NPR People: Melissa Block

The job market is barely treading water. The Labor Department Thursday reported that 404,000 people filed for unemployment benefits last week — pretty much unchanged from the week before. Overall, there are 14 million people looking for work in the U.S.

One of those places where jobs are especially hard to find is Spartanburg, S.C.

On Thursday, the Occupy Wall Street protests spread to the heavily conservative corner of the heavily conservative state. It was a small turnout — about 20 people got some honks of support and some catcalls from people who shouted, "Get a job!"

Don Bramblett, an electrician, who is one of the 20, holds a fat black Sharpie to make a sign.

"I was born inside the movie of my life."

Those words open the new memoir Life Itself, from the film critic Roger Ebert, who has made movies his life for more than four decades now. He and his sparring partner, the late Gene Siskel, had the most famous thumbs on television. Now, at age 69, Ebert depends on the same thumbs-up that he and Siskel made famous to help him communicate in daily life. Five years ago, after multiple cancer surgeries, he lost the ability to speak.

Ebert leads me slowly through his Chicago townhouse. On the glass door of his office, gold letters spell out "The Ebert Company Limited: Fine Film Criticism Since 1967."

On the wall hangs his Pulitzer Prize, from 1975. He was the first film critic to win one.