the project bankrupted American Zoetrope, and forced Coppola to work again as a director for hire through the 1980s and into the 1990s. 

The Path to Paradise tells an intimate story about art, technology, and personality during the 20th Century.  Coppola's vast imagination and personality seem to serve as elixir against the 2020s fervor over artificial intelligence. It will be curious to see Megalopolis once it's released to the world, but it will be a statement, and some will be paying attention.

Wasson, Sam. The Path to Paradise: A Francis Ford Coppola Story. New York: Faber & Faber, 2023. Print.

Book review: Spielberg: The First Ten Years by Laurent Bouzereau

Spielberg: The First Ten Years by Laurent Bouzerau provides an inside view of Steven Spielberg's first decade as a filmmaker, years when he revolutionized the possibilities of commercial cinema. A coffee table size volume, the book is loaded with rare photographs and inserts including marketing material and production notes. Each chapter includes an interview with Spielberg. The author Bouzerau had a long association with Spielberg, the director of many making of documentaries, notably for Jaws, Close Encounters, and 1941. 

The portrait of Spielberg at the start of his career is that of a focused and meticulous young man, at ease with working within the studio system when many of his peers were not. His status as a Wunderkind was an image he self-consciously fashioned as a teenager when he made full length amateur films that were covered by the local press. His 1968 short film Amblin earned him a contract with Universal to direct episodic television, which he skillfully used as a training ground to direct features. 

Duel was Spielberg's breakthrough, a made for TV film that aired in 1971, based on a Richard Matheson short story about a man being menaced by a truck driver. The highway thriller proved to be the ideal project for Spielberg to show off his skills. Working on a tight schedule that required complicated action sequences, the film in its original form was a 70-minute tour de force of action for the small screen. The book includes a foldout of the detailed story boards Spielberg used as a guide during the shoot.  Duel earned high ratings and Spielberg was allowed to shoot extra scenes for a theatrical release in Europe to critical acclaim. 

Spielberg's first feature, The Sugarland Express, remains an outlier in his filmography. Loosely based on a true story, the film is set in Texas and follows two fugitives who kidnap a highway patrolman in a quixotic quest to prevent their son from going into foster care. A more complex road movie than Duel and in keeping with the popularity of "lovers on the run" movies of the era, Sugarland allowed Spielberg to further develop his technical skills on a wider canvas, while crafting a kinetic narrative both character and action driven. Some found the tonal shifts disjointed, from the light comedy of the early scenes to the satiric and ultimately tragic climax. A modest success that garnered high praise from influential critics like Pauline Kael, it earned him the right make a pure potboiler - Jaws. 

So much has been written about and discussed about Jaws, yet new insights are always being made about it. Spielberg has never written a memoir nor recorded any commentary tracks for his films, so his interviews are the closest insight we get into his creative process. In retrospect, there's simply no film quite like Jaws and I suspect interest in it will never dissipate. Spielberg managed to balance character and spectacle to perfection. All the right elements came together from the casting, the script, and the John Williams score, but Spielberg's determination to see it through and balance all the elements of comedy, horror, suspense, political allegory, and family drama that continues to amaze audiences.

His follow up to Jaws, Close Encounter of the Third Kind may not have aged as well as Jaws with it's late '70s New Age/Post-Watergate vibe that may be lost on younger viewers. The success of Jaws allowed Spielberg to pursue his passion project on UFOs, loosely based on his full length feature he made as a teenager entitled Firelight. Even more so than Jaws, CE3K became the definitive Spielberg experience with its themes of suburban angst, wondrous visions, and enduring sense of hope. Technically, it proved another breakthrough for Spielberg, which in addition to Star Wars released in the same year, changed cinema forever.

Richard Dreyfuss served as Spielberg's avatar in Close Encounters, playing the child-like protagonist Roy Neary, while the rest of the cast perfectly inhabited their roles: Francois Truffaut as the compassionate scientist, Bob Balaban as the translator, Teri Garr in the thankless role of Roy's put upon wife, Melinda Dillon as the prototypical Spielberg mom, and Cary Guffey as the young boy Barry. In its weaving between domestic drama and special effect light show culminating in a meeting of cosmic importance, audiences once again proved receptive. 

