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A Ben of all trades....

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Every once in a while you come across an overachiever someone who is a total [A kite flying in the sky]

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workaholic has like a zillion hobbies exercises eight days a week, starts every

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Saturday volunteering at a homeless shelter and actually flosses as much as

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you're supposed to don't you just love those people well there is one [Woman flossing]

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overachiever to rule them all.. his name Benjamin Franklin yep the dude on the

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$100 bill of course he made it onto the big currency the guy was baller...[Franklin makes a basketball shot]

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even in a time when people like Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and John

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Adams were multitasking like crazy Benji's range of accomplishments and

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contributions is especially mind-blowing let's run down the list real quick so

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you can get a sense of how diverse this guy's interests and talents were...

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Public Libraries, created them founded the first lending library the library [Library in Philadelphia 1731]

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company of Philadelphia in 1731 and not once did he ever return a book to his

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library that was overdue lightning rods he invented him in fact inventor Ben,

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patented all sorts of inventions we either still use today or which led to

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modern inventions coal stoves, bifocals, coffee machines

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and urinary catheters to just name a few by the way we recommend not using all [Benjamin holding a urinary catheter]

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those inventions at the same time daylight saving time, came up with it so

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yeah he's the reason people start grumbling that it's suddenly dark

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outside when they get off work the US government improved it was one of the

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writers of the Constitution was a prominent statesman behind many of the

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nation's founding principles and held more than a dozen offices including US

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ambassador to France and Postmaster General of the colonies... Electricity made

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the connection between electricity and lightning no one knew back then that the [Kite discussing Ben's inventions]

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two were the same thing it's all very shocking but the list is so long that if

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he kept rattling stuff off we'd be here all day which is no good because a

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storm's a-brewin but here are just a few more he wrote the Poor Richard's

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Almanack a hugely popular publication containing weather predictions proverbs

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and wordplay, helped found universities hospitals and fire departments

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campaigned for civil rights and still found time to perform his famous high

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wire act over the Grand Canyon okay that one might have been somebody else [Benjamin on a tight rope over the Grand Canyon]

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finally he wrote an autobiography, okay big deal so did Miley Cyrus yeah but

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this auto biography is the most popular autobiography in the history of [Benjamin with trophy of most popular autobiography]

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autobiographies it's the only pre 1800 bestseller that people still read

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regularly today why because Ben's life was bonkers why

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wouldn't you want to read all about a guy whose life reads like a Robert Louis

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Stevenson adventure novel okay so let's do a brief summary of his all about me

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book and then we'll dive in and analyze a part of it the autobiography of [Autobiography dives into pool]

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Benjamin Franklin is divided into four parts - part one the Phantom Menace here

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Franklin starts by explaining why he's writing his autobiography you know other

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than because it's great fun to talk about yourself for hundreds of pages [Ben talking to himself in the mirror]

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he gives us a brief history of Ben describing his early life in Boston

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his love for reading and his job training as an apprentice to his brother

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James who was a printer yeah not one of those printers one of these printers, Benny

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boy loved the printing game but his brother's not so much so he ran away

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from home at 16 made his way to Philadelphia and got a job working for a

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printer there he bounced around from job to job eventually starting up his own [Hammer bangs nail into Pennsylvania gazette sign]

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printing business where he prints the Pennsylvania Gazette not to be confused

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with the Pennsylvania gazelle, which is one of the most graceful creatures in

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the mid-atlantic United States anyway Franklin also talks about how he got

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married to Deborah Reed a writer who marries a woman named Reed oh the irony

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and about how he started up a club called the junto where folks got

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together to debate philosophical and scientific ideas and you thought he

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didn't know how to have fun part two the prisoner of azkaban - Ben talks about how

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he created the library system and then launches into a discussion of morality

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he basically says he's not a church-going gentleman but lives by a

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strong set of virtues and principles which he lists

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he's not into the whole religion thing but instead just prays by himself it

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still gets the job done and you don't have to worry about falling asleep in a [Ben in church]

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church pew so win-win part three Ben Franklin Winter Soldier fast forward

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five years to when Franklin writes Poor Richard's Almanack which becomes super [Ben writing a novel]

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popular like so popular you could reliably find it at Amy Hudson news on

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your way through an airport well if there had been airports but yeah then he

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gets into some of his major accomplishments like founding the first

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American fire department, founding the University of Pennsylvania and helping

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to create the first American public hospital which was pre-Obamacare so he [Doctor approaches man in hospital bed]

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was able to avoid any controversy because the French and Indian War was on

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the horizon Franklin talks about how he tried to unite the American colonies

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which worked about as well as trying to get two people to agree on something in

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a facebook thread the colonies decided to remain independent colonies

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undeterred....Franklin threw himself into the war effort helping a general

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acquire military supplies and building forts he's even made a colonel although

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his chicken always did pale in comparison to the master then wraps up [Ben with a bucket of KFC chicken]

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part three by talking about some of his scientific successes like the totally

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minor electricity experiment part 4 too fast too furious

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Franklin finishes his autobiography by talking about some tax related issues [Men preparing to fight with boxing gloves]

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that arose between the Pennsylvania Assembly and governor Denny, and how Ben was

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able to mediate the matter to arrive at an agreement that was suitable to

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everyone well to everyone but governor Denny who subsequently got the boots [Governor Denny booted away]

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from the colonists and that's how it ends... probably could have been a grand or big

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finale but it's tough to be a critic when a books done as well as this one

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has okay now let's dip our toe in the water and analyze one section of [Person tips toe into the water]

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Franklin's famous work why do we care about the dude and what he had to say

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about himself well keep in mind everywhere we look we

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see some sign that a Ben was here he helped form our institution's advance [Ben was here written on a tree]

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our sciences and forge our government when we refer to our founding fathers

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he's one of those guys who comes immediately to mind, we wouldn't be who we

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are as a nation without the industrious example set by fellows like Ben Franklin [Ben Frankling with a hard hat building a public library]

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and then there's a matter of this being the most popular autobiography of all

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time what makes it so good why are people still captivated by it hundreds

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of years later are the chase scenes really

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thrilling so yeah go ahead and read section eight from it is some time since

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I received the above letters until and not to make apologies for them once

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you're done come back trust me it's going to be electric......Alright, so we're [clock ticks forward rapidly]

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here at the beginning of part two where Franklin is writing from Passy, France

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located near the neighboring town of Gassy...

