The Thanksgiving Menu Plan

Breakfast

For Breakfast, to make the day feel a little more special, we'll have this coffee cake with some scrambled eggs and fruit.  

The Main Event

Sometime mid-afternoon, we'll have THE MEAL which will be comprised of:

• Turkey a la Mark Bittman
• Vegetarian Stuffing (Although I'm pretty tempted by this corn bread stuffing . . .)
• Mashed Potatoes (There's a request from the kiddo to make these with blue potatoes; we'll see what Whole Foods can do for us in the potato department)
• Twice-Baked Butternut Squash (This is the vegetarian main.  I'll sub in some goat cheese for the cashew cheese to save myself time since the dish doesn't need to be vegan).  
• My Favorite Cranberry sauce 
• Roasted Brussles Sprouts

More or less everything hangs out in the oven at 400 for 20-40 minutes and I think one of the biggest Thanksgiving traditions is not-very-hot food (perfect for the toddler!) so in theory it should all work out . . .

Dessert

My vote is to take a break after the big meal and go outside to run around.  When we come back in it will be time for dessert: Pumpkin Pie Pudding and Ginger Cookies served with fresh whipped cream.

Happy Thanksgiving!  I'll let you know how it all turns out! xo

Review: Mahabis

Fanny & my Mahabis

You might remember when I got VERY excited about these magical transforming slipper-shoes.  Well, my delightful husband ordered me a pair!  I got them last spring but they are VERY WARM so it wasn't long before it was too hot to keep wearing them, but I've been wearing them again this fall and feel like I've now had enough experience to let you know what's up.

Here's what's good: They are, as I said, TOASTY.  They are also very cozy (lined with fuzzy shearling-like material), and super-comfy.  The bottoms (my husband ordered me all five colors?!) are really cute and, overall, the product that came in the mail (in lovely and well-considered packaging, very much in the vein of an apple product) matches the product you can see on the Mahabis website.

Here's what's not so good: Mine are too big (read: I think they might run big).  And Mahabis doesn't offer international returns.  When I reached out to them (because these are pricey slippers) they were almost willing to make a size exchange for me anyway, but I was outside of their 14-day regular returns window so they said no.  Boo.  Non-returnability (or at least exchangeability) is a deal-breaker for me and, imho, 14 days is no time at all.  Fortunately, they're only too big in a way that makes my feet look stupid, not in a way that really precludes my wearing them, so they aren't going to waste.

Not a fan of the way the sole gaps away from the main shoe/slipper body.

The most important thing to understand about Mahabis, though, is that they're SLIPPERS.  They are NOT Magical Transforming Slipper Shoes.  Instead, they're slippers that let you walk in both dirty places and clean places without tracking the dirt around.  So they're great for a quick trip down to the basement of my building or a walk down the hallway to give something to a neighbor.  If I lived in the suburbs, they'd be ideal for those times I needed to go out into the driveway to pick up a newspaper or deliver my kid to a school bus.  They are not, as I had hoped they would be, appropriate for running errands to the grocery store three blocks away.

Bottom line: I don't think they were right for me, but I think they're a good (though not a great) product.  I wish the company would improve its returns policy because that's something I care about.  Mahabis would make a really cool gift (maybe for your fancy friend with a country house or your cool mom who keeps chickens in her back yard?), although I'm not sure anyone needs the array of sole colors that I have.  Okay, maybe a teenage girl, but no one else.  

A more recent and extremely satisfactory purchase, for me, were these shearling-lined sneakers.  They do exactly what I want: keep my feet warm and cozy, sans socks, for trips around my 'hood.  If I want to keep my house clean, when I get home, I can slip them off and slip into my Mahabis. ;)

What do you think?  Do you have Mahabis?  Would you try them?  

#GATBLive

We had a party!  For Gemma & The Bear!  And It was GREAT!

A whole bunch of wonderful people showed up.  We watched the whole first season all together on a big screen.  We played a fun drinking game.  There were Goodie Bags.  And everyone seemed to have a great time!  

Here are some photos.  (Scroll down past the photos to learn how to re-live our fun party in the comfort of your own home!)  

