Give Buck a Buck

Making short films

2010-05-04T11:50:00.000-04:00

This coming October I graduate from Columbia. By the time I am finished, I will have produced four thesis films and co-produced an additional thesis. Considering most of my classmates only produce one film for graduation, this is a pretty significant number.

Making these films has taught me all sorts of things. For instance, don't work with crazy people. Find funding before you start. Learn the language before you produce a film in a foreign country. Work with the same crew of people you trust. It has also taught me to get a thicker skin. People aren't always going to like me. That one was hard for me, because growing up I was always well liked. And graduate school is strangely like the real world when it comes to playing favorites. I have been often frustrated by the fact that I work harder as a producer than any other student, but am rarely given any accolades. In the last year alone I have produced three films out of town (one in Bolivia!), but when the producing awards are announced next week, I am fairly certain I will not be on that list. I could say it won't be like that once I graduate, but I look around me and see that is just how it is...people hire people they know or people they like, not necessarily people who are best for the job.

Maybe I am just a little down on myself at the moment. I seem to be struggling with being able to keep up with my friends. Keeping up with the navigation of social media. Keeping up with website (which has been down for nearly 8 months). And worse yet, I still don't have a job and I desperately need one. So, if any of you out there know of a job for a film producer (hey, I can UPM or line produce too) or of a programming job (cause I'm thinking about going back into programming), please let me know. I'm pretty desperate.

Silent Film Nerd

2009-10-11T15:10:00.002-04:00

Maria, my fellow research assistant, and I work for a professor we affectionately like to call, "crazy Jane" or CJ for short. CJ is very disorganized and Maria and I often consider quitting. But I think we like writing about silent film too much to actually give notice.

Doing editorial work and research on a book about silent film era women who worked behind the camera may not seem like the most fascinating thing, but really, it's like playing six degrees of separation--SOAP OPERA STYLE!

Everyone is connected to everyone else! And even in early Hollywood everyone was slutty and sleeping around! Jane Murfin (the subject of my first article) was a writer, who in the sound era would go on to co-write such films as Pride and Prejudice and The Women (both 1939) but during the silent era, she was most famous for writing films about a dog named Strongheart, who was co-owned by her lover (note: NOT husband) director, Larry Trimble. Trimble was very handsome and a bit of a ladies man--he also had a serious thing for writers. When Murfin dumped him he married writer Marian Blackton. Marian was the daughter of the founder of Vitagraph Studios, J. Stuart Blackton. Nepotism was (and clearly still is) how you get ahead in Hollywood, and while J. Stuart ran the studio, Marian always had a job as her father's script supervisor or screenwriter. One of the first films she wrote (which her father, of course, directed) was The Redeeming Sin, starring Alla Nazimova. Nazimova was a notorious bi-sexual (as well as Nancy Reagan's godmother!?!?!) who had affairs primarily with women, including the brilliant, successful (and very butch) director, Dorothy Arzner. Arzner started as a editor on the now lost, Too Much Mustard (1919), a film directed by Donald Crisp. Crisp is much better known as an actor in such films as National Velvet and How Green Was My Valley. He was also married for a long time to the very place we started: Jane Murfin.

And that's not the half of it. Sex scandals! Abortions! Lesbians! Murder! Yep the silent era had it all.

Now you know why Maria and have such a hard time actually quitting.

W. Somerset Maugham

2009-07-25T14:36:00.002-04:00

Today I've firmly planted my butt in a chair and I'm trying to write about Gloria Swanson. The article is due on the 1st. It's about her career as a producer in the late 1920s. Swanson produced and starred in an adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham's short story, "Sadie Thompson." Consequently, I've been reading about W. Somerset Maugham too.

I came upon a quote by Maugham that made me realize he too felt the way I often do, "I have most loved people who cared little or nothing for me and when people have loved me I have been embarrassed... In order not to hurt their feelings, I have often acted a passion I did not feel."

Sigh.

Location Scouting

2009-06-29T23:32:00.004-04:00

One of the true joys of working on film is location scouting. Actually, this is a complete and total lie, because trying to secure locations is murder. But the actual driving and looking at places is wonderfully fun.

As some of you know, I am working on a film called Loop Planes. As the director Robin says, "It's the classic story of boy meets girl, boy loses girl, because boy is biologically a girl." Yep, it's about a transgender female to male 13 year old. You can read more about it here: loopplanes.com

Loop Planes takes place primarily in an amusement park and we are shooting in a little mom and pop park in Connecticut called Quassy. Last Sunday we had to go for a scout.

Oh my goodness, so so FUN! I was wearing a sun dress. Going to an amusement park in a sun dress may not be the best idea. Particularly if you have to ride rollercoasters for "research." Let's just say, I am pretty convinced a few people saw my panties...

Part of our scout was determining if we could take certain shots. All of us stood in and photos were taken as reference. In the photo below, I am playing the dad and Robin is playing the lead who is trying to fix one of the machines. Yes, I do make a great father in a skirt! The truth is, Robin doesn't look like she is fixing a machine at all, but looks rather dead. Or at least like she dropped a wrench on her head.

I am pretty excited for this shoot. It will be crazy hot in late August when we shoot and I am hoping tempers do not flare. Plus, there will always be dippin' dots, which is frankly the best part of any amusement park!

My Book

2009-06-29T23:26:00.003-04:00

I have a book. It is an artist book (you can read what that means here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artist_book). It took me two years to make. You should buy it. Or at least look at it. 56 people I know appear in it. And they all inter-connect.

Go to Preacher's Biscuit Books. And if you don't feel like buying mine, buy a different book. Because art is important!

Driving with Michael Jackson

2009-06-28T00:41:00.004-04:00

I sing in the car. I can't help it. Never, never when someone else is in the car with me...but almost always when I'm alone.

As everyone in the entire world knows, Michael Jackson died the day before yesterday. Already I've seen kids in my neighborhood wearing Michael Jackson 1958-2009 t-shirts! What is amazing about Michael Jackson is that for all of his weirdness in the last few years, his talent has never been questioned. There are at least three different stations in New York that are playing all Michael all weekend.

This afternoon I randomly happened to be driving a car, stuck in traffic on the west side highway. I was listening to an "All Michael All Weekend" station, singing along to P.Y.T (Pretty Young Thing), when I started to feel self-conscious because people in stopped traffic tend to look around...and a number of people were looking at me! Finally the traffic picked up. At the next light, Thriller came on. I was enjoying the Vincent Price section when something caught my out the rear view mirror. The two women in the truck behind me were dancing in the car, the exact beat to Thriller! And then they were singing along! Lip sinking the the music in my car! And I realized they were listening to the same station as I was....and so was the guy on my left. So I shrugged and thought, what would Michael do? And though the Michael in my head would be moonwalking, which didn't seem like an option since I was driving, I had to settle with singing Thriller at the top of my lungs along with everyone else in the world...or at least on the west side highway.

So, here is to you Michael Jackson...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtyJbIOZjS8

Stream of Consciousness While I can't Sleep

2009-06-27T05:17:00.002-04:00

I have stopped sleeping. On some level this fact should concern me more than it does. Perhaps it's because I keep functioning like a normal person. I still go to the office to copy edit and write about silent women film pioneers. I am still actively in pre-production on LOOP PLANES (we're even going on a tech scout at our amusement park on Sunday--woo hoo!!!). I am making more collages than I have in years. Museum are interested in my work. I am actually writing on my blog! It sort of feels like my life is normal, except I have 20 hours a day to work instead of 16. I know this will catch up to me, but I keep thinking it would be nice if this was always how my life would be...only needing 4 hours of sleep. So today I came home from the office at 10pm (I went in at 10am) and instead of trying to sleep, I went to the laundromat and washed all my clothes and towels and sheets. By the time I got home it was 1 am. And now it's 5:30 and I've been going ever since. But the only thing I seem to be unable to do in this burst of activity is work on scripts. I really don't feel like script writing, but I feel like I need to write one more while I am at Columbia, but unless I sit down every day and start writing, it's never going to get done! I also want to direct one film next spring if I can get the money together, but that script too needs to get finished! Maybe if I spent more time writing and less time painting my nails that would help. I've been painting my nails red for the last 5 months. The last polish was sort of funky and when I took it off, it has discolored my nails. Not red, but this sickly yellow. So what do I do? I guess I have to keep painting them because my real nails look scary!

Maybe I should try sleeping again...

Denise Levertov, Seattle and my undying love of poetry

2009-06-26T09:27:00.007-04:00

Many years ago I spent a summer in Seattle. My heart broken and stick thin, I went to work and tried to forget.
I loved Seattle like I had loved no other city. I loved that I could wear a sweater in June, always find good Vietnamese food, and lived rent free with my sister. I bought many things I still own there, including my Victrola.

