Great things from my 2014
Writing every day on 750words.com – This site designed and run by Buster and Kellianne Benson is the best way I’ve found to write every day. It’s one of the best emotionally-aware designed sites I know. The feedback and nudges helped me a lot. Writing every day and coming through for myself has changed my life more than just about anything else that happened this year. If you join and want to follow each other for shared accountability (just one of the features of the site) let me know.
No more overhead lighting, and make everything warmer – Edison bulbs and other warmer yellower colours and this fantastic app which automatically shifts the color of your laptop screen by time of day help with minimizing headaches and helping sleep. Plus, you just feel more relaxed and strain your eyes less. I’m a middle-aged lady now. You will be too if you’re lucky. Everyone should be a middle-aged lady at some point. You stop giving a shit about a lot, but caring more about your eyesight.
Kenrick Lamar – This appearance on Colbert introduced me to him. Brilliance. Poetry. Theatre. A novel in 3 minutes. An opera? Performance art. Hip hop. Categorizing is the opposite of the point. He is a thrilling artist and art at it’s best grabs you by the heart and the hairs on your arms.
People are speaking up and telling their truth – #JianGhomeshi #Ferguson #BlackLivesMatter #BillCosby #RapedNeverReported #GamerGate #ThisTweetCalledMyBack #RealLiveTransAdult The Secret Recordings of Carmen Segerra the whistleblower about Goldman and the Fed on This American Life. Twitter has been huge. So has twitter (at least while it’s still a platform that lets you see who you have chosen to see, that may change next year). This is not things getting worse. This is things getting better.This is people speaking up and to each other, people who have not been heard in the main stream media.This is about ending shame and gaslighting and respecting our own experiences. This is about people seeing authority in themselves. This is about surfacing the epidemic abuse our culture has been mired in for ages and the role our silence played in enabling it. This is a big moment. Dominance is not a sustainable way for the culture and economy to continue. Dominance has roots in abuse. Dominance tells a damn good story. Dominance requires denial. I believe there’s a different way down deep.
“I Look Like An Egg, but I Identify As A Cookie” – I finalized the script to the show and I seas directed for the first time by the fabulous Kevin Clarke. Shotgun Players presented the show.
Transparent – The best television show I’ve ever seen. Also the most Jewish television show I’ve ever seen. This series shows the layers of character and family, the contradiction and the gray and in between of sexuality and gender. It shows where comedy comes from while showing you great comedy with profound heart. This show is like the best lover you’ll ever have. It will show you places you’d forgotten you wanted to be touched. Jill Soloway continues to be an inspiration to me. A conversation with her last year led me to think, for the first time (quite seriously) about directing.
I worked on a series that got nominated for an Emmy – The Future Starts Here is Tiffany Shlain’s doc series on aol. This is pretty amazing.
I got divorced. It finalized-after 4 years and 2 months-this year. I did a performance piece, Divorce Vows, at the notary when the paperwork got finished. I’m working on a full-length show called Everything Is Subject to Change that it’s part of and made good progress on it this year in workshops and performances at various venues and living rooms. Thank you TMI, La Pena, Stage Werx, Bruce Pachtman, Gina Gold and Rusty Blazenhoff. I also wrote this related piece people have seemed to like: So, You’re Getting Divorced?
Charmed Circle: Gertrude Stein and Company – I read this book and enjoyed the picture it showed me of life in France during this artistic era. It was a pleasure to see queer life at a time other than my own. One of the most notable things to me is how relentless Stein was throughout her life at promoted her work and perception of her as a genius. Most every artist in the circle promoted themselves a lot, including Picasso. She never really had popular success until she wrote something that was more accessible and about the social space she made for so many writers and painters. Everything, no matter how profound and beautiful in and of itself, needs someone to speak for it at times, or at least to offer it attention.
Morning Jew – I did a year of this video series with comic Katie Halper whom I enjoy talking with every week. We had some patrons support the show and the interest of an agent piqued. Mostly I just really like talking with Katie. It’s fun to make each other laugh. We are working on shifting the show to an audio podcast.
Instagram – I enjoyed it above all other platforms online. It reminds me the most of the old web at this point.
Wild – was the best film I saw this year. And we saw quite a lot of films. I did not expect this film to be so good. The adaptation of the book is terrific, the direction raises the level of the film and Laura Dern is just phenomenal: my favorite performance of anyone in any film this year.
Maleficent – is a radical feminist film. Shifting archetypes for young children is an amazing thing to do.
Robin Williams death – affected me greatly and that surprised me. It also showed me that, like it or not, I am a comic, even when I feel unsure about it.
Jerry Seinfeld – Perhaps the thing that surprised me most this year was that I went from someone who really had disdain for his stand up and didn’t think about him much, to a mild obsession to learning from his work and his approach to work and a complete love affair with his brilliant online talk show which I’m linking to a second time because really, if you haven’t seen it, you are missing out. I even went so far as to go see him live in Oakland. My strange Jerry Seinfeld distaste to obsession shift and what I’ve learned from studying a lot of his stuff is worth its own post or podcast episode at some point. The 2000 year old man is never wrong “we mock the thing we are to be.”
Della Fatoria – I ate there. It was so insanely good I made a point to get to Petaluma and eat there a few more times this year. The best bread I’ve ever had. Search out your own link if you’re motivated because I’m a bit torn and I flatter myself. I don’t want the place overrun.
I got paid to act – I never really saw myself as an actor, but I began to do it this year. I shot a few spots including a really funny Portlandia-esque take on Whole Foods for the supermarket. If you want to see it, email me.