Me and Marley who plays Gemma, age 9.

Goodie Bags for the Party!

Sexy people at the party enjoying the show.

Me and Kevin aka Gemma & The Bear

Attractive and delighted crowd

Me, Marc Sinoway who plays Adrian

Kevin, Debargo (who plays Tom), and Me

Want to catch up on the fun?  Just CLICK HERE to watch Season One and then follow the rules of our very own #GATBLive drinking game below.  

Feel free to take photos of YOUR event - we'd love to see!

This App is EVERYTHING

On our way . . .

Every morning the goal is to hustle the kiddo out the door by 8:00 AM so we have plenty of time to travel the 18 blocks to school in time for the 8:30 start.  As you might expect, we don't always meet our leave-the-house goal and, with a tighter time frame we are faced with the age old question: bus or subway?  

Transit knows the answer.  

Transit is an app another mom told me about.  You open it up and it gives you time estimates for all of the subway and bus lines near where you are.  You can tap on any of the options and see the schedule for the next several busses or trains on that line.  It's brilliant.  Three minutes 'till the bus? We can make it!  Twelve minutes 'till the next bus?  Let's head to the train.  

And it's not just for New York!  Click here for a list of other regions Transit covers.

Did I mention it's free?  

You're welcome.  xo

Scene On Radio

You guys.  I'm a JERK.  

Why?  Because I've had this GREAT THING and I've been sitting on it because I haven't been able to find the words to adequately express to you how wonderful it is.  But I don't want you to miss out a moment longer.  EVERYONE should get on this.

Here's what it is: SCENE ON RADIO.  

It's a new podcast from the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, hosted and produced by John Biewe.  

This podcast is so beautiful I don't know what to do with myself.  Equal parts smart, sharp and strong as well as finely-wrought, sensitive and highly-nuanced.  This is the only podcast of which I've RE-listened to episodes because it was such a pleasure, because I wanted to drink it in and hear MORE.  I love it so much.

And, see?  Now I'm afraid I've over-sold but . . . nope. Not possible with this one.  Just take a listen and you'll see what I mean.  

Finish Line

The sixth episode of Gemma & The Bear - the Season Finale - was released this past Monday, and I've been crabby all week.   

Tuesday night found me sitting on the kitchen floor, reading Facebook on my phone, eating old pistachio gelatto out of the container and blowing off the gym.  Basically: willfully feeling bad about myself.  

What the . . . ?

I wrote a bit about the Gemma & The Bear journey here.  What I don't think I expressed was the extent to which the whole experience has felt like an intensive graduate program in content creation.  I know so much more than I did and am so much stronger and more capable in this area than I was a year ago.  It's kind of incredible and, looking at what I personally spent, it was probably a bargain.

So here I am.  A recent graduate without a job; in that middle place between being still tired and frayed from the final push and not yet having begun moving towards the next thing (whatever it is).  

My plan is to spend September (and maybe some of October) figuring out what the next thing might be and making an action-plan to move towards it.  August saw me struggling more and more to meet my own blogging and newsletter deadlines and so, while I hope to put more here during the next few weeks, I'm not making any promises.   I've got other writing to do in other places.  I've got a little boy starting a new school.  I'm hoping to do some quality big-picture thinking and take care of a bunch of housekeeping along the way.

In the meantime, I hope you will enjoy Gemma & The Bear.  For all of my crabbyness, it feels really good - and I'm extremely proud - to have reached this particular milestone.  Can't wait to share the next thing with you soon . . . 

Words to live by

Way back in February, I read a short essay by Nick Paumgarten in The New Yorker about the magazine's move from Times Square down to the Financial Distrcit.  One passage, as he wrote about the difficulties of getting ready for the move has stuck with me:

The process felt a little like going through the belongings of a dead loved one, except that the dead loved one was you.  What was worth saving?  Not as much as you'd anticipated, once you got into the spirit of paperlessness.  Pile up those mine carts with fool's gold.  The thing that's worth keeping is the thing you do next. 