I made up stories in my head about my life and surroundings, wrote long letters to the one who had broken my heart, and eventually decided to fall in love with the boy who rode the bus with me every morning. We never did speak, even though we both boarded the bus on Mercer Island and got off on the same stop downtown, swallowed up by the tall buildings where hundreds of thousands of people worked every day. I imagined he worked as an office messenger or a graphic designer for some fashionable firm. I would go to Pike Place Market at lunchtime in hopes of possibly seeing him, but after a while I gave up and started spending my lunch breaks at the public library.

I was obsessed with poetry then. I’d check out the collected poetry of Elizabeth Bishop or Sharon Olds or Marianne Moore and stay up all night reading. I remember picking up Denise Levertov, and found the perfect poem to send to the one who I, though I didn't want to admit it, still loved. It was an epic poem. I don’t even know what collection it came from. But one of the sections was titled POSTCARD, which I copied out into a notebook. I can still recall it from memory:

It’s not that I can’t get by without you
it’s just that I wasn’t lonesome
before I met you.
It’s something to do with salt losing its savor
when half of the world
one wants to share
stays in one’s pocket. Half
a crispy delicious bacon sandwich
saved. But for—Oh, like Shelley’s
posy of dewy flowers. Remember,
how he turns to give it—
Ah, to whom?

In fact, I made it into my own postcard and mailed it in hopes that the damage done between us could be mended. But some things are irretrievably broken. And now, whenever a relationship or a friendship ends, I think of the poem. That place when there is nothing left to say, yet being acutely aware that there is a hole that will never be completely filled. Wanting to turn and share a private joke or story you know they would have loved, but doesn't matter because whatever you once had is over.

Yesterday I found a copy of the postcard I sent. Maybe if you ask kindly, I’ll send you one.

I am a Producer

2009-06-25T10:19:00.009-04:00

I came to school to produce movies. People have always laughed about this fact because who goes to grad school for film to be a producer? Well...I do.

While Columbia has been rough (even if I become a billionaire, I swear I will NOT be "giving back") I have discovered my true talents here. I am an artist. I like making collages (see recent collage below...I just finished last night!) and drawing pictures and getting paid to do graphic design. I am a writer. I love writing short stories and scholarly film articles on everything from women screenwriters of the silent era to the pedophilia aspects of Edward in the Twilight series. Columbia has helped me what my talents are not. I don't particularly like writing screenplays. And I am still far more interested in making experimental films than narrative Hollywood/indie crap...

That's not fair. I am a producer of narrative short films. I try to do a good job for my classmates, but I can only work on the film if I like their script. And it helps if I like them too I suppose...I think I must be doing a good job of picking people to work with because the next three upcoming films I'll be working on have all been fully funded by outside organizations. I helped write the grants, so I feel very proud. It takes a lot of work to get a film funded. We received 25 grant rejection letters for LOOP PLANES, before being funded by Killer Films. The Sloan Foundation generally supports one film per year for $20,000, but this year decided to fund two! UNCANNY VALLEY and TERREBONE! And I happen to be attached to both films! So for those of you who say there is no funding in the world, I say KEEP LOOKING!!! And now I am heading off to my next pre-production meeting...

Reading The Road

2009-06-25T09:50:00.003-04:00

It's summer. Or at least the calendar says it's summer. So far the weather hasn't really been able to catch up...I think we've had something like 15 straight days of greyness!

Yesterday I started reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy. In my old age I seem to cry a lot. When I was 20 I never cried. I was embarrassed by people who did. I remember once going to a movie in college with a guy and he cried at the end of Saving Private Ryan and I thought, "What a baby!" and promptly broke up with him. But times have changed since then. Now I cry at the drop of a hat. Which brings me back to The Road. My roommate Andy and my friend Jeremy have told me numerous times since the book was released that I should read it. So two days ago when I realized I've read every book at least twice in my bookcase, I picked up Andy's copy and started reading...and didn't put it down until 10 hours later when I was sobbing at the end.

The book takes place in a post apocalyptic world and follows a father and son as they journey to the sea. McCarthy's writing is hard to explain, but I would argue he is in many ways the successor to Faulkner. Emotional, descriptive and dialogue that has no quotations, so the father and son's conversations seem to easily flow into the other. I am not a fan of post-apocalyptic stories. But the sense of loss--of a world and of hope--and the redemptive power of love between a father and son is truly moving. That last line was the cheesiest thing I've ever written. Which is why you should ignore me and read the book.

Which brings me back to my original thought...while I found the book deeply moving and recommend it without reservation, reading The Road, a book that takes place in a cloudy grey sunless world without hope, might not be the best book to read when you're living in the cold grey world of New York. And maybe I'm not a sap at all--just moody from the weather...

Silent Film Stars and napping on the job...

2008-12-17T00:03:00.006-05:00

I am a research assistant for one of my professors. Technically, I am an editorial assistant on a book that is forthcoming on women silent film pioneers. No, no, no, not actresses, but writers and directors and producers and other such positions of power that most people assume only men held in those days...it turns out there were waaaaaay more women working in the silent era of film, than in the 30s, 40s or 50s! If you're sort of curious what it is all about, you can get an idea by clicking here (this is the old site, the professor I work for recently recently left Duke):
http://literature.aas.duke.edu/wfp/index.html

There are also lots of fabulous pictures too, like this one of Natacha Rambova, who was a rumored lesbian, professional dancer, production and art designer, married to Valentino and born in Salt Lake City!

She also designed one of the most visually sumptuous and yet utterly stilted and boring films ever, Nazimova's SALOME (which featured an all gay man cast, which Nazimova said was a tribute to Oscar Wilde). Rambova's style in this particular film looked like a Beardsley drawing come to life and remains one of the best art nouveau designed films ever.

She is just one example of many. When I go home for Christmas I will likely spend some time at the Harold B. Lee Library at BYU which has a huge repository of film ephemera, including Cecil B. DeMille's papers. He hired and used (in more ways than one if you get my drift) numerous women to write the scenarios for his silent films. So, over the holiday I'll be collecting documents and photographs. I mean really, what can be more fun than doing research for your Christmas holiday?

I keep falling asleep on the job. It's not cause it's boring. It's cause I'm not sleeping enough at night. Which is to say, I am trundling off to slumberland RIGHT NOW!

You Know You Love Me! XO XO Gossip Girl.

2008-11-09T23:16:00.004-05:00

So yes, sometimes I watch Gossip Girl. It's all Rashi fault if you must know. Rashi is a friend from school who told me it was her favorite show. I laughed until I realized she wasn't kidding. She was dead serious. Granted she is like 12 (okay, 25) and I am 40 (not true...but closer to 40 than 20). But she was going to drag me into loving it too, regardless of how I might feel about spoiled New York rich kids.

I hate spoiled New York rich kids.

And yet, Gossip Girl is like watching Beverly Hills 90210 15 years ago. It's a soap opera for teenagers. Spoiled, wealthy upper east siders. The kind of people I loathe going to school with and should loathe watching on a tv show. But I guess I am a 33 year old teen because I am strangely hooked. And today it paid off.

I am producing a classmates thesis film. It's about teenagers in Middle America. And half of the girls who auditioned mentioned auditioning to be on the show Gossip Girl. And they all essentially look like this:

The director and assistant director had never seen Gossip Girl (and said girls who dressed like this were not appropriate for the film), but there was something comforting that I, as the oldest person in the room, knew a lot about teenage culture.

Making arty movies and producing like crazy!

2008-11-06T13:20:00.006-05:00

It's November. It's also 64 degrees outside. This little body of mine (well...maybe not that little) doesn't know what to wear! Coat? Sweater? Skivvies? It's so hard. Maybe it's why I have banned getting dressed ever again until the weather decides to behave and make up its mind.

I have been producing and production designing up a storm. What this means to all you lay people is that I have been making all the plans and prep work for a film a classmate is directing (everything from finding locations, casting and figuring out how to feed the crew). Part of the time it's fun. The other part of the time I want to rip all of my hair out.

Production design, on the other hand, is almost always fun. Production design is all the art work involved in the movie. Making sets, designing rooms, finding props and (sometimes) doing the wardrobe. It's sort of like interior decorating. The last film I worked on the people were catholic and I ended up using this cross in the film:I don't know why this photo makes me laugh so hard. Or why my hair looks so weird. But the cross is pretty scary I think. Someone used it as a hammer at one point on set, which I think might be sacrilegious.