I found the most interesting chapter to be on Spielberg's first flop 1941. Written by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale who would go on to write the Back to the Future movies, 1941 was conceived as an absurdist dark comedy about paranoia on the West Coast following the attack on Pearl Harbor. With a big budget and a large cast, Spielberg admits he let the project go off the rails. Loud and irreverent, it exemplifies the excess of late '70s Hollywood. But it's aged well, with an eclectic cast including John Belushi, Toshiro Mifune, and Christopher Lee, the incredible set pieces are a testament to the analog era of moviemaking. 

Raiders of the Lost Ark marked Spielberg's first collaboration with George Lucas. Made as a course correction after his first flop, Spielberg made the film under budget and ahead of schedule. As a period flavored action film with supernatural elements, Raiders became an instant blockbuster, and Spielberg recalls it as one of his favorite experiences as a director. 

Bouzerau concludes the book with E.T. The Extraterrestrial, a film which marked a turning point in Spielberg's career, is a culmination of sorts. A more intimate version of Close Encounters, with a visitor from space arriving who heals a broken family. All the Spielberg themes of family struggles, returning home, and coming of age are expressed in the most universal way possible. A life changing experience in terms of his career and personal life. 

Spielberg: The First Ten Years adds depth and insight to the early years of Spielberg, an in-depth look at creativity and inventiveness. 

Book Review: The Revolt Against Humanity: Imagining a Future Without Us by Adam Kirsch

 

Adam Kirsch's brief, but highly informative work of synthesis tracks two intellectual currents from the fringes that are beginning to bubble up into mainstream culture. Both involve the future, one with no people. There's the Anthropocene world view which argues human activity from its very beginning began to change the ecosystem of the earth for its own ends. All the climate catastrophes we face are a direct result of human activity - and they welcome the extinction of humanity as the best thing for mother earth. Meanwhile, the transhumanists believe technological advancement will not only extend human life but will lead to the next step in evolution that will leave humans obsolete.

A growing number of scientists, poets, activists, and philosophers believe humanity has already doomed itself to extinction and there's no going back. The only question is whether the extinction will be fast or slow. Will it be a Children of Men situation, when the last remnants of humanity devolve into violence and rage? Ultimately, a planet without humans will see a restoration of nature in perfect harmony. A 2019 novel The Overstory by Richard Powers posits that trees are superior to people for many reasons; trees are peaceful and flourish for thousands of years. While humanists privilege consciousness and intelligence, most of the Anthropocene worldview consider non-human life and inanimate objects like rocks to be far superior. 

Many are also avid Anti-Natalists, with varying degrees of radicalism. South African philosopher David Benetar in Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence argues the act of procreation only brings more suffering into the world, he envies those who never existed. Others favor strict birth control laws and widespread abortion, anything that will reduce birthrates. These ideas have filtered into the mainstream. Polls find that prospective Millennial and Gen Z parents are conflicted about bringing children into a world that might be a living hell for their children to endure. Birthrates have fallen in the Western world, while China and Russia are offering incentives for people to marry and have children.

It goes without saying, the anti-humanist ideas are pessimistic, and one wonders if its acolytes are mere depressives or hardcore realists. Transhumanists see the future somewhat differently; they hope to live long enough to a time (two decades is the default prediction) when technology can extend lifespans and cure all diseases. Silicon Valley tycoons are pouring billions into such research. Space travel and colonizing Mars are also part of the plan. There's a strange optimism running through the movement, certain that any human born in 2023 will live a thousand years. In time, a synthesis of artificial intelligence and biology will provide the next step in evolution, imagine the ending of Steven Spielberg's 2001 film A.I:

For transhumanists, the replacement of humanity by a better, more intelligent, more capable successor species is a similarly worthy sacrifice, even if it ends up creating a world in which human beings can no longer find their own reflection. (65)

Kirsch foresees an eventual political alliance between the anti-humanists and transhumanists. They will find common ground on the idea of sacrificing humanity for a better future, one with a reduced number of homo sapiens. They will support policies that reward citizens who have no children and focus resources on reducing carbon emissions. From a geopolitical perspective, countries with high birthrates and dependent on fossil fuels will be considered hostile and may face penalties like draconian economic sanctions. 