At the time, I was in the process of emptying - one way or another - and selling my childhood home.  His analogy wasn't an analogy for me.  When I found myself briefly crippled by grief or nostalgia (or both), overwhelmed by what felt like impossible decisions, I would repeat his words to myself - "The thing that's worth keeping is the thing you do next."  They helped me pull myself together; helped me move forward and feel pretty good about my decisions in the process.

We closed on the house in April (the single most horific experience of my life; real-estate is an ugly business) but I've found that Paumgarten's words continue to provide guidance.  

The thing that's worth keeping is the thing you do next. 

Okay.  Here we go.   

Tick-Tock! TICK-TOCK!!!

When I joined the New York Neo-Futurists (NYNF) in 2006, one of the most joyful aspects of the experience was being able to recommend the show (Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind) without hesitation.  Up 'till then, I'd done a bunch of plays here and there in NYC, but they often suffered one way or another from being off-off-Broadway productions (lack of time, lack of money, etc.)*.  But the Neo's were different.  They had figured out how to make those limitations work for them and it felt so good to be so proud of something I was a part of.

I feel the same way about Gemma & The Bear.  Like Too Much Light . . . , Gemma & The Bear (GATB) is actually for something of a niche audience and I don't actually think that either is for everyone; certainly neither is perfect.  I do think both are, in turns, innovative, delightful and well-made and I am uniquely unabashed in my promotion of GATB as I was with Too Much Light . . . .

So, it has been a bit of a frustrating surprise to grapple, these last couple of months, with just how difficult marketing a (micro-budget) web series can be.  I recently watched a popular vlog that argues that the internet creates a meritocracy in which "if the video you're making is interesting to anyone . . . all you have to be concerned with is making something that someone else wants to watch."  This was more or less my assumption going in to Gemma & The Bear, but here in the episode-release-and-marketing phase, where the measure of marketing success - views on YouTube - seems to have been equated with the quality of the content (at least as far as generating press, industry attention, etc.) and where spending money to boost posts seems like the only way to be seen at all, that argument about meritocracy feels a bit false . . . or at least naive.

I've been naive all my life.  Also: impatient.

The other night, at a birthday gathering for a neighbor, I had a conversation with some people I'd just met about the social norms of meeting new people (how meta).  I was expressing my frustration with the apparent taboo of asking people what they do.  They countered that "what are you up to?" or "what's new?" or "how do you spend your time?" are completely acceptable alternatives.  I'm not sure I agree but, in any case, those alternatives don't address my real want which is to grab these new acquaintances by the lapels (maybe just figuratively) and say something like "who are you?! what's your story?! tell me everything!!"  I don't want to be coy, making small talk and teasing out the information slowly; I want the story up front!  (Looking back, my entire first date with my husband was just me interrogating him the entire night including important questions like "what are your three favorite sounds?"  I guess his tolerance was an early good sign?)

Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind wasn't an overnight success; the company has gone through tremendous growing pains and, while they've come incredibly far, they're still working hard to grow and improve.  And, of course, that's the story almost everywhere.

So maybe it isn't that the meritocracy of the internet is false (although marketing dollars certainly play a role, albeit a complicated one), maybe it's about staying the course so we can find our audience . . . or they can find us. 

I really wish they'd hurry up about it, though. 

*To be very clear: I think off-off-Broadway is great and of tremendous value.  All artists need a place to practice, experiment and grow and for theater artists in NYC, OOB is often it.  Furthermore, over the past decade, I've seen the OOB community as a whole grow and improve the quality of its work.  So, no dig at OOB.  I love it, in fact.

Please adopt me, Bob Garfield! OR Everyone: Listen to THIS

Do you listen to On The Media?  It's really good.  Before I had a kid I listened religiously to the broadcast; these days I keep up with the show via their weekly podcast.  Listening the other day it kind of reminded me of a non-satirical version of The Daily show: smart, nuanced analysis of the media from the past week. 

Along with reading the NY Times on my phone instead of looking at Facebook, listening to On The Media always feels like I did something good for myself AND I always like it better than the alternative.  It's like choosing the healthier breakfast option that's ALSO more delicious.  Anyway . . .

