Work
Today I spent all day on set, being an actor. It was awesome.
Blogger Appreciation Month Week 2 - Maggie Mason: An Adventure!
This month I’m appreciating a handful of bloggers I love and admire. This week, I'm looking at Maggie Mason who writes MightyGirl. Blogging in homage to Maggie Mason is daunting. So often she's blogging about all of the dynamic and exciting things she's been doing. She's creating cocktails. She's traveling places and taking photos not just of where she is, but of the genius items she packed for maximum fashion and minimum baggage.
As I was trying to think of what I could share with you that would at least be in the vein of MightyGirl, I remembered a super-fun adventure I had with my friend Rob not so long ago.
Via Tasting Table (if you don't know about it, check it out), Rob and I signed up for a class to learn how to make classic cocktails. The class was taught by Simon Ford who was amazing - a charming font of cocktail knowledge both culinary and historic - and the Tasting Table folks provided amazing snacks to keep us from falling over too quickly from all of our . . . ahem . . . studies.
Here I am paying close attention to Simon early on:
Here's Me and Rob about half-way through enjoying some old-fashioneds:
I learned a lot in the class but the thing I've used most, is this recipe for a Classic Rum Daiquiri: 2 oz Rum 1 oz Freshly Squeezed Lime Juice 1 oz Simple Syrup (or to taste) Place ingredients into a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake. Strain into a glass.
Who knew that THAT was a Daiquiri? Not I! It scratches the cocktail itch and comes together in a beautifully breezy way. Try it!
Blogger Appreciation Month Week 2 - Maggie Mason: An Introduction
This month I’m appreciating a handful of bloggers I love and admire. This week, I'm looking at Maggie Mason who writes MightyGirl. I wanted to link to the first post on MightyGirl that I ever read, but I can't find it. This was years ago - before gmail and so certainly before google reader (and its subsequent and tragic demise). It's too bad you can't read it in its original form but here's how I remember it: Ms. Mason was in the park and she saw a little girl playing with a plastic bag (that used to hold some sort of bread, I seem to remember) and the little girl is overheard saying "Bag, I love you." BAM! I was hooked and I've been reading her - and randomly saying "Bag, I love you" as my own personal inside joke - ever since.
As I've thought about how I would introduce and appreciate Ms. Mason (who would probably appreciate many things more than these blog posts) I've begun to wonder if choosing her to point out isn't a bit like saying "Have you heard of this guy VanGough? He's quite a good painter" or "Allow me to bring the cuteness of puppies to your attention."
Blogger neophyte that I am, I charge ahead nonetheless. By contrast, Ms. Mason has literally written a (if not THE) book on blogging (which I own). She also created (and later sold) a suite of other Mighty-branded sites: MightyGoods, MightyHaus, and MightyJunior. I've read along as she created her own life list (more on this later) and then her own camp, conference and company centered on the life list idea. I can't even . . . there's so much more. Please just read her very impressive bio here.
The bottom line is, I've been reading Ms. Mason longer than I've been reading any other blogger and it has been exciting and impressive to watch as her accomplishments have racked up over the years. Her content is great, her writing is really fun and she sets the bar really high for what it is to be good at this blogging thing.
Retail Request: Ikea Marketplace Shops
Yesterday we went to Ikea. It was, if you'd like to know, a very successful visit. In addition to getting the two very specific things we went to buy, on our way out we also picked up a bunch of fun paper napkins to use instead of boring white ones.
See? Fun, right?!
The napkins live in a part of the store called the "marketplace" along with drinking glasses, step stools, a bunch of great storage options, plants, vases, and on and on. Basically, it seems like "marketplace" is stuff you can just pick up off the shelf and take home - no visit to the warehouse or assembly required.
So I was thinking: would 't it it be great if Ikea opened little shops that are just Ikea Marketplace shops? They wouldn't have to be huge buildings so they could be right IN cities and towns (instead of on the outskirts) and people could just drop in (instead of planning a big trip). Ikea meets Muji.
Yes? Yes. Ikea, lets do this!
Someone manufacture this product so that I can buy it!