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Ben received letters from a couple of his buddies urging him to keep writing about [Ben picks up letters from mail box]

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his life it's a nice little stroke of his ego and it does the trick now check

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out this pro move Franklin ends the first paragraph by saying I will

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endeavor to recollect and write what I can if I live to get home it may there

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be corrected and improved that middle phrase if I live to get home is just

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kind of thrown in there casually but it creates the ultimate suspense right away [Ben playing poker]

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he establishes how high the stakes are he's just writing some silly old book

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about his life but he might not live to finish the tale, chilling.... From here he

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launches into an explanation of how he established the Philadelphia public

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library so maybe a little less thrilling than almost certain death lead-in, but he [Ben holding onto a kite]

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knows how to grab yep okay now look at how he sets up this paragraph there was

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not a good booksellers shop in any of the colonies to the southward of Boston

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those who loved reading were obliged to send for their books from England and so

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on just like any good story he starts by establishing the problem [Problem stamped on paragraph]

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there are Pennsylvanians who would love to get their hands on some riveting

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literature but unless they wanted to read their IKEA instructions over and

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over again there isn't much of an option and then Franklin to the rescue he and [Man reading IKEA instructions]

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his pals started by collecting and sharing their combined literary

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resources among themselves and their work so well that he decided to expand

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the idea boom! public library but unlike the best things in life it wasn't free [Man returning lots of books to library]

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he talked about how there was a one time sum upfront and then annual

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contributions which of course they needed to import new books and run their

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little library and then he describes the snowball effect you can really see [Snowball rolling down a hill]

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Franklin's writing shine here in the space of half paragraph he goes from one

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little library to a library phenomenon the institution was imitated by other

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towns and in other provinces the libraries were augmented by donations

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reading became fashionable and in a few years were observed by strangers to be

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better instructed and more intelligent than people of the same rank generally

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are in other countries the fact that he covers this meteoric rise in the

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popularity of libraries in such a short span of page space really makes me feel

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like you're well on a roller coaster a roller coaster without a long line [Man and woman in line for a rollercoaster]

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maybe but a roller coaster nonetheless.. We can almost see these libraries

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springing up like whack-a-mole people becoming well-read and brilliant at

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breakneck speed brains becoming so full they're ready to burst and so Franklin [Man reading and he explodes]

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takes a pretty dry topic libraries and turns it into a thrill ride not an easy

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task in the seventh paragraph Franklin gives us a little insight into how he

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went from being fairly uneducated to the great brainiac mind he turned out to be [Ben wearing a graduation cap]

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although he puts it a little more modestly this library afforded me the

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means of improvement by constant study for which I set apart an hour to each

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day and thus prepared in some degree the loss of learned education my father once

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intended for me throughout the book we can see examples of this technique where

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Franklin gives us multiple bits of information in a single though... for one we

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get that he suddenly had this little place filled with knowledge where he [Ben reading in the dark]

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could wile away the hours reading and learning, no wonder the guy needed bifocals

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but he also tells us a little about his childhood and his relationship with his

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father he never got a good education growing up but his father intended one

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for him so now we're picturing this great dad who wants the best for her son

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but isn't able to provide it that's a lot of info packed into just one

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sentence and check out how much he hops around from one topic to the next not in [Ben hopping from topic to topic]

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a disjointed way but just enough to keep it interesting like if he went down for

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50 pages about how great his library was we might be ready to start a book [Man throws book onto fire]

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burning club by the end of it but he jumps from description to the library to

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some light-hearted and humorous lines about his relationship with his wife and

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then in the next paragraph to his religious beliefs he segways nicely from

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one to the next and doesn't try to bore his audience by being overly descriptive

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or trying to impress people with his awesome vocabulary there might be a few [Franklin reading a thesaurus]

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$5 words in there but they weren't $5 words in Franklin's time yeah this is

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kind of how people used to talk even when texting all right time for you to

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look over one more section and do a little analyzing yourself check out

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section nine - plan for attaining moral perfection this guy like to set the bar

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low didn't he? read from the beginning of the section down to I should probably be

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proud of my humility as you read ask yourself some of these questions...when

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and why does Franklin break from a normal paragraph format? what does this

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accomplish? how does Franklin make his own spiritual

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or moral journey relatable to his readers? do you get a sense Franklin is

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just relaying his own struggles or trying to impart his wisdom to his

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readers? like is he saying he's got it all figured out and you better hop on

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the bandwagon to virtue town how does Franklin make use of italics?

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what does he achieve by emphasizing certain words and phrases? and just in

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general what does he do well how does he hook his readers what message is he

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trying to convey when's the sequel coming out? all right read and enjoy [Question of Ben's autobiography section]

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while you're doing that I'll be working on my own autobiography - Gone with

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the wind shoot that one's already taken back to

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the drawing board [Gone with the wind book with kite on the cover]

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