Kirsch refers to the masses as traditionalists, those who look upon these cultural shifts with disdain and fear. In my days of listening to conspiracy radio, one of the most mentioned ones had to do with reducing the human population by 99%. A belief that secret societies have their own genocidal plan in place to rid themselves of the masses. That's crazy, but it may stem from a sense that many in the educated classes look down on them. Today's politics of resentment are partly fueled by a perceived condescension from technocrats and government bureaucrats. Modern populism carries an animus against educated classes telling them what's best:

The Covid-19 pandemic revealed that millions of people are suspicious of government funded vaccines. How would they react to a government that limited family size or promoted prenatal interventions using GNR technologies? (97)

Those who hold to traditional religious beliefs and cultural values are also turning to "strong men" to spearhead their interests, which will lead to more conflicts, a prediction Kirsch believes Nietzsche predicted in his 1888 work Ecco Homo, "the concept of politics then becomes elevated entirely to the sphere of spiritual warfare." Clashes over historical monuments and gender identity are symptoms of these abstract conflicts of the future.

Left in the dust will be the humanists:

[Their] secular reverence for humanity nurtured two of the greatest inventions of the modern world: liberal democracy, that idea that every human being deserves to participate in self-government, and is capable of doing so, and humanistic culture, in which the purpose of the arts is to explore what it means to be human. Today both of these enterprises are in obvious crisis. (98)

The Revolt Against Humanity shines light and some much-needed context on the undercurrents of today's anxieties about the future. Kirsch points out that projections of what's to come rarely get it right. Despite all the hyperbolic projections of futurists, either messengers of doom or Panglossian prophecies of immortality and virtual reality bliss outs, our day-to-day experiences have their own rhythms and peculiarities. I don't wish for the end of humanity, but I do feel skeptical about its prospects. Extreme positions of either joyfully willing extinction or a hope in magical technologies that will solve everything, I would suggest, will inevitably be moderated, thereby changing the calculus and just maybe walk us away from the cliff of a bad Black Mirror episode.

Book Review: The Enlightenment: An Interpretation: The Rise of Modern Paganism by Peter Gay

The first of Peter Gay's two-volume history of the Enlightenment published in 1966, The Rise of Modern Paganism delves into the influences and tensions that influenced the philosophes of Europe during the 18th Century. Gay was a professor of History at Columbia and Yale and the prolific author of a wide variety of books ranging from intellectual, social, to cultural history. 

The prose of this work is first rate, written with grace and precision, earning the National Book Award. Dense. but never overwhelmingly so, Gay skillfully synthesizes and bridges philosophic ideals across the centuries. The primary thesis posits the 18th century philosophes determination to make a clean break with Christianity and restore "pagan" philosophies of the ancients including tolerance, idealistic, a recovery of nerve against the overwhelming power of the Church. 

Gay skillfully juggles varying figures and ideas. When thinking of the Enlightenment, the typical names are Voltaire, Rousseau, Hume, and Diderot - but there are so many figures who made contributions. Neither were they uniform in their programs and ideas, there was a wide spectrum of thought. Applying criticism to everything was one tool all had in common. Few of them came up with original ideas or invented their own philosophic systems, they were primarily interpreters who believed in the power of reason to refine and reshape society for the better. 

Much of the book deals with the historical influences that shaped the philosophes. To them, it was in the words of Cicero or Lucretius (just to mention a few) where true wisdom was to be found. Edward Gibbon's epic history The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is fountain of Enlightenment ideals about the past, his history juxtaposed the rise of Christianity with the Empire's fall.

This volume also traces the course of thought through the rise of Christianity and the Middle Ages. Philosophes popularized the skewed view of "Dark Ages" as a time of regression and ignorance, they scoffed at attempts of synthesize Christianity with ancient philosophy. The Renaissance of the 15-16th centuries was still ensnared with religion but provided a new intellectual climate to set the stage for a return to secular ideas by the efforts of Erasmus and others to translate ancient texts from their original forms. 

The erudition, quotation, and insight packed into this book are impressive. Gay is the kind of writer who makes the reader feel smarter. My copy is full of notations I wrote. The ideas, conflicts, and individuals in the book still speak to the 21st Century. Gay makes an argument for their relevance in the modern era as harbingers of free thought, although their legacy remains a point of contention among philosophers and historians. Th Rise of Modern Paganism mostly concerned with their intellectual inheritance, while the next volume The Science of Freedom deals more directly with them as contemporary figures living in the 18th Century. 