Been working on some experimental stuff. Like this film I shot of my best friend Karin in Israel last summer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6c0Ynudsdk

or this, which is supposed to capture the frenetic energy of getting ready every morning while I was there (make sure you click on the "watch in high quality" button):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_2GjY_mbtA

Israel was lovely by the way. You should go. I enlarged my student loans to shoot some of my pre-thesis work there. What's another $5000 when I am already over $100,000 in debt?

Hanging in Georgia

2008-05-24T01:07:00.002-04:00

So.

At the moment I am in Georgia at my friend Molly's wedding. I drove down from New York with two friends from school, Beth and Rammy. Beth borrowed her parents' car and Rammy found us a place to stay for free in Raleigh, NC last night. And now we are in Savannah at the Holiday Inn. Tonight was the rehearsal dinner...lots of beautiful New York people transported to the deep South...I found myself wanting to ask, "Ummm...excuse me, but I forgot my headshot and I am not really sure I am pretty enough to be at this reception..."

Those of you who know me really well, know that I adore road trips. We stopped along the way in South Carolina called South of the Border. So so so offensive to Mexican people. And yet I laughed at all the stereotypes, which makes me a very bad person.

Whoa! You all probably thought I died!!!

2008-05-14T00:42:00.004-04:00

Well, my dears...I didn't die. In fact, I've just been in New York City making movies. And I have to say, it has been the hardest two years of my life. By a LONG shot.

The good news is, with the end of course work, I have to produce a bunch of films in order to graduate. Which mean I don't have to go to class. The bad news is that i need to find job fast!

Been working on a bunch of little films. Just recut an experimental music film. Check it out here:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=N3jqbFPab9E

I am also starting to write grants for two different films I am producing. One is shooting in a month! Eeeek! If you're ever in the mood to donate to up and coming directors and film projects (and you want a tax write off) let me know. Seriously. We have fiscal sponsorship through Fractured Atlas. This means you donate money to the organization, then they cut us a check, and provide you with a tax write off. Yes, the non-profit world likes to call it fiscal sponsorship. My friend Catherine, who is my sometimes producing partner, likes to call it legal money laundering. Regardless, in an imperfect world, it gets the work done.

I just got an educational loan increase to go to Israel for the summer to make a short documentary about Darfur refugees in Tel Aviv. It will be my non-thesis film. I am interested in displacement, and I have a few connections there (not to mention my best friend Karin), so my costs should stay fairly low. Plus, I am already so incredibly far beyond what I can ever make up in debt, that $5,000 more doesn't seem like a lot. It is sometimes hard for me to wrap my head around the idea that I'll be close to $200,000 in debt when this is all said and done.

I worked five jobs this spring. I am seriously a masochist. Thankfully, most of them were freelance...and all but two of them are over! But having enough money to be able to pay rent is great! And if I hadn't worked so hard I never would've have been able to afford Israel.

Life is good. I promise to try and keep in better touch.

Seriously.

Facing yourself face to face...

2007-07-31T21:33:00.001-04:00

Last night I went to a modern dance show in the village with my friend Mollye. It was very intimate, with five dancers on a small stage. I enjoyed the show very much, but had a very strange moment when the lead dancer (and choreographer) finally appeared. She looked like me.

People always think I look like someone they know. Someone familiar. And occasionally I get a "you look just like Drew Barrymore" or "you have Cybill Shepard's profile," neither of which I understand when people say it. Of course, it could be worse. I used to have a friend who used to be told (who is a girl mind you) that she is the spitting image of Michael J. Fox, which is not a nice thing to say to a girl...

That said, I actually recognized that this girl looked like me. Highish forehead, same eyes...it was very odd. Sort of a strange realization of what I would look like if I hadn't cut my hair short.

Writing with regularity

2007-01-27T21:58:00.000-05:00

It's nearly the end of January and I find myself suffering from a lack of completion. At least where my writing is concerned. Sure, I've managed to write and direct a three-minute film and work on 12 of my classmates' films (yes, I CAN tell you what a gaffer actually does), but my writing has suffered. I have notebooks and notebooks of ideas, but nothing concrete, just lots of story outlines and snippets of dialogue and the first pages of much longer ideas.

My best friend Karin thinks I should write a book about going to Columbia called "The Narrative Year," all about my efforts to try and be a narrative filmmaker rather than an experimental filmmaker, which I find far more intuitive. But how could I even start such a project when I can't even keep up on writing a blog?

One of the fun things about film school is appearing in classmates' films. So far this semester I've played a slut who is cheating with her best friend's boyfriend, an insane professor, a bisexual who is cheating on her girlfriend and is stabbed to death, a girl who steals $100 from her roommate to buy a Christmas tree, a bitch girlfriend who is mad at her boyfriend for losing tickets to the Nutcracker, someone who is randomly making out with her boyfriend at the library, the girlfriend of a hustler, and tomorrow I get to do my first nude scene! Okay, not really. But when my friend Lisa asked me to be in her film, the first thing I asked her jokingly was, "Do I get to be naked?" And her response? "Yeah, how did you know?" Actually, the film is about a one night stand and I am the girl in bed. So I don't REALLY get to be naked, just naked from the shoulders up. Right about now is when I wish I had a tube top.

I wonder why I am often cast as the slutty girlfriend. I asked Proferes, my directing professor last semester, why and he said, "Well, as [Elia] Kazan always said to me, 'you can't hire someone as an actor unless they have already lived part of the role.'" To which I replied, "So what are you saying, Nick? That I'm a slut?" And his response, "Well, if the shoe fits..." Yes, it seems I came to Columbia to be insulted by my professors.

So, for the three of you who read my blog, I thought I'd attach a couple of YouTube links so you can get an idea of the kind of films I am working on these days. They're crappy and made pretty quickly, but they'll give you an idea.

This is my film noir that I shot entirely out of sequence in 3 hours. I like my production design MUCH better than the performances.

This was the first short film I made at Columbia. It was also the first time I used a digital camera, worked with actors or edited on Final Cut Pro. The soundtrack is a Nouvelle Vague cover of Depeche Mode's "Just Can't Get Enough."

Eventually, I'll get the film I made over Christmas holiday up here too.

Random Bad Luck

2006-12-15T03:12:00.000-05:00

The semester has just ended. And the winter holiday is going to be spent making my own, or working on other friend's short films. I like the idea that my job, essentially for the next three years, is making movies, writing scripts and learning all aspects of the film industry.

But I have to confess, I am exhausted, and more broke than I have ever been.

You see, this semester has been a series of bad luck. I am trying to remember what happened first. I think it may have been the guy who felt me up (he grabbed my right breast) from behind then took off on 125th Street. While I was rather freaked out, at least it was daytime, so I wasn't really worried about him dragging me off the street and raping me in some alley. But still...I did feel a bit violated.

Then my hard drive crashed. The best part? I had just backed up the entire contents of my computer on it, because my laptop wasn't behaving very well. This included my entire music collection, much of my digital art, and two books I am working on. The music (something like 20GB) can be replaced...not cheaply mind you...but it's possible). The book and art work...not so much. So I took it down to a couple of Mac shop in New York to see how much it would cost to do data recovery. You ready? $1,300. THIRTEEN HUNDRED FRIGGIN' DOLLARS!!! That is just wrong. So deeply wrong. I mean the hard drive only cost $250? How can data recovery cost $1300?

I was hoping my bad luck was getting better, but then on Wednesday I started throwing up and running a fever. I had to finish editing a film (it's a film noir and at least that turned out okay), write four papers, and get clearances to shoot on the street and in Central Park for a film I am producing this weekend. So, staying home wasn't an option. So, I chugged my Pepto, and went down to jump on my bike and found...I bet you know what's going to happen next...my bike had been stolen.

I think if I wasn't so exhausted, suffering from severe lack of sleep (I've averaged 4 hours a night in the last two weeks), I would probably be in tears. But I am too tired to cry. I'm just really, really sad because I liked my bike. It was great for transportation in New York. And yesterday was going to be the last time I rode it before putting it in the basement for the season. How to bike thieves steal a bike with two chains on it, including a U-lock, anyway?

Apple Picking, Pie and Incontinent Rainclouds

2006-11-14T08:13:00.000-05:00

Fall on the East Coast is lovely. There are a number of small trees that turn bright red, which I like to call (in my best Biblical Moses voice) "the burning bush." While NYC does have its fair share of burning bushes, rust-colored oaks and weird yellow trees that drop stinky fruit, I decided it was time to get out of town. Actually, my friend Apryl decided it was time to get out of town and I facilitated her. So we, with an assist from my friends Josh and Mollye, set out on apple picking in New Jersey. We ended up on a farm, where we rode a tractor, picked ten pounds of Granny Smith and Pink Ladies, petted a goat and bought fresh vegetables for dinner. Back in town, I cored some of the apples and made a pretty good apple pie for my screenwriting class.