I have not been able to stop thinking about last week's episode.  It's a great episode - they start with Trump, they end with David Foster Wallace (well, David Lipsky who did the interview with DFW that became the book and then the movie) but in the middle, almost hidden, is the thing over which I am obsessing: Bob Garfield's interview with Charles A. Allen, Deputy General Counsel for International Affairs at the Department of Defense, about their recently released Law of War Manual's problematic implications for journalists.

WAIT!  COME BACK!  I know that last sentence was full of wonky/nerdy/soporific words but that's not the point.  THE POINT is that Bob Garfield, in that interview, does the hardest thing: he keeps asking questions - pointed, challenging questions - without becoming either aggressive or apologetic - and, at the end, holding Charles Allen to account, he asks when they can speak again to follow up on their conversation.  WHO DOES THAT?!  IT WAS AMAZING!!

Listening to Bob Garfield conduct that interview made me feel so many things: it made me feel safer than I've felt in a long time, like someone smart is watching out for what's fair and right in this country; it made me feel SO impressed with his skill as an interviewer; it made me wish he could be my tough-conversations-mentor (aka Dad?).

There has been more in the media lately about how women undermine themselves and are undermined by others in conversation.  There's Mansplaining, 10 Simple Words Every Girl Should Learn (side note: "Girl?" really? Not "Woman?"), and Amy Schumer's amazing "I'm Sorry" sketch.  I think that's all great and valuable.  Being effective and powerful as a woman in conversation (not to mention negotiation), having been socialized in the standard U.S.A.-way, is something I think about and struggle with.  However, I think Bob Garfield's example pertains beyond gender divisions; I know plenty of guys who don't know how to "disagree without being disagreeable."  I guess I just think that, in this particular way, Bob Garfield is a great role model and most of us could stand to learn a thing or twelve from his example.

You can listen to the whole excellent episode HERE or, if you're short on time, the Bob Garfield interview is HERE.  Follow Bob Garfield on Twitter HERE.

Facebook, Online Videos, and You

I read this article recently about Facebook and video. 

It talks about how Facebook's algorithm strongly favors "native" video (that's video uploaded directly to Facebook, not a link to video on a separate site like YouTube) and how that's resulted in videos being ripped off of YouTube and posted by other folks in such a way that robs the original creators of both credit and income.  It also talks about how Facebook counts views and what that means for online content.  Spoiler alert: it's not great news. 

As a creator, it's frustrating because being a "little guy" was already tough and this makes it all tougher.  As an individual Facebook user and YouTube viewer, I'm not excited about what content may be dropped from my feed because of the algorithm.  Sure I'm not psyched about "overly promotional" content in my feed (Facebook's purported reason for the change), but I also don't want to miss out on cool, independent content because the creators don't have a big budget to advertise on Facebook. 

On the one hand: Facebook is free, so what right do we have to complain?  On the other hand: Facebook has become so culturally central that it isn't exactly optional any more. 

If you're on Facebook and/or you ever look at videos on YouTube, it's worth a read. 

The video content itself may remain unchanged, but the extent to which content is pushed or buried and credited or not credited has an impact on viewers (you. me. us.) as well as the creators.  We are savvier consumers of media when we understand these machinations. 

Good Idea: toddler open mics

Previously, my kiddo went through a phase where he told kid-style jokes which he mostly learned from a library book about Fozzie Bear (whence he also learned to punctuate his jokes by saying "wokka wokka") and popsicle sticks.

Currently, he has moved into a phase in which he makes up his own jokes.  For instance:

So here is my idea: an open mic night for toddlers! (and their parents!)

I imagine it would happen on, say, a Sunday around 5PM - early enough for the kids (aka "the talent") not to be melting down because its too close to bed time, but still late enough for the adults to enjoy a cocktail in a socially-acceptable way.  The venue could be pretty much anywhere, though it would be imperative that adults be allowed to bring in kid snacks.

