An Apartment, Susan Sontag and Boston

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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...

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

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

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...

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

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...

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...

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!

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

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!

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...

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!

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!