The following week, I decided that perhaps getting out of town really was good for me. So, I drove upstate to the Storm King Art Center. Go visit it now! It is hands down one of the best sculpture parks I have ever visited. Not only that, the drive up was stunning. Small roads that curved along the Hudson (yep, I took the long way home), rust-colored trees past their fall foliage prime--but still beautiful, steel span bridges. I literally ached with the beauty of it all and dreaded coming back to the city.

Finally, my sister has a blog which I often read. While she is always pretty funny, her drawing of an Incontinent Raincloud is maybe the funniest thing I've seen in a long time. Check it out.

Halloween

2006-10-28T13:12:00.000-04:00

Last night I went to a Halloween party in Chelsea thrown by the School of the Arts at Columbia. It was held at a bar called Crobar. It's the sort of place where people queue outside and people like J. Lo show up. Essentially not my scene. I guess that's not exactly true, because if J. Lo WERE outside and singing "Jenny From the Block" I might be compelled to stay and watch.

Regardless, while the event was not really my style, the best part of the party were the costumes! Art folks are pretty funny when it comes to dressing. Sure, there were a lot of sexy doctors, sexy animals and downright slutty girls, but there was also Patty Hearst, a girl named Jeannie dressed up as Jeannie from "I Dream of Jeannie," a swarm of avian flu and one HOT sailor...oh wait, that was me! Maybe I'll post a photo later. But I have to say, my favorite part of the night was the fact that I made masks for everyone who did not have a costume. Yes, 15 masks of my friend Apryl's face. My cousin Josh said it should be a band...The Fifteen Masks of Apryl. Watching Apryl walk around with 15 other Apryl's was weird and amazingly funny. I think on Tuesday I am definitely going to school as Apryl...or maybe I'll go super post-modern and make a mask of my own face!

Why I Love Boston

2006-10-11T10:42:00.000-04:00

I've run into a number of people lately who were raised in the greater Boston area, but now live in New York. Whenever I say, "I love Boston" they say (usually with a roll of the eyes), "How can you like Boston? It's so provincial!" This weekend I spent a couple of sun drenched days in Somerville, Cambridge and Boston and fell in love all over again with the city. So, to all of those dorks who don't get it, let me state exactly why I love Boston...

1. I love that Boston IS provincial compared to New York, that the town and people are friendlier and I always feel safe in Boston (a feeling I rarely have in New York).

2. I love that I know where everything is in Boston. I love that I know where to look for used books (McIntyre and Moore, Brattle Book Shop, Harvard Bookstore), know where to buy vinyl (Looney Tunes, Cheapo Records, In Your Ear, Stereo Jacks... and that is just in Cambridge alone), know where to buy a good cheap burrito (Ana's and Felipe's). I also know that eventually I will have a grasp on this sort of stuff in New York, but right now I miss the ease and familiarity.

3. I love the film scene in Boston. Sure, the film scene is technically better in New York, but it's more expensive...much more expensive as I used to have a job in Boston that afforded me free movies in all of the theatres in Cambridge. I love that I used to be able to walk four blocks and see rep films at the Brattle Theatre and new releases at the Harvard Square Cinemas.

4. I love that I really became an adult in Cambridge. Had my first real relationships, my first real job, my first solely rented apartment (yeah, so I am back to having multiple roommates in New York).

5. I love (and miss) intellectual conversations at the Harvard Film Archive. I assumed going to film school that all of my classmates would be well versed in cinema...but not so! I miss the days when we'd sit around and discuss Ozu, Hollis Frampton, Janet Gaynor and Hal Hartley all in one go. While I do have friends in New York with that sort of knowledge, the people I see on a daily basis do not.

6. I love Linda and Despina in Somerville.

7. I love that you can put your bike on the commuter rail and in one hour be on the best beach (Singing Beach in Manchester-by-the-Sea) in New England. While Fire Island (and even Coney Island) do have their appeal, I love Singing Beach...well, because of its provincialness (is that even a word?)

8. I miss the Boston skyline. I miss riding my bike along the Charles River and looking at the sail boats and many bridges and the Pru and the stacked houses and capitol dome of Beacon Hill.

The truth is, I could go on like this for days, but it just makes me feel homesick.

T-Shirt Shame

2006-09-29T10:04:00.000-04:00

As a pre-teen during summer holiday, I was obsessed with watching the TV show "Too Close For Comfort," which I deeply hated (JM J. Bullock was supposed to be straight...I mean really, that was just too much to ask in terms of suspension of disbelief) but which I felt compelled to watch every day at 12:30 pm. Ted Knight, who played Henry the father, always wore a sweat shirt from an American university. A different University every episode. In an interview during the mid-80s he said it was because he never graduated from college, which he always regretted, and this was his way of paying respect to all the great universities.

Charles, my childhood best friend, also wore a sweat shirt around this time that announced his allegiance to Harvard, which his father had attended, and which he and I used to fight over who would actually end up going there. I think we may have even had a ten dollar bet going. I secretly wanted the Harvard shirt, but made a conscious decision that I would NEVER wear a college shirt...that I was too cool to be a walking billboard for a University.

At BYU I sneered at the students who wore the BYU cougar shirts. "Stupid out of towners," I thought, "BYU is so stupid..." and then I would put on my "That Slut Girl" shirt that had a great cartoon of a girl with cleavage and a 60s flip smoking a cigarette and looking deliciously bitchy.

Even when I started working at Harvard (yeah, so neither Charles nor I actually went to Harvard, but I think I still win our 5th grade bet--Charles, if you're out there I want my ten dollars!), I looked at all the undergraduates and would sneer, "silly spoiled brats whose mommies and daddies make a billion dollars and can actually send them to this stupid ivy league school...I'd never wear a stupid college shirt." But that didn't stop me from buying Harvard t-shirts for all of my nieces and nephews one Christmas...

Last night I was helping my friends Josh and Mollye on some design work for a film project they are working on. It got to be late and I was exhausted after a very long day at school and I ended up sleeping on their couch. Now this would have been fine, only I had an appointment at 9 am on campus and I didn't wake up until 8:30, which did not give me time to go home and change my clothes (I had to brush my teeth with my finger and baking soda...) and because I have a busy day today, I won't make it home until tonight. And I hate wearing the same clothes twice. And there are no clothes stores near Columbia.

I suppose you know where I am going with this.

Yes, today I actually bit the bullet and bought a Columbia shirt. It's cute. It's black with white stitching. It's fitted and makes me look hot...but across my boobs, it definitely says Columbia.

I have become what I hate.

And I sort of like it.

The oddness of school

2006-09-23T13:22:00.000-04:00

I have 21 credits this semester. Full time is considered anything over 12 credits. Needless to say, I have a busy schedule. But, unlike being an undergraduate, there are no grades, just pass/fail classes. And this makes it a lot easier to worry about making interesting films rather than worrying about merely grade grubing.

I also have an acting class. It's called Directing the Actor, only for the first 9 weeks, we ARE the actors. I've never been very good at memorizing lines and this class has been hard because I have to memorize AND block scenes. Last week I was assigned a scene from David Hare's Plenty. In it, the main character asks a man she hardly knows to impregnant her so she can be a single mother. I was totally fine with this in concept, until I actually read the scene (five pages is freaking me out...how do people memorize whole plays anyway?) and realized I am going to have to kiss one of my classmates that I hardly know! Eeek!

This week I am also shooting my first film exercise. You should all be forewarned that if you come to visit me any time soon I will force you to be in my films!

Note to Self...Things to Not Repeat Living in NYC

2006-09-11T22:09:00.000-04:00

1. Walking alone in Morningside Park after dark. I actually watched a couple of junkies shooting up in the park earlier today. It is quite a lovely park, but not so good at night.
2. Riding my bike home at night without a helmet or a light.
3. Wandering the side streets alone in Harlem after midnight.
4. Eating at any establishment that has the word "fried" more than three times on the awning "Fried Chicken, Hamburgers, Fried Cheese, Fried Okra, Mac n Cheese."
5. Telling the corner grocer that I am not married.
6. Stepping on the betting money of the seven guys who continually play dice outside of my house.
7. Calling my professor a "poopface" and having them overhear.
8. Hmmm....I am sure there are more...

Starting school in NYC

2006-09-02T15:37:00.000-04:00

I finally have an apartment! I am living in West Harlem in a 2nd floor flat with two girls who are a year ahead of me in the film program at Columbia. It is a recently refurbished building with hardwoods and decent light and a mere four long blocks walk to Columbia. Email me if you want the new address to send me hundreds of dollars (or to send me a nice postcard)!

