Julia Sweeney

2012-01-23T10:57:00.014-06:00

Arden, my dog, continues to live and love.

Arden was diagnosed with an extremely large tumor last June. The tumor is growing between his lungs and heart. The vet suggested I alert my daughter (who was away at camp at the time) and let her know that Arden may not be alive by the time she got home. I took Arden to a specialist and after a better X-ray they told me that, indeed, there was a massive tumor. There was nothing that could be done about it. He'd probably have a heart attack, or suffocate to death as the tumor got larger and larger. I was told to expect him to possibly faint, or I could possibly wake up one morning and find him dead, having perished in the night. It was suggested that he could not go on walks, or rather, on only very short walks. I was given a medication for him to take to reduce his coughing.

Well, now it's late January. Arden and I still go on our 2.4 mile walk almost daily (down from our old 3 mile-r) and he's feeling pretty good. He seems happy and relaxed. He must've had that tumor for a very long time and it must be very, very slow growing. He is having problems here and there - every once in a while a limb seems to get numb. His breathing is weirdly erratic from time to time. He's a lot more subdued. A LOT. But overall, he's in good shape. I think he'll live for quite some time.

Even though all those above-mentioned possibilities still loom like a dark sky.

I'm very late posting my December lists, and I do feel guilty about that. I'm promising myself that my January lists will get written up more promptly. I'm not exactly sure why posting these lists causes me to feel so organized and in control. But somehow it does. And so, without further adieu...

Here are the movies that I watched in December:

1.) Stage Coach, dir. John Ford, 1939
2.) J. Edgar, dir. Clint Eastwood, 2011
3.) Young Adult, dir. Jason Reitman, 2011
4.) The Help, dir. Tate Taylor, 2011
5.) A Dangerous Method, dir. David Cronenberg, 2011
6.) The Descendants, dir. Alexander Payne, 2011
7.) War Horse, dir. Steven Spielberg, 2011
8.) Moonstruck, dir. Norman Jewison, 1987
9.) Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, dir. Stephen Daldry, 2011
10.) Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, dir. Tomas Alfredson, 2011
11.) Uncle Bonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2010
12.) The Shop Around The Corner, dir. Ernst Lubitch, 1940
13.) Days of Heaven, dir. Terrence Malick, 1978
14.) Tree of Life, dir. Terrence Malick, 2011
15.) Blossoms of Fire, dir. Maureen Gosling & Ellen Osborne, 2001
16.) Contagion, dir. Steven Soderbergh, 2011
17.) How The Grinch Stole Christmas, dir. Chuck Jones & Ben Washam

It was a big month for movies, many which I loved, and others which I not only didn't enjoy, I would go as far as to say I detested them. So, among this list, of these particular movies which were released in 2011, I would give my best movie award to: Tinker, Tailor. Second best is a tie between Contagion and The Descendants.

Even though I mostly had no idea what was going on in Tinker, Tailor, I was still enthralled and filled with a deep happy wonder at the unfolding story. The look of the film, how the scenes built on each other, the performances, the subject - I drank it all up - as if I'd been thirsty for this drink, this taste precisely. And yet, I hadn't known I was so thirsty for it! I want to see the film again, especially now that I know what the basic story is. Gary Oldman must be nominated for an Oscar. Sadly, I wonder if he will be.

There are movies that are impossible to fully experience the first time around. I think Tinker, Tailor might be one of them. I have no idea why everyone is ignoring it for awards - so far anyway.

I felt The Descendants has been slightly over rated by critics, but only slightly. It definitely grew on me. The movie got better in the week after I saw it, frankly - as I reflected and turned scenes up and back in my mind. I appreciated how Hawaii was presented, as a real place where real people really live. I think Contagion is very good too, why isn't it being nominated so far? I don't get it.

The worst movies (of the 2011 releases) that I saw in December are: Worst of all: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Tie for second worse is between: War Horse and J. Edgar. Now, as far as Extremely Loud goes - frankly I have such deep contempt for that movie, I feel to explain why gives it more attention than anyone should ever give to this film. The kid was so annoying, kids like that are not endearing to me, they're just oblivious jerks. I know he was supposed to have Aspberger's Syndrome, but then he also showed startling emotional intelligence and insightfulness which is not a characteristic of Asberger's and I felt this was in the film just to cheat, to make the audience like him. I also did not buy Tom Hank's character and wondered why he thought up absurd mysteries for his son to solve when there would be such joy in investigating things that were real - and when I say real, I just mean that make logical sense and adhere to actual physical rules instead of the gobbeldygook that we were to watch and I guess, admire.

Incredibly Loud: Award for Most Manipulative.

Well, wait.

I take it back.

War Horse gets the award for MOST openly and clunkily manipulative. And from a director who knows better. This is the same guy who made Munich? (My personal favorite Spielberg movie.) I felt the play was also overly sentimental and manipulative, but it was also haunting and beautiful and complexly sad. The film was not.

Here's an example: In the play the boy's father is an erratic alcoholic who, for mostly egoistic and impulsive reasons buys a horse he cannot really afford, nor take care of. His son does. Bad things happen.

But in the movie, we are treated to "why" the father's an alcoholic. He was hurt in a war. He's wounded. In fact, he was a hero! Who has medals hidden away! So now we're supposed to understand why he drinks.

To me this greatly diminshes the impact of the boy taking over the care of the horse. He's not giving the horse guidance and protection that he was not given himself, he's now a boy who just doesn't get that his father really is a good guy. Plus, Spielberg left out the mournful, lone Gaelic singing (which was in the play) and I feel that was a mistake.

J. Edgar missed by a mile for me too. I kept thinking of the movie that could have been made. It was excruciating to watch as well. Oh where is that wonderful director of Unforgiven hiding?

I have to say, "The Help" is not worth even considering amongst the list of terrible movies.

Wow. I'm cranky about movies today. Cranky and a bit inarticulate.

Fantastic.

Okay, I didn't hate "A Dangerous Method." But I didn't love it either. Many of my friends, friends who mostly have a similar film sensibility as myself, just loved it. I dunno. Maybe it was the time I watched. I may need to give that film another go.

Also, not a fan of "Young Adult." Even though I think Patton was fantastic and should be nominated for an Academy Award. And Charlize Theron was great too. But, I don't think I'm ultimately a fan of Diablo Cody. I want to be! There's so much about her spunk and drive and insightfulness that I really enjoy. But I feel she took the easy way out with this script by making the Theron character so completely unsympathetic. I felt she was just trying to shock people with her brutal honesty and unforgiving candid eye, but truthfully - in the end she just wrote about an underdeveloped, unlikable character that somehow we're supposed to...

wait...

to what?

I'm not in any way averse to unsympathetic characters. In fact, I like them. I just felt that there was so much more she could have mined. I felt she hadn't done her homework. Here's an example: in the final scene where Patton's character's sister gives her this speech about how small town life is so dumb and boring and Theron's character's life is so wonderful and great - why couldn't it have been more realistic and insightful? Why didn't the sister character say something like: "You don't get to have it all. You got a life that's exciting in many ways that life here is not." But instead Cody's written a speech that makes everyone in the small town seem like rubes. And Theron, although unlikable, is still cool and hip and successful. To me that was the take-away from Young Adult. Cody is telling us: "I have a great career that doesn't require that much effort. So fuck you all in small towns everywhere. I may be depressed and mean, but I'm really cool while I do it!"

This is too much time in the negative, let's go positive.

Let's turn to some movies that have - by any standard - stood the test of time. First of all "Stage Coach" is a masterpiece. In fact, my daughter Mulan is home from school today, sick, and I just may insist that we watch "Stage Coach." I think that's the finest movie, overall, that I watched all month.

Well, "The Shop Around The Corner" is a perfect movie too. Yes, it's perfect. We watched it on Christmas day with my mother (who was visiting) and my dearest friend Gino who also spent the day with us. For me, to watch The Shop Around The Corner on Christmas Day is a great Christmas Day. In fact, I think it's required Christmas viewing. For the record, I've never seen "You've Got Mail." I'm just too afraid that my beloved movie has been mangled.

I wasn't enthralled with "The Tree of Life." But there were parts I did love, many many parts. Jessica Chastain is great - along with Brad Pitt. But the film is a confusing mess to me. I felt that the point of view of the director was: "We are all part of a plan, a plan we don't understand but naturally yearn for." I think it would've been much more powerful and poignant if I got the sense that the film's creator felt this slightly (okay greatly) tweaked and different way: "Evidence shows that the world has no plan, and it's a tragedy of human existence that we keep yearning and seeking a plan, or reasons, or meaning when there ultimately may not be any."

I still think you could have kept most of the movie the same! Lose the ending with dead people in heaven walking on a beach. The dinosaur scene were I guess we are supposed to witness the beginnings of compassion was weird and wrong. In fact, in keeping with Malick's theme, he could have done a scene with the beginnings of love in humans - motherly love! That truly is the alpha and omega of love. We're bonded because we give birth to completely helpless beings who get their evolutionary advantage through culture which is transmitted by doting and caring parents, most of whom are the mothers of those helpless beings. That would've still been in the theme of his film! Oh!

Why don't directors like Malick consult with me before they begin shooting? Honestly!

:)

I will say that watching "Days of Heaven" I expected to love it - I loved it when it came out. But really - that movie is truly a masterpiece. That is a perfect film. Not one frame, not one word is off, in my not-exactly-humble-I-admit opinion. Days of Heaven is sublime. Much better than I remembered, and I have such happy memories of that film. I saw it when I was in college. I sat in the movie theater for some time afterwards, just absorbing what I saw. And yet, the film was even better than I could have understood at the time. (Come to think of it, Day's of Heaven's directorial theme is the one I articulated above, the one I wished Malick still held.)

I suppose that makes three perfect movies for last month: Stage Coach, The Shop, and Days.

Now on to books, and finally I'll write a word or two about Victoria Jackson.

I only read three books last month.

1.) A Mother'sWork: How Feminism, The Market, and Policy Shape Family Life, written by Neil Gilbert
2.) Shockaholic, by Carrie Fisher
3.) The Sexual Paradox, by Susan Pinker

I enjoyed all these books tremendously. Fisher's chapter on spending Michael Jackson's last Christmas with his family was riveting and insightful and hilarious as only she can be. Gilbert's "A Mother's Work" was enlightening. I have such a different view of how our culture should be helping frame the idea of motherhood in our society than I ever did before and much of it is in alignment with Gilbert's views. But I won't go into this here, because I'm putting this in my book. The Sexual Paradox is full of good information as well. But, again, I won't get into that here.

Now, onto Victoria Jackson. Many people, more than I would have ever expected, have written me to ask me if Victoria Jackson is for real. The way she appears, the views she espouses, and how she espouses them, is very confusing.

It's true. I've felt this way from the beginning. Imagine if Steven Colbert were actually the character he plays: Steven Colbert of "The Colbert Report." Would that not be highly confusing? We enjoy Steven Colbert because we see there is a genius inside him that can see all the hypocrisy and inanity of our political system as well as the media, and he's so focused, smart and funny that he plays with it all - he's like Mozart playing tunes from notes out of our deeply dysfunctional system of government and media. But Victoria. Victoria.

So, to answer the question that many have asked me.... Yes. She is for real. She really does believe all the things she says. To my knowledge, there will not be a day when she says: the jig is up. It was all a performance piece.

What bothers me is that she wants to have it both ways at once. She wants to get the laughs that are there for characters who are kooky and dimwitted, but then she also wants to use this persona to make real points and arguments. Points and arguments that are not ironic, they are completely naked and honest and forthright. But she'll take the laughs. I don't know why those on the right let her be part of their media-pushes. To me it would be like, like if there was a "comedian" who's character was a Marxist-Leninist. He wears a beard and small round glasses and all black and he says things like: The Government should own all the land! People should not be allowed to own any money! Free Enterprise should be stopped!

And then he has a soap box that he carries around with him, and he puts it out there - and it even says "Soap Box" on it, and he gets on top of it and yells and gesticulates like a cartoon of communism.

And he's on talk shows and everyone laughs at how nutty he is.

Only he really believes what he's saying. He may be somewhat confused about why people are laughing. But he doesn't care enough to analyze it, he really just wants the laughs. He hears the laughs, and he'll happily take the laughs.

Now, wouldn't you have a certain contempt for this person? Wouldn't you think: if they know people are laughing at them, doesn't that reduce their credibility? Doesn't it make it seem as if the point of view they have is being compromised by the very laughs they're receiving?

I suppose it comes down to a demarcation in comedy. You are laughed at, or you are laughed with. Most comedians dabble in both ways of getting laughs. In fact, it's a good exercise. The next time you watch a comedian, just say out loud, as they get the laugh - "at" "at" "with" with." It's very educational.

But you expect that when a comedian is getting an "at" laugh, that they know they're getting it. More specifically, they know WHY they're getting it. They are the wiser. Their act is planned out in this way.

This is the thing: I don't think Victoria's act is planned out that way. It's for real.

She's not Andy Kaufman (as many emailers have asked me.) The "there" you think is "there" is not "there."

As far as I know.

I had someone forward me a song that Victoria has recorded and is up on You Tube, about - well, I suppose it's about me. It's about a fellow cast member who's an "atheist" (I personally prefer the term: non-believer) and she wrote a song about it. Here's her complaint with me: I talk about it all the time. There's a chorus where she sings, "And she goes blah blah blah about it ALL DAY LONG."

That's a very weak argument. This is an argument that my own mother might've used. Did use, come to think of it. "Why do you have to talk about it?"

Seriously, what kind of argument is that? That's not an argument. You may as well say, "She's a non-believer and she wears poorly constructed shoes." What do the shoes have to do with anything?

But, really, what is that argument?

This is the argument of shut up. The argument of be quiet. The argument of why-are-you-talking-about-something-that-makes-me-uncomfortable.

Personally I don't think I talk too much about religion. In fact, I seriously think I talk about it too little. But my talking more or less about it is not an argument in favor of, or against the quality of my arguments.

I mean, duh.

I am now feeling like I over ranted over this topic that is not consuming very many people. In fact, it may be extremely few people. But still, since some people had written and asked, I figured I'd explain a bit.

Or something like that.

Ha.

Okay, that's all I have to say on this subject for now.....

2011-12-16T06:21:00.002-06:00

The sourpuss in the middle of this picture is me, 1970, at Christmas time. I'm 11 years old.

Okay. Now, let's start with the movie list.

Movies watched in November 2011:

1.) The Parent Trap, dir. David Swift, 1961
2.) Phantom Lady, dir. Robert Siodmak, 1944
3.) Louis Sullivan: The Struggle for American Architecture, dir. Mark Richard Smith, 2010
4.) I Am Love, dir. Luca Guadagnino, 2009
5.) West Side Story, dir. Ernest Lehman, 1961
6.) The River, dir. Jean Renoir, 1951
7.) The Goddess, dir. John Cromwell, 1958
8.) Bridesmaids, dir. by Paul Feig, 2011
9.) Hugo, dir. Martin Scorcese, 2011
10.) The Assasination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, dir. Andrew Dominik, 2007
11.) The Spiral Staircase, dir. Robert Siodmak, 1945
12.) Moneyball, dir. Bennett Miller, 2011

It was a glorious month for movies. I would say the highlight was "The River" by Jean Renoir. I've been wanting to see this movie for a very long time, and my mother-in-law gave it to Mulan for her 12th birthday. We all watched it together as a family, and then we watched all the wonderous extras on the DVD. Then, on Thanksgiving, we all watched it again along with our dinner guests. Our friends also have a 12 year-old daughter and I think this film was just the perfect after-dinner experience. One of the all-time great coming-of-age movies. It's like watching an epic poem.

I'ld say the next standout movie of the month, for me, was "Bridesmaids." I'm embarrassed I hadn't seen it before. I know so many of the people in that movie - not really well, but I know them from the comedy world - and specifically through the Groundlings. I had no idea it was so good. Kristin Wiig is a master - funny, painfully poignantly funny. She's the female Bill Murray of our time. The script was so precise and loose at the same time - just the right combination for maximum laughs. And the actors - the actors! This film is my top favorite of all those Apatow-annointed comedies. This film and "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" are my favorites. (Well, and "Forty Year Old Virgin.") It's so satisfying to see a comedy hit a home run. I think it's the hardest thing in the world to do. Great script, hilarious women, really damn funny. I was so astounded - just blown away - that I watched it again immediately! Maya Rudolph was so good too, and Melissa McCarthy is so versitile and her timing is impeccable.

I loved "Hugo." I cried for fully the last half of the movie. I'm so happy Scorcese made this movie. It's absolutely in my top ten of the year. The best use of 3D that I've ever seen, maybe with the exception (or inclusion) of Zemeckis "A Christmas Carol" (2009.)

What else really grabbed me??? Oh, oh, oh! "I Am Love" was soooo great. That's another one I watched twice. I also watched all the extras on the DVD. Lots of great interviews with the entire cast. Tilda Swinton is such an astonishingly good actress. It's a fantastic part for her.

"The Goddess" I'd seen a long, long time ago. I forgot what an amazing actress Kim Stanley was. A really haunting movie about Hollywood actresses. Some fantastic performances...

Now, on to books. I've been reading many motherhood oriented books while I write my book about motherhood. It's been very enjoyable and enlightening.

Books read in November 2011

1.) Blue Nights, written by Joan Didion.
2.) Mother Nature: Maternal Instincts and How They Shape the Human Species, written by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy
3.) Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding, written by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy
4.) The Price of Motherhood: Why the Most Important Job in the World is the Least Valued, written by Ann Crittenden.
5.) Cool, Calm and Contentious, written by Merrill Markoe.

I've obviously been concentrating on books under the theme of "mother" since I'm finishing up writing my book. I loved the Blaffer Hrdy books - both of them are very good. But the book which really rocked my world was The Price of Motherhood. That book had a great and deep impact, along the lines of when I read Robert Wright's "The Moral Animal." This book yanked me out of my world and my cynical and uninformed views of motherhood. Ha - I know, big statement, but seriously, it did. It's hard to paraphrase the ideas in this book without using cliches and hacky sound bites. In fact, one of the reasons that parenting - mothering in particular - is so discounted in our culture is because it is over-the-top elevated with platitudes and pandering. For example, I want to write that after reading this book I realized that raising a child is the most important job in the world, but that sounds like we've heard it a million times and now we're supposed to look over to that sweatered, mild, sweetly smiling woman in the corner and gaze at her admirably for just long enough to feel good about ourselves before we rush off to do some "real" work that actually means something, earns something, and gets some respect.

I think I lazily fell into a typical mindset of feeling two opposite things: that women who stay home with their children can't "do" anything really, and that women who work don't "care enough" to stay home with their children. Of course, now that I've written that down I am mortified - and I protest, I didn't think that! Okay, maybe a little bit. But after reading this book I have such compassion for all women out there - in the trenches. Also, I realize that my desire to be at home with my kid as well has have a thriving career is what pretty much every woman wants. Idealizing women who stay home with their kids while at the same time allowing our government to discount, overtax, and fail to help support our children is ridiculous at best and sinister at worst. I found a great website that is active in promoting laws that help mothers and children called: www.momsrising.org

I'm still digesting everything I've read in all three of these mother books, so I won't go on here. More in the book!

Now, I read Joan Didion's book, "Blue Nights" and it is extremely well written, and interesting. But I have to admit that Joan often leaves me impressed, but... cold. I felt compassion for her situation, and I learned a lot about her daughter, but I have to say, there's no -- well.... not "no there there" but god, I hate to write this but... "no heart there." Sorta. Kinda. God, I feel guilty writing that. Let me concentrate on what I did like - beautiful prose, sparse and elaborate at the same time. Astonishing writer, Didion.

I have included a book I just finished, so that's cheating, but I have to! I loved this book so much. Merrill Markoe wrote another hilarious book, "Cool, Calm and Contentious." There are so many great essays in this book. One has the name "Jack Kerouac" in the title and I laughed so hard the book flew out of my hands and my family made faces at me because I was disrupting our reading time. The stuff about her mother is chilling and funny and insightful. The chapter called "Bobby" about her relationship with David Letterman - or rather, about what she's had to go through after her relationship and partnership with Dave Letterman, is so funny and awful and gets her point across without being harsh or mean. That is a difficult line to walk, and she does it. Did I mention it's funny. It's fucking hilarious. Luckily Merrill is a friend of mine so I could tell her all these things. Some of the essays are so funny they should be in collections of the funniest essays of all. Merrill should be writing for the New Yorker. GET THIS BOOK.

Okay. I have to go. I'm writing away. I have my last workshop this Saturday and it's going to be a "Best of" so I'm psyched about it. Then the holidays will engulf me. I probably won't have read five books in December, in fact, I'll probably be lucky to get through one!

Happy Holidays....

2011-11-10T09:48:00.001-06:00

Anton Walbrook and Glynis Johns in "The 49th Parallel," directed by Michael Powell.

Well, I've been writing more and watching and reading less, overall. But I suppose, with the glorious Anton Walbrook looming over my blog entry, I will jump straight to films.

Films watched in October 2011:

1.) The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, 1943, dir. by Michael Powell
2.) The 49th Parallel, 1941, dir. by Michael Powell
3.) Remorques, aka Stormy Waters, 1941, dir. by Jean Gremillon
4.) The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, 1936, dir. by Henry Hathaway
5.) The Age of Innocence, 1993, dir. by Martin Scorcese
6.) The Last King of Scotland, 2006, dir. by Kevin Macdonald
7.) Meek's Cutoff, 2010, dir. by Kelly Riechardt
8.) The Fly, 1986, dir. by David Cronenberg
9.) Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, 2008, dir. by Jon Hurwitz & Hayden Schlossberg
10.) The Conspiritor, 2010, dir. by Robert Redford
11.) Good Hair, 2009, dir. by Jeff Stillson
12.) Three Strangers, 1946, dir. by Jean Negulesco
13.) Big Fan, 2009, dir. by Robert D. Siegel

So many great movies this month. I don't know if it's possible to choose a favorite. The one that got into my dreams - well four of them did: "Colonel Blimp," "49th Parallel," "Meek's Cutoff" and "The Last King of Scotland." I am so absolutely in love with Michael Powell's films. And I have recently watched "The Red Shoes" and realized how brilliant Anton Walbrook is, well... was. Sadly he died prematurely. But, what a presence. He plays such an against-type character in "49th" too, he's an Amish farmer in Canada. Still, when he is onscreen, hardly anyone else is.

"Meek's Cutoff": I've been waiting to see this movie for so long. I'm a fan of Kelly Riechardt - I loved "Wendy and Lucy" and "Old Joy." When I heard about the topic for Meek's I got very excited. I think every western ever filmed (and I am a western fan, and there's been plenty of great ones) should be redone through a woman's eyes. This is what made me curious and excited to see "Meek's." Reichardt, you have to hand it to her, she does not pander to a mainstream audience. This film is slow, hypnotic, and doesn't tell you how to react. I think my favorite moment was when Michelle Williams loads a gun - it's realistic, takes an absurd amount of time, and barely has any authority over anyone once it's loaded. I actually let out a big laugh at the end - not because it was funny, but because Reichardt has such guts! Jesus! I am a huge fan of this woman. I cannot wait for her next movie, "Night Moves" which is in pre-production.

I really loved "The Last King of Scotland," too. James McAvoy is so good, he should have been nominated for an oscar too, along with Forest Whitaker.

I was so happy to see "The Fly" again. When I saw it the first time, I was so moved by it, I could not stop crying at the end. I wanted to see if I still felt that way. Wow, it was even better! God, Jeff Goldblum is so sexy, so funny, and so perfect in this role. And Geena Davis is great. I had a laughing, cringing, crying good time seeing it again. The extras on the DVD are pretty good too. Lots of interviews with people recently about their memories of making this film.

I'd been wanting to see Chris Rock's documentary, "Good Hair," for a long time. It was directed by a fellow Spokane, Washington native: Jeff Stillson. It was really good - Rock is great at making a topic funny and serious at the same time. I learned a lot too.

I felt "The Conspirator" (about the plotters to kill Lincoln) was so underrated when it came out. Why wasn't it nominated for tons of awards? Redford directing, a great historic epic, fantastic acting (James McAvoy again! It's my James McAvoy month!) I was surprised I hadn't seen it before or read more about it. Robin Wright was so good in her part as Mary Surratt. Why wasn't she nominated for an oscar? The part was really demanding and difficult and she pulled it off well.

I was glad to finally see "Big Fan." I'm a huge fan (and glad to say friend) of Patton Oswalt's and yet I ahd never seen this film.

Books read in October 2011. Only one. Yes, only one.

"A Visit From The Good Squad," by Jennifer Egan. It was brilliant.

But before that, I have to confess: I got off the book treadmill. Wait, that's not the right way to put it. I imposed these restricitons on my reading about two years ago and it's had the most fantastic results. Unfortunately it requires some discipline. My self-imposed reading rule was: only one book at a time. Take the book with you everywhere, christen it - it's the book you are currently reading. Stick with it until the end. Read at least an hour a day, then and only then can you move onto magazines and other reading material. This might sound sort of silly, these self-imposed rules, but it had dramatic results. You see, I was really lazy and promiscuous about my book reading. I would read a third of this book, lose it in the house, and then move onto a third of another book. It never added up to anything and I wasn't finishing anything. It all gave me this unfinished feeling that I did not like. There were tradeoffs, mostly in terms of The New Yorker. I wasn't reading it as much. I wasn't reading the paper as much. Nor the New Scientist, or Mother Jones, or any of the other magazines I like and subscribe to. But it felt good overall. I was reading the way I enjoy reading, the whole book, diving in and seeing it through. But then, this month, I lost a book I started, and then I grabbed another and lost it somewhere and then I bout "Goon Squad" and began it and I have to say it really took some force to get me to read it all the way through.

Partly this is because the book is non-linear. It's a set of linked stories that draw you closer to a big set of characters. The chapters jump around in time and fling themselves into far-off characters you don't expect to know. It's really good - God the writing is astonishingly good, but the book itself has the feeling to it that I usually get from my haphazard reading style of yesteryear - a chapter here and there. So it was difficult to see it through. The book almost wants you to put it down. Except I didn't because I was laughing and gasping and digging into these people. It was a really good book.

I'm doing a bit better now, but more on that in November's entry...

In the meantime, I am not travelling, I'm hunkering down, and writing my "Mother" book. I've been doing the workshops on Saturdays. It's helped me, the workshops. I can see where I get stuck in the same old themes. But it's also excrutiating and I often wonder why I'm doing it. This week I'm going to read something I'm working on for The Guardian and a piece about nanny's.

My new assistant Pam (oh how I love saying that) lent me a couple of DVDs, it's of a series on Showtime that I've not watched before: "Episodes." There are seven esisodes of "Episodes." I've watched four. They're so damn funny. I acutally woke up last night thinking about them. If you can watch get hold of them, please watch them. Matt LeBlanc stars. It's hilarious. So funny and well written. I think I'll watch the final three today.

It looks like it's going to snow today. Here we go....

2011-10-15T09:48:00.005-05:00

Michael took this picture when we visited the Chicago Botanical Garden a week or so ago.

It's raining right now. It's getting colder. And I say hurrah.

We've had ten days of startlingly perfect weather. A mid-western Indian summer, warm dry days and cool nights.

And yet, a small voice inside me has been yearning for cold and wet. I think the outdoors (in which I walk for at least an hour a day) is a place simultaneously stimulating, invigorating, and then, possibly, overwhelming.

I've read that Catholics distrust nature, and maybe a bit of that seeped into me.

However, when it's cold and wet, suddenly, the inside of my house is much, much cozier. There's a reason to stay inside. There's a reason to go to the basement and watch a movie, or read a book by a fire in the living room. When thinking of wet, cold, or snowy weather, my instant physical sensation is: relief.

Maybe part of it is that to brave inclement weather, a greater effort is required.   Walking my dog, Arden (still alive, coughing incessantly, but active and tail-waggingly-enthusiastic for each day) in rain and snow is simultaneously more of a chore and more enjoyable. When I come in the door I feel I've accomplished something. And it's something not everyone would do! Ha. So, you see, my need to feel superior is massaged by an arduous walk.

My husband might note that the dominant force is more accurately an overly-active martyr complex. Hmmm... touche. Yes, and that's perhaps another vestige of my Catholicism.

What is true: martyr complexes emulsify nicely with a feeling of superiority.

On to other things:

I am grudgingly and yet hopefully back to my usual support of Obama. I think I might have been too hard on him last month. I like the jobs bill. I wonder if our government is too broken for anything substantive to get passed given this Senate and House. I am watching the Occupy Movement with a thrill. If I weren't so damn happy to stay inside, I would be there. It's very exciting.

But let's get to the books and movies of Sept. 2011, shall we?

Movies first!

1. Daisy Kenyon, 1947, dir by Otto Preminger saw it twice
2. 3 Godfathers, 1948, dir by John Ford
3. The Invention of Lying, 2009, dir by Ricky Gervais & Mathew Robinson
4. Marely & Me, 2008, dir by David Frankel
5. Shine A Light, 2008, dir by Martin Scorcese
6. Cyrus, 2010, dir by Jay & Mark Duplass
7. She Wore A Yellow Ribbon, 1949, dir by John Ford
8. Seeing Other People, 2004, dir by Wallace Wolodarsky
9. Gates of Heaven, 1978, dir by Errol Morris
10. Out of Africa, 1985, dir by Sydney Pollack
11. Rope, 1948, dir by Alfred Hitchcock
12. Harold & Kumar go to Whitecastle, 2004, dir by Danny Leiner
13. The Secret Garden, 1993, dir by Agnieszka Holland
14. Dr. Zhivago, 1965, dir by David Lean
15. Fiddler On The Roof, 1971, dir by Norman Jewison
16. Wagon Master, 1950, dir by John Ford
17. Heat Lightning, 1934, dir by Mervyn LeRoy
18. The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara, 2003, dir. by Errol Morris
19. The Tom Lehrer Collection, various dates, TV footage

Wow. I saw more movies in September than I thought. Here, already halfway through October, I can predict I won't get the time for as many. Poop.

September was a great month for movies.

