Keanu Reeves is a very well read and highly intelligent man. His roles in films such as Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure and Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey betray that intelligence, though I love those movies and am looking forward to Bill and Ted 3.
Keanu’s book Ode to Happiness was released back in April of this year. This book was his response to written a full year before the picture was taken that started the Sad Keanu fad that’s been going around the internet. Here’s the description from Amazon:
Ode to Happiness is a grown-up’s picture book, a charming reminder not to take oneself too seriously. With drawings by painter Alexandra Grant, text by actor Keanu Reeves, and in collaboration with mutual friend Janey Bergam, this facsimile artists’ book is about making the best of a bad situation. In the tradition of a classic “hurtin’ song”, Reeves’ text externalizes a melancholy internal monologue and subtly pokes fun at it. Grant’s images, delicately realised in sombre inky washes, reflect the dark and light, the pathos and humour of the text. Neither entirely earnest nor wholly ironic, Ode to Happiness is both a meditation and a gentle tease about how we cope with life’s sorrows.
I met Keanu Reeves at his Piccadilly signing session. I agree he is fiercely intelligent, as well as charming and witty. A real gentleman. However, you should know that he stated Ode to Happiness was not a response to sad Keanu; rather, the ‘word picture’, as he described it, was conceived about a year before the papp photo was taken.
Awesome. Thanks for the information! I had read that it was in response, but that’s just how some columnists are spinning it, I suppose to latch onto the Sad Keanu thing.