The kids could go up and tell jokes and stories and do impressions.  I feel like it would be all kinds of good practice for them in terms of public speaking, being a good audience member, empathy, delayed gratification . . . And while non-parents would think it was a horror show (and they wouldn't be wrong), parents would find it totally entertaining (and maybe a good way to make other parent-friends?). 

This would NOT ever be an opportunity for scouts to come find child stars of the future.  It would be purely for the entertainment and gratification of kids and their parents.  And while I'm sure much of the time it would be a mess, I'm also sure that it would yield Andy Kaufman-worthy moments of avant garde comedy GENIUS! 

What's your best kid joke?  Post it in the comments!

Awesome Grants

A long time ago, my dad said something to me like: what sets the successful people apart is that they DO their ideas, they don't just have them.  That's a terrible paraphrase, but I've thought often about his point: we all have ideas about things we want to do, things someone should do, something it would be really cool to have in the world, but we usually stop there; it takes a lot more effort and commitment to keep going.

The Awesome Foundation has the potential to make the leap from having the idea to doing it just a bit easier.  I read about them in the NY Times last week.  A group of ten Trustees each put in $100/month and then award a $1000 grant each month to help fund an awesome project.  And it can be anything.

I was even more excited, when I visited their website, to discover that there are currently 80 chapters in 18 countries!  It's not just a NY thing!  And the projects that have been funded already are really cool - it's inspiring just to go poking around their website. 

I don't know what I may apply for a grant to do or make or accomplish, but next time I have a great idea, it's encouraging to know that the Awesome Foundation is out there to help make awesome ideas happen. 

What would you request a grant for?

Summer reading for Peanuts

My kiddo - who is 3.25 years old - has loved stories pretty much forever.  He loves to be read to and he loves to be told made-up stories.  I noticed a while ago that, if we were making up a story for him, he had a pretty high tolerance for a story much longer than the average picture book.

We dipped our toe in with The Invention of Hugo Cabret which alternates a few pages of plain text with many pages of text-free illustration.  Later, over the course of a couple of low-energy sick days, we plowed through Peter Pan.  So we continued. 

Mixing longer books in with the picture books kept me from getting really sick of reading and re-reading the same five-minute story over and over again.  Longer stories have also been great as a way to enjoy some quiet time after a big day at camp or on the playground, and they keep us all entertained on longer car rides or the occasional flight. There's also something nice about having more entertainment in a smaller, lighter volume given all the other stuff we're inevitably schlepping around.

Early on, we had some hits and some misses.  The Wizard of Oz was great . . . except for that scary chapter where she sends her pack of wolves to attack Dorothy and friends (yikes!).  The Enormous Crocodile was a pretty big (if slightly intense) hit which got me excited for more Roald Dahl, but The Magic Finger which focuses on characters who hunt ducks introduced a slew of concepts we weren't necessarily excited to discuss and Esio Trot was too much about spelling or romance (or both).  James and the Giant Peach seemed like it would be a good idea, 'till I started to read it and realized that James' parents are killed by an escaped rhino in the first two pages.  Duh, mom.

But, with the help of the wonderful people at our favorite local book store, Bank Street Books, we've really hit our stride this Summer.  These books all hit the sweet spot of being a great story, but with mostly accessible vocabulary for a younger kiddo, a picture on every page or two, and content that doesn't venture too far beyond their years.  And they're fun to read as an adult.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl.  I'm a lifelong fan of Dahl, but most of his books are too edgy for our kiddo right now.  Not so Charlie and the Chocolate Factory which we borrowed from the library and read all the way through at least four or five times before returning it a couple of weeks later. 

My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett.  This is a trilogy, although I happen to like the first book the best.  Each is about 70 pages long with a picture on every other page or so.  They are stories of a young, kindhearted and very independent little boy going on an adventure to find and rescue a captive baby dragon and the adventures that ensue. 

Mercy Watson series by Kate DiCamillo.  There are six books in the Mercy Watson series beginning with Mercy Watson to the Rescue, about the (mis)adventures of a toast-loving pig named Mercy, her owners Mr. & Mrs. Watson and their neighbors on Deckawoo Drive.  All the books are lushly illustrated in full color by Chris Van Dusen.  The books feel old-fashioned and wholesome though they are contemporary.  The characters are a bunch of delightful oddballs.