Book Review: His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, A Life by Jonathan Alter

Of all the post-war Presidents, Jimmy Carter was the most enigmatic. Typically relegated to "one-term" purgatory, Carter's tumultuous tenure (1977-1981) was overwhelmed by various crises at home and abroad. In 1980 Ronald Reagan defeated Carter's bid for reelection, inaugurating a conservative cycle in American politics. 

Jonathan Alter, author of books on Franklin Roosevelt and Barack Obama, makes a strong case for a reevaluation of President Carter. Alter provides a panoramic view of Carter's surprising rise to the presidency and the influences on his life. Even handed in tone, Alter is often critical of Carter's stubbornness and aloofness, but also points out the many virtues of his presidency and leadership style.

Carter was elected in 1976 as a welcome outsider in the post-Watergate era. He grew up in rural Georgia in the 1920s and 1930s when Jim Crow Laws and segregation were in full force. Raised in a 19th century style of living in an agrarian setting, values of hard work and honesty were instilled. He attended the Naval Academy and served on one of the first nuclear submarines. After his father passed away, Carter left the Navy to manage his family's farm and entered Georgia politics. 

Considered a liberal on racial issues, Carter rarely spoke out on Civil Rights during the 1960s. He never met Martin Luther King nor marched for Civil Rights, in his campaign for Georgia Governor in 1970, he employed rhetoric to placate segregationists. There are examples of Carter resisting the racism of his environment in daily interactions, he defended a Black naval officer being harassed and stood up to local racists on a few occasions. 

Alter skillfully traces the evolution of Carter's worldview. While silent on Civil Rights during the 1960s, his Presidency broke new ground in advocating for Human Rights at home and abroad. Marking a break from the realism of the Nixon-Kissinger-Ford years, informed by his Christianity, the dignity of the individual shaped his policymaking. The first "born again" President, his religion is one of the keys to understanding Carter. 

Dealing with depression in the late 1960s, Carter found peace in prayer and engaged in missionary work. By all accounts Carter was sincere in his faith and kept himself to a high standard. Although he opposed abortion and the death penalty, he believed it was important not to force his personal views on anyone. He found it especially galling when Jerry Falwell commented that Carter's loss to Reagan meant a "real Christian" was back in the White House. 

Rosalynn Carter, his wife of 77 years, was the most important influence on him. As First Lady, she raised awareness on mental health and disability rights, her campaigns to vaccinate children were also successful. Rosalynn and Jimmy would meet for lunch twice a week and debate policy issues, her tenure as First Lady is now considered modern and innovative.

Alter spends over half the book on the Presidency. The achievements in foreign policy were far reaching. Relations with China were normalized, a move that bolstered China's economic rise in the coming decades. The Panama Canal Treaty prevented a war in Central America, done in the face of fierce opposition from conservatives. The Camp David Accords, the most dramatic chapter in the book, established a peace agreement between Egypt and Israel - the two nations have not gone to war since. Carter's intelligence and tenacity in dealing with Egyptian leader Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Begin remains a marvel of personal diplomacy.

The year 1979 brought about the undoing of the Carter Presidency. The entire saga of the Iranian Revolution and the ensuing Hostage Crisis caught Carter and his advisors by surprise and the miscalculations were multifold.  Americans were bombarded every evening with disheartening images from Iran intensified by the botched rescue attempt by the military (Carter took full responsibility). Relations with the USSR also went downhill, offended by Carter's Human Rights advocacy and his aggressive diplomacy in the Middle East, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and at the end of 1979 brought détente to a halt and led to a boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics (a highly unpopular policy).

Despite Carter's defeat in 1980, Alter argues his legislation on energy, the environment, and Civil Rights were all impactful. His famous "crisis of confidence" speech, composed after spending 10 days in isolation speaking to a variety of Americans about the problems of the country, expressed a criticism of consumerism, which many interpreted as a scold. On Democratic party politics he was often oblivious, which opened him to a challenge within from Ted Kennedy. With the ailing economy of the late 1970s, a combination of bad luck and questionable decisions led to his defeat.

When considering those who came before and after, Carter's fall appears to be an anomaly. He was neither corrupt nor incompetent. The most well read, intelligent, and pro-Science - his work ethic would be greeted with relief these days. Carter's greatest flaw was his bluntness and dedication to the job. Considered too liberal by conservatives and not liberal enough by the left, Carter tended to exasperate allies and foes.