Top of the list: She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and Wagon Master. I am an uneducated fan of John Ford, and my friend Richard T. Jameson (RTJ) keeps sending me DVDs to watch, and this month I was completely knocked out. Yes, I did appreciate and enjoy 3 Godfathers, but I was so deeply moved by She Wore - I actually cried - and then seeing Wagon Master - my mind was blown.   Wagon Master is so much like a Coen Bros. movie - very existential. The movie wanders with the characters who are all wandering! It's simultaneously focused and unfocused.   And it really works: hallucinatory and riveting.

Daisy Kenyon was another surprise. It was another movie RTJ sent me. This film so easily could've been a superficial soap-opera, and it wasn't AT ALL. Henry Fonda, and Joan Crawford in a great role, and Dana Andrews, all three wonderful actors in a romantic triangle.   I loved it so much, that a couple of weeks later, when I had some friends over for dinner, I suggested we watch it. They all thought it was great.   I highly recommend it.

I really enjoyed hypnotic Shine a Light - the Rolling Stones concert doc by Scorcese. Wowza, it's really been a Rolling Stones year for me. And ohmygod, Harold & Kumar! I laughed so hard - really really hard. So hard that I think Michael became slightly disturbed by how funny I thought that movie was. I have Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanomo from Netflix and will watch it this month some time.

Seeing Other People was another lovely, surprising movie. It stars Jay Mohr and Julianne Nicholson and they play a very funny couple, they give very realistic, nuanced performances that are also highly comedic. I thought it would be too broad for me but it was not too broad, it was delightful, ahead of it's time in my opinion. I wish Mohr and Nicholson would get together again and play a couple, they are perfect together. Some of the reviews, which I try to read only after I see a film, claimed it was too sit-com-y. I dunno, I laughed a lot.

Didn't like Dr. Zhivago at all. I'd seen it a million years ago. Thought it was all style and no substance, but of course Omar Sharif is always sweet to look at.

I thought Cyrus was a perfect movie. Pitch perfect. Yes, I did. I loved every frame of that film. I loved the tone, especially. I was constantly surprised and I felt people behaved just like people do. And yet the story had great suspense and movement and best of all the film was delightfully ambiguous. I felt it was up there with An Education for me in my personal hierarchy of great films that I think I could possibly try to emulate in my own writing. Anyway, Cyrus, I really tickled by that film. Jonah Hill was great - in fact the whole cast was exactly right.

Rope is a failure, but still great to watch. The interview with Arthur Laurentz - which is on the extras on the DVD - is very insightful. It caused me to buy two of Laurentz's memoirs, which I hope to get to this month or next. Laurentz mentions that the dream casting had been James Mason in the Jimmy Stewart role, and Montgomery Clift in the John Dall role. I thought Dall was perfect - and was hankering to see Rope ever since I watched Gun Crazy. On the other hand, Rope REALLY would have been a much better movie if it had had Mason and Clift and if Hitchcock had not insisted on basically stunt shooting the thing in long takes, which I could see deeply constrained the performances and the sense of movement. Laurentz says Stewart is sexless, like a dopey oblivious uncle, and not the character he had envisioned for the professor. Once he said this I realized immediately how right he was and how far the film had fallen by casting Stewart in the part - who apparently was completely unaware of the gay themes in the film.

Errol Morris is such a genius. I really loved Fog of War - very disturbing, that film. We go to war for the such silly reasons which are sold by only a few people, people who are usually acquiescing to some paranoid fear raging inside of a couple of other people. And it's going to happen again.   It's happening now. OOOOkay....   Not going there.   Oh, I loved Gates of Heaven too. Michael and Mulan and I visited a pet cemetery (the film is all about a pet cemetery in California) in San Francisco this past summer. A pet cemetery is simultaneously poignant and ridiculous. Morris got that combination of feelings perfectly, I thought.

Books read in Sept. 2011

1. The Myth of Free Will, Revised and Expanded Edition, written by Cris Evatt
2. The Givers & the Takers, written by Cris Evatt
3. The Wizard of Lies, written by Diana B. Henriques
4. One Good Turn: A Novel, written by Kate Atkinson
5. When God is Gone, Everything is Holy, written by Chet Raymo

Well, where to begin... The Myth of Free Will was pretty good. I am just beginning my deeper reading on the subject of free will. I guess I'm convinced that we don't have it, but I'm unsure - so far - how this acceptance effects my behavior and judgement. It's a tricky thing. How do you parent when you don't believe in free will? Surprisingly, it makes me much more compassionate. Also, it makes me more accepting of my own attempts to shape my child. This is what I keep thinking: new information is an event, like any other event. It has effects, like weather, war and strokes of great luck and serendipitous random occurrences. Therefore understanding that I have no free will is also an event. I guess what I'm saying is that I realize my own actions, driven unconsciously by forces I have no control over, still - obviously - have an effect on the world around me. Those effects also drive unconscious forces in other people who will respond whatever way or however way they are going to respond. It's simultaneously empowering and dis-empowering. Okay, I'm not explaining this properly - partly because I have only a limited grasp of the concepts myself and how I digest them into my own psyche. So, I will stop for now, but this is an ongoing idea that I continually turn over in my thoughts. Evatt's book is a breezy, and dare I say light?, a summary of the leading thoughts on the subject of free will. I read another one of her books too, The Givers & The Takers, which divides the people of the world into one or the other.   It's over-simplifying things, to be sure, but there were some good take-aways from it. For example, "Give to givers and take from takers." I've kept that in mind and it's been helpful.

I enjoy Kate Atkinson's books. There are three books in this mystery series, and One Good Turn is the second in the series. She's such a delightful, funny, surprising writer. I'm in love with her protagonist, Jackson Brodie - an ex-cop, ex-detective, divorced-dad who is so endearing and hapless and intelligent. I often laugh out loud while reading Atkinson.

Now, I must say the Bernie Madoff book, The Wizard of Lies, was FANTASTIC. Ohmygod, you must read this book. Diana Henriques is a fair and exacting writer. I never really understood exactly what was going on with the Madoff case. I mean, I understood it was a big ponzi scheme, but I didn't pay close attention to the details. It's heartbreaking. I want to see the movie. I want Aaron Sorkin to write the script. The whole story is mind-boggingly compelling. I drove Michael crazy, after every page I had to tell him what was happening.

Lastly, and I feel bad that I'm running out of gas here because I have so much feeling for these books - I love Chet Raymo. I want to meet this man. We are so similar - Catholic, appreciative of the culture - or at least parts of the culture, but ultimately non-believers. When God is Gone, Everything is Holy was like a meal I'd been waiting to devour. The book is mostly chapters musing on this and that. My criticism is that the book should have added up to more, but it's meant to be written in a non-linear and wandering fashion. On the other hand, I agreed with almost everything he wrote and felt so similarly. I love this guy. I really appreciated this book. I want to read his other books, now.

Well, today I'm heading over to Space, to do the first of eight workshop performances for the book I'm writing: If It's Not One Thing, It's Your Mother. I'm going to read three chapters I've written, and riff on three story ideas I may write up. I'm going to tell stories I could not tell in my book, and it's going to be very casual and I hope fun. I also hope there are a few people there. This is what I did when I began the process of writing Letting Go of God. I went to the Knitting Factory (a club in L.A. that was supposed to be like the one in NYC) on a late afternoon every week for several weeks and just plowed through what I was working on at the moment. It was extremely helpful.

I have a new assistant and she just started this week. I haven't had a helper in a long, long time. Her name is Pam. I'm looking forward to working with her, we are really clicking. She'll be there today at the show.

Well, for this month (sadly, two weeks overdue) that's all folks!

2011-09-06T12:59:00.005-05:00

Mulan sings along with "Oklahoma!" in the basement home theater.

It was a hot, happy, and somewhat harried August.

Here are the movies I watched in August 2011:

1. Pitfall, Andre DeToth
2. To Kill A Mockingbird (twice), Robert Mulligan
3. They Won't Forget, Mervyn LeRoy
4. Young Mr. Lincoln, John Ford
5. It's Always Fair Weather, Gene Kelly & Stanley Donan
6. The Edge of the World, Michael Powell
7. Vera Drake, Mike Leigh
8. Gun Crazy (twice), Joseph H. Lewis
9. Sweet Land, Ali Selim
10. A Canterbury Tale, Michael Powell & Emeric Pressberger
11. Contraband, AKA Blackout, Michael Powell
12. Ballerina, Bertrand Normand
13. Oklahoma!, Fred Zinnermann
14. Bleak Moments, Mike Leigh
15. A Passage to India, David Lean

It was a very enjoyable film-watching month. I actually happily appreciated every single movie, well - perhaps with the exception of "Sweet Land." That film was just glaringly underdeveloped, in my humble opinion. Oh, and also - surprisingly, "A Passage to India." I'm sure the book was better, but jeez. Yeash. I wanted to yell at the screen: When characters behave in unbelievable ways, it does not make them complicated! It just makes them unbelievable!!!!!! How could Mrs. Moore have left India? Maybe the book makes it clear, I dunno...

The highlights, if I had to parse them out, would be seeing "Gun Crazy" for the first time ever - and then, after almost losing my mind over how great this film is, I forced Michael to watch it with me. In a period of six hours I'd seen it twice. The long tracking shot in the car while they start their bank robbing spree - the parking lot, the feeling of claustrophobia and fear and titilation are incomparable. I liked it better than Bonnie and Clyde (heresy!) The scene where they meet each other - at the carnival, c'mon. Very hot. Funny, and actually steamy too. Fantastic. God, you just have to see it! I was laughing out loud from sheer delight and excitement!

I got "Gun Crazy" from Netflix, but I didn't listen to the commentary, so I think I might send for it again.

We watched "To Kill a Mockingbird." Mulan promptly announced that was the best movie she'd ever seen. I was surprised, since I hadn't seen the film since I was a kid - at not only how great it was - but how iconic its been for me my whole life, and without me being completely aware of this. Boo Radley is such a potent character, one I've been inspired by in my own screenwriting. Of course Atticus and Scout and Jem and Dill - the whole world of it. It was so good, we (Michael, me and Mulan) were all three crying by the end. The image that arrested me most surprisingly was the scene when Atticus sits on the top of the jail house steps (with the standing, crook-necked lamp next to his wooden lawyer's chair) and quietly reads, attempting to protect Tom Robinson who's inside. Just the sight of Atticus sitting there - before the crowd of angry men arrive, and then the children - just that single image of Atticus so alone, so calm, and so clearly doing the right thing, made me get a lump in my throat. I didn't realize that this image has always been with me, I see it when I read certain stories in the paper, when I see decency and courage and quiet all wrapped up in some person. That lamp and that chair have unknowingly become for me a symbolic screen-shot of justice and protection.

I didn't realize that when I first came to know about Obama, I had that image in my mind too. I think I must have thought he was a kind of modern Atticus Finch - his careful speech and deliberate manners. I guess we are all hoodwinked by our fantasies. I used to think that conservative Republicans who didn't care for Obama must have thought he was conjured up magically, the perfect Democrat in every way. I've tried hard to look the other way in poor choice, and sad unnecessary compromise again and again, thinking there was some master plan that I just didn't know about. I thought I really knew and trusted Obama, especially after reading "Dreams from My Father."

But now, after so many disappointments - the capitulation on the debt ceiling and the latest scrapping of the proposed EPA regulations on smog and oil drilling - those two things being just a couple in a long list of bad moves. I know he's being strangled by an inept and clearly stupid Congress, but I think he can do a lot more. I don't think he has to give in constantly even before the fighting starts. I just don't get it. Seriously I'm baffled. I have lost the sense that Obama personally cares about doing the right thing, even if it's impossible to accomplish.

I'm really finding it hard to see the difference in Obama's policies and Bush's, and now I'm wondering if Obama isn't just a magical conjured person dreamed up by Republicans! Okay, I'll say it: I think I'm ready to jump ship. I don't feel I'm capable of supporting him. It would require blind faith and I have run the gas out on blind faith in Obama. No, I don't want Rick Perry (or Mitt?) to scare me into voting for Obama. But I have to admit that I'm completely depressed and disillusioned by this current administration. I could go on - I won't for now, but it's very very sad to me and causes me a lot of distress. (I'm beginning to not-secretly wish that Bernie Sanders would run for president.)

Frankly, I'm still livid over the fact that Bin Laden was not captured and tried in a court of law. And I guess I bring this up here because seeing "To Kill a Mockingbird" again, after so many years... well, I see how far we've come when even our Democratic president abandons the process of law. I remember when I was a kid and saying to my Dad something about some hateful dictator - I said, "Why don't we just go and kill him?" And my dad said, "That's against the law. Because that is wrong. There are international laws in place, and even the most heinous person must be allowed to defend himself in a court of law." I really felt that the world - the United States - had made that leap into civilization.

God, what a joke that is now. Jeez. The truth is we did just what Bin Laden was wishing we would do, (which he blatantly said, in recorded audio release again and again and again) and draw the U.S. Military into countless Middle East wars and bring our nation to bankruptcy.

Enough. Breathe. Slowly now...

I need to take a walk around the block.

I'm back.

Okay. So...

At the end of August, my mother and my two aunts (my mother's two sisters) came for a long weekend visit. There was really only time for one movie. Mulan insisted we watch "To Kill a Mockingbird" again. The extras on the DVD are excellent - very good interviews with all the main players and a making-of doc that's well done. When I read later that when Gregory Peck died, Brock Peters (who played Tom Robinson) gave the eulogy at the funeral - well, that gave me tingles.

What other film highlights? "Pitfall" is a long-neglected film noir that is very well done and hard to see now. "Young Mr. Lincoln - of course I had seen that before but a long time ago. I remembered liking it a lot. But this time, I realized it was even better than I recalled. Henry Fonda is soooo good. This movie shows that in the hands of a master like John Ford, even a straight flattering bio-pic can have style and punch and substance, even leave you with a sense of having watched something profound.

"Oklahoma!" was fun, and Mulan is now constantly singing all it's songs. In the last two weeks, I often hear her singing "Oh What a Beautiful Morning" in the kitchen while she's making her breakfast. God, that is so funny to me.

After watching "Vera Drake" I was up all night, going over this scene and that one. I'm on a Mike Leigh jag and want to see everything he's ever directed. Leigh's good. There is just nothing like his films. Long improvisation and character development with actors pays off.

"It's Always Fair Weather" is my favorite musical. It has a real adult, complex story and fantastic singing and dancing. Should we just say, categorically, that Cyd Charisse has the best body ever on film? Maybe ever in the history of women? I think so. I think she's the best dancer too.

I'm also trying to catch up on all the Powell-Pressberger movies. "The Edge of the World" was made before their partnership was cemented - by Powell, but it really haunted me. It takes place on some Scottish Islands - or are they Irish? I don't remember, but it feels like a book I read - it has that kind of feeling that gets under your skin. You feel you've lived it. Oh! And "A Canterbury Tale" - the Archers collaboration - so good. Incredibly odd plot and yet uncanny in it's deceptively meaningful story. I read that there's a yearly hike along the route of the film in England. I want to make that some year.

Books read in August, 2011:

1.) Anthill, by E.O. Wilson. Jeeezhus. Is there nothing this man can do? I guess I had low literary expectations, but he's not only a great scientist, he's a good writer too. It's a compelling and well-written story. And I learned a lot about ants. The Ant Chronicles are the main characters master's thesis and they comprise about a third of the middle part of the book. Really funny and scary and good. I agree - we have no free will.

2.) The Devil in the White City, by Erik Larsen. I still have about a quarter of the book left. Larsen is a terrific writer. I know that the Architecture Foundation here in Chicago has a tour of the sites from the book. I think I'll go this weekend. The book's about the 1893 Columbian Exhibition and a serial killer named H. H. Holmes. It's so sad, bone-chillingly creepy, shocking, and then - with Burnham, the architect and leader of the exposition - he is really human and deeply inspiring. And Olmstead! God what a great character come to life. I've surrendered my mind to this book.

Two Architecture Tours Twice in August: Went on the Chicago River Architecture tour twice with two sets of guests, then did it all again as we did a Sunday bus tour of Highlights of Chicago. I could go on both of those tours a few more times before I'd be tired of it. Great tour guides. I'm going to start trying to go on two architecture tours a month now. This month my goal is: Calvary Cemetery Tour (where my great grandmother and grandfather are buried along with several other relatives) and the Devil in the White City tour. I am feeling so lucky to be living here right now.

I went to New York City for four days in August, and I took Mulan with me. We went to two Broadway shows together: War Horse, which was very schmaltzy but very enjoyable. Mulan loved, loved, LOVED it. I guess Spielberg is making the film. The stage craft is very good. We also saw the Book of Mormon. I think it's genius. I bought the soundtrack. I love the songs, they're still in my head all the time. I could tell that "The Invention of Lying" and Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life" were big influences. But it was great. Funny and it got better as I thought about it. Really top-notch. Mulan didn't like it! But she knows nothing about religion. She kept tugging my sleeve and asking things like, "What is a baptism?" Lots of explaining. Wow, my kid has no religious knowledge whatsoever.

2011-08-15T21:17:00.007-05:00

Monarch Caterpillars Pupating

We planted two different kinds of milkweed in our backyard to attempt to attract Monarch butterflies. It worked. Now Michael has transformed the dining room into a Monarch nursery and has begun taking lots of pictures and making little films. The video is of two Monarch caterpillars becoming pupae. The pupae are so beautiful, a light green with a golden rim and highlights in a deeper gold. They would make fabulous earrings.

On to the movies watched in July 2011:

1. Cimarron, Anthony Mann
2. You and Me and Everyone We Know, Miranda July
3. White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Steven Okazaki
4. Helvetica, Gary Hustwit
5. 2 O'Clock Courage, Anthony Mann
6. Pick Up on South Street, Sam Fuller
7. Burden of Dreams, Les Blank
8. Topsy Turvy, Mike Leigh
9. Another Year, Mike Leigh
10. The Searchers, John Ford
11. Whip It, Drew Barrymore
12. E.T., Steven Speilberg
13. Spartacus, Stanley Kubrick, Anthony Mann (uncredited)
14. Laurence of Arabia, David Lean
15. The Lincoln Lawyer, Brad Furman

This was quite a delightful movie-watching month.

The clear highlight was three days watching two epics, absolutely stoned.

Well, on Benadryl.

Mulan came back from camp and told us how everyone had gotten sick, just before the end. She proudly announced that she did not feel sick. I immediately did feel sick. I don't know if that's how I got it, but that's the story that makes sense. In any case, I got a terrible cold in the middle of a horrid heat wave. I was delirious and had trouble sleeping and had trouble not sleeping. I was in a daze. I took a lot of Benadryl and drank a lot of tea. Somehow it seemed right the right moment to watch "Spartacus," which I had never seen, and "Lawrence of Arabia,"which I had seen so long ago that I only had a dim memory of it.

I loved "Spartacus" so much, it moved right to the top of my list of epics made about Rome. Kirk Douglas was so good, I forgave him for his shameless appearance on the most recent Academy Awards. (Actually I blame others, it felt like a creepy form of elder-abuse.) In any case, here Douglas was, in his glory, at his height of physical beauty and a damn good actor in a movie he really made happen from the start to finish.

Then, on to "Lawrence of Arabia," which I watched over two days, and then on the third day watched all the making-of extras on the DVD. I also spent my time, while not watching the actual movie, googling the history of this time, and the man on which the story is based, and reading all about the production. I loved this movie too - so hypnotic. I appreciated that we have a home theater in the basement like never before. I don't know how you'd watch "Lawrence of Arabia" on a television set and get any sense of it's grandeur. It was so dark in the basement, and the desert was so big and all- encompassing. I felt like I had been on another planet afterwards.

I think - seriously - that watching those two movies in that state of mind and body were one of my life's greatest movie watching extravaganzas and experiences. See, getting sick can pay off.

Another great epic I watched during July was "The Searchers." I have probably seen this movie five to eight times before, but as I get older, I just appreciate it even more. Also, just having read, in June, the book about Cynthia Parker's abduction, (Empire of the Summer Moon) on which the story for the film is based, my appreciation for "The Searchers" was enhanced. Even though it doesn't matter if the story is true or not - it just works. I wonder if there is a more perfect film. Seriously, I do.

Other wonderful film experiences included "Pick Up on South Street" - another movie I've seen a few times, but probably over twenty years ago. My god, it is terrific. Better than I remembered. Richard Widmark and Jean Peters are so good. There are extras on the DVD which are fabulous, including an interview with Richard Widmark about doing the film.

On the documentary side of things, Okazaki's "Bright Light, Black Rain" stays with me still, the images of people who survived the atomic bombs. Let me just say, you think you know what happened, but really you probably don't. This film takes you a long way towards understanding the real effect those bombs had on people who survived. Chilling. And really well made.

I loved both Mike Leigh films, especially "Topsy Turvy."

On the sad side of things, I felt "Cimarron" was nearly unwatchable. It was so terrible. I felt for Anthony Mann. I read he walked off the film when it was nearly over because of disputes with the studio. It's so awful. I was embarrassed for him to have his name on that movie.

Now, books read during July 2011:

1.) The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris by David McCullough. I read this book slowly. Savoring each chapter. Allowing myself the time to look up this painter and that, this doctor and that, this politician and that. There are pictures in this book, but they are limited. I was enthralled with the story of Samuel Morse, inventor of the telegraph and the Morse Code. My imagination was ignited by John Singer Sargent, and I had to look up this portrait and that online, over and over again. In fact, I was into Sargent, that the next book I read was an art book, but with very good text.

2.) John Singer Sargent, by Carter Ratcliff. I read every word, like it was a novel. Sargent's life is a feast of the imagination. He was the child of middle income, American, but European smitten parents who never lived in one place too long. He had the kind of childhood I think most of us wish we'd had - no formal schooling, tutors in Italy, England, Spain, etc. A mother taking him to museums and hiring art teachers. Friends who were equally loose-footed. He lived the best life, although he was never concerned with the poverty on the edges of his life. Never stirred by the politics which raged with extremity during his time in Europe. Great book with a great overview.

3.) The Stein's Collect: Matisse, Picasso, and the French Avant-Garde by Janet Bishop, Cecile Debray, Rebecca A. Rabinow, Emily Braun, Gary Tinterow, Martha Lucy, Claudine Grammont, Carrie Pilto, Helene Klein, Isabel Alfandary, Edward M. Burns, and McD Robert Parker. Whilst in San Francisco... (I've just read Russell Brand's fabulous commentary on the London riots in The Guardian and can't get "whilst" out of my vocabulary, read it for yourself at: UK riots: Big Brother isn't watching you | UK news | The Guardian)

Anyhoo - whilst in San Francisco, I went to a really wonderful exhibit on the Stein family, including Gertrude - and their art collections. The exhibit was at the SFMOMA. I was so overwhelmed by the delightful nature of this exhibit that I couldn't take it all in in one visit. Even though I was only in San Francisco for four days, I had to go again. It was even better the second time. The exhibit moves from San Francisco to New York, (to the MET,) and then to Paris. If you have a chance to go, I recommend it. I fell into the Stein world and couldn't get myself out. The book that goes along with the exhibition is very good. I got it at SFMOMA, but I see it is on Amazon for half the price I paid. No matter, it is a great book that I'm already very happy to own. Included in the exhibition are not only the story of this remarkable family and their collections, but pieces of furniture that were in their homes. I wouldn't have guessed that this would make me so happy - to see old desks and dressers, but it did. It felt like you could touch history. My biggest surprise: realizing that I probably would have preferred the company of Michael and Sarah Stein to Gertrude and Alice. And realizing that I preferred the Matisses to the Picassos. Great art book, in my humble opinion.

4.) A Planet of Viruses, by Carl Zimmer. I love Carl Zimmer so much. I devoured Parasite Rex, and Evolution: the Triumph of an Idea. I hope Carl Zimmer lives a long, long time so we can get more and more books from him. Viruses; they are scary, it's debatable whether they are truly alive or if they could be defined as an animal, they are terrifying and will take over the planet in bad ways - surely they will - even while we are just acknowledging how they participated mightily in the instigation of life itself and that viruses, partly, made human beings human beings. It's a short read - under 100 pages, but intense and well explained.

Now I have started E.O. Wilson's "Anthill." his only book of fiction. It's good. But I'm not done yet. More on it next month.

This last month I really got derailed, the trip to San Francisco, then got sick, then we went camping in Door County, Wisconsin (want to go again, it was so beautiful - Cape Cod right in the mid-west!) and then house guests and then a short trip to New York - but now I'm getting into August. So, I will wait and post again at the end of the month, properly - and not two weeks late. Thanks of the comments on last month's post. I really appreciated them.

As for Arden, thanks for those who expressed concern over him (my dog, who has a tumor, who has an unspecified amount of time to live.) He seems pretty much okay! He still goes on his long 3 mile walk, he still chases rabbits and squirrels. The truth is, that tumor (which is between his lungs and heart) could have been there, growing very slowly, for a long time. On the other hand, he has a weird and getting-weirder cough. It's odd to spend so much time around a being who is terminally ill and has no idea. For now, his morning walks are moving to a first place on my daily to-do list. And I'm letting him stop on our walks, and smell the pee for a longer amount of time. Also, where we walk: down this block or that, crossing this way and that - well, I give him more say, it's more serendipitous all around.

I shoulda been that way a lot earlier with him.

2011-07-05T17:22:00.014-05:00

It's July 2011

I will never run for political office. Okay, I guess never say never. But I seriously doubt I would ever run, for many reasons, mostly because (aside from my inelectibility and my inability to do a good job) I am not temperamentally suited to such a task.

But I will admit, I occasionally think about my platform. Yes! How I would do things if it were Sweeneyland. It's a fun game, figuring out what I would do if I were suddenly in power. Therefore, it being July, and the day after the 4th, I thought I would begin to reveal my opinions. No, many aren't novel. Many are ridiculous. None will ever happen. But still, it's something to think about and to wish for.

One reason I like to admit to a specific point of view is because then that view can be tipped up and back, defended and reignited and maybe changed. The whole balm I get from settling on a point of view helps me veer away from the constant feeling of being a curmudgeonly skeptic, and sadly a helpless observer.

If I were Queen, I would institute these changes:

1.) Flat income tax with no deductions. I'm guessing between 15 to 25%. No nifty accountants, no discount for being poor, no deductions for children, or interest on house loans, or even medical expenses, and no increased tax for the rich. I know it seems like the rich should pay more, but I think they pay so much less now -- than even poor people do -- because of all the deductions they take. I think this is a fair start. Maybe increase the tax rate on the rich as we see how things go.

2.) Mandatory conscription. Everyone has to serve two years. It can be in the military but could also be building infrastructure in the U.S. or aid, Peace Corps like, outside the U.S. This would also help create a more cohesive American culture. To me this is important because I think the need for culture is great and religion swoops into the vacuum. Additionally, if people from the wealthier classes had to send their children off to war, there would be fewer wars. Duh. Also, people from different classes would mix together.

3.) Universal health care. Medicare for all. Untether health care from jobs.

4.) Universal and equal education. Remove the correlation between property taxes and school budgets. Children of people who are not high-income expensive-home-owners should not have to go to schools of any less quality because of their parents situation. Parents in rich areas have a greater resource of available at-home parents who can volunteer and this is allowed. This will inevitably cause a discrepancy in the schools, but this I will allow. (Yes! I am QUEEN! This is fun!) Religious private schools are outlawed. Private alternative learning schools are allowed, as long as the basics are taught. This subject is added to the curriculum: Religion. Not teaching religion, teaching children about religion. The Bible is mandatory reading in school. Are you shocked? I do believe we would have much less fanaticism, fundamentalism, and influence by the religious right if everyone were forced to just simply read the Bible as literature, as a historical document, as a window into religion itself and not the word of god. I would still allow religions to exist (aren't I tolerant?) and kids could get religious schooling after their regular school if their parent chooses this.

5.) Charity Schmarity. No tax deductions for churches or any non-profit organizations. None. People will still give money to charities even if it's there is no tax benefit, this has been proven time and again. Churches rake it in and have little to report about it. Other charities do too, it drives me nuts.

6.) No inheritance. You can't transfer wealth to those who are over age 21. (Okay, this idea is impossible, hell, they're all probably impossible - but this one really REALLY is. Still, I like the idea that wealth cannot be transferred to those who did not earn it unless they're children.)

7.) Eliminate special states rights. State lines should evolve over time to simple cultural and geographical delineation's. No special business tax havens in Wyoming, for example. State taxes would also be set at a flat rate and every state would have the same rate.

8.) Lobbying is made illegal. Sure there will still be lobbyists, but it will be clandestine and when rooted out, prosecutable.

9.) Electoral college abolished. One person, one vote. I would go with the necessity of picture identification cards at the polling places.

10.) Eliminate tax subsidies to any business that is profitable or even possibly profitable. Eliminate tax subsidies to any business that creates pollution. (I'm thinking how angry I get over oil subsidies. OIL, we give money to OIL COMPANIES!)

11.) Marijuana decriminalized.

12.) Other drugs also should be decriminalized, but they can only be done if you're not a parent and in a safe environment and not driving. If you're out of your home (which cannot have children in it) you have to be with others doing the same drug. Basically I would set up drug houses where, if you want to do drugs, that's fine, you can go there and do it. But you have to stay there until you're off of the drug or dead. I guess that means we will also provide the drugs. All right, fine. But no leaving until you are dead or not high anymore. (HA! This is really fun!)

13.) End-of-life rights, or assisted suicide rights guaranteed, equal marriage rights for gays, prostitution decriminalized, and regulated.

14.) "Under God" taken out of the pledge. In fact, let's toss the pledge. Why do we have to pledge? "In God We Trust" replaced with the historical, original "E Pluribus Unum" on money. Let's not toss the money.

15.) Our influence in the world limited to defending a Universal Bill of Rights. Forget about bringing democracy everywhere. A solid Bill of Rights is more important than democracy.

16.) Online poker is legalized.

17.) Palestine has a right to exist, Israel and settlements out of the Gaza Strip. Jeez! Let the boats in, for crying out loud.

18.) State Fair's are mandatory. State's cannot vote to de-fund them. (Michigan?! are you listening?) They are too much fun and add to state pride and understanding.

