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 ---

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....

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!
  

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!