I like Harlem. One of the difficulties of New York is that it feels like such a rat race, like you must wear the best clothes and know the right places to brunch and be intimately familiar with all the “cool” neighborhoods. And there is only so much of that that I can do without feeling utterly exhausted. But Harlem feels like a community. Like a neighborhood. So many people have lived here for years. People say hello and good morning on the street. If I walk around the neighborhood in jeans, flip flops and a hoodie no one really cares. You can buy a can of soda for 50¢ and get an egg sandwich for $1.50. Rent in New York City is still outrageous, but at least I’ll be able to afford to eat. Plus, I’m only nine short blocks from Central Park, where I walk almost every day and heed the advice of my friend John who said, “find the green spaces in Manhattan, they will keep you sane.”

School started this week. Not real school mind you, but orientation that involved everyone in my program getting into small groups and making a short film. My film involved me sitting in a public toilet for three hours. If this is what the rest of grad school is going to be like, I can’t wait!

An Apartment, Susan Sontag and Boston

2006-08-15T23:50:00.000-04:00

For the last six years I have managed to attend all of the films I want to see for free. It's one of the perks of working for a theatre. Recently, I've been able to add museums to that list because Harvard Film Archive is under the Fine Arts Library, which gave us a pass to get into museums for free. When I quit Harvard I had to turn in my official ID, but not my museum pass, which has come in handy in New York because it allows me to get in free to every museum! I am allowed to spend as much time as I like in the Met to appreciate a lovely tribute show of photographs coupled with Susan Sontag's text or a small drawing show of Schiele and Klimt. Or I can wander into the Whitney and see the brilliant "Mothlight" by Stan Brakhage every day at 5 pm, or see Christian Marclay's video installation on the fourth floor. Or I can go on Tuesday morning to see the Dada show at the MoMA.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to con anyone into letting me into the movies for free. I've seen three films, which cost me $30! And while LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE, SCOOP and LEONARD COHEN: I'M YOUR MAN, were all fun and worthwhile, I am going to have to find a cheaper (read: free) way of seeing movies.

I've also found an apartment. It's in Harlem with two girls. It's a newly renovated flat where I can keep my bicycle in the basement (right next to the washer and dryer)! It's perfect and by far the cheapest place I've found, and I am so grateful to be so close to school. In fact, until the bad weather shows up, I can easily ride my bike to school every day!

At the moment I'm in Boston, housesitting. As I've officially been a displaced person for the last 46 days, I'll take any offer to squat in an unoccupied house. Thankfully in 10 days I will be moving my stuff from a storage unit in Boston to NYC. Anyone interested in helping?

Pretty Jewelry

2006-08-05T19:53:00.000-04:00

So, for those of you who like pretty jewelry (or know girls who do), check out this site:

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=54750

A couple of my friends have started making stuff which I think is nice. And if you like it and actually buy it, they will be super happy!

Living versus visiting New York

2006-08-05T13:48:00.000-04:00

Living in a place, rather than merely visiting, is a whole different experience with its own set of rules and negotiations. I have been searching for an apartment in Manhattan for the last four days. I have walked varied neighborhoods, talked to ten potential roommates, looked at six apartments in Harlem, Spanish Harlem, the Upper West Side, Midtown West, and Lower East Side (which was way too far from Columbia--150 short blocks and two local train transfers that would take an hour and fifteen minutes on a good day--but it was still fun to look). I have still not found a place. I have walked through Central Park and cooled myself off in 100 degree weather by walking through loosened hydrants spewing water. I've been whistled at (best comment ever? "Sure is hot out here, little lady, but not as hot as you!"), walked probably the equivalent of 20 miles and got free sushi when a cockroach ran across my table--which was probably a good thing as I didn't really have the $15 to pay for it.

I bought a weekly pass for the subway. I love the subway. It's one of the few places where you are allowed to stare at people and make up stories. Yesterday I sat across from a native American dwarf. I am not making this up! As my friends are acutely aware, I am a little person magnet. His face was perfect. He was noble, clear-eyed and somehow intimidating, and in a previous life might have been Red Cloud of the Lakota Sioux. In fact, I wanted to befriend him and ask him to keep in touch with me so I could use him some day in a film. This morning, I listened to two men in full mariachi suits play the accordion and guitar and sing. Everyone in the train car smiled and it reminded me of my trip to Mexico last summer, where a full 12-piece mariachi band played us "Besame Mucho," and the men on the train made me feel a little sad.

Three Things I Love About Utah

2006-07-31T11:04:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow morning I will be heading back to the East Coast. And while I love the east and I have no desire to live permanently in Utah, there are a number of things I love about this state that I think I've taken for granted and would like to tell the three people who read this blog about right now!

First, I love the canyons. I grew up in Northern Utah, I learned to ski here, I rafted in the Provo River and even attempted water skiing in Deer Creek Reservoir. I particularly love Provo Canyon and had forgotten its vertical heights, lush greenery and waterfalls. If you ever visit Utah (or you happen to live here), at least take a drive through Provo Canyon to Heber or Park City because it's amazingly beautiful.

Second, I love free fruit. When I was in college I used to make a lot of pies and jam. Lately, I've been walking in the morning (both in Provo and Salt Lake City) and I realized why I made so many lovely desserts. There are a million fruit trees! This morning I passed three plum trees, a raspberry bush, an apricot tree, a blackberry bush, a pear tree and a peach tree. And I was only walking for 20 minutes!

Third, I love weird "only in Utah" structures and businesses. Whether it is the enormous 20 foot high balloon of a Mormon missionary on top of a store called "Missionary Mall," or video stores called "Clean Flicks" that edit films to clean up language and/or anything else that might possibly be considered offensive--nope, they don't carry The Last Temptation of Christ, but they DO carry The Passion if any of you are curious--or the strangest park in the world called Gilgal Gardens (if you're ever in SLC you HAVE to go; see http://www.gilgalgarden.org/) or basement houses that popped up when people put down a foundation, but couldn't afford to build the rest of the house (see image below), Utah is filled with kitsch that makes many Utahns crazy, but that I have learned to absolutely love.

I should really make a book called Roadside Utah with images of all the funny, weird, and utterly unique... well... crap that I love about this state.

Driving to Eugene, Oregon

2006-07-26T14:17:00.000-04:00

My sister Jennifer decided to drive from Provo, UT to visit our other sister Suzanne in Eugene, Oregon. And, since I've been couch surfing at my mom's house in Utah, I decided I'd jump in Jenny's car and drive with her to Eugene.

The western United States is amazing, diverse and allows for days and days of big sky driving. Most people don't realize that the land west of the great Salt Lake to the the Sierra and Cascade Mountains is a big desert. This includes eastern Oregon and southern Idaho. Perhaps the most fascinating part of the trip was a huge tree with probably 1,000 pairs of shoes thrown up into it near the Oregon/Idaho border. We decided to take a small state road through Oregon and only got waylaid in the Cascades when a large forest fire forced us to take an alternate route.

Yesterday, we drove to Silverfalls State Park east of Salem and hiked. Silverfalls State Park is made up of 10 waterfalls. We only saw 8 of them because we took the short hike (5 miles) rather than the long hike (8.3 miles). We were wishing we had brought bathing suits (or at least water socks) because the water under the falls collected in deep clear pools which looked really refreshing and after hiking we were really hot. My niece Vanessa claimed that Silverfalls is where fairies live and I think she might be right. We took this photo of a magical tree.

Today we are driving out to the ocean. It's strange that in one month I will have seen the Atlantic, Pacific and Mediterrean. Particularly strange as I'm totally broke and I've managed to do all of this traveling for free. I'm grateful I have such good friend and family who allow me to couch surf during this strange inbetween time.

My Grandmother is 90!

2006-07-19T05:15:00.000-04:00

I'm in Anderson, Indiana. It's a former factory town for General Motors, and like many former factory towns it has been slowly dying for nearly 25 years. The tool and die lines where my grandfather and grandmother and uncle and even my father worked have shuttered and are currently being razed. And each time I visit, more and more store fronts in Anderson are empty and have a For Sale sign out front.

My grandmother has lived in this town for 65 years. And yet she still considers herself from Tennessee. She still gets the local paper from "down home," and moved with all her Tennessee friends to Anderson in 1940, essentially creating little Overton County, TN (population 3,000) in Indiana.

On the 25th of this month she turns 90. My aunt threw a huge party for her at the local bowling alley on Sunday. Over 100 people showed up ... folks she had worked with in the factory that she hadn't seen in 40 years, a huge Tennessee contingency, the neighbors.