Here's what it is: it's little tiny thin stickers that you stick on the nose-piece of your glasses (or sunglasses) so that they don't slide down your face when you get sweaty. I'm imagining that they're clear plastic with a little bit of texture against the nose. I'm thinking of the rubbery material they put at the top of strapless garments for ladies to encourage them not to slide but rather to stick there in place - there's no adhesive on the skin, but the rubbery property of the material helps everything stick and stay in place.
Let me know when I can buy that!
Blogger Appreciation Month Week 1 - Gretchen Rubin: Books!
This month I'm appreciating a handful of bloggers I love and admire and I'm beginning with Gretchen Rubin who writes The Happiness Project blog (among many other things). Although I've never met her, I feel safe saying that a love of books and reading is something that Gretchen Rubin and I have very much in common. In addition to posting her personal book club picks once a month, Ms. Rubin is constantly referencing books she's read in other posts and I often take note. At the same time, with the exception of children's literature, my sense is that Ms. Rubin and I gravitate towards very different kinds of books. She seems to read a lot of history and non-fiction (with a strong dollop of happiness-related self-help, as you might imagine). I mostly read fiction - leaning heavily towards more modern writing - with a sprinkle of non-fiction which tends to be on the lighter side of what non-fiction can be.
Each month Ms. Rubin lists one book about happiness, one great children's book and one eccentric pick. Here, in my own single-serving (or, perhaps, annual) spin, I list: three works of modern fiction that you're less likely to have read (which is to say, most people I talk to haven't read these books); three more classic (or well-known) books that I love and have enjoyed returning to over time; three children's books; and three wild-card works of non-fiction:
Modern Fiction:
- The Children's Hospital by Chris Adrian (although, if you're a man, consider his Gob's Grief which my husband preferred - they're both great)
- Making History by Stephen Fry
- The Golden Gate by Vikram Seth
"Classics":
- The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins
- Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
Children's Literature:
- The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
- The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart
- Half-Magic by Edward Eager
Non-Fiction:
- Them: Adventures With Extremists by Jon Ronson
- Common Sense by Thomas Paine (okay, okay. Technically this is a pamphlet and not a book. Still a great read.)
- The New England Primer (such a great primary document for trying to understand the world-view of some of the earliest American colonists)
That's twelve books! One a month for a year, if you like. Leave a comment and let me know if you've read any of these books and what you think, or leave your own recommendation.
Happy 4th
At home on the UWS, the kiddo sound asleep in his room, my husband and I went up on our roof (armed with our baby monitor) to try to see some fireworks. No such luck (we fell back to plan B: watching on TV) but the sound of the fireworks - that super-specific distant thud - reminded me, like it does every year, to really try to imagine what it was like to be an American colonist fighting the Revolutionary War. It's really hard to imagine which makes me grateful for those individuals who have gone to battle for America over the years, and sorry that there are so many Americans serving in the military who are in harm's way. War is ugly, politics are complicated, and patriotism is often problematic; nevertheless, I am lucky and proud to be an American.
Blogger Appreciation Month Week 1 - Gretchen Rubin: Patron Saints
This month I’m appreciating a handful of bloggers I love and admire and I’m beginning with Gretchen Rubin who writes The Happiness Project blog (among many other things). In early June, Gretchen Rubin wrote a post asking "Who Are Your Patron Saints?"
This is exactly the sort of post for which I value Ms. Rubin's blog: I was completely surprised and stumped by her question. Not only had I never asked this question of myself, I had trouble just wrapping my brain around this, sort of, new interpretation of a "patron saint." This isn't the sort of frame/lens I'd normally use to view the world and her asking the question provided me the opportunity to stretch myself to try to understand a really different sort of thinking from my own. It also gave me the gift of discovering that I might have some Patron Saints of my own.
I read this post and I kept it as "unread" 'till Google Reader's recent retirement (boo!) because I really did want to share this idea with you hear and I really did want to try to answer the question for myself. So, here goes.
My patron saints are:
Tina Fey - Sure, every "quirky" actress likes to fancy herself the next Tina Fey. Still, as a smart actress who writes more and more myself, Ms. Fey's career truly is inspirational not to mention ground-breaking and door-opening for the rest of us. (Props must also be given to Junior Patron Saint Ms. Mindy Kaling.)
Meryl Streep - Fellow Vassar grad and consummate actress. Bam!
