Heather Gold

morning Jew Ep 8 (10/18/2013)

I’m enjoying doing this weekly morning show with my pal NY comic Katie Halper. We review the week’s headlines and ask: Is it good for the Jews? It’s so morning show sometimes you even get a true morning face from me, like in this week’s episode. This week we hit topics from the hugs: how do political parties really work in America to what a good Jerry Seinfeld interview sounds like.

If you want to know if something is good for the Jews, just ask or (more likely) tell us.
The show is at http://morningJewz.com .

10/4/13 Woody Allen is the ultimate shonda, Miley Cyrus and critical history of bras for Jewesses.

Are Woody Allen, Miley Cyrus, Sinead O’Connor or the government shutdown good for the Jews? Show notes.

Also: a special outtake. Heather is busted.

More morning Jew.

morning Jew 9/22/13 The Pope, Israel pays for Propoganda and Pop Chips

Katie and I take on the latest headlines and ask: is it good for the Jews? All the good nosh here.

Ryan. The Ultimate Lesson in Show Don’t Tell and a More Moving Computer Animation Than Anything Pixar’s Done.

Ryan by Chris Landreth, National Film Board of Canada

My girlfriend Mariko showed me this animation by Chris Landreth at the National Film Board of Canada the other day. It hit me like a rock.

It won an Academy Award and made one of those happy occasions when something superlative won. It is perhaps the best piece of documentary I’ve ever seen and one of the most whole expressions of what it means to make art and what it means to live in suffering I’ve ever seen.

It captures what is handed down from generation to generation. Its characters embody what our mental anguish does to us, literally. It shows what a hold money has on art and why art is oxygen. It has tenderness and such self-awareness and love. And it does all these things compactly in beautiful small, detailed gestures. It is exquisite storytelling. Chris Landreth has committed the greatest act of art: he has paid great attention. And he has cared. And he has not turned even one inch away from the truth.

A note: You will probably cry. I did. But it is the most satisfying and important kind of cry. The kind that lets you know that the very point of being alive has not been overlooked.

“Putin wrote an op-ed in the NYTimes, like a good Jewish boy” Morning Jew is back.

Katie Halper and I have just brought morning Jew back. We ask: Are the headlines good for the Jews?

Today’s full post. You can follow us on tumblr.

I Highly Recommend Not Knowing Too Much About What You’re Trying to Do

This was me on my 44th birthday at one of my favourite places in Napa. I didn’t live anywhere yet.

Right before we taped this I ordered a plate of fresh cookies and then spent the rest of the night giving them away to other people at the very posh restaurant and getting to know the people there. That was the best part of the night.

I needed some inspiration today. I came across this video and thought I’d watch it and attempt to learn something from myself.

What did mid-life teach you?

Today I Am A New Kind of Lady

#crone #barren #transition #EISTC #woman #whyhide @lizbelile @christenclifford, a photo by subvert.com on Flickr.

Yesterday at the screening and feminist conversation (Mother Whore Complex) I hosted for Jill Soloway’s new film Afternoon Delight Jill told us a story. An investor asked her to take a scene out. It was a scene in which the two leads happen to meet in the bathroom, one is looking for a tampon. They discover they are synced. Jill couldn’t believe it “It’s a feminist art film and you’re asking me to take the menstruation scene out?” There was a huge laugh. Such discomfort with something so humdrum. So basic. Something women generally can’t escape.The request proved the point of the film.

“Where do they think the children come from?” I asked, getting another laugh. But I didn’t know that that was the day, yesterday, though I was sure I was menstruating too, when I would fail to have a period for the first time. And I didn’t know just how hard it would be more me to say even the next day. It marks a loss for me. And as sad as it is, it took me three quarters of the day to have the courage to post this. Because it might make someone else uncomfortable. But someone is always uncomfortable. And I am becoming a different kind of woman.