My grandmother has always been sickly. She is constantly complaining that her body aches, her bowels don't move, her head hurts, her arthritis makes her knuckles swell. She, like everyone else in my family, suffers from depression. Yet she is the one who has outlived many of her siblings, her son, her husband, most of her friends. And the only real decline I can see in her after all these years is that she's more frail and she is decidedly going deaf. She's really quite healthy as she still lives alone, still does her own laundry, still fixes her own meals.

I turned up at the party after having not slept for 40 hours due to flight connections from Tel Aviv, to see my grandma parading around wearing a cape and tiara and holding a scepter, and complaining (lightly, of course) that we should have waited until she turned 100 to have this party.

Don't worry, I thought, we'll probably be having a party for you when you turn 120. Because I honestly believe my grandmother will outlive us all.

Caesarea, Jaffa, dancers and the Conflict in Lebanon

2006-07-15T00:25:00.000-04:00

It's my last day in Tel Aviv. A "conflict" has started on the Lebanon border, and though everything is business as usual in Tel Aviv, it is strange to think that three hours away missiles are killing innocent civilians.

My trip has been lovely though. We visited Caesarea, an ancient port city built by Herod (yes, THAT Herod from the New Testament), on Tuesday. We had intended to visit Jerusalem or Haifa, but with all the unrest it seemed sort of unwise. We swam in a turquoise blue ocean and I was delighted (because I'd almost forgotten) what the salty taste of sea water is like.

Tel Aviv is part of the greater municipality of Tel Aviv-Jaffa. Tel Aviv was founded in 1909. Jaffa was founded 1909...B.C.! Old Jaffa is an amazing mix of crumbling stairways and beautiful doors. In the Jaffa market (which featured everything from rugs to--my personal favorite--an old Victrola) I found my dream vehicle, which actually worked. Unfortunately, I am going to have to move to Jaffa in order to have this motorcycle with side car.

I also attended the Jerusalem Film Festival and saw really bad experimental film. I love found footage films, which was the focus of this section, but of the ten short films, only two were remotely interesting, and the other eight were like watching bad student films. Not good. But I also saw the Batsheva Dance Company's world premier performance of Bertolina, which was a violent mixture of hip-hop, ballet, modern dance, brilliant costuming and one of the best DJ sets I've ever heard. Truly a brilliant performance. It was like watching a modern dance interpretation of a drug fueled rave and it almost took my breath away. And after I ate passionfruit ice cream, which is my favorite ice cream in the entire world!

Soon, I'll be off to Indianapolis for my Grandmother's 90th Birthday. Then to Utah for two weeks, then back to New York, where I am going to be couch surfing until I can find an apartment of my own!

The World Cup in Tel Aviv

2006-07-10T06:05:00.000-04:00

Do you know why Tel Aviv is amazing? Because you can sit on the beach at night, watch an enormous big screen where the semi-final of the World Cup is playing (France vs. Portugal) and a waitress walks around and serves you whatever you like, including a drink called Malty, which is like root beer in America, except is tastes like real beer but is non-alcoholic.

Plus, the ocean is beautiful at night...a full moon reflected off the water and there was such a sense of celebration in the air. It's amazing that soccer is such as huge sport world wide except America. And watching soccer outside with friends on the ocean is so much better than watching it in a bar in Boston...

I love Tel Aviv, I'm actually getting a tan for once! Maybe next summer I'll make a film here!

Paris, France and the Ruby effect...

2006-07-04T10:07:00.000-04:00

At this very moment I am sitting in the Charles De Gaulle airport on a layover to go to Tel Aviv. Perhaps those of you at home are thinking, "wait a minute, how can she afford to go to Tel Aviv--and with the current unrest why would she want to--if she has to raise such a big chunk of change for grad school?"

Well, my friends, last summer I went to France for my friend Anouck's wedding and got bumped off my flight home, so Air France gave me 800 Euros toward a free ticket. And since my very best friend in the entire world lives in Tel Aviv, and I had to buy the ticket by July 5th, I figured, why not?

Plus, I'll try really hard not to get blown up.

On other thoughts that relate to absolutely nothing, I have two gay friends I really want to shake right now that are suffering from what I like to call "The Ruby Effect" (also known as the "David effect" for boys). Ruby was a girl, who though straight, was a little bi-curious and self-centered enough to lead everyone on. And because Ruby was beautiful and smart (and--it goes without saying--manipulative) I knew a couple of gay girls who would swarm her, in hopes that Ruby would come around and realize she was gay. But Ruby had no intention of being gay. She just liked the attention of having someone's undivided gaze. She liked to spoon with girls, play with their hair and give them hope for a few months until Ruby found a new male conquest and left her wannabe lesbian lovers in the dust.

How do you warn your friends of impending heartbreak without alienating them? I guess you don't. You just sit back and watch the trainwreck happen.

Moving is no fun

2006-06-27T06:41:00.000-04:00

I have adored my current apartment in Cambridge. Really adored it. Located between Harvard and Central Square, it's been the perfect place to throw parties, to have house guests and to just hang out. In fact, the only downside to this apartment has been that it's a fifth floor walk up. Now most of the time I don't mind walking the 64 steps to my apartment. It's good for me. Makes my blood circulate. Builds muscles.

However, now I am moving. And moving furniture down 64 steps is REALLY not fun. Really really not fun. Particularly, when I've acquired so much crap. Lately, I've understood my friend Karin's recent comment when she moved. "You know, all of these objects we acquire, all of these things...they sort of make me sick. Sometimes I feel like purging everything and starting over clean."

Here here to that!

Disappointing movies and the Countess

2006-06-21T06:52:00.002-04:00

Yesterday I went to see Prairie Home Companion. I like Robert Altman. I like the NPR radio show it's based on. I like Meryl Streep. However, this movie, well...it's not so good. In fact, it's a mess on the order of Dr. T and the Women, rather than a brilliant piece of filmmaking like Nashville. Garrison Keillor is stiff. Kevin Kline's role is unnecessary. Lindsay Lohan (who I actually like) feels like a typical teenaged caricature. And as I sat in the Harvard Square Cinema, eating my Raisinettes, I looked up at the theatre's clock that has never worked and thought, this is probably the last time I will ever go to this theatre and I wasted my time watching this?

One of my favorite things about working at the theatre at the Harvard Film was the Countess. Ah yes, those of you who've been to the HFA know who I am talking about. The Countess is probably in her early 70s. She rides a bike (sometimes in a bikini). She saves plastic bags (which she likes to sort loudly in the movies). She kicks people in the head jumping over the seats in the theatre (which is how she got banned from the HFA). We call her the Countess, because that is how she introduces herself.

Yesterday I got a card from Mary Kenny. Do you know who was on the cover? The Countess! This picture is going permanently on my bulletin board, because she is my favorite crazy street person in Boston.

It's late June and I still don't know what's going on...

2006-06-17T09:28:00.000-04:00

Do you know what happens when you don't take care of yourself? You end up passing out in the park and having to spend the weekend in the hospital for exhaustion and dehydration. It's not very fun and then people also think you're retarded because you're 31 and you should, at this point in life, know how to take care of yourself.

When I got out of the hospital I opened my P.O. box and found $1000! Can you believe it? That is so much money! And due to the fact that I am going to have to sell a kidney in order to pay for school, I am extremely grateful!

I also found two great envelopes. The Japanese girl envelope is from my sister, but the criminal envelope is from... well, I actually have no idea, other than it was stamped in Seattle. It had a dollar inside but no note and no return address.

Please send more envelopes! And if you read this blog, tell your friends to send me a dollar!

The Movies and Walking

2006-06-04T21:44:00.000-04:00

Sometimes, when I'm sad, I walk. It gives me time to think, time to figure out what I am going to do for the next couple of days or weeks or months. Today I walked four and a half miles. Not endless walking, mind you, but destination walking--walking home from a friend's house who lives a town away, or walking to the indie movie house, where I get to go to the movies for free. But nothing was really resolved...

I am giving up my apartment at the end of the month in an effort to save money. I plan on putting my stuff in storage and couch surfing for two months. I still don't know about where I'll be living in New York, I still haven't figured out my financial situation (like paying for tuition), everything feels so horribly arbitrary. I wonder if my life will ever be stable again?

This week I am going to the Newport Film Festival to head the panel for student (high school) judges. The folks who run the festival like to refer to me as the teen camp film counselor. Perhaps that's what I am. Regardless, I am looking forward to getting out of town and seeing a bunch of movies. And Newport is lovely and not yet overcrowded in early June (though maybe it will be since I've never been to Newport during the festival).

Maybe I'll see something that will move me. Change the way I think forever. Mend my aching heart.

The parade...