Mark Helprin - Although I have so much more of his work yet to read, his books Freddy and Fredericka and The Winter's Tale have blown me away with their scope, humor, inventiveness and their excellent writing. Images from both of these books come back to me often.
They Might Be Giants - Early in my life (it might have been seventh grade) I appreciated their use of vocabulary and correct grammar. I still appreciate those things and every time I listen to them, they tickle me. I also admire the longevity of their careers as artists.
Ms. Rubin lists six but I've only got those four so far. I'll keep thinking. (I feel certain there's someone less contemporary who should be in the mix . . . )
In the meantime, visit The Happiness Project and leave a comment below about who's your Patron Saint of Blogging?
Blogger Appreciation Month Week 1 - Gretchen Rubin: Telling A Story
This month I'm appreciating a handful of bloggers I love and admire and I'm beginning with Gretchen Rubin who writes The Happiness Project blog (among many other things). One of the things Ms. Rubin does on her blog is each week she posts a video. In each video she tells a story because, in her words, "I’ve realized that for me, and I think for many people, a story is what holds my attention and makes a point most powerfully." In homage to this device, which I very much enjoy, here's my story:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFyA8AGZxZQ
As it happens, it was the impulse to share this story a la Ms. Rubin that inspired this whole month of appreciation and homage. Here is one of her recent videos so that you can see the master at work.
I'd also like to say how, having made my own video, I appreciate all the more the effort that goes into these story videos especially because you can tell that, unlike me, Ms. Rubin is not just using the built-in camera on her computer. She sits in a nice environment, she's nicely lit, made up and coiffed . . . all this and more is why I'm appreciating her here this week.
Blogger Appreciation Month Week 1 - Gretchen Rubin: an introduction
Gretchen Rubin is the author of many books but I first learned about her in the context of her book The Happiness Project. Since the publication of that book (which, last I checked, had enjoyed over 100 weeks on the NY Times Bestseller List) she has also written Happiness at Home. I encourage you to visit her website where you can learn about her books and read her excellent blog. What do I love about Gretchen Rubin's blogging? I love how deliberate she is. There's a sort of square quality about her approach that I happen to enjoy on its own and which goes against this assumption I have that all blogs are supposed to seem breezy - the writing equivalent of the celebrity in the airport who is styled to look unstyled: perfectly imperfect. By contrast, Ms. Rubin's blog is unabashedly specific and thoughtful. She is carefully groomed both literally - in her weekly videos - and figuratively in all of her posts and seemingly not afraid to show that she's taken care and made some effort. Moreover, she shares research and pet philosophies as well as tips and favorite books - apparently all with a rigorous plan and on schedule; her interests and formats vary fairly widely but she manages to make them all cohere. What she has to say doesn't always resonate with me, but I'm always interested to have read it.
Here are a few representative (and favorite) posts to get you started:
Do You Agree That These "Patterns" Make Places Beautiful and Comfortable?
Don't Assume That Everything Is So Different These Days.
5 Mistakes I Continue To Make In My Marriage.
Make People Happier By Acknowledging That They're Not Feeling Happy.
If you visit The Happiness Project Blog (please do!) and find a post that YOU love, link to it below in the comments!
July is Blogger Appreciation Month (on my blog)!
I've been reading blogs for a long time and blogging consistently for hardly any time at all, relatively speaking. As I've been blogging more often I've found two things:1. The more I blog, the easier it is to blog - ideas come more readily and posts are written more easily when less time passes between posts. (This is not dissimilar to what I've found writing short plays for Too Much Light . . .) 2. I frequently have the impulse to employ the styles and devices of my favorite bloggers. Generally I resist this impulse - those ladies (they all happen to be ladies) have worked hard to establish their voices and grow their audiences and success, who am I to come along and pluck up their gems for my own gain? - BUT for the month of July I'm going to go the other way.
They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. This month, I'll be highlighting my favorite blogs - and the ones which have the greatest influence on my own style - both by pointing you to some favorite posts and by creating my own posts in homage to each blogger.
Leave a comment and let me know which are YOUR favorite and/or most influential blogs!*
*See what I did there with the "leave a comment" thing? Tons of other bloggers do that all the time which, in turn, makes me feel self-conscious doing it myself. But I really do want to know what you think! So I'm claiming "leave a comment" as my own from now on. :)
Composting!