19.) Abortions are free. Anyone who wants one can have one. No questions asked, no waiting period. Also, babies born with really severe disabilities can be euthanized in the first three months, of course only if the parents want it. Yes, I said it. I'm with Peter Singer on this one. I know it's a tragedy. These things happen. While I'm on the subject, birth control is also free.

20.) Cash payments for going to the gym. I'm not sure how this will actually work but somehow you get $20 in cash for every time you go work out at the gym or go to yoga. Only one event per day.

21.) High school students must graduate with a certified skill. It could be hair cutting, electrical apprenticeships, copy editor apprentices, marble cutters, sous chefs - something - a skill that can be learned in a year, which has enough basics for a job, and is certifiable.

22.) (added 7-6) YES! Corporations are not persons! They are corporations! You can say whatever you want about them. How could I forget that one?

All right. That's my platform so far. Wow, that was fun. I feel a little giddy. I may have indefensible ideas, yes - I like to read and mull. I change and morph. But right now, this is my dream. I don't want to turn this blog into a big debate about them (not that it would, I'm just sayin') but I am interested in other's platforms. Or comments. Let's all create our own platforms!

Oh dear, and now I'm thinking about shoes. Well, I guess that is as good a transition as any.

Now I will list the movies I watched this month, followed by books read.

Movies watched in June, 2011

1.) "Becoming Jane" Julian Jarrold

2.) "Even The Rain" Iciar Bollain

3.) "Back Beat" Ian Softley

4.) "American Quilts" Laurie Gorman

5.) "Sullivan's Travels" Preston Sturges

6.) "The Baron of Arizona" Sam Fuller

7.) "Objectified" Gary Hustwit

8.) "Salesman" Albert & David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin

9.) "The Talent Given Us" Andrew Wagner

10.) "Beginners" Mike Mills

11.) "The Beatles, The First U.S. Visit" Albert & David Maysles, Kathy Dougherty and Susan Fromke

12.) "A Dandy In Aspic" Anthony Mann

13.) "The Virgin Suicides" Sofia Coppola

14.) "Bamboo Blonde" Anthony Mann

As I look over this varied list of movies, it's interesting what stands out now. The biggest one-two punch was watching "Salesman" one day and "The Talent Given Us" the next day. I really loved "Even the Rain" right after I saw it, but then I haven't thought of it since. Funny how that goes.

I was deeply affected by "Salesman" - a documentary about Bible salesmen from Boston, working in Florida. The footage was shot in 1966-67. It was so raw and realistic - I mean, hell - it was real. But I couldn't get over how natural everyone was - like they didn't realize a camera was there. The main guy - (or, the person who turns into the main guy, I should say) is a Willie Loman-like, sweet and manipulative person who's hitting the ceiling on his abilities to sell and keep himself together. The salesmen are mostly Irish Catholic and I think that may have influenced my attachment to this film. This movie is deeply haunting. I found it very sad and poignant and surprisingly funny. It's a view of the world in 1967 that is discombobulatingly authentic and visceral. I was practically unable to walk for a day or so, after seeing Salesman. I'm still thinking about it day to day to day.

But then, unwittingly kicking it up a notch, I viewed, "The Talent Given Us." I'd put this film in my Netflix queue because I'd enjoyed "Starting Out In The Evening" and I wanted to see Andrew Wagner's first directorial effort. He had his family act in this first feature film of his. He wrote the screenplay too, but it appears to be suspiciously close to his own families true issues and experiences. It blew me away. The shocking thing is that in the first third to first half of the film, I was thinking of bailing and turning it off. It's very uneven and the performances are sometimes painful.

It's a story about his parents (excuse me, characters much like his parents) driving across country - from New York City to L.A. to visit him (I mean, a character who is a screenwriter who is played by him.)

The scenes he has with his parents, well, some are really sexual scenes. It was so shocking he would film his parents this way. I don't consider myself a prude, but knowing that it was his real mom and dad, watching his real mother (playing a character - okay, okay) saying, "I want to fuck" to his dad and being openly sexual with him, as well as pretty raunchy... Well, for this viewer, it was a bit dizzying. Yes, the movie was really sweet and believable, but also infuriating and I will admit it made me squeamish and uncomfortable, but then, I really appreciated that Wagner was manipulating his audience (and clearly me, too) that way.

This film led me to wonder about so much - how his family felt playing these "characters" and how it is now, having made this film a few years ago. My jaw was literally falling open for minutes at a time as I watched this movie. I told several people they had to see it. I'm eagerly awaiting another Andrew Wagner movie. IMDB does not have any new project for him, but he really, really has been given a lot of talent. Not that I believe in talent (see last month's book postings.)

I don't have any big insights into any of the other movies, except I do want to say that I enjoyed "Becoming Jane" a lot more than I thought I would, and probably a lot more than I had a right to. I found myself unexpectedly crying at the end. I thought Anne Hathaway was really good in it.

Books read in June, 2011

I only read two this month, and am in the middle of the third.

1.) Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, The Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History, written by S.C. Gwynne. Oh! Oh! Oh! You have to read this book. It's so compelling, heartbreaking and breathtaking. Beautifully written. I didn't know about the Comanches being special - everything I knew about the Comanches I learned from John Wayne, watching "The Searchers." Which reminds me that it's time to rewatch that movie. Their territory was mostly in Texas - parts of Oklahoma and Northern Mexico too. The Comanches were real hunter gatherers. I didn't realize that what truly did them in was the systematic and deliberate destruction of their food source, the buffalo. What I mean is, I didn't know it was so calculated. And Quanah Parker should be known by all Americans as an amazing person with a completely unique life in all of history. This book is so good!

2.) Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See Smell and Know, written by Alexandra Horowitz. This book was really good, too. I like reading about dogs. It was particularly poignant to read this book right now because I have just learned that my dog, Arden, has a tumor in between his lung and heart. He has trouble breathing and it's unclear how much time he has left. It could be a terrifically slow-growing tumor. Right now he seems pretty much fine. In any case, reading this book was particularly meaningful because I'm feeling very close to Arden and enjoying every minute I have with him. Most of the things I learned from this book, I already knew, but enjoyed being reminded about. Like how much more a dog can smell and why they lick people's faces (wolf mothers regurgitate food into pups mouths, and this behavior seems to be a remnant of that) and of course I love how Horowitz teases people who treat dogs like people. For example, as I heard just this morning on my dog walk, a woman saying to her dog: "Max, get in the car, we have to go home to see Aunt Mary who's just flown back from China!" It's really astonishing how many people think explaining things helps a dog understand what's going on.

3.) The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris, written by David McCullough. I'm halfway through this book and oh, do I want to move to Paris. I'm really enjoying it greatly. He's a very good writer. It's very systematic and logical and clear writing, and yet it's lyrical and inspirational too.

Okay, that's it for this month. Until August ---

2011-06-06T14:00:00.006-05:00

Spent two days going through old pictures. I'm not a good scrapbooker. In general, I have a love-hate relationship with photographs. A lot of time with friends and family has been momentarily ruined, in my opinion, by someone insisting on taking a picture as it tears people out of the moment. I think the photographer has a two-pronged and equally shitty effect - to make everyone look at him or her, while simultaneously making them self-concious about how they look, how their expression will be viewed again and again.

Generally, I don't like pictures of people looking into a camera. On the other hand it's awkward to begin taking candid pictures of people while they are unaware. I have a few friends who take many pictures, and none of them posed. I've just gotten used to it. I like their pictures more than staged ones.

I have gone up and back on this. When I became sorta, a little bit famous, people wanted pictures taken with me and I obliged. I sometimes asked other people I admired for pictures with them. But always with a note of embarrassment, regret, self-hate, aware of how the moment with that person was disrupted. And I mean a "note" in that last sentence. Not completely, not enough to stop myself or anyone else.

I also have a somewhat extreme relationship with how I look in pictures. I care a lot, and I don't care at all. If I cared more, I would care more to look better. I don't care but I have bad feelings about myself if I don't look good. Good mostly means thin. I try to relax and broaden my outlook and sometimes I succeed, but mostly I don't. I exasperate my mother when she wants a picture. She has many pictures of me looking into the lens with resigned compliance and a dash of resentment.

I have not put together books of memories. I thought I would start when I became a mother. But apparently, I didn't. Well... I did a small album here and there. Weirdly, the more easily pictures were able to be taken and stored -- meaning when it all became digital -- I took even less pictures. Mulan's childhood pictures are bursts of ten pictures of one situation, and then nothing for a long time.

Back when I got pictures developed, I threw them into one of three large plastic boxes, and this is what I'm going through.

My friend Gino takes a picture every day. He's done this for over ten years, wait -- maybe fifteen years. One picture a day. Just an image that reflects that day. Millions do this on facebook now, but I like the private way he does it, just for him.

I might try to do that. I don't know, half of my pictures are of scenery. Screw scenery! (Especially when you are not a good photographer!) Why do I have all these pictures of scenery? I travelled around a lot in the two years before I adopted Mulan and for the most part, I was alone. Sometimes I joined a friend, and I often took a Backroads trip. Backroads is this "active travel" company - mostly I took bike trips with them. Often I was the only single person along with eight or so other couples. I didn't mind it. In fact, I remember always feeling so happy that I got to go to my own room, alone, at the end of the day. But these couples often wanted a picture of the two of them in some spectacular place - the Galapagos, Machu Pichu, the Swiss Alps, Bhutan, Nepal - the list goes on and on. I would take their picture. And then they would say, "Uh... Thanks. Do you want us to um... take a picure of you?"

I didn't care if I had a picture of me in that far-away place. But it felt weird to say "no." Like I was judging them for wanting their own picture, or maybe they felt I was sad about being alone. So the easiest thing to do was to say "Okay." In any case, I have loads of pictures of scenery, and me by myself in exotic places, and pictures of other people on bikes. In the pictures of me, my expression is reigned compliance, but not with the resentment I add to my mother's pictures.

I began to throw away pictures. I threw away two large garbage bags full of pictures. I had to develop a criteria. It was: people who I love, keep. Mulan. Family, if they look good and would want me to have this picture of them in this way. Me, if I look good. Yes, I admit it. If I look particularly good, even if I don't know who I'm standing there with, I will keep the picture.

I began to wonder if this wasn't just ridiculously narcissistic. Why am I doing it? So I can remember I looked good in that moment? I guess. I dunno. I think I want Mulan, in the future and when I'm long dead, to look back and rewrite the images of me with sweat running down my blotchy red full face while I ask her to pick up her room and insert an image of me with some unknown person, but looking fantastic. I guess that's my strategy.

Forget it, those pictures are going in the trash too.

A scary moment was when I came upon some pictures of a wedding. I didn't know anyone at this wedding. Were they even my pictures? Were these friends of Michael's and they somehow got into my box of pictures? I didn't recognize anyone, even among his friends. Then I came upon a large picture of the whole wedding party sitting down and looking in the camera - about twenty five people. Huh. I didn't recognize anyone, anyone at all.

Then horror of horrors, I spotted myself in the picture. And I was sitting next to the bride! Who the hell were these people? Was I getting dementia? Is this how it starts? My god!

A long while passed, and I was feeling seriously discombobulated. Then, I remembered that on a bike trip in Burgundy in France - when I didn't know anyone at all in the group - one of the couples decided to spontaneously get married. And that's who it was and why I was there.

Sheesh!

The picture project is going to take me all summer working on it here and there.

Okay, here is my list of movies watched in May 2011:

1.) The Heroes of Telemark, Anthony Mann
2.) My Neighbor Totoro, Hayao Miyazaki
3.) The Great North, IMAX movie, Martin J. Dignard & William Reeve
4.) Side Street, Anthony Mann
5.) Border Incident, Anthony Mann
6.) Everlasting Moments, Jan Troell (saw it twice this month)
7.) The Tin Star, Anthony Mann
8.) Gladiator, Ridley Scott
9.) Inside Job, Charles Ferguson
10.) Raw Deal, Anthony Mann
11.) Who Is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talkin' About Him?), John Sheinfeld
12.) Spirited Away, Hayao Miyazaki
13.) Harvey, Henry Koster
14.) High School Musical 2, Kenny Ortega
15.) Midnight In Paris, Woody Allen
16.) Serenade, Anthony Mann
17.) Blue Valentine, Derek Cianfrance

Once again, I spent the month - emotionally - with Anthony Mann. So many great movies. And some of his mediocre efforts were moved to Great Efforts simply by watching other people's movies. A case in point: Gladiator. I enjoyed Fall of the Roman Empire - but wow, did it get a whole lot better after I watched Gladiator, which I thought was a horrible mess. I cannot believe Gladiator won best picture. What a boring, yet splashy bowl-of-porridge that movie is.

I have a deep and great affection for My Neighbor Totoro - it's the third time I've watched it. I want to go to Tokyo and visit Studio Ghibli. I truly adore Hayao Miyazaki - he is the animator reincarnation of Yasojiro Ozu, but with a lot more action. Later in the month Mulan and I watched Spirited Away again as well. The first time Mulan watched this film she was too little and it scared her deeply. Now she is exactly the right age. She enjoyed it, mentioned it again and again for days. And I appreciated this movie even more than I did before.

Of all the Anthony Mann movies I watched this month, I think I give top marks to The Tin Star. No, Side Street (with Farley Granger! So good.) Wait, no.... The Tin Star - yeah, I like it better. Anthony Perkins in the perfect role - in his early twenties: nervous, unschooled, ambitious, frightened, all those emotions that only Anthony Perkins can mix up just perfectly. Henry Fonda was a delight - I might even prefer him to Jimmy Stewart in Mann's westerns. I know! Heretical statement. One of the big moral dilemmas of the movie was whether to allow the bad guys to get killed when they're captured, or to make sure they get a proper trial. I wish the Obama administration, as well as Obama (!) had watched this film at the White House before deciding to just shoot Osama Bin Ladena without a trial.

I watched Border Incident again with my friend Cindy who was in town and had a flight delayed. We had just enough time for a 90 minute movie and we chose this one. It was better the second time, and that's saying something.

Two disappointments: Blue Valentine and Inside Job. I guess I had a lot of expectations for both of those movies. I did not think Inside Job did a very good "job" explaining the financial melt-down. I hated the music which vascillated wildly between nice and evil depending on who was being interviewed. Very slick movie - too slick. I think Planet Money on Public Radio did (and does) a much better job explaining how things went down. Blue Valentine - gosh I really thought I would like this movie. I lerve (see - Woody Allen reference!) Michelle Williams. But I felt the movie had that indie-condescension of working class people. Look at them - they buy alcohol in gallon jugs at the liquor mart and go to cheesy theme hotels! I didn't buy them as characters and I wondered if the writer or director had any real understanding of these people But this movie got rave reviews. I just don't get it. The only director I've recently watched who really does her homework is Debra Granik. The Blue Valentine movie team should have watched Down to the Bone by Granik first.

O how I love Harry Nilsson. I listen to him constantly. I love his song, "Good Old Desk," which I often play just before starting to write in the morning. I enjoyed this documentary and I learned a few things. I wish they'd had a more in depth interview with his last wife. She married him when she was 20 and he was much older. They describe the wedding - Ringo Starr had to hold Nilsson's arm up to help him put on his bride's ring because he was so high and drunk. There was story after story about Harry carousing, and showing up at friend's houses and then going off with them for three days on a big debauchery-ridden drunk. What did she think about that? They had five or six children together... What was she thinking? The film does not go there. I wish it did. Still, Harry Nilsson is a compelling and complicated character. Friends describe the time when John Lennon and Harry Nilsson decided to basically wreck their voices together. They began screaming and screaming until their vocal chords were bloody, which is so heartbreaking. Two of our greatest singer song writers destroying their instruments. Harry's voice was never quite the same after that, he had a lot of trouble. It made me think of that concept from evolutionary psychology - where there is "intra-sex competition" (?) and individuals show their fitness by being or doing dangerous things, flirting with death to show superiority and excessive sexual fitness. So, we have two peacocks: Lennon and Nilsson, pulling their feathers out of their backsides - one-upping each other. Risking it all. Very disturbing and poignant. (Anthony Weiner, is that what it's about?)

Harvey. I'd never seent his movie but had heard so much. It was excrutiating to watch. One joke. Barely one joke. He has an invisible rabbit friend! He wants to introduce the rabbit to people! He's a nut! Harvey makes It's Pat seem like Citizen Cane in complexity. The screw-ball comedy was so forced and fake. I spent the whole time wondering if Koster had seen any Preston Sturges, a guy who knows how to do screw-ball comedy. Harvey was so much more horrible than I thought it would be. I looked it up on IMDB and found that Steven Speilberg is remaking it with Tom Hanks! HA HA HA. How perfect! Wow. I do not have high hopes for that remake, on the other hand - maybe Speilberg can reinvent it. I doubt it, however.

I watched Everlasting Moments and was just bowled over by it. It's a Swedish movie about a woman at the turn of the nineteenth century who is stuck in a fairly bad marriage and having kid after kid. She learns photography and this art elevates her life. I had such affection for this movie that I insisted a group of friends come over and watch. They liked it, but I think they thought the film was extremely sad. When I watched for the second time, I realized how incredibly depressing (and long) this movie was. I have to say, this is a common experience for me. Me loving a movie, and not realizing how dark it is because to me it's mournful and beautiful. Then I watch it again through my friend's eyes and the whole time I'm thinking.... "Oh... Yeah... I guess this is... really extremely, breathtakingly, debilitatingly and totally sad. Oh, and long."

Now, Woody Allen. Where to start? I went to college with a one-sheet poster for The Front which I put up above my bed at my sorority. At that point, and I swear that this is true - I had never met a Jewish person before. That's how white Spokane Washington is. I vividly remember seeing Annie Hall for the first time. It played at the State Theater downtown (now the Bing Crosby theater where Jill and I just performed.) I went alone to the movie, and I remember that part so well that it might have been the first time I did that. It was the summer before I started college. I think I had actually seen The Front already. But I remember sitting in Annie Hall and being so blown away by this movie. Not just the film making, but the environment. Woody Allen, Diane Keaton - New York City. I could barely stay in my seat I wanted to move to New York so badly. The whole movie I kept thinking, Okay, this is it. I want to live in this world. I want to be in Manhattan. I want to be around funny and witty and smart and quirky people. Woody Allen is some kind of comedy god.

Then of course, everything - life - happened. I did move to New York. Woody Allen became a creep. Worse than that his movies began to suck. I wondered if his movies were ever any good. I stopped going to his movies.

But Midnight in Paris promised to be different. And I have just recently fallen in love with Paris. So Mulan and I went on Memorial Day. As soon as the credits - that font -- that Woody Allen font - came up on the black screen - I felt this chemical shift in my body. I wanted it to be good. I wanted to feel the way I used to feel. And the truth is, the movie is not a masterpiece. It is not Crimes and Misdemeanors (my favorite.) But it is enjoyable. His characters are all very one dimensional and broad. His characterizations of Hemmingway and other famous writers have the depth of a bad sitcom. His characterizations of Republicans and rich people in L.A. are completely off. But y'know what? I really loved it. I enjoyed every minute of it. It's gorgeous. It's fun. It's a night with an old friend that you'd written off, but is somehow still around. That's how it felt.

And now, books read in May 2011.

1. Talent Is Overrated, by Geoffrey Colvin. Wow. This book had a big impact. Not as big as the next book I read, but still. It caused me to rethink and review certain work endeavors of mine in the past - rethink my behavior now, and influence how I advise and raise Mulan. So, that's a lot for one book. According to this book, talent is not only overrated, it may not actually exist. It may not be innate - although there is debate whether "deliberate practice" is enhanced by certain biological factors. The point is, it's all about "deliberate practice" which is defined as: Engaging in highly structured activities to improve performace and overcome weaknesses. I realized that I have not practicied much with the precision necessary to master the skills I wish I had. What I have mastered, I realize I have done so practically accidentally. I did a lot of sketch work at the Groundlings, and I've been working for years telling stories on stage. But I am not organized about it - not focusing all the time on ways to improve. I cannot stand to hear my own voice so I do not record myself. All those things I've watched other people do, many of whom have really soared professionally. I have not really applied myself. Of course now I am old. But old people can still practice deliberately! So I've started working more systematically on writing, and I've even begun to read and watch movies with more deliberate desire to learn. When it comes to music, the book shows how ability is related tightly to how much one has practiced. It takes about 1200 hours of practice to be merely proficient on an instrument. 7500 hours to be good. 10k or more hours to master it. This caused me to encourage Mulan to focus on one instrument and aim to be proficient on it. She takes violin, piano, and up till last year, guitar. But now she is focusing mostly on piano. We will see how it goes. My favorite thing about being a mother right now is that my daughter is old enough to understand when I tell her these things. I honestly don't know if I had known this - especially at her age - I would have applied the knowledge. But still, it's advice she can take or discard. As for me, I am thinking about things differently - even going to yoga. Making an effort to get better. Making comparisons to other practice sessions. It's a small psychological shift - but has had an effect.

2. Your Brain at Work, by David Rock. I am so blown away by how insightful and useful and brilliantly laid out this book is that I said to Michael, "If Scientology had all the levels they currently have, and you moved up and up through the system, and when you got to the top - instead of telling you about the god Zenu they handed you a copy of this book, I would say it was all worth it." Rock takes all the brain science we currently know, organizes it in story form - as in a play with two characters (the best way for us to understand information) and shows how understanding how your brain works can dramatically change your life - even though you are making very subtle changes - there is potential for big results. I really have used the information in this book. I understand when my neocortex is overwhelmed with emotion (often) and how I cannot think straight when that happens. I understand how I can't think of more than a couple of things at once, how the stage of the neocortex is very small. I have a lot more respect for my brain because of this book. I've been giving Mulan little bits of information from it here and there and she's hungry for more. I wish I'd read this book many years ago. I don't want to say more, I just completely and totally recommend it.

3.) Case Histories, by Kate Atkinson. This was my only fiction for the month. I adore this writer. I cannot wait to begin the sequel to this, One Good Turn, the next book in the series that features Jackson as the investigator.

4.) Sin in the Second City, by Karen Abbott. I had a very good start with this book, and then it went downhill. I was excited to read it because I (think) I am related to Hinky Dink Kenna - an alderman in Chicago for many years at the turn of the century (19th to 20th.) My grandmother suggested Kenna was a relative, but now she's not around to ask about specifics. In any case, Hinky Dink Kenna helped my grandmother's family after her father died and left her mother with seven young children to support. The book describes a very salacious period of Chicago history, and the Everleigh Club - a fancy brothel run by two sisters. But the way the book is written - very over the top, filled with scenes that Abbot cannot possibly have known about - too much intrigue and no footnotes and it made me wonder.

4.) The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry, by Jon Ronson. Well written, funny, insightful, sad. Can you see I am running out of steam here on my blog? Ha. That's too bad, because this is the one book I read this month that I insisted that Michael read. You should too.

I am too tired. I have to post this and get back to work. No - to my "deliberate practice." I'm not going to post music I use on the treamill. Next month. I got some good music suggestions from people writing here - thank you! All right, until next month....

2011-05-02T16:25:00.406-05:00

Anthony Mann and Martha Beck

Yes, an unusual pairing. But those two individuals dominated my April.

It was an explosion of man-on-Mann violence in movies, while simultaneously reading self-help books!

However, first. Before we get to the movies and books, a word about exercise music.

I haven't posted my treadmill music for a couple of months. One reason is that I had a computer back up disaster that caused me to lose two years of new music. After I cried, (and yes, I did cry) I got realistic. I had bought a fair number of CDs, and I still had those. And at least on iTunes, I was able to see what music I'd downloaded over the last two years. 50% of it - honestly, I didn't care enough to buy it again. That was a real eye-opener. I guess I can be impulsive about music. What turned into a blessing was this: I had made a folder a couple of years ago called simply: exercise music. Anytime I heard a song that I thought would make me work out harder, I added it to the list. Then I culled from it and made up an hour of music and changed it about once a month. In general I get on the treadmill in my basement three or four times a week for an hour. (Not when out of town.) I don't run. (I hate to run.) I walk fast - I set the pace at 3.8 mph. I do some arm movements in three minute intervals. I sweat. 60 minutes goes by. For me, it's a workout. But I need music to push me along. I need to be both familiar with the song and yet surprised by it.

I got a new hard drive, and happily, all the books I had downloaded from audible were in my "library" and I was able to download them again. Then I set on this fun and serendipitous task of beginning a new exercise folder, starting from scratch. After that I made another list - my current exercise list - it's one hour and fifteen minutes long. This is good because I don't get through the whole list in each workout, (I set it on shuffle) and I'm always happy to hear what's next. And yes, there are some - what you might say cringe-worthy songs - guilty pleasures, if you will. Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" for example. But you cannot beat that song for making your body move.

1. Bonneville, The DB's
2. Angels, Peter Holsapple and Chris Stamey
3. Good Old Desk, Harry Nilsson
4. Shiny Happy People, R.E.M. featuring Kate Pearson
5. Loser, Beck
6. I Will Survive, Gloria Gaynor
7. It's The End Of The World As We Know It, R.E.M.
8. Vertigo, U2
9. Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen
10. The Fall of the World's Own Optimist, Aimee Mann
11. Indoor Fireworks, Elvis Costello
12. Waiting For The End Of The World, Elvis Costello
13. Use Me, Bill Withers
14. Do I Ever Cross Your Mind, Emmylou Harris and Linda Rondstadt and Dolly Parton
15. Green Pastures, Emmylou Harris
16. Dance Me To The End Of Love, Leonard Cohen
17. Midnight Train to Georgia, Gladys Knight and the Pips
18. Survivor, Jill Sobule
19. Mayor of Simpleton, XTC
20. Pump It, Black Eyed Peas
21. Psycho Killer, Talking Heads

Okay. Now onto books for the month of April. I'm still not reading fiction and that's a shame. I have "READ FICTION" on my list again, and I cannot check this off because I have not read a single book of fiction for the entire month. As often happens, the non-fiction takes over. Another thing often happens: I read a book that causes a detour and I veer off in a whole new direction. The queue of books is toppled, and instead there are all these other books.

That's what reading, "Leaving the Saints" by Martha Beck did. I had a full-on crazy Martha Beck month. I knew about Martha Beck from occasionally reading her column in Oprah magazine. I can't remember what prompted me to buy "Leaving the Saints" although it's totally a book I would buy. It's just been sitting around.

Well, I devoured it. I couldn't turn the pages fast enough, and I often woke up in the night to read more. Yes, I had my own leaving-my-religion experience, but hers is so super-charged and over-the-top and yet true! Every experience I had was mild compared with hers. My experience was really much, MUCH more cerebral than her experience. The Mormon church has always fascinated me. It's all-encompassing. The nice, mildly intellectual Catholic community I grew up in was eons more open-minded and worldly than the Mormon community Martha came from. Her father was a well known, high status apologist in the church. And she had some recovered sexual abuse memories to deal with. I didn't have anything like that in my experience. Probably our biggest difference is that I chucked the whole magical world view, and she retained a good deal of it, mostly in the form of what I would call woo-woo, or new agey ideas that dance around scientific concepts (and seem to incorporate them to those who are not scientifically literate) but which really allow her to believe in a universe that cares about her, has a destiny waiting for her, and is a mix of predetermination with a dose of free-will driven by optimism.

Wow, just writing that last sentence, one would think I don't like Martha Beck. But no! I do like her, and very, very much, too. There's a lot left out of "Leaving the Saints." I wanted to know more, how her marriage broke up, how she met her new partner, how she feels about being gay and her husband (apparently) being out too. It's very poignant to me that they met and married and they both came out of the closet and they both left the church -- and they both left the church for reasons other than their emerging sexual desires. All that seems so potent and compelling, and none of that is in this book. I want more!

Still, it was great. I had so many experiences similar to Martha's but much subtler. My parents being fine with my lack-of-faith privately but not fine with it publicly. The constant battle - choosing between community and integrity. The astonishment that hardly anyone in my growing-up Catholic community had thought much at all about the things I was struggling mightily with. I too had many of the same types of "religious" experiences that Martha describes. Not as intense, but I recognized them and I relate. There were times when I was so distraught and so confused, and I had experiences too - where I was certain a divine presence was near me and this caused me to think everything was fine and going according to plan.

I came to understand those experiences as psychological and biological strategies that do not come from a god or any supernatural source. Martha came to redefine her relationship with God through those experiences. She also puts much more confidence in coincidence, and uses those events to point to Ultimate Meaning where I think they are simply coincidences or are connections that I make on my own.

To me, the most chilling scene in the book is when Martha's mother believes her accusations of sexual abuse, and then recants and calls Martha a liar. I'm sure that is typical of these kinds of explosive revelations in families.

Martha mentions Steve Benson in her book a few times. He happens to be a friend of mine. He also left the Mormon Church publicly. Steve's a Pulitzer Prize winning political cartoonist for a newspaper, the Arizona Republic. His stuff is here, it's really good: Steve Benson cartoons.   His grandfather was the president of the LDS church (Ezra Taft Benson) and Steve's de-conversion was also painful and public and resulted in being ostracized from his family. He accidentally called me on Easter, thinking he was calling another "Julia" and we laughed about that and I enthused, "I'm reading 'Leaving the Saints!' You're in it!" I think I scared him with my exuberance.

But - back to the book. I am typically very skeptical of sexual abuse claims, and I have to say that Martha's claims rest on pretty flimsy evidence. It must have been traumatizing, but if I were her, I think I would have dropped the issue about sexual abuse. It's her word against her father's and there is or was no winning or proving that point. On the other hand, Martha is so candid about this very aspect of it, and is such a master at dissecting Mormon culture that cause this type of secrecy and sexual repression and outburst. Martha is also very insightful about what works inside the church and in the Mormon community. And how scary it is to leave it behind.

I loved the book. I just loved it.