Bink & Gollie by Kate Di Camillo & Alison McGhee.  We discovered Bink & Gollie through the Mercy Watson books.  There are currently three books in this series about a pair of best friends who love roller-skating, pancakes and each other most of all.  These books feel a bit like the Elephant & Piggie books for the next age group up and they're the shortest books on this list.

The Magic Treehouse by Mary Pope Osborne.  This is a fun series because it involves time travel and magic.  The first book in the series - Dinosaurs Before Dark - was an instant favorite.  A word of caution, though, as other books in the series dip in and out of being little-kiddo appropriate.  A book set during the Civil War, for example, (which I never should have agreed to read, so that's on me) prompted a discussion of war in general, and an explanation of slavery - it was just a lot for a 3 year old.  So these are recommended but not without some parental vetting. 

The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner.  Because the first book is about kids who are alone in the world, fending for themselves, we skipped it and went right on to Book Two: Surprise Island which is delightful old-fashioned.  Four siblings are allowed a summer largely to themselves on their wealthy grandfather's private island where they gather and prepare their own food, craft their own museum, and discover American Indian artifacts.  These books are probably the biggest wild-card of the group and, like the Magic Treehouse books, should probably be vetted on an individual basis for appropriateness, but the kiddo and I are well into the Woodshed Mystery (#7) and having a great time with it. 

What are you reading with the kiddos in your life this summer?  Leave a comment! 

So . . . I made a show!

It's called Gemma & The Bear and we just released the first two episodes this past Monday.

It was over two years ago that it all began - sometime between giving birth to my son and my mom's brain tumor being diagnosed.  Kevin and I wanted to make something together and I thought it should be a web series.  We'd done theater together, but I wasn't doing theater at the moment because I had a tiny child to take care of.  Something on-camera felt more manageable. 

So we began.  We met and wrote and had a reading and got rid of everything we'd written and started again.  Working on the project was always a joy; it was also my artistic life-line.  Without the luxury of time I used to enjoy, it became important to focus on doing one thing well, and that was our show. 

Late last summer - almost a year ago - we began our casting process (we paused so I could have back surgery), in the late fall we launched our Indiegogo campaign, and in December we finally - FINALLY - started filming. 

We shot for seven non-consecutive days in December, January and February, going by location rather than chronology of the script.  When our office location fell through the morning before the shoot, my brother came through with his office for us and we squeezed what we'd planned to film in three days into two.  We made third graders stand outside on one of the coldest days of the year.  We re-cast a major role at the last minute because our original actor was injured.  We called in favors.  We got it done. 

I handled the craft services and, later, the payroll.  I wouldn't choose to take on those extra roles again, but it felt really good to support our cast and crew in a loving way through food, and later, to appreciate them by redistributing about 75% of what we'd raised to make the show in the form of checks to our artistic and technical collaborators. 

I thought the hard part was over.  And then I found myself a producer of a project in post-production. 

But now it's here!  Gemma & The Bear.  Kevin R. Free was my collaborator in all things - writing, acting and producing - and Matt Scott as director, editor and co-writer has provided invaluable additional vision and input.  This has been one of the most rigorous and most rewarding artistic experiences of my life and while I learned a lot (and would do some things differently if I had to do them over) I am incredibly proud of what we've made. 

We're still working on episodes 3, 4, 5 and 6 - they'll be out in August - but for now I hope you enjoy episodes 1 and 2.

EPISODE 1: HE'S BAAAAAAAACK! Gemma gets a big assignment at work and graduates from therapy, but a blast from the past threatens her security. CAST: Gemma Woods: Eevin Hartsough Karen: Natalie Kim Tom: Debargo Sanyal The Bear: Kevin R. Free and Jojo Gonzalez as Dr. Dormer www.gemmaandthebear.com

EPISODE 2: MEET THE BEAR Gemma visits her dad, Hank, to try to get to the bottom of the Bear's reappearance in her life. CAST: Gemma - Eevin Hartsough The Bear - Kevin R. Free Hank - Ray DeMattis More at www.gemmaandthebear.com

This isn't theater so I can't see your faces; leave a comment! 