Alter's prose is engaging, even handed with a good sense of narrative. The portrait is complex and raises important questions about political leadership in a democracy relating to issues of transparency, faith, and loyalty. Hardly any of the details included feel superfluous, anecdotes about Carter praying for peace with his eyes on a globe every morning, hanging out with the Allman Brothers, and winning over no less a cynic than Hunter Thompson all present an engaging tapestry. 

Alter, Jonathan. His Very Best: Jimmy Carter: A Life. New York, Simon & Schuster, 2020.

Book Review: Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis by Robert F. Kennedy

Published posthumously in 1969, Thirteen Days by Robert F. Kennedy remains an essential text of the Cold War. A firsthand account of the Cuban Missile Crisis by one of the key participants, RFK's memoir presents a sober and eloquent account. Even though he keeps a lot close to his vest, there's enough there for an impression of the decision-making process during the crisis. Devoted to the memory of his brother President Kennedy, the portrait presented here is a model of steady, but cautious leadership, at a moment when history stood at a precipice.

From October 16-29, 1962, the United States and the Soviet Union nearly went to war. After a U-2 reconnaissance plane discovered Soviet missiles were being deployed in Cuba, 90 miles off the coast of Florida, the Kennedy administration faced its greatest test. JFK's inner circle, uncertain of Soviet intentions, were determined to find a way of removing the missiles without resorting to war. Political considerations also factored into their response, knowing if they failed to show resolve it would unravel the administration and embolden its adversaries. 

Thirteen Days presents a taut narrative of crisis management. The informal committee known as "Ex-Comm" consisting of cabinet members and advisors who argued and debated the proper courses of action. RFK describes how the initial talks debated whether to take immediate military action through aerial bombing and eventual ground invasion, or whether to order a blockade to buy time for a diplomatic solution. While the "quarantine" approach opened the administration to accusations of looking weak, it was a middle course between belligerence and appeasement. RFK wrote:

That kind of pressure does strange things to a human being, even to brilliant, self-confident, mature, experienced men. For some it brings out characteristics and strengths that perhaps they never knew they had, and for others the pressure is too overwhelming (35).

RFK deftly evokes the moments of intense uncertainty, allowing the reader space to imagine the weight of making historical decisions. As fatigue sets in, one will change their mind quickly, change their tune in front of the president, or even become fatalistic or depressed. President Kennedy followed a strategy of preparing for the worst, while keeping options open for a solution. In this specific crisis - it worked. The eventual diplomatic solution, a U.S. promise not to invade Cuba and eventual removal of missiles in Turkey in return for the Soviets removing the missiles in Cuba, was handled discreetly by both sides. 

When one considers all the variables that could've gone wrong its head spinning. Thirteen Days only suggests all the factors in play. Military personnel could make mistakes in the heat of the moment or misinterpret orders. For example, the case of the Soviet submarine officer who prevented a nuclear launch. Luck certainly played a huge role, but rational thinking also prevailed.

Yet the Cuban Missile Crisis continues to raise tantalizing questions. Should nuclear brinksmanship be considered a crime against humanity? RFK recounts his brother worrying about all the innocents who would die in a war. A war for what - credibility? I get the sense all the actors involved at least subconsciously grasped the absurdity of it all - it comes through in Khrushchev's letters he sent to Kennedy. 

If there was a takeaway, it was empathy:

The final lesson of the Cuban Missile Crisis is the importance of placing ourselves in the other country's shoes. During the crisis, President Kennedy spent more time trying to determine the effect of a particular course of action on Khrushchev or the Russians than on any other phase of what he was doing. What guided all his deliberations was an effort not to disgrace Khrushchev, not to humiliate the Soviet Union, not to have them feel they would have to escalate their response because their national security or national interests so committed them (95).

Decades later the archives have been opened and all the minute details of the crisis are available. Thirteen Days is now considered more mythmaking than history. No one's going to argue political memoirs are not self-serving, RFK was more hawkish than he led on, but the memoir clearly values diplomacy above brinksmanship, and suggests things were messier than the streamlined narrative presented. Thirteen Days serves as a starting point for studying the crisis (also a quick read), more books on the crisis will be reviewed in the future.

(The 1999 Norton Paperback includes documents and additional historical commentary.)