So, I had to go and read everything else she's ever written. These are the books I read in April:

1.) Leaving The Saints, Martha Beck
2.) The Joy Diet, 10 Daily Practices for a Happier Life, Martha Beck
3.) The Four Day Win, End Your Diet War and Achieve Thinner Peace, Martha Beck
4.) Steering By Starlight: The Science and Magic of Finding Your Destiny, Martha Beck
5.) Changes of the Heart: Martha Beck Life Coaches Share Strategies for Facing Life's Challenges, edited by Martha Beck
6.) Finding Your Own North Star: Claiming the Life You Were Meant to Live, Martha Beck

So, you see. You see how it all exploded. Martha Beck was everywhere. And you know, overall, even though many parts of several of the books literally made me cringe, even though it was kind of crazy to read so many self-help books all at once, even though I think if I were reading this blog post and I wasn't me I would be frowning and shaking my head right now - even though all that is true -- I got a lot out of each book. The "Four Day Win" diet book was hands down the best diet book I've ever read, and people: I have read A LOT of 'em. Have I followed it? No. Not specifically. But some of the concepts are really useful and have been extremely helpful. The finding your destiny books - North Star and Steering by Starlight - also very woo-woo, but if you can let that part go, if you can just say, "Hey, I'll go with it, just for now" they are insightful. The thing is, it might be adaptive and helpful to selectively believe in some kind of magical thinking. As long as you know you're doing it - like when you go to a movie.

Speaking of MOVIES. Oh! What a month, what a month, what a month!

Last summer I was visiting my dear friends Richard Jameson and Kathleen Murphy. They're both film critics. They are a couple. They were both teachers of mine in college at the University of Washington in Seattle. (I loved each separately as teachers and when I found out they were married I nearly fainted!) Richard became the editor of Film Comment (requiring him to live in New York City) the same year I got on Saturday Night Live. For two years I lived with Richard and Kathleen in Brooklyn. Now they live in Seattle again. They are still very active writers, mostly writing film criticism at MSN.com.

Anyhoo - I was at their house, and Richard had just recorded, off of TMC, "The Black Book" by Anthony Mann. It's a rare noir film, set in revolutionary France no less, and the DP was John Alton, and I had never seen it before. It was magnificent looking. I couldn't stop thinking about it. Richard sent me a copy. That's what began my Mann education. Richard keeps sending me DVDs, now I'm also getting them off Amazon and Netflix. I feel this deep love and appreciation for Anthony Mann. I am so sad that he died, suddenly, while filming "A Dandy In Aspic" at age 60, in 1968. I think I can now say that he is my favorite film director. But I could just be in the first bloom of love. I may have lost my head. But I don't care! I love Anthony Mann! I just love him!

Richard and Kathleen sent me a book about Anthony Mann, by Jeanine Basinger. It's by my bed, and I read chapters about the movie's I've seen just after I've seen them. It's a continuing compulsion. I think when I have seen everything I can see, I may start again - or at least watch the ten or so movies that I like most. Anyway, that's why Anthony Mann is so heavily represented in my movie watching this month.

These are the movies I watched in April, 2011.

1. The Kings Speech, Tom Hooper for the second time
2. Dinner for Schmucks, Jay Roach
3. The Tillman Story, Amir Bar-Lev
4. Easy Rider, Dennis Hopper
5. Fantastic Mr. Fox, Wes Anderson
6. Gasland, Josh Fox
7. Still Bill, Damani Baker and Alex Vlack
8. Castle in the Sky, Hayao Miyazaki
9. Amelie, Jean-Pierre Jeunet
10. Nowhere Boy, Sam Taylor-Wood
11. The Furies, Anthony Mann
12. Railroaded!, Anthony Mann
13. Man of the West, Anthony Mann
14. Reservoir Dogs, Quentin Tarantino
15. T-Men, Anthony Mann
16. The Last Frontier, Anthony Mann
17. The Far Country, Anthony Mann
18. The Fall of the Roman Empire, Anthony Mann
19. Young Victoria, Jean-Marc Vallee
20. Nanook of the North, Robert J. Flaherty

Notes on the films: "The Tillman Story" had me up for several nights. Pat Tillman's story is so haunting and upsetting and mythic and yet real and mundane (sadly) that I cannot get him out of my head and I'd love to meet his mother. I'm not generally a conspiracy-theorist-leaning-person, but I am skeptical about the Tillman's death - not just the cover up, but the whole thing. I want to go on the walk (there's a "Pat's Walk" held every year which raises money for military scholarships) and I actually wondered for a split-second if they wanted "Pat" to go on "Pat's walk" (although the whole Pat thing is probably too much in the past and simultaneously too weird to even bring up.) Anyway, as a supporter of his legacy, I'd like to go on that walk. I wish I could have known Pat Tillman.

It was fun to watch "Reservoir Dogs" again, after almost twenty years!!!! Michael had never seen it, so we watched. It was as good as ever. As creepy as ever. And everyone looks so young. Long ago, Quentin once arranged a night where everyone who was in the movie, and available, went to the Beverly Cinema in L.A. (I happened to be hanging out with Quentin a lot then and was there too) and watch "Reservoir Dogs" at midnight. I ended up watching the movie (which I'd seen several times before) SITTING RIGHT NEXT TO MICHAEL MADSEN. It was one of the most surreal life-experiences ever. A few years ago, I was a co-host at the Academy Editing Awards in L.A. and Michael Madsen was at my table. He didn't remember me, but I cannot be around that guy without thinking that my ear is going to be cut off and I'm going to be doused in gasoline.

I watched "Still Bill" twice. It's a documentary about Bill Withers and I found it very uplifting. So inspiring, I insisted that Michael and Mulan watch it and that's how I came to watch it twice. Surprisingly, Michael found it depressing. I didn't. I think this movie is a Rorschach test about how you feel about people "retiring" maybe. I dunno, I loved it.

I'm not sure how we came to watch "Easy Rider." I'd never seen it and it must have come up on our Netflix queue. Michael hadn't seen the film since he was a teenager. It was funny and great, campy and silly, bad and good, all simultaneously. What was ever better was the making-of documentary on the DVD. In various ways it was more satisfying than the film itself. I had a big surge of love for Dennis Hopper, who hosted SNL while I was a cast member. My little glimpse of his personality was memorable. He seemed "touched" in a good way - a special otherworldly person. Terrible at SNL though. Hilariously bad at sketches.

"Nowhere Boy" was a happy surprise. After reading "John Lennon The Life" by Philip Norman last year, I was hankering to see this film, and I felt the filmmakers got the story just right. The whole triangle: John, his mother, and his aunt Mimi, it's a story that could really be fucked up. And yet, it wasn't. The tone was pitch perfect. They got the weird motherly, authoritarian, sexual, mysterious, unseemly relationship between mother and aunt and son just right. It was amazing. Just astonishingly good.

We watched "Young Victoria" the night that Will and Kate wed in London. That's how we celebrated the wedding. I was also happily surprised by how good this movie was. Emily Blunt is a subtle, competent and amorphous actress. What a part!

Okay, the Anthony Mann movies: The one that stays with me the most is probably... Probably... Oh... How to choose... Okay, if I have to: "The Last Frontier." Victor Mature is GREAT. He is perfect. It's a complicated story and I was surprised again and again. But also, "Man of the West" that was good too. However, in both movies, the women - the women characters, they really could've been better. I wish I could rewrite and remake both films, even though I still loved them as they are. The women were two dimensional, where they could have been more complicated. "The Last Frontier"was really a modern film in many ways, and Robert Preston is in it as the evil military leader. I have recently seen "The Music Man" and have reveled in his talent, so this was a treat to see him in such a completely different role.

I just finished "The Fall of the Roman Empire" and I watched all the extras on the new Blue Ray DVD. It was complicated and thoughtful, and I sort of can see why it wasn't a hit. It deals with very complex material. I felt the whole time like I was watching a film about the United States getting enmeshed in wars which they have no understanding of and that are getting out of hand. How could this movie have been made then? We need to watch it now, I think. Christopher Plummer is phenomenal, giving a star performance.

There was a documentary on the extras part of the DVD that featured Anthony Mann - I kept thinking: he's going to be dead in three years. And yet he looks so happy. (Odd, like I think he should know that he's going to be dead in three years...) Of course this was before the movie was a flop. And I don't think that depressed him all that much. (Probably not as much as Samuel Bronston who went bankrupt.) But still, he looked so sweet and happy. Like he would have been a great guy to know. Oh! I love Anthony Mann!

2011-04-08T13:14:00.002-05:00

Just home from eight days in Paris. Michael’s brother Joel lives there, and we've been wanting to go for a long time. Mulan began taking French at school this year, so she was eager to try out speaking French to real Frenchians. Joel’s favorite impressionist painter is Gustave Caillebotte, whose best known work: "Paris on a Rainy Day" hangs at the Art Institute here in Chicago. Joel had this idea that we should restage the picture now. He knew the exact location of the painting. So one day, we all traipsed out – on a rainy day in Paris – to take our version of the picture. And there you have it – one Caillebotte’s version, and one Joel’s starring me, Michael and Mulan as the person walking towards us. Unfortunately we had only one umbrella. But still, it's an approximation. Cars really take the romantic out of a place, don't you think?

I've travelled quite a bit in the last six weeks. Since Feb. 19^th – only 42 days ago, I have been on the road for 25 of those days. Hawaii, the Pacific NorthWest, France. Truthfully, I'm always scheming for another trip and my urge to travel has the markers for addiction. For example, in a moment of downtime in Paris I found myself googling rental houses in Hawaii for next year. Something that I not only canNOT afford to do, it's way too far in the future, and isn't even advisable from a time available vs. other commitments standpoint.

Wow, just writing that caused me to stop and shudder. My mind is an “I want” machine. It can get out of hand. Plus, as much as I love to travel, I have an equal feeling of hate towards it. The getting ready, the re-entry back into routines. It's all much more effort than the trip itself. After this much travel, I am practically on the verge of entering a contemplative convent which observes the offices of the day and has only bland un-spiced food. Now, where could I join a convent like that? Should I start googling it?

Damn.

Fortunately, now I have a large swath of time without guests or travel. I am feeling greedy and ambitious about it. I want a schedule. I want a slow encroachment towards completing tasks. I want organization and plodding effort. I don't want that zing. Travel is like sugar, it gets me all hopped up.

But back to Paris for a moment, shall we?

It was such a dreamy, lovely trip. Every day in Paris we went to a museum and also did some major area site seeing and a whole lot of walking. We rode bikes on Sunday when the express-ways near the Siene are blocked off for just that purpose. We wandered all around Monmartre with a nice walking tour in English (called “Paris Walks.”) We did another tour called: The History of Fashion. Mulan was riveted. Me too. Our guide started with Louis 14th showing off his great legs in tights and went on from there. On top of all this, Joel invited us to join him to see several historical exhibits I would never have gone to without prodding. For example: The Paris Commune of 1871 at City Hall.

Oh, I want to live in Paris!

I'd only been to Paris once before. In 1981, just after I graduated from college. I went backpacking with my brother, Bill, and we camped. That’s right, we camped in Paris. I'm not sure where, just outside the city. We had to walk everywhere in Paris with huge backpacks. We ate canned food, heated on a butane stove outside our tent, IN PARIS. I barely remember anything from that trip except glimpses of the glimpses we got of the Mona Lisa and the gardens at Versailles and the Eiffel tower – although I don’t believe we had the money to go to the top and just hung out at the middle level.

So, now I’m in love with the city. I didn’t realize how easy it was to get around (the Metro system is so efficient and reliable and widespread) and how knowing only English was almost never an impediment. I had a big fantasy going while I was there about how I could live there for a whole year. I am always like that, falling for every place I visit. What a tart!

Speaking of which, the pastries were great. Joel’s apartment (originally built around 1650) in the Morais was an ideal spot for people-watching from his large second floor window. Orthodox Jews mixed with gay people and hip fashion stores next to kosher falafel stands. Every morning Joel would make us great dark rich coffee while Mulan and I went to his favorite boulangerie and got croissants. Mulan would order them in French. I simply beamed with pride.

Just before this Paris trip I went on the road with Jill Sobule. We did four Jill & Julia Shows in six days: Spokane, Portland, Seattle, and then Los Angeles. Dave Carpenter came along to play the bass. He's such a great addition to our mix and we all laughed so hard on this trip. It was an absolute joy. The travel was also grueling, but somehow the days felt light-hearted and breezy. Wow, just writing about Jill and Dave causes me to wish we were on the road again. In Spokane they made it "Julia Sweeney Day" (truly embarrassing to everyone except my mother) and the mayor, Mary Verner, came to our show and gave me a calligraphic official proclamation. She was really cool and funny as we joked around backstage about my "day."

Okay, let’s get on to the lists:

Books read in the month of March, in the year of 2011:

1. After The Ice, A Global Human History 20,000 – 5,000 B.C. by Steven Mithen. I finished this book, I had started it last month. It knocked my socks off. It’s not that I learned anything completely surprising, it’s just the detail of knowledge, the big overview of prehistoric man was world-view changing. It’s like when I took my first Economics class and suddenly the world and it’s myriad of transactions were forever altered. I knew how money worked, I just didn’t realize – I didn’t see how it invaded everything. That’s how I feel about his book. It’s heart wrenching, and deeply poignant and inspiring - reading about what we know about societies and groups of people scraping out a life so long ago. It’s bone-chilling when you think how our climate is probably going to be changing dramatically in the next 100 years – in fact it could very well be as different from the weather we have now as the Last Glacial Maximum was from the warm, perfect-for-farming weather that we have experienced (more or less) since, say, 10,000 B.C. There is an extreme likelihood of major population movement (and decline) drought, and warfare over dwindling resources. I feel we're living in a Belle Epoch, in the future people will look back and say that the 100 years around just now - here in this place - in an affluent democracy – in relatively calm weather very conducive for humans and farming, it was a paradise. But am I just an ego-maniac trying to imagine a horrible future, but just after I die? Am I so guilty over giving up a belief in God that I have latched onto an apocalyptic world-view in another way? I really don't think so, but then, I can't read what I just wrote - and not wonder if I'm being hysterical. My answer: no! It's real and it's happening.

And so, lets calm ourselves by thinking of... bad mothers.

2. Bad Mother by Ayelet Waldman. This book is funny and smart. I'd read the reviews, and various articles written by Waldman before, but never read this book. I love this woman! God, it’s hilarious, relatable, provocative and bracingly truthful all at the same time. It's inspired.

3. The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks and Giants of the Ocean by Susan Casey. Waves happen to scare me deeply, and not just because of the recent tsunami tragedies. Long ago, in Santa Monica, CA, I was driving home late at night, and I looked over my left shoulder at the ocean - very dark and big and foreboding. The moonlight was just so. Suddenly I was overcome by the idea that there was this huge mass of water so close to me, and the only reason it stayed put was because of gravity. I know that's true for everything. But to me at that moment, the ocean looked like a docile gigantic monster that just happened to be sleeping. I verged on developing an out and out panic attack - my heart rate climbed, I pushed down on the gas pedal, I broke out into a sweat. I drove home to Hollywood quickly, flying down the freeway, as if I had to outrun the ocean which was chasing me. (A psychologist may have pointed out that I was also driving home from a boyfriend who had just told me two very disturbing things: the first was that he feared my vagina was going to bite his penis off - he had had some horrible dream about it. And this was not he scariest part of it! The double punch was that he insisted he'd never heard of vagina dentata before. The second very disturbing event was just after this, while I was trying to configure my face into an expression less like Munch's "The Scream." He confessed he had waxed his entire back, to get rid of hair, by himself. This had caused his entire back to erupt in disgusting oozing pustules that he wanted me to dab with some special ointment. Btw, I had never said a think about his back hair, hadn't even thought about it. But alas, I feigned an illness and basically bolted out the door. Yes, cruel. But yet - unavoidable. In any case, true, this may have contributed to my sudden fear of the ocean. Let me also add: I was 24 years old.) Bottom line: Waves fascinate and scare me. Surfers intrigue me. Tsunamis seem to be on the rise. (he he) This book delivered.

The Kill by Emile Zola. Finally, some fiction! I really want to read fiction, I really do! But jezhus sometimes I just cannot get there. On the plane to Paris, I began this novel which I enjoyed thoroughly. My brother-in-law Joel had recommended it. Joel is currently in the thrall of a particular time in French h history: the Second Empire and the Haussmannization of Paris. Haussmann was the prefect of Paris in the mid-1800's. He oversaw a great modernization effort that destroyed much of medieval Paris and introduced the big boulevards and iconic apartment buildings that define most of Paris today. There was a lot of back-room dealing, fortunes were lost and made, and much graft and profiteering. This is the backdrop of the book, The Kill. It's filled with real estate scheming, debauchery, incest and excess of every kind. I wish Zola were alive to write the stories of New York financiers during the last ten years – it all rings so familiar. Joel took us on walks around many homes that were of the type the characters in the book lived in, and we even walked around a park that is featured prominently in The Kill.

4. Global Catastrophes: A Very Short Introduction by Bill McGuire. I know. I know! I'm so hungry for doom. This book concentrates on Ice Ages and Warm Ages, Earthquakes and Tsunamis, and Volcanic Eruptions. It also addresses human induced global warming and possible ice aging (for example, if the gulf stream shuts down there is a marked possibility that the British Isles and northern Europe would experience a mini-ice age.) The most surprising frightening thing I learned is that global warming causes more earthquakes. That association was never made clear to me before. Why? Because water is heavy. When there is more water in the ocean, and less of it seized up in ice, it’s weighs down on the earth’s crust. Every additional inch of water is a significant difference is weight. The fault lines get much more pressure, and they give way more quickly, therefore more earthquakes.

5. Now I've just started “Scream-Free Parenting” (ha – just writing that made me laugh. And then, sadly, wince.) by Hal Edward Lunkel. Then, I hope, I swear, on to another book of fiction.

I’m much more of a risk-taker with non-fiction than with fiction. With non-fiction, at least I’m going to learn something, it doesn’t have to be extraordinarily written. I get eager just because of the subject matter. But fiction. God – it’s hard. I want to read it – but it must be stellar or I’ll stop. I give up pretty quickly.

These are the non-fiction books piled on my office desktop right now: Bossypants, by Tina Fey, Great American Hypocrites by Glenn Greenwald, The Most Human Human by Brian Christian, Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman by Jon Krakauer and finally Leaving The Saints by Martha Beck.

The fiction books, piled on the other side of my desk are: William Trevor’s Selected Stories, Peter Carey’s Parrot and Olivier in America, Zola's The Belly of Paris.

If I can start a book of fiction while not first grabbing Fey's Bossypants, it will be a miracle.

In fact, I can say with confidence right now that I cannot resist Tina Fey. In all her forms. I might have to stop writing this blog to go read her book.

Okay, I did. It was great. I actually laughed so hard at the list of things to do to get a break from your baby that I snorted and lost control of my laughter in a freaky way that would have terrified anyone if they'd been home to witness it. Get this book. She is just, oh - Tina Fey!

Okay, the list of MOVIES!

1. Salt, Phillip Noyce

2. The Ghost Writer, Roman Polanski

3. Devil’s Doorway, Anthony Mann

4. The Last Emperor, Bernardo Bertolucci

5. Marie Antoinette, Sofia Coppola

6. Meet Me in St. Lewis, Vincente Minnelli

7. Music Man, the TV version directed by Jeff Bleckner

8. Cairo Time, Ruba Nadda

9. Joan Rivers, A Piece of Work, Ricki Stern & Annie Sundberg

10. An American in Paris, Vincente Minnelli

11. Me and Orson Welles, Richard Linklater

Mulan got a cold a few weeks ago, something that almost never happens. She missed two days of school – unheard of! This kid has the immune system of a child raised for a sixteen months in an orphanage. She is strong like ox. But there she was, with a cold and a fever and home from school. We had a great time. I realized that without intending to, I had gotten two end-of-royalty epics from Netflix: "The Last Emperor" and "Marie Antoinette." First we watched The Last Emperor – and had lots to talk about – the end of the dynasty in China, the rise of the communists. Then the next day we watched "Marie Antoinette." It was awesome. The whole experience made me want to home-school Mulan. When I suggested this, it was her turn to reconfigure her face into something that was as much NOT Munch's "The Scream" as humanly possible.

I think "Marie Antoinette" is my favorite Sofia Coppola film. I thought it was poignant and sad and emotionally realistic in ways I didn't expect. Jason Schwartzman as Louis 16th, how perfect! He is so tragic. Their relationship - dear Lord, there has to be more women directors. I keep seeing movies that have an emotional truth about them and they are inevitably directed and written by women. I want to see "Marie Antoinette" again. (I guess I am still musing about "Down to the Bone" written and directed by Debra Granick. It blew me away.)

Both "The Last Emperor" and "Marie Antoinette" had the same emotional tug and pull. You're outraged at their excess and luxury, you feel for the central characters thrown unwillingly into this world, you are firmly waiting for the "people" to rebel and burn the place down, but on the other hand, how fantastic are those shoes???

Although it hit me with a wallop in Paris last week – oh yeah…. The French Revolution didn’t exactly take. It’s much easier to be a disgruntled and frustrated citizen than to figure out how to maintain a real meritocracy over the long haul. This brings me to my latest musing.. do revolutions really work? And also, why do we call our cessation from Britain the American Revolution? It wasn’t a revolution. It was a cessation from Britain.

I loved "Me and Orson Welles." I'm a big admirer of Richard Linklater. I wanted to drop into that movie and roll around in it. All the performances were spot on. The end broke my heart and felt like pure hope and possibility.

I did not like "Joan Rivers, A Piece of Work." So depressing. I don't understand how she could be so un-self-aware as to allow that movie to even be released. Her jokes were terrible. She was desperate for attention, a bottomless pit of need, masked as "ambition" and she exhibited no real inner life. Even at the end, when she's crying about her associate not working with her anymore – it was all narcissistic and self pitying. No real concern for him. Michael and I were debating weather to watch the Joan Rivers documentary or the documentary "The Pat Tillman Story.". After we watched Joan Rivers, I said to him, I think the Pat Tillman film would have been less depressing than that doc.

Of course "An American in Paris" was a treat. Mulan referenced it constantly in Paris. Especially since Joel's small apartment was much like Gene Kelley’s in the film. And Leslie Caron, what a body, what a dancer – my GOD!

Okay. I am out of steam. I have no energy to write about any audio books. Plus, my hard drive crashed and I lost all my audio books (I am in them midst of doing some damage control) and the only one i listened to was Patton Oswalt's "Zombie, Spaceship, Wasteland." It was fun and funny and made me miss Patton who I used to hang with in L.A. quite a bit.

I have no energy for music lists. I must get back to my work.

Oh, but first a word about Libya.

I just cannot take it. I can't let it in. I can't even read about it. I am livid with Obama. It may be the right thing to do, I really hope it is, I really hope there is so much I don't know, so much that supports this ADDITIONAL FUCKING WAR.

I feel as though Obama were my husband and let's say he's a banker, and one of the things we first bonded on together was how we hated - let's say people who cheated on their taxes. And then, I find out my husband is cheating on his taxes! And worst of all he didn't act like it was all that big of a deal. Oh yeah, I cheated on my taxes. And then, I am so stunned, and there's nothing I can really do at the moment, plus - as I said, I am stunned and cannot even think about this reality - so I just go around in my regular life with him - to the pharmacy, let's say, and it rushes up to me when I'm least expecting it, when I'm standing in line. My husband is a big cheater!!!

Is that the most convoluted analogy? I dunno. It's just - what?

And then, when Obama's allowing a military commission at Guantanamo try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed instead of in a civil court - after everything he said he would do about it... To me, that is this addition to my shocked stupefication in line at the pharmacy-analogy. It's this: oh yeah, and your husband also sleeps with a drug addicted whore when he has time.

Oh. Really? Huh. Huh. Huh...

All righty. Just had to add that rant. Take care, and thanks for reading!

2011-03-01T17:06:00.004-06:00

I came home from Hawaii two days ago. This photo is of a bird that spent a lot of time outside my cabin. Every morning I would look for him, and most days he was right there. He was both alert and relaxed, vigilant and yet unconcerned. When I think about him, my pulse slows down. If I were superstitious I would think he was sent from above to remind me how I wish to exist. But I'm not so I'll be inspired by him. Or her.

I got a week to bask, along with my mother, sister, aunt and daughter. I know: lucky, lucky.

Now, here in Illinois, it's raining onto snow, then all moisture is freezing. The sidewalks are glistening with black ice. My dog walk is going to be a grizzly, slippery, abdominal-strengthening affair. Hawaii's weather is so absentmindedly perfect, like a natural looking, effortless supermodel, not even aware of the dwarves and gargoyles around her. In Hawaii the weather changes so slightly, down to 70 at night, up to 80 in the daytime. Coming home is like going from a breezy carefree girlfriend who's nearly always smiling to the bi-polar, angst-ridden, demanding wife back home - one who seems pissed off that you dared to leave for a minute.

Onto the lists...

Movies watched in February:

1.) Exit Through The Gift Shop (Banksy)
2.) The Company Men (Wells)
3.) The Social Network (Fincher) for the second time
4.) Restrepo (Junger & Hetherington)
5.) Bringing Up Baby (Hawks)
6.) Winter's Bone (Granik)
7.) Rabbit Hole (Mitchell)
8.) Animal Kingdom (Michod)
9.) True Grit (Coens) for the second time
10.) Biutiful (Inarritu)
11.) Waste Land (Walker & Harely)
12.) 127 Hours (Boyle)
13.) Inception (Nolan)
14.) Enter the Void (Noe)
15.) Morning Glory (Mitchell)
16.) Down to the Bone (Granik)

Okay. Last month I wrote that I preferred the original, Hathaway "True Grit" to the Coen Bros. version, but it was a close call. This month, Mulan and I went to go see "The Illusionist"and there was something wrong with the print, or maybe the projector - and so the theater offered us free tickets to any other film they had playing. I had wanted Mu to see "True Grit" so we saw it again. I am such a slobbery sentimentalist, I was crying from the start and had to wipe my eyes throughout the movie. I just love this film. Now I think the Coen Bros. version is best. I think the ending is better - we see Mattie as an older woman. You could say I am too ripe for this movie - it ends, after all, with a fiftyish woman reminiscing - unsentimentally - about her youth, when all the most exciting adventures occurred. I could cry right now just thinking about it.

Sunday night I wanted "True Grit" to take all the Academy Awards it was up for, especially for Roger Deakins - the Cinematographer. I was very disappointed, although not surprised by the awards. I absolutely hated, - no, hate is too moderate a word for my opinion of "Inception." What a big, boring, complicated, pretentious emperor-with-no-clothing that movie turned out to be. I loathed that movie.

I really responded to "Animal Kingdom" and I must see it again. It's so foreboding, it has such a nearly debilitating feeling of threatened violence, that I could barely watch it the first time. I felt this way about "Reservoir Dogs." I loved it the first time - really was knocked out by it, but then I almost wasn't able to really, really see it until the second (and third and fourth and fifth) time. Movies like those - which I think are masterpieces - are not enjoyable, well - not AS enjoyable the first time because of my anxiety about what is going to happen and to whom. Once I know, I can relax a little bit and at least watch it. God - the music in Animal Kingdom - (it should have been nominated for music or sound editing) is very powerful.

"Biutiful" was another movie which was hard to watch, but which stayed with me for days. I thought all the people were real, and wondered how they were doing for a long time afterwards. Of course Javier Bardem is - well, I cannot think of any words that do not reduce themselves to cliche when it comes to this man. Let's leave it at this: we are all lucky to be alive at the same time as Javier Bardem. Does that get my feeling across?

I went to "127 Hours" like I had homework to do - I did not want to see it - I really expected that he would be cutting his arm off with a small, dull army knife for two hours. But I was enchanted! I thought Boyle solved so many story telling and film problems given the material. I was riveted and would see it again.

Saw "Morning Glory" on the plane and laughed a lot. That's a movie I wouldn't be likely to see, and I thought Rachel McAdams was wonderful.

Academy Awards: I felt James Franco and Anne Hathaway were duds. I want a comedian as host. Or at least a stage performer. Franco and Hathaway were simultaneously too sincere and too smug. Frankly, I'm not sure how they did it. When Billy Crystal came out and was reminiscing about hosting the Oscars and referenced a moment when he told a joke, let it build to a laugh, then got an applause, I realized that Anne Hathaway and James Franco probably had only the most superficial understanding of what he was talking about. True, I am heavily biased in favor of comedians. And I don't love all comedians, for example, I am not a fan of Whoopi Goldberg. (And nostalgic for Billy Crystal, no less!!! Jeez.) If I were in charge, I would have had Louis C.K. be the host. Or Hugh Jackman again - he is not a comedian, but he is at least a stage performer and you can tell he has a good sense of humor.

Oh. Now I'm thinking that Anne Hathaway IS a stage performer. But... But...

On SNL there were always these women coming on - hosting the show - and the press (and the public too) would refer to them as comediennes. But they were not funny people. Maybe they could do pratfalls, maybe they were ditzy-funny in certain circumstances, like - they were funny with the right lines, the right co-stars, right directors - but they were not funny, or even moderately witty people. There is nothing wrong with them, they were doing what they did best - but I realized that a lot of consumers of entertainment really did not understand the difference.

Which brings me to "Funny Girl." Barbra Streisand being the perfect example. Not really funny. I saw that movie over the winter break - I hadn't seen it since I was a kid - and I loved that movie when I was a kid - and as an adult I found her - and her character - both of them, just insufferable. Painful to watch. Not funny AT ALL, and worse, getting laughs - milking laughs mind you - in the sleaziest ways. The "aren't I adorable and cute" kind of funny. The lowest! The worst! I kept yelling out loud, mocking her while I watched, "I'm just a kook! I'm pregnant in a scene about beautiful slender women! Why, I'm hilarious!" Ha, ha! Belch. ARGH.

My only other comment on movies, is that - after watching both "Winter's Bone" and "Down to the Bone" I am a huge, huge, inspired, smitten, devoted Debra Granik fan.