2006-05-29T11:20:00.000-04:00

This morning I woke up deeply depressed. I no longer have a relationship, a best friend, nor a job. I'm already in debt and I'm about to go deeper into debt to try and pay for school.

Lately, I keep having a recurring dream where I wake up and a small dwarf is sitting on my chest. His weight is not impossible to bear, just a constant pressure. We talk of what it is like to suffer from debilitating smallness and Billy Barty. When I wake, the dwarf is gone, but the pressure remains.

This morning I had to choose between staying in bed depressed, or getting up and facing the day. The first always seems easier, but the latter is what I have to do.

I walked to Harvard Square.

It's Memorial Day and a parade was passing. Going right up the middle of JFK Street. Boys in ill-fitting suits playing the oomp-pa-pa of the tuba and girls with acne playing the clarinet. It reminded me of my childhood, driving to parades all over Utah Valley to watch my brother Dan play the trombone in our high school's marching band. Even now the sound of a parade and the band sort of excites me, the hopes of standing on the curb and having candy thrown to me, or having the boy on the scooter wink at me. This morning was no different.

And now I am trying to remember what it is to be happy.

Irritating email and reasons why school is good...

2006-05-25T19:22:00.000-04:00

Today I got my first piece of "gee you're stupid" email. It went something like this:

"you don't need to go to school to be a documentary film maker.
seems to me like a big waste of 57K."

Having just finished a 9 minute, grant funded film (printed in 35mm mind you) I am very aware that I do not need to go to school to be a film maker. But additional education does afford me the following:

1. Time to focus all of my energy on making a feature. Right now my job takes up most of my time. And I need a job to pay the rent. And making films this way ends up taking years. And I'm 31 and want to start focusing on making films now.

2. Columbia has enormous amounts of connections. I will have the opportunity to work all over the world with people I deeply respect, just because I've been accepted to this program. And my films are more likely to be picked up at festivals because of these connections.

3. An MFA. What the above person fails to realize is that I have been teaching college courses in Boston. I really enjoy teaching and I could be working full time as a professor right now if I had a master's degree. So, getting an MFA will really help my opportunities for teaching.

I am not asking anyone to donate $57,000. I am merely asking 40,000 people to donate a dollar. If you don't want to donate because you're cheap or morally opposed to the idea, that's fine. But I am trying to find a way that I can actually pay for grad school and this is my idea. And it's hard. It's hard to ask people for money. It's embarrassing to send out emails and make phone calls. But I want to go to school, and hopefully this plot will raise just enough to cover tuition money.

Parties, dragqueens and buying more art!

2006-05-21T14:11:00.000-04:00

My friend Kris, who makes lovely, lovely art, is having an art sale and is donating part of the proceeds to my grad school education quest! Go to www.kbluem.com and buy her art! Really! It's fabulous!

Friday night I had a party. It was not just your average party, but a party that was the culmination of living in one place for nine years. My very best friend (and her husband and her baby) are moving home to Israel this week, and this was a send-off party. Somehow they've managed to acquire over 100 friends and acquaintances, 60 of whom showed up at my little apartment. Everyone arrived early and stayed late and many interesting conversations were had. And now I am in mourning for the loss of my best friend, for the end of my life in Boston and for so many other little things.

My friend Clayton was worried that I was too moody, so he took me out to a drag club. It was lip sync drag night, but the best performance of all was a live song done by four very large women in scanty underwear. They sang the song (in tune and in harmony), "Big Spender" from the musical Sweet Charity, with choreographed dance moves. The final door prize was given to whoever could guess their cumulative weight. Someone called out, "710 pounds?" to which one of the ladies called back, "C'mon people! We're REALLY fat!" Final answer? 870 pounds.

I have good friends.

Buy My Art

2006-05-14T21:34:00.000-04:00

Falling out of love is painful. Particularly when you're still in love and your former partner is not. I think the only thing good about the end of a relationship (speaking from personal experience) is making art. Yes, when I am suffering from a broken heart, I find myself not sleeping and filling the endless hours making collages and taking photographs. Which may be why the majority of my collages were all made in late 2002 and my Self-Centered series in 1999. Now everything in my life is in flux and I find myself feeling sad and nostalgic...and on an art bender. I'm in love with Boston and I am leaving her.

Lately, a number of people have asked me about buying my art. If you haven't seen my art, check out my portfolio here. I generally sell my large format collages (32" by 36") for $1000, my smaller format collages (20" by 15") for $250, and my prints (both Girls on Film and Self-Centered) for $100 a print.

As my sister Suzanne says, "It's a bargain at twice the price!"

So, if you really want to support me, buy my art, dammit!

My first love letter!

2006-05-11T20:36:00.000-04:00

Today I opened up my mailbox and what did I find? A love letter! Fernando wants me to make documentaries about Barcelona nightlife and caress his photo (which he included) with love and longing...

Hmmm...this seems sort of suspicious. In fact, Fernando's handwriting looks a lot like my sister Suzanne's. And when I type the phrase Latin lover into google images, the SAME photo included in my letter appears! This must mean one of two things. Either Suzanne has sent me a fake love letter, or worse, Fernando is making the moves on every girl on the internet!

Why I love my family...

2006-05-08T21:22:00.000-04:00

I am one of six kids. The fourth of six kids to be exact.

When my mother was a teenager, her parents told her she could go to college, but she was only allowed to graduate in nursing or teaching. So, she became a teacher. My mother slightly resented that her parents chose the direction her life would take and actively encouraged us to go to school for whatever we felt like.

All of us chose the arts.

Now, graduating in pottery or film or music is rarely going to make you loads of cash. In fact, I remember wearing my cap and gown in the back row of the auditorium where the film majors were required to sit at graduation and making fun of the Broadcast Journalism majors with their perfectly coiffed helmet hair. As the ten of us giggled, one of the coiffed heads turned around and sneered, "I already have a job reporting for KSL (the local news station), while you film losers are probably flipping burgers."

I hated her. Mostly because she was nearly right. I was waiting tables.

******

When I told my family about the givebuckabuck idea they jumped on the bandwagon. Tim and Curtis put it on their websites. Michele offered people her prints if they'd donate. Sooz helped me put together this entire idea and anything that is remotely interesting about this blog. Jennifer sent it to all her peeps on myspace and she even sent me her life savings...a whole dollar!

I love my family because they are funny, smart, creative people that I would want for friends, even if they weren't related to me.

I love letters SO much!

2006-05-04T12:25:00.000-04:00

Today I looked in my box and found these two letters! I think it's surprising that no one stole the Snowden dollar signs envelope. Nothing like advertising what's on the inside!

And people often ignore the back of their letters, but not my sister Jennifer. No, she likes to quote lyrics by Smashmouth on the back!

Send me envelopes that look like this!

2006-05-02T16:03:00.000-04:00

Hooray, I've reached 2% of my goal! This is all thanks to my friend Kris Merola who donated $21 so I'd hit $800 exactly. She makes art I want to hang on my walls and publishes beautiful books. Check out preachersbiscuitbooks.com.

Now I just have $39,200 left to go!

On Friday I went to the mail box to see if, perhaps, someone had finally sent me that long awaited love letter! Alas, the answer was no. However, I did find something almost as good. An envelope that looked like this:

Thank you, M. Klein, for sending such a great envelope! The next day, someone sent me a dollar in Hello Kitty stationery. Hello Kitty is now stuck with a magnet to my refrigerator.

See how easy it is to make me happy?

Quizas (Perhaps) and School costs...

2006-04-27T21:40:00.000-04:00

See? Why does graduate school have to be so expensive? Soon I am going to add a bar that states how close I am to reaching the $40,000 mark. $40,000 is merely the amount of tuition. I am dealing with the rest on my own...

At the moment I'm listening to Nat "King" Cole's version of "Quizas, Quizas, Quizas." I first heard this version when I saw the film In the Mood for Love by Wong Kar-wai, a film I find utterly romantic and intoxicating. I originally saw the film in a theatre in Harvard Square with a dear friend who, at the time, was suffering from a broken heart and the song (and film) utterly summed up her heartache, her sense of loss and the uncertainty of all relationships.

Now I find I am listening to the song because I'm making a friend a collection of Quizas (Perhaps) Songs.

Mix tapes are so satisfying.

Photocopying my head for posterity...

2006-04-27T07:46:00.000-04:00

Nice folks from around the globe keep either:

A) sending me a couple bucks (no pun intended--and many thanks to everyone thus far)

B) buying my artwork (bless all of you)

or,

C) tell me I'm an enormous idiot and then ask for proof that I'm really going to grad school and proof that I really am not eligible for loans, even though they have no intention of ever sending me a dollar.

So, to all of you C) folks, please check back tonight when I post my official financial aid (or lack of it) package from Columbia.