I am excited about composting! More specifically, I am excited that NYC is currently involved in a pilot program to recycle food scraps which, it's projected, may become city-wide (and mandatory) sometime in 2015 or 2016.
We've known about the value and importance of recycling for ages: so-called "modern" recycling was introduced to NYC in 1970! It has been frustrating that recycling hasn't been fully supported by infrastructure - however much we may want to recycle, if our city or town doesn't have a recycling program or allow us to recycle certain things, it's hard to do much about it.
The recent expansion of the recycling program to include all rigid plastics and now, looking forward, to include food scraps is so exciting to me because it supports the people of NYC doing something good and right. Clear, simple, uncynical.
(Bonus: I bet Bill Nye approves)
Reel!
Hey! Here's something else I should have shared here ages ago: my new Reel! [youtube=http://youtu.be/IheAXSmR5_Y]
My friend, and former teaching-partner, Matt Scott edited it. Great job, Matt!
The Science Guy
Today I read this NY Times article about Bill Nye and a speech he recently gave at Iowa State University. Here's one of my favorite quotes from the article:
Kaci McCleary, an “aspiring neurobiologist, or neuro-something,” said that Mr. Nye was “a very inspiring person in the field of science — he tells people to make science part of their lives, even if it’s not their career.” Ms. McCleary, who knitted as she waited to be let in, said a friend had joked to her, “I hope to be able to touch the hem of his lab coat, so he could cure me of my stupid.”
I got really jealous of those Iowa state kids because I LOVE Bill Nye. In particular I love that he speaks his truth (which, because he's a scientist, often happens to be THE truth) calmly in the face of angry, shouting politicians (among others) and, while I'm sure he's cynical about things in life, he comes across as a basically uncynical person.
That's all.
Here's an episode of his TV show (of which I was a HUGE fan growing up) which, for whatever reason, I happen to particularly remember: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39ErZahcDaY&list=PLtkpCHUwxFsC7thPOGgWzGyJS-DFHYhpM&index=14]
Starbucks Insano!
Background: most weekend mornings, if the weather is nice enough, my husband and kiddo and I have "park breakfast." He goes to the bagel store to get us egg sandwiches. The kid and I go to Starbucks (we *wish* we had another local coffee shop option) for coffees, we all meet up and go to the park where we sit on a bench and watch kids play sports and eat our breakfast. It's really nice. So. This past Saturday, I was in Starbucks with my stroller (and its contents) waiting in line. The man at the head of the line, took his coffee and placed it on a nearby table (at which, I later realized, he'd left his bag) prompting the heavyset man sitting at that table to get up. (My impression is that the first man had reserved this table with his bag, and the second man realizing this, was vacating appropriately.) So the heavyset man stood up and kind of adjusted himself and, quietly but decisively, he took two bags of coffee off the shelf, tucked them into his jacket and walked out. The woman ahead of me was aghast and, in a bird-like voice, turned around and said "Sir? Sir. Have you paid for that?" I didn't turn around but I heard him say, in a rough and angry voice, "you need to mind your own business" and then he left.
Now, I'd seen the theft as well but I didn't choose to say anything a) because I was with my small child and you don't risk the wrath of a potentially-volatile heavyset man who feels the need to steal bags of coffee from Starbucks when you've got to protect a kiddo; 2) I'd heard something about how employees in stores like The Gap don't stop shoplifters - they aren't supposed to - they just report them and then security or the police are supposed to intervene. Starbucks doesn't have security and I thought "what are these poor Starbucks workers supposed to do?"
The woman ahead of me remained aghast saying things like "I just can't believe it" and "I've never..." The man behind me, who I'd noted was a bit shabbily dressed, said quietly to me "If he hasn't got any money . . ." as though the theft was natural and possibly inevitable. I replied with a weak "yeah" because I didn't want to get into it with him either but I was thinking "but then he has to steal a coffee maker!" and "but if he hasn't got any money shouldn't he steal some food or sneakers or something a little more immediately applicable?" And I thought about this poem from the Spoon River Anthology.