Books read in February:

1. Cinderella Ate My Daughter, Peggy Orenstein
2. Three Dog Night, Abigail Thomas
3. Waistland, Deirdre Barrett
4. After the Ice, Steven Mithen. (2/3 of the way through)

Notes on the books:

1. Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Girly-Girl Culture, written by Peggy Orenstein. As I read the book, I was floored by how much I hadn't really thought about. How the whole princess craze got started, how much it's merchandized, how it appeals to young girls, how much of it is natural and how much forced. Each chapter in the book is better than the one before, and each chapter made me think about topics to talk to Mulan about. Full disclosure, I know Peggy - she interviewed me for one of her books entitled, Flux. This is my favorite of her books, and they're all good. I am so glad I got to read this book at the perfect moment, just as Mulan is coming of age - able to converse with me about all of this stuff. We had a great conversation about TV shows, and how many products were spun off from each show. We talked about Demi Lovato, who even my daughter knows is now struggling with some type of problems that have caused her to go into rehab. I loved the chapter that was about little-girl beauty queens and why people are attracted to this combination of innocence, sexuality and the push and pull of girls and parents who feed each other's desire for accomplishing recognition in this way. And best of all, Peggy doesn't even diss this whole cultural arena - in fact, she made me realize how close it is to what American Girl sells too.

2. A Three Dog Life, written by Abigail Thomas. Lyrically written and optimistic, it's the memoir of a woman who's husband sustains a terrible brain injury from a car accident. I enjoyed reading it. It has a stream-of-thought style that mimics actual memories unfolding. It was moving and funny.

3. Waistland: The R/evolutionary Science Behind Our Weight and Fitness Crisis, written by Deirdre Barrett. I found this book in the weirdest way. I saw the documentary called, "Waste Land" about a garbage dump just outside Rio de Janiero in Brazil and the people who work picking through garbage there. The movie was fantastic, but I had a very first-world, affluent thought afterwards. And that was, what a great title. "Waist Land" would be a good title for a diet book. I wondered if there was one. There was. Not only that, it had gotten a positive review from Steven Pinker, a scientist and writer I love and whose books I've gobbled up. So I had to get this "Waistland" book. It's really good! She distills all the stuff I've been thinking about recently. She says that there should be a disease called "Sedentary Disease." This book dovetailed nicely with a book I was reading simultaneously (which I vowed not to do this year, but which I have to continually remind myself about!) And that book I have not yet finished, it is:

4. After The Ice, A Global Human History 20,000 - 5,0000 BC, written by Steven Mithen: I have about a third of this book to still finish and frankly, I do not want it to end. I'm afraid I've fallen down a well, I wake up in the night thinking about what I've read, and it's deepened and changed my view of... well, of all of civilization. The idea of the book is that between 20,000 B.C.E. and 5,000 B.C.E. - I cannot resisting adding the "e" after b.c. turning it into"before the common era" instead of "before christ" - humans went from being all hunter-gatherers to developing farming, cities, and a sedentary stationary lifestyle. Everything was set up during those 15,000 years for all of what happened to us to come afterwards. I have not read, but heard that Jared Diamond wrote an infamous article about how the invention of farming was in many ways catastrophic for humans, the worst human invention of all. Our health suffered, we grouped ourselves into cities, our life spans were diminished. Hmmm... I just did a casual googling and couldn't find this article. In any case, this book: "After the Ice" has opened up into vivid technicolor the paleolithic and mesolithic worlds for me. The author, Steven Mithen, creates this character - named Lubbock (after a Victorian scientist who wrote about archeology and speculated about early cultures) who magically visits early human groups at various times in those 15,000 years. It's a risky device that I think works 100%. This allows the book to be more visceral than simply being lists of discoveries and artifacts and speculations. Mithen meanders through each continent with Lubbock, coming out of the fictionalized fantasy with actual controversies and discoveries in archeology.

Amongst the things I did not know before reading this book: 1.) There were many stationary hunter, gatherers. I had assumed that there were hunter-gatherers who moved with their prey and didn't stay in one place year in and year out - then farming began, and then and only then did human populations stay put. But no! Many groups were stationary - in fact the best example is in the Pacific Northwest where I'm from. The salmon were so abundant that there was no need to move around. But there are lots of examples in Europe and Central Asia and South America too. Actually, everywhere. 2.) I thought the early americans hunted to extinction all the mega beasts that were in the Americas. But no - it looks like there was already a lot of climate change pressures that drove the big animals 80% of the way to extinction. The big animals needed a lot plants to eat, as well as plant diversity, which began to change at the end of the last ice age. The humans were not killing them at the rate previously thought, they mostly got one here and there, sometimes happening upon large animals - the mastodons, giant sloths, camels, etc. as they were already dying off - more as opportunists rather than hunters - and even though these animals had weathered other ice ages and survived, the humans just was the added push that plunged them into extinction, but still - not the primary cause. 3.) Wow, all those new "Paleo-diet" books (like Waistland) are onto something. Our hunter-gatherer diets were much more diverse, full of fiber, low in sugar and high in plant life and nuts and fruit than our modern diets. And 4.) The hunter-gatherers who flourished for thousands and thousands of years really didn't have to work as much as we work today. They averaged four hours of work a day and spent the rest of their time interacting socially with their other tribe members and especially their children. They had children on average of every three to four years. If you got out of babyhood and then pregnancy (no small feat, granted) you could live a very long time. It seems to me, reading this book, that the golden age for humans in this time period when there was enough accumulated wisdom to hunt and gather food, not have to move all the time, and before there were so many humans that territory fights began and farming was introduced which allowed people to hoard the wealth and establish hierarchies. 5. Wow, Oaxaca. In the Oaxaca valley, all three major American plant domestications took place: corn, beans and squash. Well, I guess squash isn't totally locked in there, but they suspect it is.

I am reading this book like a text book, yellow highlighter in hand and making notes in pen in the margins. I love, love, love it. I want to dive into this book and not come out.

In general, I want to concentrate on more fiction. But dear Lord how I gravitate towards non-fiction. I have a general rule that I listen to non-fiction on my iPhone, and read fiction, but I dunno - I guess I get uncontrollable urges to read non-fiction that overrides the fiction books on my list.

Audio Books listened to in Feb.

1.) Revival: The Struggle for Survival in the Obama White House, by Richard Wolffe. I'm a fan of Wolffe's. He was often on Keith Olbermann. The book is mostly about how the health care reform legislation was maneuvered. It's an insightful book about how Obama governs and how things work inside.

2.) Coming to Our Senses: Healing the World and Ourselves Through Mindfulness, by Jon Kabat-Zinn. I' also a fan of Jon Kabat-Zinn. I did a mindfulness meditation class years ago and it's a part of my life and thinking now. I enjoyed this book, although it's abridged. I liked it so much I got a hard copy of the book, which I will read later.

3.) Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes, by Tamim Ansary. I just finished this audio book yesterday. It's transformative. It's so revealing, history told so plainly and insightfully. It makes me very afraid about Egypt. I didn't realize how much we screwed things up in Iran. I knew a little bit, now I know a lot more. I'm afraid about Egypt because of the stories of revolutions that go wrong, and the wrong people seize power in the vacuum. We are going to pay a heavy price for what we've done in the middle east. I'm so glad that Obama is in the White House, but still it's a frightening time. Of everything I've listened to, or read this last month, this is the book I would most recommend. Well this and "After the Ice." I have an urge to write a letter to Obama insisting that he put Tamim Ansary on his advisory panel. (Because, y'know, he'd hop right to it.) Tamim is from Afghanistan, but has lived here since he was 12. He also has a memoir that I want to read. I'm sorry, I'm so pooped, I have run out of steam and cannot properly describe this book. But it's really good - funny - Ansary is very funny... I got the book version of this too and must read it slowly just so I can get it all.

Here's to a good March!

2011-02-05T07:37:00.001-06:00

I thought this was going to be an "after" picture, turned out it was a "before" picture.

I got to experience my first blizzard. I've been in many snow-induced paralyses in New York when the snow was several feet high, the city was frozen, and almost every store closed down. But apparently in order for a weather event to be categorized as a "blizzard," it has to have sustained winds over 40 miles per hour for more than three hours, as well as snow and cold. So in that sense, and insofar as I can remember, this was my first blizzard.

I was extremely lucky to be able to be inside for all of it, in comfortable warmth, looking outside, and intermittently watching movies. Is there anything that modern civilization offers that is sweeter than being able to experience extreme weather from the comfort of a safe and cozy house? I think not. I almost felt guilty about it. But I got over that and had another cup of tea, and turned my gaze to window and it's moving whiteness.

Of course there was a lot of shoveling the next day but that turned out to be good exercise for a couple of hours. My husband got his cross country skis out of the basement and he skied to the beach; me running alongside with our dog, Arden. The snow was so high that Arden had to swim through it. He looked like a dolphin, leaping and hurling himself through piles of snow.

I was going to post monthly all the movies I'd watched, books read, and music I'm listening to while exercising. But I lost almost all my info for December - I'd written it down, but lost the notes. So, I will only list five weeks of movies.

Movies Watched from December 26 through January 31, 2011

1. Please Give (Holofcener)
2. The Black Swan (Aronofsky)
3. The King's Speech (Hooper)
4. Barney's Version (Lewis) (I only watched 1/2 of it - I hated it so much I had to stop.)
5. The T.A.M.I. Show (Binder)
6. Date Night (Levy)
7. Pirates of the Caribbean (Verbinski)
8. The Fighter (Russell)
9. Ride with the Devil (Lee)
10. Night of the Hunter (Laughton)
11. Documentary on making of the Night of the Hunter
12. Vincere (Bellochio)
13. October Country (Palmieri, Mosher)
14. El Cid (Mann)
15. True Grit (Hathaway)
16. Help! (Lester)
17. Waltz with Bashir (Folman)
18. How to Train Your Dragon (Sanders, DeBlois)
19. Toy Story 3 (Unkrich)
20. Mars Attacks! (Burton)
21. W.C. Fields, The Great Man, a documentary
22. Happy-Go-Lucky (Leigh)
23. Secretariat (Wallace)
24. The Black Stallion (Ballard)

Notes on films: Well, my number #1 movie for last year is: True Grit. But it was a close call for me, I also loved The Social Network, and The King's Speech. But all in all, True Grit gets my best picture vote for 2010. That said, I saw the original True Grit, directed by Hathaway, and starring John Wayne, and I liked it even better than the Coen bros. version! I liked John Wayne's Rooster Cogburn better and I liked Kim Darby's Mattie better! I was completely shocked and did not expect to have that reaction. The bottom line is, I love True Grit. I love the story, I love the girl, I love Rooster Cogburn. Okay, Matt Damon is infinitely better in the role of the Texas Ranger than Glenn Campbell. And the Coen bros. version is more like the book, which is all from the girl's point of view. Hathaway's is not exclusively from the Mattie's point of view, but then you understand more about the guys they are fighting and what's happening when she is not around in the his version, which I think makes it better.

Night of the Hunter is a masterpiece, and the documentary on the recently reissued DVD is really wonderful, there are all these outtakes that give you a very real sense of what it was like on the set.

I don't know if I prefer How to Train your Dragon to Toy Story 3 yet - they are so different, and both are so wonder-filled, it's impossible to compare them.

The other gem I would like to mention is Ride With The Devil, Ang Lee's western feeling, civil war movie made 6 years before Brokeback Mountain. (It was made in 1999) The film is about the civil war in Kansas and Missouri; it's beautiful and a complicated epic that was basically dumped by the studio when it was released. I just don't understand it. Tobey McGuire stars, as well as Jewel(!, and she's good) and Skeet Ulrich and Jeffrey Wright. Really fantastic.

Okay:

Books I read in December and January, which I can remember right now.

1.) Life (Keith Richards) I read the book and listened to the audio which is narrated by Johnny Depp as well as Joe Hurley. Depp is being mentioned a lot as the narrator, and yet he only narrates the first three chapters and the last two chapters. Joe Hurley is fantastic narrating. I hope he gets more work from doing this. The book is very long, it seemed like three weeks of listening - an hour each day while walking my dog. A long, hard, slog.
   I definitely recommend listening to this rather than reading it. It was funny to me, when I bought this book - at an airport just after it was released last fall, I looked in my iTunes collection of music, and out of 20,000 songs, I had NOT ONE SINGLE ROLLING STONES SONG. I was flabbergasted. I wasn't particularly a fan of the Rolling Stones, but I wasn't against them either. There songs are so ubiquitous, maybe I just felt I heard them enough already. Although you could say that about the Beatles, and I have every single CD of theirs. So, hmmm... I really didn't know all that much about the Rolling Stones. So to me, listening to this book, it was all new.
   I realized I did have all the music that Keith says he was so inspired and influenced by: Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed, Robert Johnson, John Lee Hooker, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley - all those guys. I guess I didn't make the connection between these musicians and the Rolling Stones. In any case, I went crazy on the Rolling Stones! I got a bunch of CDs and I made a set list of all Rolling Stones songs for my treadmill workouts. For two or three weeks I was completely immersed in The Rolling Stones. I got Bill Wyman's "A Stone Alone" and while I didn't exactly read it through, I skimmed it while I was reading "Life." I got the recently published book, "The Rolling Stones vs. The Beatles" by Jim Derogatis and Greg Kot, the two guys who host the NPR show "Sound Opinions" - a show I try not to miss, a fantastic music show btw, and I poured over it.
   Keith is funny and articulate in ways that are surprising. He is a survivor in such a particular way in such a specific time, it's really revealing and at the same time just what you'd expect.
   But I have to say, in the end, I didn't really feel I liked Keith all that much. He is not kind to Mick Jagger - in really petty ways. He says a lot of nice things about him, but the things he has against him seem peevish. Worst of all, Richards is really defensive about his own horrifying behavior. He is not apologetic at all about all the people he inconvenienced and lied to during his drug years and not the least reflective on his job as a father. He totally leaves his son out in the world with no protection and barely any supervision and he is not the least bit concerned about it. In fact he's defensive and talks about how Marlon turned out okay in the end. Which is apparently true, but that is probably more about the luck of Marlon's staggeringly resilient personality than anything else. I dunno. I didn't expect to feel this way about Richards by the end, I expected to really love him all the way through. I did respect him more as a musician. He is a character - truly a character. You can see why Depp based his Pirate on Richards.
   However, I think my feelings about "Life" were colored significantly by the next book I read:

2.) Just Kids (Patti Smith) I had another complicated and evolving relationship with this book. Her mindfulness about herself and her situation, her insight into herself as a young woman, the decisions she made - having a baby and giving it up for adoption, and then this being the catalyst for her to quit teaching school and go to New York and become a poet, were riveting and filled with nuance and detail that made me love her so much. It was odd to read "Life" just before this book, the time is overlapping, and the writers are both icons of a certain generation, but Patti Smith - and forgive me for using this overused, tired phrase - is SO MUCH MOVE EVOLVED AS A PERSON. She's more insightful and more complicated and seems much more honest. She is constantly saying how emotionally unprepared she was for certain things, like Mapplethorpe bisexuality in a very naked, honest, and clear way. Her writing is plain and yet poetic and also precise. Although, I have to say, by the end, I was also leery of Patti Smith - and I really didn't expect to be. She really drops out so much stuff in the second half - why she left New York, and who her husband was and why she and Mapplethorpe stopped communicating. I had this pervasive sense of someone not wanting to get into the details of their relationship changing as they both aged. Things that she would have included at the beginning of their relationship and things that made the book really resonate with frank honesty. Again, I didn't expect to feel this way. In any case, both books are worth the read.

3.) My Stroke Of Insight (Jill Bolte Taylor) I have been meaning to read this book for a long time. I had read about this woman, and a friend who loves this book loaned me her copy. I really liked the beginning, I love learning about the brain and it's architecture. I also liked her description of what it felt like while she was having a stroke. I think it was profound, her description of energy and waves and how during her stroke she felt like an energy field. I mean, it was a bit of "ain't it so cool I had a stroke and I'm also a brain scientist"-y, but okay, it must have been cool on one level. Unfortunately, the rest of the book makes all these leaps that I don't follow about her experience and God and praying and playing these card games - the Angel cards, over and over again. I have to say by the end of the book I had lost all respect for her and thought the book could have easily been an article in a magazine and not a book. To me the lesson of this book is twofold: 1.) We are all trapped in a way of viewing the world by the way our brains are structured and by habit that makes it difficult to see how strange and beautiful all of life is. 2.) Even brain scientists can fall for the schpiritual gobbedlygook and become wrong-headed and full of new age bullshit.

4.) The Reason Why: The Story of The Charge of the Light Brigade (Cecil Woodham-Smith) Over the holidays I was in Los Angeles visiting my mother-in-law and said to Mulan, "Yours is not to reason why, yours is but to do or die." My mother had always said that to me and it made me laugh. Norma pointed out that was from the poem by Tennyson, The Charge of the Light Brigade. Then she handed me this book, and I devoured it. It's a very well written - tragic and funny (my favorite combination) account of a horrifying battle in the Crimean War. It centers on two aristocratic men, Lord Cardigan and Lord Lucan and how their hatred of each other - as brothers-in-law no less - managed to orchestrate the horrible debacle of this campaign. Both are really unsympathetic characters, and Woodham-Smith so deftly and articulately describes how the British obsession with aristocratic war leaders pushed them into positions for which they were ill suited, and truly incompetent. The book has this awful foreboding about it because as we learn about these two men from babyhood, we know what it's all leading to, and it ain't going to be pretty and it does not turn out well. Now I am looking forward to reading Cecil Woodham-Smith's other books - the first of which is going to be "The Great Hunger" about the Irish famine. Last night Michael and I watched, "Restrepo" - a documentary that is up for Academy Award nomination and seeing those poor boys in Afghanistan trying to retake this valley, how scary it is, how horrible battle like that really can be - it caused me to go to sleep thinking about the Crimean war and all wars. In "Restrepo" the war leaders are competent, but the whole endeavor is so much messier and serendipitous and chaotic and uncomprehending than we can understand from the outside.

These are the audio books I listened to over the last month and a half. I listen when I walk the dog which works out to about an hour to an hour and a half per day:

1.) The Bedwetter, Sarah Silverman Oh my god, Sarah Silverman is so fucking funny. She is really great. I like her a lot. I know her a little bit, as we were on SNL together for a year at the same time. She was a kid then, 18 or 19 I think. She has really developed into one of the best comediennes. This book made me laugh out loud so much. Mostly in the first part, however, the last half which deals with her show and her life after she became famous is less interesting to me. But damn, I was laughing and laughing and I still think of lines here and there and laugh out loud. I made my husband listen. This book is really good. I like listening to her read it, hearing her voice.

2.) The Accidental Mind, David J. Linden This book is much better at describing the brain, how it evolved, and how it works than My Stroke of Insight. Our brains are such inefficient kluges of added on evolutionary adaptations, it's actually hilarious. It made me want to do a comedic monologue about brain architecture. Linden describes things really well.

3.) Nothing to Envy, Barbara Demick. Okay, this book - of all the books I've read or listened to in the last month or so, this book is at the very top. It's about North Korea, and Barbara Demick, who is a writer for the Los Angeles Times, and who is currently bureau chief in Beijing, but was previously working in Seoul, describes the lives of about six North Koreans and how they managed to escape the country. All her subjects are currently living in South Korea. If you are reading this, you must get this book, or listen to this audio. It's really fantastic and the stories are so well told, so intelligently interwoven and constructed, so climactic when they are all trying to escape. The writing is exemplary, and Demick is a master at telling these people's stories. In fact, one of the most compelling stories - well they are all compelling - is about a young teenage couple in love. I cannot stop thinking that their story just has to be made into a film. The end of their relationship is devastating and real. The famine is so awful, and people dying everywhere, and the North Korean regime is so hateful and life is just - this book really emphasizes the point that politics so profoundly affects people's lives. We are so lucky not to be living in North Korea, I don't think there's any place quiet as horrible in such a particularly communist - dictator way as North Korea. It makes me so fearful for the future and I am really hopeful that - maybe China? - can put them in their place, or maybe help them out of this catastrophe. I really had no idea how North Korea was separated from South Korea (practically arbitrarily in Washington D.C. looking at a map) and how it came to be. It's all so recent, and happening now too. Riveting and important, that is what this book is. I got the actual book from the library and now I'm going to read it (again, for real?) and just let it all sink in another time. What a great writer. Demick also wrote a book about Bosnia, and I want to get that too.

Music. I said I was going to post what I was listening to, my exercise music list. I'm worried this makes this blog so blathery and I'm tired of it myself, but still, I'll post it.

I change my exercise playlist every month. Last month was all Rolling Stones. This month, I have some old faves - some songs can never leave the list - like Talking Heads, "Slippery People."

1. "Burning Down The House" Talking Heads
2. "Finest Worksong" R.E.M.
3. "The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight." R.E.M.
4. "Give Paris One More Chance" Jonathan Richman
5. "To Hide A Little Thought" Jonathan Richman
6. "Istanbul (Not Contantinople)" They Might Be Giants
7. "California" Rufus Wainwright
8. "The Sunny Side of the Street" The Pogues
9. "Spanish Dancer" Patti Scialfa
10. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" Nirvana
11. "Corrina, Corrina" Bob Dylan
12. "Lovely Rita" Beatles
13. "Rita Mae" Jerry Lee Lewis
14. "Dying Day" Brandi Carlile
15. "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" Santana with Yo Yo Ma and India.Aire)
16. "Love Hurts" Gram Parsons and Emmy Lou Harris
17. "Slippery People" Talking Heads

What am I doing these days? Well, I'm working on a book - and I'm writing a screenplay. Both are actually moving forward, slowly, but I'm happy about it. I've been getting into a nice working groove. If I can keep this up for a few years, I will make some traction towards my goals. Which I mostly do achieve, although slowly and in a tedious incremental manner.

2010-12-06T10:34:00.008-06:00

I'm so full of it.

You see, I plan to resume being a public personal story teller.

Oh what a difference a mere nine months makes.

I was mortified by telling the frog story (see last post.) I stopped telling it. Mulan was glad, she didn't like that I was telling that story. That story threw me a curve ball about telling personal stories.

Then Mulan decided she DID like the story. She came to a couple of my shows, she wanted me to tell the story.

I thought: I have to protect her from me. She doesn't realize that it's potentially embarrassing. But oh, it was fun to tell that story.

Then a bunch of time went by. Mulan grew up more. We talked about it from time to time.

I was asked to write the story out for a publication. I dithered and dathered.

Much discussion was had about the difference between a video of a story and a written story. Our theory (meandered to while driving with my husband and my brother -in-law, Joel) was that no one really reads, and so the written story would not be read by anyone that might cause embarrassment to Mulan. What could be embarrassing was the video, which was already up on the TED website. It's out there. I can't take it back. It's done.

Plus Mulan liked it.

Very confusing.

So I couldn't decide if I should write the story. I wanted to do it. I didn't want to do it. No, I really wanted to do it. But maybe it wasn't right to do it. Plus I already made a big announcement that I wouldn't. Not that anyone is closely following my mercurial agonizing over what to do. Except me. Or maybe you, if you happen to be reading this. ARGH!!!!!

So I decided to do it. Only the title of this thing is not just that frog story but several other parenting stories. All the other stories seem very clear to me. They are really about me, not about Mulan. My blunders. The only borderline case is the frog story. But the really embarrassing way to tell it for Mulan (potentially) is already in existence. So I would only be adding to this by reiterating it, in writing. The least embarrassing way.

So, I'm doing it. I'm writing it, I'm almost done with it. Therefore, I am full of it. (see above)

Plus, after last March, I really did start focusing on my scripts and my book. Not writing a lot of blog entries really did help me focus on long term projects.

But this thing happened: my book became really personal.

It's going to take a long time to finish - two years at least, for reasons that - if it really does get finished and if anyone sees it and simultaneously is reading this, will be understandable. Oh dear, I'm speaking very murkily. The point is, I guess I am a public personal story teller. Even though I really have - obviously - mixed feelings about it.

In the meantime, Jill and I had a blast doing our shows during the summer. We went to Colorado, Montana, Vermont, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania. We really had fun and the audience seemed to like it. It was so win-win.

Jill encouraged me to do a few shows in the Northwest. Since we'd done a show in Denver, Jill's home town, she said she wanted to see Spokane. (I love her so much for wanting to see Spokane!)

So we booked a few shows in mid-March in Spokane, Portland and Seattle. Then we booked a New Year's Eve show in Evanston. Dave, our bass player and dear friend, is going to fly out too and we will have fun and a happy, laughing New Year's Eve. I'm looking forward to it.

Even though, on some level, Jill and I are still thinking this is the end of it - or maybe not. Or I can't even say, because every time I take a stand I have to take it back. Like I'm doing right now.

Lord in heaven.

So, that is that.

But this is my new idea. A monthly blog posting. Why? Because I read other people's blog postings and I am always interested in what they are reading, watching, and listening to.

I thought I would simply post:

The books I read during the month
The movies I saw during the month
The audio books I listened to
The treadmill music-playlist of the month

Anyway... Here goes:

November 2010

Books read:

1.) Freedom (Franzen) My review: Eh.

2.) Ms. Hemple Diaries (Bynum) My review: pretty damn good.

3.) Life (Richards) I'm currently halfway through "Life" and oh my god, I am now obsessed with Keith Richards. I keep putting down the book and googling various people. Last night I was focused on his girlfriend Linda Keith basically discovering Jimi Hendrix. That's not the whole story of course, but it's still a thrilling anecdote that I cannot stop picking at on the internet.

Movies I saw:

We have a home theater in the basement and I watch movies there. It makes all the difference.

1.) Design For Living (Lubitch)

2.) Peter Ibbetson (Hathaway)

3.) Read My Lips (Audiard)

4.) Auberge Espagnole L' (Klapisch)

5.) Red Shoes (Pressberger, Powell)

6.) Agora (Amenabar) Watched this twice - fantastic!

7.) City Island (De Fellita)

8.) Adventures of Milo and Otis (Hata)

9.) Men In War (Mann)

10.) Music Man (Da Costa)

11.) Russian Dolls (Klapisch)

12.) Sea Inside (Amenabar)

13.) Kids Are All Right (Cholodenko)

14.) Somewhere (Coppola)

15.) Iron Giant (Bird)

16.) Kirkou and the Sorceress (Ocelot)

17.) To Sir, With Love (Clavell)

18.) Funny Girl (Wyler)

Audio Books listened to:

(I listen while walking the dog)

1.) At Home (Bryson)

2.) Cleopatra (Schiff) - I'm halfway through with that one.

Treadmill play list

I do the treadmill about four times a week for an hour. I change my playlist monthly. I think you can tell I am exactly 51 years old by this playlist. November was:

1.) Psycho Killer (Talking Heads)
2.) In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (Neutral Milk Hotel)
3.) Fuck You (Cee Lo Green)
4.) Devil's Haircut (Beck)
5.) Shiny Happy People (R.E.M.)
6.) Nightswimming (R.E.M.)
7.) Radio Song (R.E.M.)
8.) I'll Be Back (Beatles)
9.) Blackbird (Beatles)
10.) Black Horse & the Cherry Tree (KT Tunstall)
11.) The Sunny Side of the Street (Pogues)
12.) Light You Up (Shawn Mullins)
13.) Take Me to the River (Talking Heads)
14.) Slippery People (Talking Heads)
15.) Paint It Black (Rolling Stones)
16.) God's Child (David Byrne & Selena)

2010-03-09T17:24:00.001-06:00

I plan to stop being a public, personal, storyteller.

Let me explain: I went to TED last month, which is a conference in Long Beach, and was asked to perform a 3 minute story in between speakers. I got up and told this story about Mulan learning about sex for the first time. I call it the Mulan-frog story (it begins with frogs…) It got big laughs and even a partial standing ovation at the end. People really loved it and I was so high and happy afterwards.

I'm proud that I have the skill to tell a good story and make people laugh. I have a million happy memories of being onstage and making people laugh. There is always a dark side however. I am usually telling some story that could embarrass another person or I’m talking about something that irritates me about someone specific.

When I got home from the conference I realized that if Mulan saw my story (or a fellow student did) she could be very embarrassed. I was mortified and could not believe that I hadn’t considered this before. Mulan looks good in the story – a curious, smart nine year old. But the whole topic is embarrassing to a girl her age.

I was really struck deeply about what I do onstage and the fact that I have a child. I hated telling stories about my mother because I knew that it could be hurtful but I did it anyway because I loved getting the laugh, I loved getting to vent, and I felt I had the right somehow to talk about her onstage. I guess I thought there was some sort of unwritten code that made parents fair game. I actually feel that’s true and if Mulan grows up and tells stories about me, no matter how unflattering, I will gladly accept that as her right. (I’ll be in the front row, no – wait! More lovingly, I will not be anywhere near the place!)

But the other way around, me telling stories about her… That’s different.

After much agonizing, little niggling things that I have hated for a long time about performing stories about my own life fulminated to the surface. I no longer wish to be so naked and bare. I am surprised I ever did want to do it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I did. I am proud that I learned to craft my experiences into a story and I am proud that I learned the craft of being on-stage. But now, I need to stop doing it. I am happily married, for one thing, and it’s boring and inappropriate to talk about. My daughter is ten and she reads my blog, (OMG!) she goes to my shows. In fact we have spoken at length about the stories I tell about her. Not that, at ten, she is really capable of understanding the ramifications. Still, she says it’s okay to tell the Mulan-frog story. But ugh. I don’t think she really understands. I feel the need to protect her from myself!

In some ways, this is just another example of our Internet age. When I started telling stories about my life, it was in a basement club in L.A. called Luna Park, in 1994, where the maximum capacity was 50 people. We were recording the shows, but it wasn’t for mass consumption. What I mean is that I could speak as if it were “off the record.” This lulled me into a sense of secrecy and intimacy and allowed me to say anything no matter how raw. I was uncensored.

But, there is no more “off-the-record” anymore. Anything can be posted online. Immediately. I think this is, on balance, good – it makes people accountable in a new and direct way. But for me – well let’s just say I would probably never have begun telling stories about my personal life if I’d thought they could be available to any interested person, instantly. But once I started, I got used to the open-nature of talking about my life. I learned to live with the downsides, the embarrassment, possibly even when it hurt or embarrassed other people. Then, when blogging came along, it seemed like such a natural thing to do.

Jill Sobule and I have been working for a few years now doing a show together. I tell about ten to fourteen stories in our show. (She sings songs, I tell stories) We have worked hard to make the show work dramatically and musically. I think we’ve succeeded. In fact, I think our show is at least as good as any other show I’ve done, maybe better. I’m glad I tell all those stories in our show.