Happy Birthday, America! You don't look a day over 223 . . .

This time every year, I can't help but think of this amazing video:

I love this video for its own sake, but I especially love it because it reminds me of this:

Click on this image to go to a modern edition via Amazon.

If you don't know, this book is where that cherry tree story comes from ("I cannot tell a lie") and many others.  Weems made stuff up to build up America (and for personal profit).  It was a new country and it needed some stories, some culture, some history of its own to help it feel established and viable and "real."  And Weems wasn't the only one on this band-wagon.  There's a reason so many buildings were built with Greek-style columns (the Greeks had credibility, they had gravitas) and I'll always remember learning, when I toured Yale, that the windows were intentionally cracked and then repaired and that worn cobblestones were imported from Europe to give the place an older, more established feeling. 

To me, the Cox & Combe's video is just taking absurd part in (and, sure, poking fun at) this same tradition. 

I love that tradition.  Well, I don't love the making-stuff-up per se, but I love the spirit of re-invention.  I love self-determination and being the author of your own story.  I love Jay Gatsby inventing a new, fabulous life for himself.  I love that no matter where we're born, we don't have to feel destined to end up there. 

Yup, there's a lot that's wrong with our country.  Jay Gatsby is a fiction and a white, male one at that. 

Nevertheless, on the anniversary of our country's independence, I like to appreciate that dyed-in-the-wool of America is the energetic belief that each of us is free to pursue his dreams and to be whoever he or she wants to be.  It might not happen for everyone but it wouldn't happen for anyone if we didn't begin with the assumption of that possibility. 

*Fireworks!*

A good idea I had (about buskers)

I had this idea: 

How great would it be if the street musicians you see performing in the subway or in busy public areas let you sing with them live-karaoke-style?! (Answer: pretty great!)

Hear me out.

• It wouldn't work for every musician.  It has to be someone who does covers.  And they'd have to be fine just playing and singing on their own; it couldn't hinge on the event of karaoke.
• Live Karaoke is already a thing - a popular and very cool thing.  I've done it.  It was fun.
• The transit system (and the street) are venues where, for performers, engagement is already really low; people aren't there to hear this band or musician.  Defying expectations by engaging a member of the public - both for the person brought temporarily into the band and for casual observers - grabs attention and turns the energy way up by introducing an element of risk.  The performance becomes a special event, not just background noise.

That's all.  I think it would be a MAGICAL development in street performing if, occasionally, a performance was built to accommodate (but not dependent upon) the participation of passersby.  At the very least, I think some marketing campaign could co-opt this idea to good effect. 

You're welcome!

What's your latest good idea? Leave a comment! The world need to know!!!

Surveys are FUN!

The other day, I found myself googling one of the people in my community.  I'd visited the website of a local business to get the phone number and, while I was waiting for the call to go through, saw the full name of one of the delightful employees.  So I started Googling. 

I've done this before.  Kind of a lot.

I get fascinated with someone - for any number of reasons - and it just isn't socially acceptable to start interviewing people with whom you have only a passing acquaintance, you know?  So . . . Google.

Two things about this:

1. I've been surprised by who is easy to google and, conversely, how many folks are really hard to find on the internet.  Sometimes it's just a common name, but more often it seems like a lot of people just don't show up on the web and that kind of fascinates me.
2. It occurred to me to wonder, in my most recent bout of "research," how normal this is.  Do YOU do this kind of Googling?  

Then I thought, I can ask people!  You! I can ask YOU!  But asking for your response in the comments - especially about something like this that might feel embarrassing to have on the record - seemed like not a great way to find out.  So . . . (drum roll) . . . I made a SURVEY!!  It's short - only six multiple choice questions - and in a few weeks, I'll share the results.  HERE IS THE LINK!

FUN, right?  Or is this just another way that I'm weird . . . ?  You can leave your answer to that question in the comments, no survey required.  ;)