Mostly what I thought was "I am right between these two extremes (or quasi-extremes) of human experience - this woman and this shabby man." And I thought about how, on the one hand, there's a lot in the human experience to connect us and, on the other, we are all still vast worlds apart from so many other folks even in our own neighborhood. And I thought about how, as an actor, sometimes I'm asked to play people who are "close to home" and sometimes people much more foreign to me but how just about everyone considers their lens "normal" and regards how similar or dissimilar everyone else is in comparison with theirs. We're all "normal" to ourselves. Probably even the coffee thief.
The Female of the Species
Yesterday morning, W (15 months) and I were headed to the park. I was pushing his empty stroller and he was walking alongside me, holding my hand. He gets a lot of looks when we do this - it's that funny little kid walk that's funny and cute. It doesn't hurt that he likes to wave and say Hi to random people. Anyway, we were walking along, and we were overtaken by a bigger kid - maybe three or four years old - a little girl walking along with her mom (I assume) and another lady. If the adults noticed W, I didn't see, but the little girl sure did. She locked her eyes onto him and did not stop staring 'till she was too far ahead of us to comfortably look that far behind her. She started with what seemed like a "serious" look, and as she (and we and it) progressed, her look got meaner and meaner. She was staring daggers at W.
I wondered what she was thinking - because he's too little to be anything but oblivious - and I flashed back to an incomplete memory of girls acting a lot meaner than they actually were. Unfairly, I only clearly remember being the victim of those "mean" girls - trying on extra meanness learned from TV or bigger kids or who-knows-what for effect. It's just a funny thing that seems to happen - like some kind of junior-social-darwinism - like puppies or bears play-fighting, I suppose.
The girls I remember practicing meanness on me, the ones with whom I'm still in touch, have all (as far as I can tell) grown up to be lovely women. I assume - I hope - this little girl will do the same. I still can't quite figure what's being worked out in the exercise, though. What are the little girls learning through the process and what would be lost if they stopped? And are the boys doing this too? (My sense is that, whatever boys are doing, it's different.)
Maybe someone science-y will leave a comment with the answer.
Awesome Class
I can't believe it has taken me so long to share this!
I took this AWESOME Commercial class with Brooke and Mary.
You can go to the link and learn about the ladies' resumes and credentials. What you can't tell just from the website is that these women have the most amazing, positive energy - it was a pleasure to be in class each week. They taught us a bunch of really valuable and helpful things by, you know, talking to us BUT I really feel like their attitudes - their way of being - was equally instructive especially with respect to commercial casting. Bonus: now that I've taken the class, I'm invited to other one-night classes which provide the opportunity to meet commercial agents and casting directors. Fantastic.
Off you go, commercial actors. You can thank me later.
"Why Finnish babies sleep in cardboard boxes"
"Why Finnish babies sleep in cardboard boxes"
I just read this article (which I discovered via A Cup Of Jo) and just thought it was really cool and quite moving. Enjoy!
The Artist Tax
Dave Loehr (@dloehr) who I only know from Twitter posted a link to this essay recently.
Periodically, the internet will swell with a series of articles, blog posts, tweets, etc. about artists getting paid, not getting paid, "deserving" to be paid, not "deserving" to be paid (usually because they enjoy what they're doing) and it all makes me a little crazy. I appreciate what Amanda Hirsch has to say in her post because she's making the kind of points I don't tend to see as much in those big internet brouhahas. They're the kind of points I'd make and she makes them fairly articulately and concisely.
(P.S. I'm also really intrigued by her new book, "Feeling My Way: Finding Motherhood Without Losing Myself" which feels like exactly the book I was looking for but couldn't find when I was pregnant and a new mom and trying to navigate hanging onto my old identity while also stepping into being a mom.)
Vampire Cowboys' "Geek!"
Vampire Cowboys' "Geek!" Vampire Cowboys have a new show, "Geek!" Written by Crystal Skillman & directed by Robert Ross Parker, it's being presented in association with the Incubator Arts Project and runs through April 13.
Vampire Cowboys? Love them.
Crystal Skllman? Love her.
Robert Ross Parker? Haven't met him in person, but love his work.
Incubator Arts Project? Love. Love Love.
As if that all weren't compelling enough, Time Out NY gave "Geek!" Four Stars!
Enjoy!!