But I don’t want to tell any more. The stories that are out there, well, they’re out there. But then… after this… well, I want to retire from it. At least for a while. Maybe forever, I dunno.

We have about 12 scheduled shows for this year (2010). Mostly in the summertime and mostly in the Northeast and the Northwest. After talking this over with Jill, we have agreed to do those shows. We may actually add a show or two. We may also find a way to film our show in the autumn. But by the end of this year, I plan to stop doing this show. And then face 2011 not performing.

I haven’t written in my blog because I am always so suspicious of any type of big revelation or big announcement. I almost felt that if I announced that I was going to stop performing, there would inevitably be some reason not to stop it. I have mulled this over for the last month or so. And it feels good. It feels right.

Sometimes I feel that my creativity, (and not just mine, but everyone’s creativity) is like the snow on a mountaintop melting a little at a time. All my various outlets – performing and writing in all its manifestations -- create little rivers through which the snow can melt. I always liked having so many things going at once. I always felt that in show business, you had to have five pots on the stove just to get one of them to boil. I benefited from being so multi-able. I could do voice over and then perform at a club, I could write a monologue and then write a pilot for a TV show.

But lately it feels that I have fragmented my focus with this policy. I want the snow to melt into a couple of larger rivers, not into several smaller streams.

And so, after the TED experience, I found myself wondering what I’m doing with myself. How am I directing my energies? I began to look at the darker side of telling stories about my personal life. The guilt, the anguish, the desire to emphasize this over that, the slant, the small or large exaggeration, the worry that someone I’m talking about will see or hear me. Then I suppose you could say the tipping point was Mulan.

Also, many things have changed. I am now more able to be isolated (having moved to the Midwest from Los Angeles) and conversely, I am now in more regular and intimate interdependence with people. I guess what I mean is that I have a husband and a child. There is already a lot of interaction in my life, and I have begun to crave more and more alone time. I desire privacy. I don’t want my personality to be so known anymore. (My personality has been so slutty! Time to join a convent!)

So, in the last few weeks I have beta-tested my new views. And it’s already had such forceful and creative results. I am focusing on a couple of screenplays; with my writing partner Jim Emerson. I may or may not finish writing the memoir of my letting go of God time, “My Beautiful Loss-of-Faith Story.” Of course, I’ll do the Jill & Julia shows with Jill Sobule during this year.

Then I plan to hang up my mouth.

I can see Jill and I doing another show, someday, but not until way into the future. (If she wants to!) (In ten years!) I do honestly have that fantasy. Or I can imagine that I will change in a few yea rs time and want to get back up on stage. Or maybe I will develop the skills to talk about things that aren’t so personal and private, like many other comics do. That could happen.

But I doubt it. And at the very least, I doubt it for the foreseeable future.

Anyway, here I am making a big pronouncement, just what I didn’t want to do. I’m trying to write this in a way that appears that I’m mindful of the unpredictable events that could occur. But insofar as I can plan ahead, and insofar as I can predict my attitude, and insofar as I have the ability to point myself towards one thing over another, I feel the plan to stop talking about myself publicly is right.

So, this means that I won’t be blogging about my family. Or really blogging at all.

I am so thankful for all the people who have read my blog and commented. Please, if you can, come to see one of the Jill & Julia Shows this year. For me, this show is so meaningful; it’s an end of an era. For 16 years I have been getting on stage and spilling my guts while simultaneously attempting to make people laugh. That’s a long time. This decision feels like a death. It’s hard to envision myself as myself without the outlet and the drive to get onstage and talk about it. On the other hand, it doesn’t seem right to continue either. This decision feels inevitable and yet surprising and mostly very, very right. I’m so excited about this, to be honest. Imagine me, a private person! (I recently joked with Jim Emerson about how I feel I was a butterfly but I’m morphing into a caterpillar!)

I’ll be posting all the places where Jill and I have booked shows very soon. Thanks for reading.

2010-01-17T17:00:00.001-06:00

Botanic Gardens, Kauai Hawaii

I took this pic a few years ago when Mulan and I spent Christmas with friends in Kauai.

I've been thinking about Voltaire a bit. In our last writing session, Jim reminded me of the poem that Voltaire wrote after the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 when all the priests were railing against the people themselves for being the culprit. The disaster occurred because of their sinfulness. And now, 255 years later and we still have the like of Pat Robertson and his voodoo/pact-with-the-devil/Christian belief that Haiti brought all this on itself.

Here is Voltaire's poem: Poem on the Lisbon Disaster - Wikisource

And here is a good excerpt:

What crime, what sin, had those young hearts conceived
That lie, bleeding and torn, on mother's breast?
Did fallen Lisbon deeper drink of vice
Than London, Paris, or sunlit Madrid?
In these men dance; at Lisbon yawns the abyss.
Tranquil spectators of your brothers' wreck,
Unmoved by this repellent dance of death,
Who calmly seek the reason of such storms,
Let them but lash your own security;
Your tears will mingle freely with the flood.

Pat Robertson is an anomaly now. The public is ridiculing him. This makes me optimistic. In Voltaire's time it the Catholic Church was everywhere and this was the general attitude. I really think things are changing. SLOWLY.

What shocks me is that while the mainstream may mock Robertson, they don't seem to take it a step further. If God didn't cause the earthquake then does God cause anything? Is he a sad bystander? Is he able to do anything about it? Of course not. Then why believe in any God at all? But no one takes it that far. It's PC to extoll the belief that God IS there to rely on, you can cry on his shoulder, you can ask for strength. Why is that so acceptable?

And why did the font on my blog just change? OH! I cannot stop and noodle with it, I have dinner to prepare.

2010-01-15T22:55:00.008-06:00

Val, my cat, on my desk

Here is an experimental blog post - a straight-up diary of my day.

So...

This was my day...

Got up, nudged Mulan along as she groggily got dressed for school. Got her breakfast and made some coffee. Helped her look through her homework to make sure everything was done. Nudged her to finish a math page and a bonus challenge homework page. Gave her a pre-test for her spelling quiz. Nudged her to get her teeth brushed and especially to floss.

After she left I took the dog, Arden on a walk to Lake Michigan. I listened on my iphone to an audio biography about Paul Durac, a British Theoretical Physicist. I am convinced he had asperger syndrome only the biographer doesn't mention that. I get jelous of Dirac's life where everything is arranged so he can work constantly, I wish I had a Mancy (his wife's name) who made sure I was undisturbed, had food, and could take long walks. Today as I walk it's very deceptively icy. The sidewalks look clear but they have the thinnest layer of ice. I almost fall down a hundred times. I don't like the cold today. The lake is sad looking, a lot of dirty looking piled up snow on the edge of the lake. I look closer and see that what I thought was dirt is really sand. I marvel at Lake Michigan and all it's sand.

Get home and Michael is completely absorbed in some lighting project at the house. He is a man obsessed with lighting. He wants to program every single light in our house so that we can stand at the door and push one button and every light we don't want on will go off. This requires a lot of work, hooking up this outlet but not that one, etc. He is frustrated with the software for the program and it's the third incarnation of this software he has worked with. He has been up for two nights until at least one or two a.m. working on the lighting project. I kid with him and say, when he gets it done I expect him to say with glee, "Now all you have to do to turn down the lights in the family room is log onto this website on your computer, enter a certain number, and the light will automatically dim!" He does not like my joke because you see, it's not really a joke.

I leave and go get a mammogram. I have not had one for a few years. I, having had cervical cancer, should be more vigilant, but I have let things go. I get to the Evanston Medical Center and read the book I am completely absorbed in. "Lacuna" by Barbara Kingsolver. It's such a great book, a fictionalized account of a young Mexican American in the thirties who befriends Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera and Trotsky. I am pulled out of my reverie by a stern woman asking me to put on a gown. The gown is awkwardly configured so even after you tie it in the places it wants to be tied, you have to hold it closed otherwise your whole front shows as you walk down the hallway to the mammogram machine. The woman inside is friendly and I'm thankful for her warm hands as she manipulates my breasts this way and that. I think about what a weird job she has. I wonder if she says to people, "I just sort of fell into it." There is no hidden meaning in that configuration of words, I just wonder if that's the phrase she'd use.

As I leave we discuss the gowns. She agrees, they suck.

I leave and take a moment to consider that I could get a bad response on my mammogram and have cancer. I fantasize what I would do if I learned I had only one year to live. I decide that I would just go places to look at animals and nature and the sky at night. I would go to the Galapagos, or Hawaii and just sit and watch. I don't need to see any more people, I've seen big cities, but I've done it. I get it. Big vibrant city. I crave quiet and nature without people. I decide that I would have to pull Mulan out of school to go with me to Hawaii or the Galapagos. Of course Michael would have to come, he'd have to shut down his business and come. Jill Sobule would have to come too, as well as Jim Emerson. I guess there'd be some people. Then I think, it would be bad for Mulan to be pulled out of school right now because she is really doing well and loves her school. Then I remember this is all a fantasy. I blink back tears and come back to life.

I go to my favorite bread store in Evanston. It's Friday and I get challah. I don't ask for challah bread. I used to do that. Then Michael told me that was like asking for Guinness beer. You just say Guinness, not Guinness beer, just as you just say challah. We like to buy challah for french toast on Sundays. I don't have Mulan with me but I remember while I'm at this store that this was where Mulan made her first decent pun. She said they should put a sign out on Fridays saying, "Celebrate, it's Challah-Day!" While I'm at the bread store I also get a turkey sandwich on their popeye bread. It's so good, it's worth all the points.

I come home and eat my sandwich while I watch some TV footage about Haiti. I get really upset. I start to cry. It all seems so hopeless. What if you were stuck and had so much time before you died to know it was going to happen? Or worse, you didn't know if your loved ones were okay or not. Or even what just really happened out there. This is happening to someone right now. This makes my heart heave.

I answer a few phone calls. I speak with a woman at Minnesota Public Radio about doing a show at the Fitzgerald theater in St. Paul in March. It seems like it's going to happen. Then I do some business paperwork, for example, I send $1000 to Sony for the rights to sing "Is That All There Is" in "Letting Go of God" for one year.

Then I try to write. I decide my book of essays is not as important as "My Beautiful Loss Of Faith Story" the book i've been working on for years. I wonder if I can reach my goal of finishing it this year. I wonder how many years I've had this goal. I feel depressed. I remember we have no food in the house and Mulan is bringing a friend home after school. I go to the grocery store. I buy chicken noodle soup and oyster crackers for Mu and her friend to have after school. This is Mu's big TV day. She cannot watch any TV during the week, but on Friday after school it's a TV free-for-all. I also buy vegetables and after I come home, I quickly make a pasta sauce in the slow cooker.

I run to meet Mu after school, but I am a few minutes late and she is nearly home and I end up meeting her half way. She has her friend with her. Mu got 100% on her spelling quiz and I am elated. I heat up the chicken soup for them. Nadia comes over to watch the girls because I have a hair appt. Michael has gone to work. I get my hair cut really short. I really look like a nun now. And I like it. I feel I am in "A Nun's Story" as I leave the hair salon. I tell myself that if my hair is going to be this short I really have to remember to wear lipstick. I love my hair dresser. She gets my hair.

I come home from the salon and Michael is already home and working on his lighting project again. Mulan is upstairs in our room watching TV. I make everyone eat the pasta and sauce. It's only okay, not great. I beg everyone to watch the Netflix movie I have, "Winged Migration." I already saw it when it came out (in 2000) but it was so great - all about various birds' migrations across the earth. Michael wants to work on the lighting project, Mulan wants to watch iCarly, they don't want to watch it. I'm too tired to do anything useful. I briefly decide to go read my book in the basement, but then rally and force everyone to stop what they're doing and watch "Winged Migration." I really have to push. I momentarily hate everyone and wonder why I'm doing this. I think that if I'm going to die in a year I really must finish the screenplay that Jim Emerson and I are working on. We are having so much fun. Working with Jim has been one of my life's great joys. Just as I'm giving up on Mu and Michael they agree, yes, let's watch the movie together. I suddenly feel a huge surge of love for them.

Before we watch the movie, we make popcorn in the microwave. Michael has experimented and experimented and if you take 1/4 cup of popcorn and a dab of oil and put it in a kid's paper lunch bag and staple the top, zap it for exactly 2 minutes, it turns out great.

We watch. Michael loves the film but is skeptical about how much they doctored itto get certain types of shots. Mulan is rapt with the film, and so is Arden - it's the first time my dog watched most of a movie. But when it's over Mulan announces she's thrilled she's now let out of this horrible prison I've put her in, forcing her to watch this movie. Also, she announces that she will never eat a bird.

Ohmygod, I love my family so much.

Mulan goes to her room, Michael goes back to the lighting project, and I come in here and write about my day.

2010-01-08T20:15:00.006-06:00

Snow, snow, everywhere...

And I love it.

Wow. All those posts to the last blog entry have my head in constant conversation. I think the post that I've thought about the most was the one which indicated I was breaking the question down in a poor way. (Well, there were many posts pointing that out...) This one broke down the debate in a different way - between religion with supernatural claims and religion without supernatural claims. That is true. I guess I don't normally think of or remember that there are religions without supernatural claims. Buddhism is the only one I can think of. (Not all sects of Buddhism.) Or the Unitarian Church.

To me, religion works best as a ritual keeper and community builder. These things are very important. In my observations - which are mostly about my upbringing in Spokane in the Catholic church and then watching my friends who have stayed in the church - the best thing they get from their religion is the shared rituals and community. These are the things that I really craved, in retrospect. I had mouthed the words and didn't think all that much about the readings, I liked Bach and the candles and the idea that I had stood in this same church year in and year out on one particular day that earmarked the dead of winter or the beginning of spring - saying the same things, hearing the same songs, watching kids grow up, flirting with boys, seeing who was getting married, mourning those who had died. All those things can be a part of a life without the supernatural.

On the other hand, the supernatural specifics of what we were all supposed to believe were, in my opinion, a great hindrance to the development of a skeptical outlook and even general critical thinking skills. So, the ideas we were so benignly taught had an insidious price. We paid with our critical minds. SOME of my friends from Spokane, for example, have - in my humble opinion - undeveloped political opinions. Worse, they back off from any debate. They make ad homonym attacks. Tragically, some of them have no understanding of the tenants of other faiths, and even of their own faith. Sometimes it seems that they are even proud of their lack of information. Is the Church to blame? Hmmm... I kinda think so. I hate to say, I do.

But the rituals and community continue to give. And I can see that it is a great value.

I think the Unitarian Church can offer this, but not at the cost of your critical mind.

But for me, I do not feel in need of the community anymore! I like the idea of it, but not the practicality of it. It involves a great deal of socializing and I feel that I am filled up with that. What I crave now, (and I am fifty, so maybe this is a natural thing to happen,) but I want less socializing and social obligation in my life. I crave quiet and contemplation. I want to learn. I feel I am hungry to learn and read and think, well, it's almost as if I had scurvy and were in need of an orange! And true learning and thinking take a lot of time and quiet. With a husband and a child, as well as a few very close friends, I feel I am up to my ears in interaction with people. Adding a church would put me over the edge. Even if Mulan may benefit from it, she would have an even more frazzled mother and I don't think that is good. (I could just see myself getting caught up in it at first, volunteering for five committees, nodding "yes!" to the bake sale, and then being in the worst possible mood about it all for the next six months... Wait! This is what being at a public school is like already! I've so far been able to back away from most things... But yes, I feel guilty about it. Guilty or Angry? That's always my dilemma...)

I think me and my friends would have been better served by a Church that did not subscribe to supernatural beliefs. We would have gotten the ritual and community but not the inanity.

But sometimes I wonder, would we stick to it if it didn't have a whiff of a real God on High? I might not have. It would require inculcating me about the need of community and social obligation and not about someone looking over my shoulder who could see everything.

...I wrote the above jumbled blog entry this morning and was intending all day to get back to it, reread all those wonderful posts from the last entry and rewrite it. But now it's late, and I have to fly to New York in the morning. So I'm just going to throw this out there. It's woefully inadequate in it's musings upon this topic.

Jill Sobule and I are doing a show on Sunday night at Joe's Pub in New York and it's sold out. That is really exciting!!!!

2009-12-25T23:28:00.001-06:00

Bahai Temple, Wilmette, IL early Christmas morning 2009

I took this picture early this morning on my dog walk.

Mulan, Michael and I opened presents, had breakfast, and then flew to L.A. Now I am here, and I realize how much I miss it! Yippity yah, five days in L.A.

Not much to report, but I wrote this (below) last week and I guess I'll paste it here now...

Amongst the non-believers of this world, there appears to be a split in thinking between:

1.) Those that think religion is good - regardless of truth - for some people. Religion is useful for those who are trying to get sober, for those who have no where to turn, for those that might not follow society's rules, for those who might not otherwise respect others, for those in complete despair, and for those that need the idea, the concept - as a new drug - to get off another one.

2.) Those who think religion and the idea of God is never good for anyone.

I have always put myself in the #1 category. It suits me because I don't want to proclaim that seeing stark reality, which is very dark and full of potential catastrophe, is good, or possible for everyone.

But this thinking is very condescending. It's Plato saying religion is good for the masses. It's Will Durant saying how religion helps to bind people together, and so for society it's good. It's AA using the idea of a higher power to get people to let go of another, actual drug.

But #2 is so arrogant too.

I mean this is all just for the rumination - religion and the idea of God is not going away and most likely never will - so this is all just blathering about the number of angels who can dance on the head of a pin.

I have always stayed away from the #2 thinking because it puts me in a position of dismissing so much in others. I am not comfortable with it. It's very judgey. Of course, that is no way to decide what you think. Being judgey is the point of this whole debate!

But in my private thoughts, what do I really think? It's like a little debate between Plato and Voltaire. Plato did think religion was good for the masses. Voltaire believed religion enslaved people.

Truthfully, now I'm beginning to lean towards Voltaire.

I asked my husband yesterday if he thought religion did any person any good at all. "Think about Anne Lamott, a nice, liberal, happy Christian, " I said, "Or people who get off drugs and alcohol because they find Jesus. I mean, aren't we all better off because of that transfer of the more dangerous drug to the more benign one?"

And he said, "Maybe. But now those people are primed to follow. Jesus might be the idea for now, but it really could be anyone. They have made themselves programmable and basically they are sheep and now anyone could lead them - it could be to the top of a mountain or it could be off a cliff."

Again, I am paraphrasing and adding imagery for emphasis. And may I remind you that I do not hang on this guy's every word, far from it!

But I thought about that all day. I mean, I have always thought #1 was the benevolent point of view, the humble point of view, the less-judgemental and superior point of view, but actually that is wrong!!

The #1 thinking is really so cynical and superior and #2 has all this faith in everyone to use rationality and critical thinking to get through. #2 is actually the humble - or no, the optimistic point of view! (Not that being humble or optimistic is some sort of proof for an argument!) But you know, neither of these words is right, it's more like empowering - it's the empowering point of view.

I have not really come to any conclusions about this. But I'm just realizing how there is this split in thinking and I'm not sure - I vacillate between those views.

2009-12-17T13:45:00.003-06:00

Arden, in the backseat of the just-bought mini-van, as we drove from Los Angeles to Chicago, embarking a year ago today, Dec. 17, 2008.

A year ago Mulan and I, after watching a moving company depart with all of our possessions, joined Michael as we drove together from California to Illinois. There was a huge storm which prevented us from taking the route we wished to take - through Santa Fe and instead we drove south, through Arizona and then Texas. It took four days. We had a dog in the car who wanted to kill, really truly kill and eat, the cat in the car. We stopped at Motel 6s, we saw billboards in Texas that proclaimed that Obama was not born in the U.S., we watched Arden pee in ice for the first time. It was an adventure.

We arrived here just before Christmas, slept in our new house all together on sleeping bags in the master bedroom, and wandered our neighborhood thinking, "What the hell did we just do?"

And what have I done this year? Adjust, be a mom who's around a lot, do a few shows, write a pilot, and empty a bunch of boxes. The house is still not totally organized - the basement is on it's way... But I am much happier here and thrilled to be in this new family. It really does feel like a family. Mulan can barely remember life before Michael. Last night we talked about the drive. For Mulan, this was our biggest adventure of all. She often refers to the drive and wants to do it again - with the cat and the dog. (That part was not so much fun for me.)

Anyway, as I have not taken a picture the last couple of days, I thought I'd throw up that one of Arden, a year ago, on his way to his own new adventure here.

What am I thinking about? Well, I am very sad about the healthcare "overhaul." I am very sad about Obama and I am wondering if he is really who I thought he was. I read Robert Reich's and Glenn Greenwald's articles on Salon and I am just really so sad, and so disappointed, and I wish they would not vote for this deal and I like Howard Dean even more than I ever have and I hate Joe Leiberman, even though this demise is not all his doing.

(Last night I overheard Mulan telling Michael, "Mom was in the car driving and yelling, 'That Joe Leiberman!' and her fists were clenched.")

Anyway, let's change the subject. What other things am I thinking about?

I am thinking about all the letters I have gotten from people and how much they mean to me. I want to write back everyone, and I hope to send at least a thank you. I am trying to just be present and take it all in.

I am thinking about some of the questions that people have asked. Some people worry about having meaning in a world without god in it. I don't have the best answer for that yet (I am mulling on that one) but I remember once being at a convention with Daniel Dennett (such a hero of mine) and he said (Dennet is a philosopher and scientist at Tufts and has written several books, some of which really impacted me) and anyway, he was talking to someone else and he said, "People say to me, 'You're a philosopher, what is the meaning of life?' and I say, 'I don't know but I do know the secret to happiness. Find some subject that you love and spend the rest of your life studying it from every angle you can. That is the secret to happiness."

I've thought about that a lot. I would add to it. I would say, find a subject or a skill and spend your life getting better at it, or understanding it better. I think skills are really important and something that has been totally left out of the education system the way it's organized now. I actually think that before kids read books like Catcher In The Rye, or Animal Farm, they should know how to do something tangible, a skill society needs, a skill that requires skill, a skill that can be used to earn money - and then after that they should tackle the bigger stuff.

I'm just musing. I'm just thinking about it.

Also, I am afraid of religious people. I mentioned this to my husband yesterday and he looked at me like, "Duh." But really - before I did my show, the religious people I was exposed to were so benign - the twinkly eyed priest, the social activist nun, the devoted church group that does things for people in Chiapas at my aunt's church. When I thought of religious people, I thought of people like Jimmy Carter or the Dali Lhama. I thought of the kind persons likely to be out sweeping in front of the churches I would pass by with my dog while on a walk.

But now I get these letters from people, and... I dunno. I just want to GET AWAY. I really am not predisposed to enjoy conflict. I wish I were. I look at people like Rachel Maddow, for example. She is so great - she loves the debate, she relishes the argument, she enjoys the banter and she is doing really good things in my opinion. For example, the last months shows have focused a lot on this Evangelical Christian organization called "The Family" in D.C. and how they have enormous political power and how, through their influence and encouragement, the government of Uganda had a bill for a law before their government that would allow the killing of gay people. Anyway, Rachel has lately been using her show to shed light on this atrocity and she has actually seemed to have done something to get this kind of law either stopped or disavowed. Anyway, I wish I could be like that. I wish I was glad to get these letters and I wish I wanted to spend a lot of time writing to people and arguing with them about their beliefs.

But....

But...

I just... oh god, those people... I just want to get away from them. I want to pretend they do not exist. That is my first impulse. My next thought is, This person scares me.

When I talked this over with Michael, of course he said that even the examples of the kind-priest - he has never had any warm feelings about those people and he has no interest in being around religious people of any type. He thinks a religious person is someone who - well, it's as if they have a sign around their necks that says, "I have unreliable and faulty reasoning. I lie to myself and I'm likely to lie to you too." (This is my analogy, not his.)

Anyway, I used to be more benevolent, I guess. But now, all these letters I'm getting... I dunno. I think I am off the whole thing too. And I'm actually not getting so many hate letters. No - it's at least ten to one, affirmative to negative.

Of course, that doesn't mean I don't want to attend a nice candle-lit Christmas service this year. HA. I am serious, I really do want to.

Also, I like getting suggestions from people in the letters and even criticism. For example, I had one letter criticizing me for my quick dismissal of Buddhism in my show. I think they are right. I think it's so much more complicated than I made it. It's just that - even though I think Buddhism has some great insight into human psychology and human nature, and a good prescription for living with the inherent difficulties in life - it's not really a religion to me, I guess. I thought it was, once it wasn't, I moved on.

I would be Buddhist but I have found other strategies for living that are working really well for me. I don't need it, I guess. Or I'm incorporating the parts of it that are useful to me - mindfulness meditation, yoga - that sort of thing.

In any case, because of this letter, I purposefully took the image of Buddha off the DVD cover. I also took every image off, but still - it was prompted by that letter.

Now I have also read a comment on the Amazon DVD page about how the show is not enough about how to live as a non-believer. It's 3/4 arguing back and forth about whether there is a god or not and then barely anything about how to live with this worldview. I agree with that too! In fact, that letter is really firing me up to write a book about just that.

The point of all this is, I don't mind the critical letters. I just mind the religious crazies. And that definition to me is getting broader and broader. I wish I had more oomph for fighting them, but I just... don't.

2009-12-14T22:38:00.002-06:00

Amazon warehouse

I got underway on my little adventure at about 10:30 a.m. The Amazon warehouse didn't come up on the Google map specifically, but I figured that Whitestown was so small that it would be obvious where it was. I had 15 boxes of DVDs and CDs in the back of my mini-van. I was headed to the town of Whitestown, which is right next to Zionsville, Indiana.

Creepy.

The day was gray and rainy. The snow is mostly melted. The view was sad, a smoggy, foggy, dull slate-colored air and water and sky.

Even still, it's a-day-at-the-spa for me to be able to drive and listen to the radio uninterrupted. That part was great.

What was depressing was how ugly everything was. All the industrial areas south of the city, the old buildings with the windows blown out, the steam or smoke coming from the buildings. I thought about the dark underbelly of our consumer lives, and what a beautiful town I live in and how many other places are so sad and depressing looking. Gary, Indiana was sad, sad, sad. I've driven past this city a few times and never driven in - that is wrong, I will do that someday. But still, the drive was sad. Really, up until I reached Purdue University area, about an hour from my destination, everything was so ugly and blighted with huge billboards for, seemingly, only three things: Christian Churches, Lawyers for industrial accidents, and Casinos. I fell into a funk.

Oh, yeah, then the Indiana license plates. Each one says, "In God We Trust." Wow. I kept thinking, "Yeah, trust in God. Certainly your government isn't doing much for you."

I really seethe when I see how much religion is relied on in poorer, more industrial areas. It's so obvious that religion flourishes in the petrie dish of exploitive business practices, hands-off government policies, and the under-educated and under-opportunized.

And then, on the nigglingly annoying side, there's a lot of toll roads. I had to pay three times. I guess I don't really understand the toll roads well enough to condemn them. But I'm irritated by them. Out west there are not so many toll roads. You can definitely drive from Los Angeles to Spokane and not run into a single toll road.

I was pissy and sad about the whole endeavor. When I got to Whitestown I found that it was a metropolis of mostly warehouses. Warehouses and warehouses and the vast majority of them unmarked. Why unmarked? Military equipment? Poison? Hmmm... As I drove, I noticed many huge, oversized trucks - more trucks than cars. Is Indiana where all the large trucks come from? It's like I ran into a race of large trucks. And no obvious Amazon warehouse.

I couldn't find it. I finally stopped at a Starbucks...

(I was embarrassed to be SO happy to find a Starbucks - god, I'm a... well - in the old says I would say yuppie - what am I now? An urbanite? And yes, I admit it, I was glad to find a well-known chain-store for coffee! In fact, I was hoping to find a little local gem to eat lunch in, but the restaurants I saw were so decrepit, so without customers, so without a new coat of paint in the last fifty years - and not in a good way - that I felt glad to eat a burger from Burger King as I drove. I forgot how great a Whopper tastes. Oh god, I hate myself for writing this paragraph.)

Anyway, I stopped at a Starbucks. I asked if anyone knew where the Amazon warehouse was. I was pointed to another Starbucks employee on a break who was so kind and gentle and sweet. He took ten minutes and found the address and even sent me the instructions on my iphone.

That's when I reached the nadir of my trip. I could not find the place, even with the instructions. It's a veritable NYC of warehouses there. Only many of the roads don't have names. There's a new housing development nearby too: "Anson, Indiana" it's called. There are just a few townhouses, lots of empty planned lots for houses, a school in the middle and three large mega-church sized houses of worship along the outside. One is called Eagle Church, and it too looks like a warehouse. A church that looks like a warehouse! For the people who work in warehouses! So they can spend their days off at another warehouse!

For about ten or fifteen minutes seriously considering that I would not find it and I would have to drive all the way home with all of my stuff.

I saw one warehouse that I figured just had to be it. But there were no signs for Amazon anywhere. However, there was a line of very, very large trucks - mostly Fed-Ex and UPS among many others in line at a booth outside a gated parking and loading area, also filled with trucks. I got my car in line. Me in my mini-van, about to be trampled between two big, gigantic trucks. At the booth, the gate-man was confused by me. I suddenly felt weird and "kooky" and silly. I said I had some boxes to deliver. After much calling back and forth between the booth and someone in the warehouse I was directed to enter and go to loading dock 11. It was hilarious. The loading dock was made for a very large truck. I felt like I had landed on another planet. Everything was oversized, I mean - even in my mini-van, I felt like an ant.

That's when everything changed. I was greeted by this really nice-but-officious woman who was in charge of receivables. First she told me I was completely wrong to just drive in with my stuff. They don't do that. You have to register with them to deliver, and then get assigned a number and then you have to make an appointment. There were dozens of trucks unloading and everything was on a time schedule. You have to print something out before you arrive. That's what the guy at the booth needs. On top of all of that, this is their busiest and mostly scheduled time of year and this day was practically their busiest of the busiest. I felt a like a boob.