Also, I keep going to my P.O. Box, hoping that some nice little letter has wended its way to me, but alas, no such luck! I mean, folks, it's just a dollar! And my P.O. Box is so lonely! Plus, even if you don't want to send me money, you can just send me a love letter. I LOVE love letters. In fact, I recently bought a collection of love letters from an estate sale for $5. It was the best $5 I've ever spent. Why? Well, quotes like this really:

"Babe, I love you so much. I want to hold you close to me through the night. Going to AA is so hard without you. I miss you Babe. Yours always, L."

The letters were addressed to someone in the Monroe County Jail in Rochester, NY. So, it seemed "Babe" was in jail. I assumed L. was Babe's pathetic, alcoholic girlfriend with girly handwriting. But then I got to this letter:

"Babe, I want to make love to you all night. In therapy, Dr. Johnson says that sex replaces addiction and he worries that I'm addicted to you. But I'm a man in love Babe. I need you! Well, I'm closing now. Your letter on Friday made me really happy. Love you Babe. Love always, Lance"

Hmmm....it seems Lance and Babe were gay lovers. But it didn't end there. No, a few more letters in there were letters from Babe's wife worried about what to tell their son, who didn't know where his father had gone. And then there were letters from the son about being diagnosed with ADD. And finally, there were letters from Babe's mother, demanding him to repent before the Lord or face eternal damnation.

Now why can't I get letters like that in my P.O. Box?

Read This First

2006-04-20T18:12:00.000-04:00

My name is Julie Buck. My hair is brown, but sometimes blonde and usually a bit curly. As my friend Emily used to say, "Your hair is delightfully disheveled." I fancy myself an artist and make experimental film and large-format realistic collages, and sometimes even exhibit my art. I live in a fifth floor walk-up in Cambridge, Massachusetts. My favorite color has been blue since 2nd grade, when I had to change from my original favorite color--brown--because my cousin Steven told me that people who like brown smell like poo. I am a Sagittarius, although I'm not really sure what that means. My sister Michele says it means I must be hot, which must be true, because Michele is hot and she's a Sagittarius too. I like Andy Warhol. And I actually like ramen, which is a good thing, because I'll probably be eating a lot of it in the next three years.

That's because I recently decided to give up my day job and apply for graduate school. The thought of going back to school at age 31, after nine years away, is a little scary--but the super thrilling part was getting accepted to the graduate program for film at Columbia University in New York City! The not-so-thrilling part? Figuring out how to raise the necessary $57,000 for tuition and living expenses.

I started to ask around for money. I asked my mom, and my siblings, and my cousins, and my friends, and the neighbors, and the neighbor's monkey for cash, checks, even small pieces of jewelry I could pawn. I even started saving myself! I've been standing around in Harvard Square with a plastic cup and a sign which reads, "Please, help send Julie to grad school." So far, these activities have yielded about $10,000, which is a lot, but unfortunately, not nearly enough. (I knew I should've gotten an accordion and stolen my neighbor's monkey.)

So then I called my sister Suzanne. "Sooz, what is to become of me?" I cried. "Should I sell one of my kidneys on the black market? Should I harvest my eggs and sell them to a fertility clinic?"

"No, no, no, silly," she said, "just reach out to your friends on the Internet. If people know you're a nice girl--well, a mostly nice girl--who wants to go to school, they're bound to help out!"

So that is how we came up with the idea of the Give Buck a Buck website.

The way I see it, if I can get 40,000 people to donate a mere dollar each (or 4,000 people to donate $10 each), no one's wallet will suffer--and I will finally be able to get the complete education I've been longing for since I graduated from college nine years ago. Even if it means I'm stuck eating nothing but ramen for three years.

Think about it. If you could make a positive difference in one person's life by donating a dollar, would you do it? Well, wouldn't you?

Click here to see the ways you can donate.

Frequently Asked Questions

2006-04-20T18:07:00.000-04:00

Q: Is this for real?
A: Yes. This is my last-ditch attempt to get enough money together to afford graduate school, which has been my dream for years.

Q: You sure this isn't some kind of joke?
A: No, this is not a joke. If it were, it would be much funnier.

Q: Are you really going to attend Columbia University?
A: Yes, I've been admitted for Fall 2006. If you need proof, I can send you a copy of my official acceptance letter.

Q: What initially inspired you to do this?
A: Well, I'm carrying a large amount of debt and had some minor financial setbacks, with the result that I've saved very little to attend grad school. No one person I know has $40,000 to give me, but I thought if I could harness the power of the Internet to get 40,000 people to donate a dollar to my cause, I'd be set!

Q: Why are you asking other people for money? Aren't there other ways to make or get money?
A: Good question. There are other ways, and I've been exploring as many of those other ways as I can. I've applied for grants, loans, scholarships and other funds. I come from a single-parent family, and although they can provide love and moral support, my mom and siblings can't afford to lend me much money. I have held a job ever since I was 16 years old, and I will continue to work and support myself when I move to New York. None of these options will even begin to cover the total amount I will need.

Q: Don't you have a job or something?
A: Why yes, I do. Until the end of June 2006, I will continue to work at the Harvard Film Archive at Harvard University. It's an AWESOME job where I get to watch movies every day. But after six years of work here, I've realized that I need to get a master's degree. (I've also realized that living in Cambridge is expensive.)

Q: What about getting a loan?
A: I have applied for loans, but I can only qualify for up to $18,000, which is a far cry from the $57,000 I need for a year at Columbia.

Q: How will you use the money? What are your plans after you graduate?
A: I will use the money to cover the costs of a year's tuition at Columbia. I'll take care of other things like rent, textbooks, health insurance, transportation, and ramen (aka Purina Student Chow) myself. I am applying for an MFA in film production, and I plan to make documentary films after I graduate.

Q: How do I know you won't just drop out of school?
A: Well, I have a pretty impressive track record of finishing what I start. I'm also highly motivated and driven to succeed. Frankly, I'm more likely to drop dead than drop out.

Q: Do you have a deadline?
A: Yes. I hope to have reached my goal of $40,000 by August 2006. That's not much time...

Q: Can I keep track of what you're doing?
A: Yes. I will be posting frequent updates here, so check back often.

Q: Is my gift tax-deductible?
A: Sadly, no. I am a private individual, not a non-profit organization. But I'm not asking for sizable donations, just a dollar or two. Or you could support me in other ways (see below).

Q: I'm not really comfortable with making a donation. Can I buy your art to support you instead?
A: I thought you'd never ask! Of course you can! Take a look at my portfolio. Karin and I are selling all our Girls on Film artist proofs for $100 per image. My Black Haired Girl collages sell for $1000 per original collage. My Self Centered images are $100 each.

Q: Where do you live?
A: Currently I live in Cambridge, Massachusetts, but I'll be moving to New York City in August 2006.

Q: Could you tell me more about yourself?
A: Sure. Please see my bio page.

Q: I am a journalist and I'd like to ask you a few questions. How can I contact you?
A: Please see my contact page.

Q: This is the coolest idea ever! How can I spread the word?
A: Tell your friends, please! You can also link to my site.

Q: Did you write that Wikipedia entry?
A: No! Geez. My sister wrote it. I tried to delete it, but Wikipedia thinks I'm a legitimate artist. Shows what they know.

Contact Me

2006-04-19T13:41:00.001-04:00

There are several different ways to get hold of me.

First, if you just want to make a quick comment, you can use the comment form at the bottom of each entry.

If you want to send a private message and time is of the essence, you can e-mail me at julie@juliebuck.com.

If you prefer to send paper letters, you can send them to new address in New York:

Julie Buck
3505 Broadway #56
New York, NY 10031

Donate!

2006-04-19T11:48:00.001-04:00

So you want to donate some money to help me pay for school? Fantastic! At present there are three ways to do it:

1) First, if you have a PayPal account, you can transfer money to me through PayPal. You can also use your credit card, but please be aware that PayPal takes 3% plus 30 cents for each transaction (so, if you give me $1.00 via PayPal, I only get 66 cents).

2) If, like my sister, you prefer not to use PayPal, you can use my snail mail address. Email me and I'll be happy to provide you my real person address.

3) You can buy my artwork. My friend Karin and I are selling artists' proofs from our show, Girls on Film, at $100 per image. I am also selling photographs from my Self Centered series for $100 per image. My original large-format collages sell for $1000 per collage. Take a look at my portfolio or e-mail me at julie@juliebuck.com for more information.

Also...

DON'T MISS YOUR CHANCE AT FAME!

If you donate (or purchase) more than $10, I will give you a credit in my final student thesis film. Yes, it's a chance to have your name up in lights, so don't let it pass you by!