More: Everything Is Subject to Change #EISTC

Apple Picking: Kids stealing your iPhone while you talk on it in Oakland

Holy crap. I just tried to stop a crime in progress about half an hour ago. I saw a young woman walking toward me on Telegraph in Temescal neighbourhood of Oakland. Broad daylight. Mid-afternoonShe was carrying some yoga mats and agitated and asking people to stop this kid on a bike that just was going by so I ran into the street after him. He’d grabbed her iphone. It’s happening a lot here. Someone told me the cops call it “Apple picking.” Something like 500x last year in a mile of that place. I ran after him and got my hand on the seat of the bike but just just missed a steady grip by about half a second. So now I now: never use earphone when walking around here or talk on my phone if people are around. I’ve heard too many stories and seen it myself now. I asked the coffee shop we were in front of- Arbor- to put up a sign to let people know. They said this happens all the time and that someone smashed in all the car windows the other day on the street. But they didn’t seem inclined to put up a sign.

It was weird that I didn’t even think about running after the kid. I only just got here from being back in Canada recently and it took a few minutes before I remembered that most American of words: gun.

What if that kid had a gun? Was I an idiot for running after him? He just seemed like a kid, maybe 12 maybe as old as 15 and he seemed harmless. But no matter how small or unlikely the situation it’s a possibility in America. A bad possibility. One that I regret. Like I said to the people when I was out of breath from chasing him and then remembered guns. “Let people make their mistakes with knives. Or nothing.”

If you know anyone in Oakland please spread the word. I only knew to run after this kid and to put my phone away because I’d heard about this as a thing that is happening all the time. Don’t walk around with your iphone visible. Plus then we can actually have time to notice and smile at each other.

Update August 8th: I’ve just learned that a friend. A 6’2″ tall friend was kicked in the eye the other night in San Francisco in order to take his phone. He just posted this to Facebook:

Please tell people they shouldn’t kick another person in the eye. Also, please tell people who have a say in the economy that a system in which inequalities continue to grow and rents keep rising makes it more likely that someone who is 6’2″ might be kicked in the eye in exchange for a cell phone that can be sold on the street.

I have loved living in both the US and in Canada but this is the first moment I’ve asked myself whether or not it’s really possible to keep doing so.

Joni Mitchell is my art teacher

“One slap on the wrist for playing by ear and I went underground for 10 years.” Joni Mitchell played music when she was very young and then a piano teacher smacked her with a ruler (not an unusual practice at the time) when she began to play by ear at one lesson rather than “have the masters under [her] fingers] as she reported in her CBC interview. That shaming and discouraging attitude and most of all the thinking and quibbling that comes with that way of interacting sent her creative self and spirit hiding underground. She didn’t try music again for 10 years. That’s what I take her to mean by what she talks about at 29:00 above when she discusses why she produced herself. I used to sit at the piano when I was very young and play my feelings. One of my clearest, purest emotional moments was there. Then my mum heard me and laughed at me or commented.
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The Disappearing Butch

A recent current affairs program on CBC Radio ran a general news story on The Disappearing Butch. And yes the Canadian government funds the wonderful CBC which I sometimes get to contribute to. I also get to end sentences with prepositions when I feel like it.

While this is a story I have seen some of from living in the queer community, I’m not used to seeing these bits of my life in the mainstream press. It’s sort of stunning to me. In a good way. In fact, it’s a moment for me. I’m realizing: I really don’t expect the general media or conversation to get it, see or even consider the reality of our lives. And I mean like even at the basic level or how many queer people see themselves. We pretty much just see a lot of what we get chunked as, databased as, filed away as. You know the central casting view of your life. Which, let’s face it, general media does to just about anyone. And this is stunning to me because my work is pretty much about creating and speaking to a larger audience/community. This shows me I’ve been assuming it’s not possible and that that is not a helpful assumption. I don’t have to stop at gay 101. I can just work from nuance and detail of the real stories and take people with me.

The US now has 13 states with same-sex marriage equality with just a few more than that banning employment discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

But I did hear that one of my favourite people in the world, who is almost 11 and a Californian, just had a lesson on gender at school based around questions like “What are things people say boys/girls don’t do? Is that true?”

And no, I don’t see myself as butch. But that doesn’t stop many people from presuming.