Then the woman took my stuff, pointed to another door and asked that I repark my car and meet her there. I was a little afraid I was going to be reprimanded more severely. But that's when I saw the inside! I had to stay behind this fenced-in area but I could see everything, (that's the picture I took with my phone above) and I'm telling you, it was just like I imagined it - no, wait. it was much better. It almost did look like Santa's workshop. There were people emptying boxes and inputing the contents into a computer system and then putting the cardboard on a conveyer belt that takes it off to be recycled. There were people on two higher exposed floors, walking around with little carts - you know, like at the library, filling it up with books and CDs and other smaller stuff to fill orders. There were people zipping around on segway-like contraptions and beeping before entering aisles.

I told this woman how seeing the inside of this place was really a thrill for me and she lit up and smiled. She explained how this part of the warehouse was for smaller items. She pointed to another end where there were people wrapping packages. She told me they work for free and then Amazon donates the money paid by customers to have their packages wrapped to the charity of the person-who's-wrapping's choice. Does that convoluted sentence makes sense? (I wondered how many donations were for churches, but still, what a great policy!) She told me how Amazon's always had this policy. She told me the whole warehouse was "green" - had special lighting that turned off if there were no people in the area, how all the desks and all the aisles with goods were constructed from recycled materials. Then she blushed and said, "I love this place. I love this company. And I've worked for some bad ones, but Amazon is great."

I was blindsided. I did not expect this at all. The people there DID seem really happy. People were smiling, music was playing - oh yes! They had music playing loud, really loud - and it was good. In fact, they were playing that new Sting song... God I can't remember the name but it's from the new album - "If On A Winter's Night." Anyway, the point is, there was music, it wasn't schmatzy Christmas music, it appeared to be a happy work environment.

When I left the man at the booth laughed and we talked for a moment. He is Kenyan, and came to the U.S. only four years ago. He said he loved working for Amazon too. America! What a country!

I had to pinch myself as I was driving off. It seemed almost orchestrated for my benefit. WEIRD.

I drove home feeling so happy. It really was an adventure. I felt a lot better about Amazon. The warehouses didn't depress me as I drove home, I felt optimistic. Even as I got towards Gary again, it was dark and the lights and steam coming from the factories were romantic looking instead of dark and sooty. I know I was enchanted by my Amazon experience, and that it colored everything, but wow. What a day.

And best of all, now it's listed on Amazon as: available now! Yeah! Yippity yah! It took 8 hours and $40 in gas and $10 in tolls and an extra 2000 calories I probably wouldn't have eaten, but still... I would say it was a day well spent.

2009-12-14T07:53:00.001-06:00

Here is the new cover of the DVD

Letting Go of God has been a completely home made operation. It's not just a one-woman show, it was a one woman everything. That's not completely true, actually. I had a producer for the movie and the stage show, who did a huge amount of work. And of course all the people who worked on the stage and film productions. But in the deepest sense, this is really a one-man-band.

I was so glad that I started working on this show just when new technology made it possible to do everything myself. I hated that "It's Pat" had so much studio input (that didn't necessarily make it better or worse, it's just that I didn't get to make my own mistakes because of so much interference.)

"God Said, Ha!" which I was able to direct and have total creative control over is now owned totally by Miramax (Disney now, I guess.) When "God Said Ha!" plays on cable, I have no knowledge of that. It's theirs and they can do with it what they want.

So, when it came to "Letting Go of God" it was really important to me to handle everything myself and own it myself. I had a chance to take the show to a large, well-known off-Broadway theater in New York, but I had to give up most of my ownership in the show and also give away rights to the film and so I said "No." (There were other factors too, like relocating to New York with Mulan and mostly figuring out how to be a mother while doing 8 shows a week - I just didn't think I could hack it. Also, I was single at the time so I had no one other than hired help to pitch in with parenting - the whole thing was overwhelming. I was sad it didn't play in a bigger theater in New York, but I felt I would probably lose my mind if I did do that. I set my sights on figuring out how to film the show instead of take it to a prestigious theater.)

I began to sell CDs of my second monologue "In The Family Way" (which I also own) and to "Letting Go of God" on Amazon and I was surprised that I really liked being a small-time entrepreneur of my own work. I liked packing the CDs and then the DVDs off in boxes as I got orders for them, and standing in line at the Post Office, and sending them to Amazon to sell. It's all kind of silly because I could earn (well... theoretically) so much more money working on a show as a writer (I quit my last TV writers job a few years ago) and instead I had (in my mind) opened this teeny store front, like a chewing gum stand, it's so small, and I was making really nothing - pretty much breaking even - but it was mine. Of course I still work on other things - things that actually make money -- voice overs, writing TV pilots, doing speaking engagements, so this DVD business could be my wee hobby.

I was talking to a good friend of mine, Cindy Chupak, who used to be a writer on Sex & the City (where I spent some time as a consultant) and I told her that I liked sending the CDs off in the mail so much that I almost wanted to be my own fulfillment house for individual orders. I wanted to write a personal thank you with each CD that I sold. Cindy looked at me with a worried expression and said, "I think it would be really sad for me to think of you doing that. If I got a CD I ordered of your show, and then got it mailed directly from you to me in the mail, well... that would make me sad for you... y'know?"

That made me love Cindy so much and laugh really hard at myself too. Why did I want to do that? Wasn't it enough that I was dragging boxes of CDs to the post office and sending them to Amazon? Is it my small-world-need-to-connect or is it my obsession with minutia to the point where I don't see the forest for the trees?

I can't explain it. I thought I would be a bigger time mover and shaker in show biz or something maybe. But, I just like the small things. I like the connection. I like that I make my product and then send it out in the world to people. Artists couldn't do this before now - not with CDs and DVDs anyway. I love it that I can do that. Also, I love that I still totally own things - even if it adds up to chump change, it still makes me feel I really earned that money.

Then there was this last year, getting the movie ready to show on cable... There are all these things that have to be done, like getting closed captioning, and insurance against people like Deepak suing me for defamation (it's so ridiculous, public figures are explicitly open to being parodied or made the butt of jokes - I mean I worked on SNL so I know this, it was discussed constantly - but still I had to get insurance just for a nuisance law suit!)

In any case, over this last year it got to be sad to me. I was doing too much, more than I wanted to do myself. I decided this was the last project I was ever going to do this way. If I wrote a play or a book or anything again, I was going to find people who specialized in these things and get them to deal with all the details. I wanted a publisher. I wanted a distributor. I wanted to just be the artist again. Enough with all this!

I moved last year and got to know the folks at my post office. I did absolutely no advertising and no publicity for Letting Go of God over this last year. None. And I would sell somewhere between 100 and 200 DVDs a month through Amazon. I still like taking the boxes to the post office, I still like packing the boxes. I still like touching each DVD with my own hands before it goes off into the world.

I always wondered about the Amazon warehouses. What were they like? Did the people there notice and care about what people had ordered? I imagined myself working there. I would be saying, "Oh! What a great book! And then they got this other great book! Wow." Of course thinking this is a little creepy too - who wants to think people are musing over what different combinations of books and CDs and DVDs people are buying? But I just can't imagine that it isn't happening! I liked the image I came up with of the people packing boxes at Amazon. I wanted to even write something about it.

I was coming to the end of the DVDs I had made for this last year, and so I had my CD graphic designer design a new DVD cover (see the picture above) that fits in more with the design of the CD. I like this one better. I am glad my mug is not on the cover. I ordered the new DVD cases to be "eco" (ha! everything eco!) and it's made from recycled paper (15% more in cost!) and it's not an "avery case" anymore - that means it doesn't have the plastic inside, it's all paper. I ordered 3000 and figured that would last for all of 2010. And maybe even 2011 and 2012.

The movie began to show on Showtime. I have done no publicity. Showtime does not even have the artwork on their website, and no one called me about any interviews. They have showed the movie about ten times so far. They have the right to show it until the end of October next year. I have no idea how many times they will show it or if they'd buy the right to show it after that time.

Last week I got a big order from them for 350 DVDs! It was so much fun taking the DVDs to the post office. Everyone I know there was so happy for me, sending off so many DVDs to Amazon. I was once again glad I was doing it all myself. It felt like Christmas. Hell, it was Christmas!

But then, last night, I looked and Amazon had ordered 1100 DVDs! And over 300 CDs! The biggest order ever!!! The status on getting the DVDs is now 2 to 4 weeks, which sucks because that means people would miss Christmas if that is what they are thinking about! Plus it takes a while for boxes to get to the Amazon warehouse and get recorded in their system and all that. I really want the DVDs to be there and the status to be back to "available now!"

So the point of all this boring, boring story is that I started putting together the boxes. I will run out of the old style DVD (I have only 300 left) and begin to use the new ones. I have about 15 boxes to send.

I realized that the Amazon warehouse that I'm sending these all to is in Indiana - it's about 3 hours away from where I am now.

So.... I'm going to drive them there myself!

I'm going to get Mulan off to school and start driving to the Amazon warehouse. I cannot wait to go there! I cannot wait to do this. This is going to be awesome. I'm going to listen to NPR or my audio books all the way. I tried to convince Michael to take a day off work to go with me, but he can't. He actually snorted when I asked him if he wanted to go. To me this is an adventure!

I'm still not sure if this all just makes me sadder and more pathetic, or in control of my own creative life. I think it's probably a combination of both. But anyway, I'm doing it. I wonder if I'll get a sneak peak inside the fulfillment center? Can I sweet talk my way in? Can I see people filling those Amazon boxes? Or will it be sad and anonymous? Will I be gladder to do this all myself or even more embarrassed that my life has gone this route?

We will see.

2009-12-10T16:34:00.002-06:00

It's friggin' cold.

I can't believe I did the whole hour-long walk with Arden today. It was really cold, I think it was 8 degrees. When I woke up, the radio - tuned to NPR - announced the temperature was 0. ZERO! And with the wind chill factor, minus 20! Arden was so cold, I think his paws started to freeze. He would stop occasionally and shake a paw and stare at it. He looked like he was surprised and that his paw was numb. I was only going to go as far as I needed to for Arden to rid himself of waste - but we just kept going. I had no intention of crossing Green Bay Road to the lake, but then did. And I was so glad. The waves were rolling and the steam from the lake created this mist wafting above, it was really otherworldly - primordial. My mouth fell open at the scene but then my teeth began to chatter again.

I keep getting letters from people. It really is thrilling to read people's response to the show. One letter I got was from an oncologist who said that he found that people who were religious seemed comforted by their faith at first, but then many had a hard time towards the end, if it looked like they were going to lose their life in their battle with cancer. And that people who were not religious and had a naturalistic world view, and didn't think their life was going to go on in the hereafter - they had a harder time at first but then an easier time accepting death. This is just one man's observations, and of course I am inclined to believe it's probably true about people. I often wonder how much religion and God and the idea of an afterlife helps. It seems that it would be very helpful in extremely uncertain situations. I know first hand how the idea of God being "with me" in a crisis was helpful. But I wonder, was it really?

For example, long long ago I was involved in a... a... well, I was abducted. Wow - I was going to say kidnapped but that sounds too dramatic. In any case, that's what the court called it. It's a long story for another time, but the bottom line is that I offered a person help and they ended up pulling a gun on me and I was with this man for several hours. This man told me he was going to kill me.

And, I was totally calm. I thought it was my destiny - whatever happened. I befriended - or pretended to befriend him so he would have compassion. I tried to make myself a person to him. I talked about jazz and the kinds of music I liked - that sort of thing. The whole time I thought I had God on my side. I thought this situation was being witnessed by someone who was going to judge me on how brave and smart I was being. My faith seemed to help me be calm, to help me get through it.

But now that I look back on this, I think it was my blind faith that was partly to blame for me even being in a situation like I was in! There were many clues that this person was not trustworthy and I ignored them, partly because I felt that God put people in my life for a reason. I was not cautious and I was not critical. When I think of Mulan at age 23 (the age I was then) I hope she is more savvy and much less trusting than I was. Part of this is more about age than philosophy of course. I don't automatically trust people but that is what happens to everyone I know as they get older. Maybe religion didn't have all that much to do with it. I'm not sure, but it's something I like to mull.

I just finished the book about Samuel Champlain today. His Catholic faith seemed to make him more loving and more open to the humanity of the native americans. Of course there are so many examples of religion working the opposite way - to make people not acknowledge other's humanity - to be judgmental in the worst ways and superior in all the wrong ways. Champlain wanted to integrate with the native Americans and wanted them to intermarry with the french. He respected them - maybe not in all ways, but so much more than his counterparts did. Was it his nature or his faith that made him this way?

It's something I will probably muse upon for decades - whether religion helps people. I am inclined to think that religion, when used sparingly - like an aspirin, seems to be okay. It's just when it's used too much.... No, WAIT, I cannot say that. I think in the end - on balance, it's not helpful. In any case, it's too likely to be a lie and can a lie ever be helpful? (Well, yes. It can. When you're hiding innocents in your attic - that sort of thing. What would you tell a child facing certain death? The blunt truth? Oh! I don't know - I guess I would. I think I would. Would I really???)

I also got a letter from a young woman with throat cancer and she faces a stiff battle for her life. She is no longer a believer in God but her family, who is religious, wants her to believe. She doesn't know how to respond. I don't either but I cannot stop thinking about it. Family members want you to feel better and they believe that believing makes you feel better. It's like Daniel Dennet writes about so eloquently. People don't really believe - but they believe in believing.

2009-12-09T10:20:00.000-06:00

My parents, just engaged, Christmas 1958, Spokane Washington

I didn't take a picture yesterday or this morning, so I am posting this one. I love my mom's lipstick and my dad's sweater. I meant to post this picture with a poem I found a long time ago about parents and wanting to go back in time and prevent them from meeting each other to avoid all the heartache and pain they will cause (no - not all of it was pain, but there was a fairly large amount of pain) and then realizing that if they don't meet and get married, then, well you wouldn't be here - so you have to cheer them on. Anyway, it was a great poem and where the hell is it? I cannot find it. I swear I will find it.

It's really snowy here and we are bracing for a storm and very cold temperatures tomorrow.

I am getting a lot of really great response to my show on Showtime. It's so sweet too because I honestly became so mired in the logistics of getting the film to Showtime, and it's been over a year since I even performed the show, that I forgot that I'm proud of the actual show itself! It had become this bottomless pit of duties and details and now I'm getting these wonderful letters and I'm surprised - oh yeah, the show itself - yeah... that. Hey, I'm proud of that!

Jim Emerson and I are working on a screenplay and making progress. I'm working on two book ideas - I am the absolute slowest writer... But still, I'm plugging away at it. And just now I have to go help Michael weatherize the outside of the house and get ready for this cold front.

2009-12-07T12:43:00.000-06:00

Arden on our walk this morning.

Oh how I love snow. My husband does not. He wishes we lived in Los Angeles. People think I moved here for his sake. That I was torn out of sunny Los Angeles by obligation. Little to they know that I won our little war over where to live together. He has work here - but then I have work in L.A. too.

But I wanted this weather! I wanted that feeling of warmth that you can only get walking in the snow, when your cheeks are rosy red and you can see your breath. Being indoors has a special magical feeling when it's really cold outside. The fifty degree difference is big between outside and inside. I remember that we are an animal that has figured out how to be warm in the cold. It gives me the excuse not to go anywhere. Really my big dream is to just never go anywhere. I am typing right this minute looking at snow fall. I do not think it gets any better than this. I have reached peak happiness.

Not much to report today. I am listening to an audio book while I walk the dog. It's "Champlain's Dream" by David Hackett Fischer. I got it because I had listened to his book, "Washington's Crossing" and was so engrossed, impressed, and informed. So I got this. I didn't really even know who Champlain was (founder of Quebec - early French explorer and New World Builder.) I have never been to Quebec or Montreal. Now I am hankering to go. Let me just say this about the Native Americans Indian Tribes - wow, they were into torture. Yes, the Europeans were too, especially the Spanish. But lord, what the Mohawks did to the Iroquois, and really they all did to each other. I hate listening to the descriptions of torture, but I cannot stop listening, it's like turning your back on the tortured, like somehow I can be a witness to their pain or something. Yes, it all smacks of magical thinking, but I cannot stop listening. It's not all about torture of course, and Champlain was a big negotiator with the Indians to reduce it (even though he was joining them in war against each other) but the part I'm listening to now is very torture-heavy. Wow, human psychology - the whole vengeance imperative. I have to say it all makes me amazed that Jesus, with his turn-the-other-cheek attitude (I know, amongst others, and not just him... he's just the historical, and yes probably mythical, religious figure I happen to know the most about) gets more radical the more I understand history.

So... Champlain. I am running to the computer from time to time to look up the geography of Canada. I'm really hooked.

Last night some friends came over and we watched "Coraline." I slept through a lot of it, but I thought it was really inventive and beautiful (the parts I was able to see.) Mulan got really scared, though, and I had to go to her room and sleep with her from 1:30 to 3:00 a.m. last night. She had nightmares about the "Bad mother with the button eyes." It was hard not to tease her - my comedy improv training must take a back seat when my kid is truly scared. Ha.

Oh, and here is Lake Michigan this morning. I just figured out how to have two pictures... Lordy.

2009-12-03T13:36:00.000-06:00

My two nieces, Kaitlyn and Megan, who are 9 year old twins, came to stay (with their parents) over Thanksgiving. We all went to the Shedd Aquarium and Mulan and her cousins all got a penguin in the museum store. They came home with the penguins and dressed them in bathing suits and from then on, the stuffed playtoys were a major part of our lives. Here they be in all their splendor.

It's snowing! It's not sticking, but still. I'm so happy about it. I say, bring it on.

Spent the day redoing the blog look and playing with the new features and getting ready for "Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me" for which I'm soon going to be on the Metra and moving towards downtown Chicago.

I continue to get letters about the movie playing on Showtime. I read each one, it's really a wonderful thing that this technology allows me to do that.

2009-12-02T21:49:00.002-06:00

Here is another picture from the train trip to the SouthWest. This picture was taken right at the train window and it's as we are getting nearer to the Petrified Forest.

Not much to report today although it was a busy one. Today was the first day for Showtime to play, "Letting Go." I got many letters from people about it, and that made me very, very, VERY happy. Gosh, it's been a long time and a lot of work, getting this movie shot and ready to be on the air. Tonight I tivo-ed it, and after Michael and Mulan and I came home from a celebratory dinner, we watched the first twenty minutes or so. Of course all I can marvel at is the size of my jowls, but on another - less narcissistically obsessed note, I felt it looked pretty good. Ah.... Done... The monologue has gone to college. Yes, that's how it feels, like I've reared this difficult child and now it's at college! Yeah! Yippity yah! Go, have your own life, already!!!!

I spent a big part of the day getting the new forum ready. Well, there are going to be two different forums - one at FFRF.org (Freedom From Religion Foundation) and one at The Skeptics Society. And honestly, all I really did directly for the Skeptic's Forum was to write an introduction. But I learned more about how this blogger site works and you may note that there are several more links to the right. More to do tomorrow, but for now, it's all okay.

However, tomorrow is swamped because I'm doing "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" - the NPR show tomorrow night. G'nite!

2009-12-01T11:05:00.000-06:00

Yes, I've been absent. Well, I have reasons. First of all, I was gone for a week on a pleasure trip! (That phrase always sounds so hedonistic, doesn't it?)

Anyway, I went on a train trip, organized by Roots on the Rails, from Los Angeles to Arizona and New Mexico. Their trips are all about music and trains and they use restored train cars from the 1940s and 1950s and attach them to the end of an Amtrak train. Then they invite a few musicians to play each night. Jill Sobule, my dear friend and sometimes performing partner, was one of the musicians. The others were The Handsome Family and Stan Ridgway (former lead singer of the Wall of VooDoo.)

Every night they'd sing and about thirty of us would sit around and enjoy it. And there was so much joy in it too. We did some off-train touring in Arizona and we visited the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest and the Grand Canyon.

It was my very first time to visit the Grand Canyon. It's weird that I haven't been there - I've travelled so much, all over the world, for months at a time, and yet never gone to the Grand Canyon! Unforgivable, really. Anyway, over the years I have this fantasy image of the Grand Canyon in my mind. And even though the real Grand Canyon was as impressive as everyone says it is, and even though I was transfixed and mesmerized and have already begun to dream of and plan for my next visit - I have become aware that there is this other Grand Canyon that lived in my mind for sooo long, and it's now nestled alongside the real Grand Canyon in the file in my brain labeled: Grand Canyon.

It will take many more visits to the Grand Canyon to diminish the fantasy. My fantasy Grand Canyon is more like a crater than a canyon - it's rounder and smoother and might even be deeper - it's more open and doesn't have the crevices that the real Grand Canyon has.

I have thought about this and realize now that there are many places that exist in my mind alongside their realer, truer counterparts. For example, my husband, Michael took classes at the Old Town School of Folk Music for a long time and while we were dating, we would talk on the phone late at night after his classes. He would drive through this area of Chicago on his way home that had a lot of Indian food and sometimes stop at his favorite places to eat or pick up some food.

Now I live here, near Chicago, with Michael and with my daughter Mulan. She takes guitar classes at Old Town now and M & I sometimes both go with her. We sometimes stop and get food at the same places Michael used to mention on the phone to me.

But the fantasy of what the Old Town was like - and the drive home for him - it lives still in this other universe of fantasy. It's a different place than the real place that I know. The school is darker and has more wood molding and it has more music rooms and the drive is longer and the roads to get there are narrower. It's like a movie set - yes, it has the set decorations I would put there, that I have put there as I directed the images in my head.

This other place - Old Town School and Drive Home The Alternate Universe is a place that can sometimes catch me up as I inadvertently remember it exists from time to time. I almost wonder about the people who inhabit the fantasy are doing - how they're faring - how that other place has kept up with the economy changes or even just the changes of the seasons.

In any case, this is true of the Grand Canyon too. This was also true of Istanbul. My friend Jim Emerson went to Istanbul about ten years ago and described it in vivid detail. It's not the Istanbul I visited, but an alternate Istanbul, Jim Emerson's Istanbul as imagined by me. And this place has a spot in my memory almost as real as the real Istanbul I experienced.

Wow, I am off topic.

In any case, I went on this train trip. Oh! We stayed at the most astonishing and lovely hotel for the one night we were off the train. It's called La Posada and it's in Winslow, Arizona. It's one of those western train hotels that had the Harvey Girls for waitresses in the old days. A wealthy couple bought the ruins of the place and completely restored it. I was instantly in love with this hotel. It's really fantastic, and probably looks greater now than it originally did. The food was excellent. Michael and I bought the hotel's restaurant cookbook and made a couple of the recipes from it for Thanksgiving dinner. Both turned out well.

After the train trip Michael headed home and I had to stay in L.A. for a couple of days while I pitched this pilot I'm working on. I flew back to Chicago and had 24 hours to get ready to welcome my mother and my two nieces and then my brother and sister-in-law for Thanksgiving week. A good time was had by all. We were busy - we toured around Chicago, went to the Adler Planetarium and the Shedd Aquarium and the Chicago Botanical garden (three times to the garden!) and my mother just left yesterday.

And now I am....

I am....

I am utterly and completely and totally and fundamentally and to-my-bones exhausted. I am sooooo damn tired.

Every surface in my house is piled with stuff from two weeks of randomly throwing anything anywhere to get it out of the way. Mail is unopened, receipts are tucked in sofa cushions, dust is wafting around doorways and laundry is about as high as my waist. This morning I opened a hallway coat closet and a roll of paper towels bounced off my head. I open drawers and half-eaten boxes of candy from going to the movies is spilled all over polly-pocket rubbery clothes. The twins stayed with Mulan in her room and we blew up an extra mattress and now it seriously looks like a punk band stayed in there and trashed the place. Even though the kids were good - they didn't trash the place, it's just - well... let's just say I really took a sabbatical from keeping the house picked up and how I am wading through the aftermath.

Anyway, enough of that. This is what I really wanted to write about today...

I'm making some changes, I'm streamlining, cost-cutting, focusing. I'm trying to reduce my web-presence. Yes, just as everyone is getting in, I'm getting out. Well, not completely! For example I do love writing this blog. I will continue with that. But I'm going to redirect my web address to this blog, and try to get any necessary information on to it. I can put my representation, my email address, and even put up my infrequent-performing-schedule in the header (as I just did as an experiment.)

I feel I'm headed to more writing and less performing and this change reflects the change that is happening in my life. I'm not sure I want to be a public person anymore. I don't want to promote myself. That seems like the old me. I like the new me. Just writing my blog, and working on scripts and my book and that's it. My website is managed by a company and I have been paying for it monthly and, y'know... it's been great and all, but it feels like a good time to break up. I know I could probably make a website or web-page myself - even though I'm really remedial with computers - but y'know, I just don't want to.

It's kind of odd to do this now because "Letting Go of God" - the movie - is premiering on Showtime tomorrow! But it's not odd in other ways. Showtime has a year to play the movie and will perhaps, if it's received well, play the year after, too. I'm thinking there could be an influx of people trying to look me up on the internet and I want to direct them - if there are those people - to a forum housed in a place that I do not administer. There are a couple of forums that I think are really good and that can start a section for Letting Go of God. One is at the Freedom From Religion Foundation and one is at The Skeptic Society. These are going to take a few days to set up. In the meantime, I will have an announcement on my own forum that I'm not accepting new registrants and directing them to the new place for foruming... All this should happen in the next couple of days.

I just spoke to Annie Laurie at the Freedom From Religion Foundation, and they are going to set up a special place for me and Letting Go on their forum. The only hitch there is that you have to be a member to be on the forum. Of course I recommend joining, but if people don't want to, I believe the Skeptic Society does not require that. Oh dear, much to find out today.

More tomorrow.

p.s. I am going to attend and speak at the Freedom From Religion Foundation meeting next October in Madison. I had a blast the last time I did it. Annie Laurie says Ron Reagan (who spoke at this year's convention in early November) was hysterical. I wish I'd seen him!

2009-11-08T11:31:00.000-06:00

This picture was taken yesterday, It's a squirrel on my front porch, feasting on pumpkins.

There ARE squirrels in Los Angeles, but I didn't realize what a small population they were. Here they are everywhere. Arden, my dog, goes after each one on our daily hour long walk and it's incredibly annoying. I am constantly using my free hand to help in the effort to pull him back on his leash and since I am listening to an audio book on my ipod, I am often in the clouds in my thoughts and jerked into the present moment by these ubiquitous squirrels. Plus, I become cartoonish as I sometimes get the cords of my earpieces mixed around the leash as I fumble to hold Arden back.

I've noticed too, that the squirrels are behaving differently. They used to run as soon as they saw my dog. Now they are fatter, and seemingly more bleary-eyed and bloated. They don't run. In fact, I think some of them look at Arden and give him this look, "Go ahead, take my life, I cannot stand to think of another winter." They don't sprint until the last possible moment and even then, it's wrong to say sprint, it's more of a leisurely waddle towards the nearest tree.

Well, I like the blog-post I got about going to the University of Chicago on Saturdays to read the classics. Wow, could I figure out how to do that? I would love to. Hmmm....

I am still listening to "The History of Philosophy" - and after a few days of Francis Bacon I am now knee-deep into Spinoza. I really wish I could just retire and spend the rest of my life in contemplation. I don't think I would think anything noteworthy, but I would enjoy the process - or rather, the life. I sometimes giggle at myself, I have turned into a completely different person than I thought I would be! I am becoming less and less social. I crave being alone more and more. I just want to think. God - am I that sort of person??? Yes, I guess I am. I used to give lots of dinner parties and interspersed them with lots of even bigger parties. Now my favorite day is puttering around the house, reading, and cooking something while listening to the radio.

2009-11-04T19:43:00.000-06:00

Again, I have not taken a daily picture. I did, however, find an old disposable camera from god-knows how long ago and sent it in to be developed and was surprised with the results. The above picture is one of them. The picture is of my dad, who passed away in 2004, and Mulan, who is obviously just a baby. And I must say, she's a very fashionable baby at that.

Oh those were the days when I could dress her any way I wanted. In any case, seeing this picture today gave me a few tears. My dad really connected with Mulan. This must have been in 2002. There were other pictures of Mulan too. I was on this show at the time called "Maybe It's Me." Fred Willard and I played parents to five teenagers. It was a fun show and Mulan was on the set the entire time. The rest of the roll was all of Mulan on the Warner Bros. backlot. Sigh. I miss L.A, I miss being on a show. That was really fun. What is Suzanne Martin (the creator of that show) up to now? (You can see how life can be drowned in a series of googling endeavors.)

Okay, I have to - slightly - amend my blog post of yesterday. I'm not sure that Plato is the true God of the Jesuits. I mean, Jesus surrounded himself with men who had either shunned their families or taken some kind of vow that caused them not to have families. Yes, ture. But the way Plato (and Socrates) describes this utopian society, ruled by a philosopher elite - well, the flavor of the description was completely Jesuitical to me. That's what struck me so deeply.

The description of the Apostles, for example, in the Bible - well, I never once thought of priests, let alone Jesuits.

In any case, I'm so hooked on the Greeks, man. I can't wait to learn more! I need to know so much more. Oh, why can't I just live at the library?

The thing that unhinged me was that as I listened I agreed with Pato's ideas! I have become more conservative, (or rather, more jaded perhaps) as I've gotten older and frankly listening to Will Durant paraphrase and then quote Plato, I was nodding my head the whole time! I think it does sound perfect - a group of people who are not bound by family and passionate obligation, who devote themselves to study and to governing. Yes, this idea is completely impractical given human behavior, but it is a great idea. And really, I liked the idea of the priesthood, and the convent too, when I was a Catholic. This romantic ideal is what made me want to be a nun. Frankly an organization like the Jesuits who models itself on Socrates and Plato sounds a lot better to me than an organization modeled on the Apostles as given to us in the Bible! (I know, it's not really a fair comparison.)

So, I'm still musing and thinking about this. Then as the day wore on, which was really busy and frenetic, I became obsessed with Will and Ariel Durant and would google them in between calls and errands. Wow, what a couple. Today my fantasy is to just take three years to read "The History Of Civilization." There's a DVD you can order from willdurant.com. It's a documentary I guess - it's an hour with Ariel and Will at home in the sixties. I want it. I really want it. But first I have to finish the book I'm currently listening to. Today it was all Aristotle. Oh... Aristotle. There's a whole OTHER topic. Wow, he really rejected so many, so so so many good and true ideas. And maybe because of this I like him all the more. He's so... human.

College - so wasted on youth. I wanna go back to school.

2009-11-03T20:18:00.000-06:00

I feel a little odd posting a picture of myself, but I didn't take any pictures today. Of the pictures I could choose to post, well, I don't feel I should be posting pics of Michael or Mulan without asking them first and they are watching TV. So here I am for your viewing pleasure.

Michael took this picture towards the end of Mulan's 10th birthday party on Sunday. Nine girls were in the basement dancing. The junk-filled room behind me is our basement guest room, where I threw everything from the other, bigger paneled room as I was wildly cleaning it up for the party.

We have a very arch-typical basement - lots of paneling, and it's one of the things I love about this house. In the basement, it's always 1975. The pictures on the wall around me are of our relatives, pictures we blew up for our wedding.

Once the party was in full swing, I was so tired. I think I had just said to Michael, "When do we get to start drinking?" And he took this picture. I was utterly exhausted.

I suddenly feel like a truly old parent. I can't believe my mother had five kids and threw big birthday parties for all of us. I'll be recovering from Mulan's birthday for about... a year.

I'm so sorry, but I just have to change the subject.

My mind is agog at the following realization: Plato is the true God of the Jesuits.

Now, to those of you well-versed with the Jesuitical mind-set and culture, what should be surprising is that this is - in any way - surprising.

I don't really know Plato very well. I mean, I knew the broad strokes - but I never read the Republic or his Dialogues or anything. I think I've even used the term "platonic ideal!" Now I realize that i have only a very superficial understanding of what that phrase really means. (Well, in my own defense, just try to understand Wikipedia's definition of platonic ideal.)

Mostly Plato seemed like gobbeldygook - a philosopher with great ideas but unfortunately who lived before science, psychology, and the social sciences usurped his musings with the cold hard facts of nature.

So, I've been listening to Will Durant's "The Story of Philosophy" on my dog-walk, on my ipod. And this is my probably obvious -to-many-but-not-to-me-until-now realization: THE TRUE GOD OF THE JESUITS IS PLATO! The Bible didn't inspire the Catholic organization of Europe - or the priesthood -or the Jesuits in particular - it was all Plato! Plato, Plato, Plato - Lordy it's so obvious!!!

C'mon, the ideas - that the men who are "worthy" and "of merit" should be living apart from others - shunning marriage and children, and rule over the others. It's all in there, everything. It was so familiar - the point of view, it gave me chills. The whole flavor of Plato - is so much like the spirit of the Jesuits -- the way they think of themselves, the way they've been organized, the way they look at the world, y'know, it's not really Biblical at all.

That was my big astonishment reading the Bible - it was so hard to believe that this was the book that inspired the religion that I had been a part of. Jesus didn't seem like he would have been Catholic, and particularly not Jesuit.

But hearing Will Durant read excerpts of Plato, I am, frankly, thunderstruck. I had to actually stop walking a few times and just breathe deeply. And the thing is, Plato even says that belief in the supernatural - well, ha ha, that's for the masses! That's for the common folk who cannot live without a supernatural moral code and need to think that God is watching them always.

And that was just exactly the feeling I got from the Jesuits I happen to be friends with when I began to question everything about God. Their reaction wasn't to refute what I was saying - no not at all. Their reaction was more like, well as if I as a member of, yes - one of the lower classes! One of the ones that should believe because it's "good" for me and my type - y'know the non-thinkers of the world (and more to the point - the women of the world!) We weren't supposed to wrestle with these questions. We were supposed to be comforted by the idea of god, more willing to send our sons off to war, more willing to die because we thought we would see our loved ones in heaven - religion was for people like me and I was breaking the rules - and that was the part that seemed the most upsetting to them.

Anyway... that's what i'm thinking about today.

2009-11-02T16:30:00.000-06:00

We took Mulan to The American Girl store on Saturday and had a birthday lunch with her at the cafe. They give your doll her own special seat, and this is Mulan's doll enjoying a cup of tea. It's really pretty funny. In the bathroom, in the stalls, there's a place to put your doll while you... ahem, go. I don't know why I love the American Girl Dolls so much, I should hate the whole thing. But I love the clothes, and the accessories, and the historical doll's stories.

When Mulan was five, and first discovered American Girl dolls, I made a deal with her that if she got rid of all her Barbies I would let her have an American Girl Doll. She agreed. But Barbies, as we know, are uber-post-pubescent and American Girl dolls are pre. I can see Mulan is beginning to lose interest - a wee bit -- in the American Girl dolls. She is gravitating towards Barbies again. She likes the fashion. And oh god, I really don't like the Barbies all that much. Now she's been given a few and I haven't made her give them up. Oh well. But as I watch her play between the younger looking dolls and the super-sexualized dolls - it's just like her at 10, on the edge...

We began to watch Giada DeLaurentis on The Food Channel and she is always showing us her ample bosoms. Now it's become a word we use, certain girls are "Giada'd out" or certain Barbies are "Giada-ing it" in certain outfits. That makes me laugh.

On the topic of Giada DeLaurentis - her show - it's so food porn! I know it's a cliche now to say that about the food channel shows, but her shows really really are. There's all this music and close ups of cutting and fingers wiping off knives, and it's not for any real reason - it's not to show a technique or anything, it's just to get you all hyped up, if y'know what I mean...

2009-10-31T10:13:00.000-05:00

Michael set up his turn table in the basement (which is still having it's own remodeling work done on it - oh the mess!)

Anyway, we put his records on shelves. He hadn't even even taken the records out of the boxes they came in when he moved from Boston to Chicago twelve years ago!

We listened to The Kinks, The Go-Gos, Bruce Springsteen and Jefferson Airplane. Mulan danced around. Wow, the slowness of getting the album on the turntable, setting down the stylus, sitting back and listening to entire albums - not just songs - it demands a different kind of listening. Even the scratches and pops, I miss that in music!

2009-10-30T09:13:00.000-05:00

This picture has nothing to do with anything. Except it's something I own that I absolutely treasure. It's by a Oaxacan artist and I have several pieces of art by him. It's a wall hanging and about 18" x 12". This was sitting in the basement on a fold-out banquet table because I haven't found a perfect wall to hang it on yet. Anyway, I grabbed a camera and took this little picture. What about the woman underneath with the veins that reach up, above ground? That is awesome! Oh, the guy's hand broke off and I have to re-glue it. I just realized that looking at the picture. Ha.

I did "Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me" last night. I have such a blast doing that show. The other panelists were Amy Dickenson and Luke Burbank. They were hysterical. I was so nervous to do the show. This is my third or maybe fourth time to do it, and I just get nervouser each time. My hands were actually shaking I was so nervous. To me, this show is much scarier than doing Saturday Night Live. In the lightening round, when Peter Sagal goes through the questions very quickly, I swear I cannot even understand one word he's saying. Then I get panicky about it and say to myself, "Just listen, just breathe and listen." But then that almost makes it worse, my anxiety about not being able to listen, just compounds everything! Dear God, I am so not cut out for this show and yet I really want to be because hanging out with these people is a thrill I wish to experience again and again.

I had a friend, Rhonda, in town and we all went out for drinks afterwards. What a great night. But I didn't get to bed till almost 1:30 a.m. and I will probably be paying the emotional price for this later today.

2009-10-27T22:05:00.000-05:00

Too tired. This is my family room just off the kitchen. I cannot find anything. It's a sea of junk amidst a sea of plastic wrapped furniture. Two more days and it will all be done. This part, anyway...

Mulan has a birthday party here on Sunday. I have to clean the house, I must put everything away, I must find my MIND. Then my hostess SMILE.

I was supposed to go to L.A. to pitch something next week but it's been postponed. Jim and I continue to talk through the movie we're writing. The process is so much fun, I would do it for free.

Wait a minute, we ARE doing it for free. Ha. Anyway, we're making real progress and I am enjoying the entire process.

I'm obsessed with Mad Men. I can't stop thinking about the last episode.

2009-10-25T18:37:00.000-05:00

My camera broke, again.

So this is a picture from the other day when it did work. It's on my dog walk. Lord in heaven, I love that tree.

I listen to audio books on my walk and am now entrenched in "Super Freakonomics." Oh god, it's good, too.

I'm listening to a birthday present CD of Iris Dement's "Lifeline." The song, "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms" - well, if that song doesn't make you tear up, well, I would wonder about you...

I'm reading "Three Wishes" - the publisher's copy (they want a quote.) It's about three women who become single mothers by choice and it's riveting. God, I feel so deeply happy that all that part of my life is resolved and the turmoil over the decision is over. Now, looking back, I see how brave it was - or really maybe how naive it was - for me to just adopt a kid all on my own. It's like looking back at a high wire act you used to perform and suddenly realizing that there was a canyon below you. And you'd just skipped across it like it was nothing!

The thing that I now realize is how exposed you are becoming a parent. These women were just like me, thinking, I can do this all on my own and it's not gonna be all that hard. And the thing is, now I see, we are so hoodwinked by nature into thinking like that. It's terribly risky and overwhelming, but it doesn't seem like it at first. At first it's all baby smells and teeny toes and cute, cute, cute. You want that chubby gurgley unconditional love. And yes, it's worth it and the best decision I ever made and blah, blah, blah, but damn! It's scary and overwhelming and you barely have a thought for yourself forever after.

My kitchen and family room are still mid-paint and I'm nearly crazy with the disruption and I cannot find anything and Michael cannot find anything as everything's all piled in the dining room and this makes all of us pissed off all the time.

Mulan is getting her ears pierced. I said she could get them pierced when she turned ten. And she will apparently turn ten, according to my best available information, next week. I don't look forward to having another many-small parts-to-it group of Mulan's things to find embedded in the carpet like I find legos and groovy girl shoes and polly pocket accessories. Argh. I wonder if Arden will enjoy chewing on her earrings like he does everything else.

2009-10-24T12:21:00.000-05:00

"Vanity of vanities, all is vanity" Ecclesiastes

The proof of my own vanity is in me thinking I am beyond it, never had it, or am too over-the-hill to put any energy in it. And yet, it comes to this: me... almost crying at the DMV as I got my new Illinois drivers license.

I have put off getting an Illinois license. I liked my California one, it's so sunny and California-like. Bold colors, shiny and modern. You can almost hear the soundtrack playing, "California, here I come" when you look at it. But mostly I liked it because it had a picture of me that looked really great... from about fifteen years ago. They never insisted I get another picture and so I just renewed and renewed and every time my old picture came back. It's funny, but the picture of me on my California license seemed to get better as I got older. Of course, I was getting older, that's the point. But it actually did truly and honestly seem to get better - a Dorian Gray driver's license picture - my lips got redder and my hair a richer shade of brown just as my own hair got duller and thinner and my own lips began to fade slightly into the rest of my face.

There was that moment at the airport when the person inspecting my license looked skeptically at me. I was older, larger and much grayer than the picture purporting to represent me. But c'mon, that was me, right? Right? I remember we both laughed a little, but he let me pass on by.

I procrastinated about getting a new license once I moved. But, then my car insurance company wrote, admonishing me for still having a California one - in fact it was a bit more dire than "admonish me," I guess if I got in a car accident here my insurance could be invalid because I needed to show I was an Illinoian.

I was afraid of the test. One is required to take a written test and then, if you don't pass it, you not only have to repeat the written exam, but you could be asked to take a driving test, too! And although I'm a good driver it all just scares me because I think they try to get you to fail by making everything so convoluted.

I had fears at night. True or false? A, B, C, or all of the above or none of the above? These words danced above my head as I tried to go to sleep.

Plus, these kinds of questions can get me pondering for hours. Multiple choice questions that are not clear and obvious can become existential jumping-off-points for me.

I got the pamphlet you're supposed to study and came home and promptly lost it. I asked Nadia (who babysits and lives in an apartment in back of our house) to pick up another one, and she did. I promptly lost that! I couldn't get myself to really even open the pages of the pamphlet. Just thinking about it made me want to lie down in the fetal position.

So, yesterday, I set out to get my driver's license, GODDAMNIT!

I went into the DMV, got the little book and sat down, right there, for two hours - from 9 to nearly 11. I read every word of the book. I took the test questions at the end of each chapter of the study-booklet. I corrected my test questions and I had missed only four out of fifty or so. I reviewed. A DMV worker teased me gently for sitting so long. Another one recognized me and came up to say she enjoyed my "work." Oh god, the pressure was on. Work? This is my work!

I watched many others come in and take the test. Many of them failed. You can only get 7 wrong out of over 50 questions. You have to wait a week to come back to take it again. Oh god, oh lord in heaven.

I finally took the test. I wanted to write "JMJ" on top of the test, which is what I put on top of every school paper and test I turned in, in my Catholic grade school. It stands for Jesus, Mary & Joseph.

The questions seemed much - well, I won't say "harder" than the booklet. I would say more confusing. For example the law states that if you're under 18 you cannot have any more other people in the car you're driving than one, except if it's a sibling or if you have special permission from the Secretary of State of Illinois. How do you answer this question: how many people can a person under 18 have in the car under any and all circumstances? One, Two, Three? There is no answer "It depends." This is the kind of question that can have me sitting there for twenty minutes.

I passed the test. I was overjoyed. And then I remembered, I had to get a new picture. I didn't have lipstick with me. OH SHIT.

They took away my California license. I was so sad. They handed me back a license that had a picture of an older gray haired lady with a thick neck and a badly fitting sweater. I got a lump in my throat. I felt I was trading in my youth and getting an official You're Old card.

Of all the things: getting married, moving here, turning 50, none of those things phased me at all that much. But this license... turning in my old brunette California girl self and receiving my matronly midwest membership card, dear Jesus, Mary & Joseph, it turns out I am vain after all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2009-10-21T20:13:00.000-05:00

I made the mistake last night, after finishing the book, "City of Light" (which was riveting...) and wanting to read just a wee bit more, of picking up a TED book (I'm attending the conference in Feb. and you get books all year in connection to this) "Whole Earth Discipline" by Stewart Brand. I didn't read all that much of it, maybe thirty pages. But I was up in the night filled with fear for the future of mankind, the future of all those I care about who will presumably outlive me, and then of course myself.

This is not new for me. I've read all the books, I am a devotee of James Lovelock for chrissake. But still, all the information being hurled at me once again, it freezes me up. I think people who are think they are doing something by buying and driving Priuses (for example) are in denial about the true state of our human climate impact that is well underway. I have to say, from everything I've read, trying to do something about the climate by reducing oil and gas consumption, for example, is well... too little, too late. I really don't want to make myself feel better by doing things that only do that, make me feel better but make no overall impact.

The thing that really got to me was his chapter on war and how war is endemic to humankind, an integral part of our species behavior, and there have only been small pockets of time - including this one! - where humans are relatively peaceful. He argues that in the ancestral environment approximately 25% of young men were killed in battle. This comapares with roughly 3% now. I remember Steven Pinker pointing this out at a lecture I heard him give - that our world - on balance - is significantly less violent (in terms of death by combat) than it ever has been. The idea of the noble savage is outdated and wrong. We are living now in a world with relative freedom from violent death - percentage wise. In any case, Stewart Brand makes the argument that as resources are reduced due to climate change there will be more and more wars. He argues that all of civilization could be lost. In fact, is perhaps likely too.

Oh god! So... I'm up in the night with these thoughts. Is it better to die from violence, drought or disease? I have to say, disease wins hands down in my book. It's horrible to contemplate that a large scale population reduction due to disease may be the best chance for civilization. I shudder to think.

Brand also talks about how climate change can happen quickly - all the models we now have are for this slow gradual climate change, when in fact, several times the climate has changed dramatically in three years to ten years.

Anyway, as I said, I haven't read the whole thing... Can't wait till he gets to the uplifting part!

ha.

Well. nighty night!

2009-10-20T09:54:00.000-05:00

Arden poops and then he scrapes away at the grass or gravel just afterwards. I imagine that he does this because of some type of adaptation - a desire to cover up his excrement -- the smell I imagine. I read that dominant dogs and cats do not do this, they want their shit to smell. Advertising, you know.

But Arden is very dominant and every cat I've ever known does this, no matter their supposed rank, and Arden pees like a banshee on everything to mark his territory, so I don't buy it. But no matter, he does this. I can't make him stop it. He is never anywhere near his droppings. He's always two feet away, happily throwing dirt or grass into the air.

It makes me laugh because I know that he doesn't know why he does this. It just feels right. I often wonder how many behaviors I have that are just like that behavior - divorced from necessity by time or culture or what have you, divorced even from exigency, because it's done no where near the act that precedes it - the act that prompted it - the act that instigated it! And all of it unknown to myself.

I truly wish there were a God, simply for all the giggles that are left un-giggled, because there is no supreme all-seeing-one to witness them.

The bottom line is, I have to stand away from Arden as I pick up his poop to make sure I am not hit with a head-full of dirt or grass even though he is always well away from the scene of the crime.

This morning I was filled with a joy about the autumn here. It feels trite to say that fall is my favorite season. I have ached for fall like for a long lost lover. It's not the same visiting places where the leaves turn either. For me, it's the day to day watching the change. The trees that have one or two days of brilliance before they're gone. I love the familiarity of it, the astonishment at the changes which are small, but then surprise me with a shock of red.

In any case, I took my camera along this morning to take some snapshots of trees and paths that I like. Above is one that came out almost right. The truth is I can't capture it. The pictures I took at the water - at Lake Michigan, the end of my daily walk, look horrible. The water simply washes out the colors and I am not an experienced enough photographer to learn how to do it properly. And I guess too distracted to learn better, at least for now.

In any case, Arden relieved himself and I had to put the cap back on the camera before I fished around for a poop-bag. While this was happening I absentmindedly pulled Arden back towards his recent donation to the ground. You can probably see where this is heading. This is heading to Arden projecting a substantial amount of grotesque gooey crap all over my legs, all over my shoes and all over the bottom of my coat, narrowly missing the camera itself. You see? You take a moment to try to capture the beauty and you're dealt a shitty punishment for the arrogance.

The sin of pride, I think.

Penance: I'm doing laundry today too.

2009-10-19T17:37:00.000-05:00

Two pictures today. The second one is of Mulan, with Arden, our dog, and Betty, our neighbor's dog. Mulan is shaking Betty's paw, which is Betty's new trick. Betty is over all the time and Arden and Betty are very good friends. They sleep on each other, they lick each other, the fight and make up, they jockey for food - you know all the couple things. Betty is only 12 weeks old and already she's the size of Arden. She's going to be over 100 pounds, up to 120 pounds. She's 1/2 Bloodhound and 1/2 Carpathian Mountain Dog. I took both Arden and Betty on a walk together yesterday. Arden just wants to run after small animals - his eyes are always peeled looking for squirrels and chipmunks. Betty wants to smell. Betty's brain is a smelling computer with ten times the hard drive that Arden has. The movement of her face as she smells, it's really something to behold. Every muscle jitters and undulates, rippling micro whiskers registering, her mouth agape, even her eyes look like they're drinking in -- and then factoring in -- the odor. The world is an orgy of smells and she's intoxicated!

The other picture is of the kitchen/family room in mid-repaint.

In spite of the commotion, I got a lot of writing done today. I feel optimistic and it's before 6 so I thought this is the best time to post.

2009-10-18T22:06:00.000-05:00

I have new, lithium batteries. (thank you blog poster!) Now, I believe my camera is working!

But alas, I am too tired to post.

The quote is something I liked when I heard it (yes, on an audio book) in Christopher Buckley's memoir, "Losing Mum and Pup." I guess William F. Buckley said that all the time and, I dunno, I thought it might help me plow through. And I put it up on the bulletin board and y'know, it has helped when I get that sinking feeling.

Then, this morning I thought: My life has never been more boring. And it's the most exciting thing that's ever happened to me.

And it's very true on all counts.

But tonight I'm thinking that no, it's, "Industry is the engine of melancholy." Because I made many meals today, I made a big chicken soup from scratch and chopped vegetables for two hours straight. I did laundry, I ironed (I know, I like that part but still I want to bitch about it - it's part of what I like about it!) and I read with Mulan and got the kitchen sort of together because tomorrow morning at 8:15 Isaac arrives who is going to paint the kitchen. And I am weaving and cross-eyed and that is not a good time to write. And then I get this tired, I tend to get sad. And I really have nothing to be sad about.

Well there is the state of the world.

Oh! Last night Michael and I watched the Werner Herzog documentary, "Encounters at the End of the World." It's about the South Pole and the people who work and live there and the science that's being done there and the animals under the ice. It's so damn good. I was up in the night, haunted by the sounds of seals chattering under the ice. The people were great too. I really loved it.

G'night....

2009-10-16T22:16:00.000-05:00

I am still dealing with the camera that is acting wacky. I will get some lithium batteries to see if that's the thing. Still, I was able to get this FABULOUS! shot. ha.

This is my messy office desk, a moment in time. As I look around, I feel it truly represents Oct. 16, 2009. The Letting Go of God DVD is next to the booklet from the Letting Go of God CD. I'm working with my old graphic designer - the one I used for the CD to redo the cover of the DVD before it premieres on Showtime, which by the way, will be December 8. Next to the DVD are all my notes from the past three years of Jill & Julia Shows which I am trying to adapt (the stories I tell anyway) into a book of short stories. A Bill Bryson book - a Dictionary for Writers and Editors is under my main big screen. (Praise be for Bill Bryson.) The last tried batteries for the camera are off to the right. Kathy Griffin's book which she just gave me is off to the left. In the far right, on the wall there is a picture of me and Elvis Costello at the 25th Saturday Night Live reunion which, aside from that one moment, was one of the worst nights of my life. Longer story for another time. Oh, in the corner of my desk is a lobby card of The Killing Of Sister George that my friend Gino gave me recently. Anyway, no, not very momentous or profound. But a moment in time, for sure. And I got a picture for the day up.

Today I felt much better, thank you. The cake was appreciated by children on the way to school, and most importantly, Mulan seemed proud. We went to the Fall Frenzy (that's the real name of the event) tonight. It was frenetic and fun and dear lord, Mulan is growing up.

2009-10-15T22:03:00.000-05:00

I'm in such a bad mood. I promised to make a cake for the Harvest Festival at Mulan's school tomorrow night. The cakes have to be delivered at 9:00 a.m. They are for the winners of the musical chairs contest. In the abstract, in my midwestern mom, suburban kitsch oblivion, I thought it would be really fun to make a cake. That is, until it was 8:00 p.m. tonight and I was making a cake. A cake that had to cool before decorating it. And decorating it before bedtime was important to Mulan. And by 9:00 p.m. it was very, very, very not important to me. Instead of a happy mother-daughter decorating experience, poor Mulan tried to have fun while I huffed and puffed and grimaced and wanted to blow the house down.

I so often wish I could clock out as a mom. I wish I could say, "Hey, I put in my 14 hours, I'm out! G'night!" So we decorated the cake, me in a poopy mood, and now it's in the refrigerator in hopes that it doesn't turn into a big puddle because it was really still too warm to decorate. I hate Fall Festivals. I hate goofy cakes. I thought I would love all this and I don't. I really don't.

Also, my camera is on the fritz and it will only take one picture without a flash before it closes down and insists on new batteries, even though THAT IS CLEARLY NOT IT'S PROBLEM! So I had one shot, and that's the shot - the poor cake in the fridge.

2009-10-14T21:27:00.000-05:00

My camera is acting up. This is the only shot I could get today. Curse me for promising a picture a day! But alas, here is dear, sweet Mulan with her most prized possession of the moment, her Sketchers Twinkle Toes Shoes. She coordinates her outfits with the shoes and there is much talk about the exact perfect sock that will go with them - which is, btw, a sport type of sock, not an anklet -- SO not an anklet.

Today I took a singing lesson. Yes, it's come to that. Actually I'm doing it for pleasure, and what a pleasure. I am obsessed with Lorenz Hart at the moment, but still am learning "Blue Skies," by Irving Berlin. I was able to use Irving's name later when Mulan had an assignment that for some reason required her to know first names by certain letters, and "I" was a category. Irving.

2009-10-13T10:24:00.000-05:00

Yesterday Michael, Mulan and I went to the Chicago Botanical Garden. Our first visit to this magical place was over Labor Day, and I was stunned that in our midst we have one of the most arresting, well-organized, peaceful, and gorgeous botanical gardens I'd ever been in. I love Huntington Gardens in Los Angeles - well technically it's in Pasadena - and have so many memories being there with different family members and friends. But I think the Chicago Botanical Garden is even more beautiful.

Michael teases me (to cover his more sincere irritation) that I join every museum I go to (and for the most years possible) even if I'm sure not to be returning enough times to justify the expense. However this time he happily signed us up for two years. The museum is free but they charge $20 for parking, so in essence you're buying a reduced parking pass. But of course really it's to support this holy place in our midst. We wandered around for over two hours, seeing all new places since our last visit.

I do not have a green thumb. Michael says that when people say someone has a green thumb all they really mean is that the person remembers to water the plants. I do want to learn. My experience gardening is limited to buying plants randomly in Los Angeles and plopping them in the ground, only to look up surprised a few months later and see that they're growing over the rooftop of the house. Not much was required. Here in Illinois it's a different story. I'm just beginning to understand how the growing-things-endeavor works. On the larger plant side of things, I'll admit that I'm mad to have a weeping willow and a sugar maple in the front yard. Somehow, someway.

Last night we had mexican hot chocolate and watched about four back-to-back Tivo-ed episodes of "The Big Bang Theory." I love that show.

2009-10-12T16:04:00.000-05:00

Well, I guess I should have said I'd post a picture MOSTLY every day. Ha. Yesterday got the best of me. I went to an Art Show opening where my friend Annie Morse had an installation entitled "Impregnate." She had a pile of old, black, kind of rotting avocado skins with a wee green shoot making it's way through the dying mess. She'd gotten her verb - impregnate - as an assignment. There were 36 - around that number anyway - installations all based on verbs.

Someone had gotten the word "ask" and had a real Catholic priest who sat in a corner with a blackberry and he would forgive your sins by text for the two hours of the installation. I texted him, "I want to forgive you for even being a priest. But I just... can't. Will you forgive me?" I got his reply a few minutes later, "Sure..."

Then we went to see Kathy Griffin at The Chicago Theater, the last night of a five night run. She is bigger than Leonard Cohen! (That's who I last saw there and he did only two nights.)

Kathy is an old friend from The Groundlings. We were very close while I was on SNL and she came out several times to visit me each year while I was on the show. She always appreciated the celebrities and back stage gossip so much more then I did. And looking back on it, so much happened, so much craziness and tragedy was revealed - why wasn't I more into it? I don't know.

In any case, as you all know she has made a very big career out of her enthusiasms. Her show was really good. She did two hours - and it felt like less than an hour. I could have listened to her for three more hours. It felt weird, like my Kathy, who I used to get to listen to rant about everything all the time - just for me - or us - our friends - and she always was hysterical - and now the world is watching her rant! She has worked so hard and deserves all her success. I told her that she reminded me of Fred Astaire last night on stage, because he always made dancing look so easy. But it's actually really, really hard. That's how she was onstage, like a girlfriend you ran into on a street corner spilling her secrets and making you laugh hard. Seems easy, but it's not.

Afterwards we ate burgers in her hotel and talked until nearly one when I - we were falling apart from exhaustion. It was a great night.

2009-10-10T20:57:00.000-05:00

A perfect birthday, I must say.

I remember when I turned ten pretty vividly. I remember my dad saying, "Now you're a decade old." And I asked what a "decade" was and I thought, "My dad is a genius to use ten-dollar words like that!" And my dad told me and I felt it was this big accomplishment. I had reached the age of ten.

I have no memory at all of turning 20.

I remember I turned 30 at SNL when I was lying about my age and ridiculously saying I was one year younger than I was. Partly this was because I had just been hired and when they were casting they said they wanted girls under 30. So I gave myself an extra year. (BTW, they said guys could be up to age 45. Also, if you are going to lie about your age, don't make a measly year - go for it, make it make a difference! One year is just a constant math adjustment and means nothing.) Anyway, I was turning 30 but everyone thought I was 29. I remember there was cake and there was Phil Hartman and all the rest. I remember to be so glad to be out of my twenties. Even if only I knew it.

When I turned 40 I was single and i knew I was about to adopt a baby. I wanted to be somewhere exotic where I didn't know anyone. So I went to Bhutan (with a hiking group - so I guess I did kind of know people by the time my birthday rolled around...) I remember looking out the window of my hotel room at the glorious mountains.

Now, another decade has gone by. 50. I would never have guessed i would be living in Illinois. Never in a zillion years.

I spoke this morning at a cancer convention in downtown Chicago - the National Cervical Cancer Coalition. I listened to a few panel discussions. It was really interesting. A revolution has happened since I had cervical cancer. I gave my speech and it went well. Then they surprised me with a cake! They sang "Happy Birthday." I was so tickled.

Then I gave myself about four hours alone at the Art Institute. This was my gift to myself. I had lunch and a glass of wine, I read my book (City of Light by Lauren Belfer) and I wandered around that fabulous museum. I came home where Michael and Mulan had been planning a celebration. I got flowers from my dear, dear friend Donna (that's the picture) I got gifts from Mu and Michael, (Michael also gave me flowers, but alas, they didn't get photographed - maybe tomorrow...) we ate pizza and had gelato. I laughed a lot. And now I'm pooped and I suppose ready for another decade.

2009-10-09T16:09:00.000-05:00

Here is my beloved, Michael, in his beloved garden. We are off to see "A Serious Man" tonight. Thanks for the birthday wishes, I'm having a little trouble with the idea of being 50. But ah, life stops for no woman, or marches on for all women, or it's not so bad getting older when you think of the alternatives? One of those cliches surely applies here.

2009-10-08T20:23:00.000-05:00

Not much today. A low energy, downbeat kind of day.

This picture I took out the front window of the car, as the rain poured down. It's of the garden in the backyard. Soon it's going to freeze and it'll all be over for the dear garden that Michael has tended to with the patience of a mother-with-a-newborn. We have eaten so well from this garden too - just last night we had cauliflower from it and today M and I had a tomato-tuna sandwich with the last tomatoes from the garden.