The Station Agent

In my capacity as ornery cuss, unless I can screen them pre-buzz, I generally sit out wildly popular movies on principle. Often, this proves wise; in the case of a genuinely worthy film like Sideways or The Station Agent, I'm only punishing myself. That there are similarities between the films (strong sense of place, a rock-solid script, actors who look like real people) doesn't surprise me. I've always had a weakness for the indie film; I'll generally cut it more slack than a studio picture, just because I know that for as hard as it is to get any movie made the right way, the sheer force of will that's required to pull together the resources needed to make an indie deserves support.

But too often, indies piss away that good will with aggressively quirky stories or hackting. That The Station Agent is set in super-smalltown rural New Jersey and is populated with a train-loving dwarf/loner, a chatty Latino hot-truck operator with a lust for life, and a kooky painter who meets cute with the dwarf by nearly running him over not once but twice in her SUV, didn't bode well.

But the film unfolds slowly, ever so slowly, confident in the reality of the world it's creating, with beautiful, in-the-pocket performances by almost the entire cast (I had a wee problem with a couple of actors playing the local tough-guy losers winking at their characters instead of just playing them). I'm a fan of Patricia Clarkson's since her genius performance in High Art, and after seeing the unbelievably self-possessed Raven Goodwin knock it out of the park both in this and Lovely and Amazing I would like someone to please explain to me why this incredible little girl does not have a huge movie career, her own TV show or both.

Enough. It's on DVD now; if you're an asshole like me who sat it out while it was in the theaters, you can put it on your Netflix queue and no one will be the wiser.

xxx c

Illness, wellness and a guy from Cymru

It is hard to undo a lifetime of bad habits. For most of my years on the planet, I favored the power-through method of life management, recklessly using whatever tools I had at my disposal, caffeine, various unregulated pharmaceuticals, my considerable will, to do so. It's a dangerous combination, that mix of stubbornness and not-enough-ness that many of us seem to be gifted with. Very easy to do yourself considerable damage without even realizing you're doing it.

And now, heading into Week Four of being laid low by some virus/bug/whatever, my own stupidity is clanging madly in that space between my ears. Why did I think it was a good idea to hit the gym twice last week when I needed a cup of coffee each time to do it? Why do I say "yes" to yet another project/outing/favor when most days I'm too tired to wash a sinkful of dishes? And mostly, Why am I not well? Why me? What did I do to deserve this?

Well, I know exactly what I did, how long I did it for and even why I chose to do it in the face of all reasonable evidence that I should not. People with weakened immune systems cannot get away with the kinds of shenanigans that people with healthy immune systems can. Period. And yet I insist upon trying to sneak one more infraction by my poor, hobbled body, one more class, one more meeting, one more cocktail with a friend. So, to paraphrase a thousand woo-woo wits, I will continue to receive the same lesson in different forms until I choose to learn it: Crohn's disease, the cold that won't go away and perhaps (oh, please, God, no) ME/CFS.

That would be the chronic fatigue disorder that Michael Nobbs was diagnosed with back in 1999. It crept up on him like the Crohn's crept up on me, but apparently, he kept on pushing through it for a few more years before he hipped himself to the reality that he might have to slow down a bit. I don't mean to sound superior, here; if wasting, fever and shitting two pints of blood hadn't kept me tethered to my bed, I'd have been pushing, too. (And in my way, I pushed, too, believe me.)

Anyway, I've a cold now (as the Brits would say), and have had (as they'd also say) for going on four weeks. I get a little better. I run out and do a million things. I get a little worse. I collapse, then rouse myself with a cup of drug-of-choice (coffee or tea, depending). I run out and do a million things. I collapse and retreat. Cancel everything. Rest. Feel a wee bit better. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

And Michael?

I wonder if I've been out and about just a bit too much and am finally paying for it. I've got a cold which seems to have gone to my chest. I'm hoping it won't last. I've been enjoying my regular visits to the outside world so much of late and don't want to have to give up on them again. No reason to of course. Everyone gets colds. They come and go. It's just I'm always very nervous about a complete health downturn and am hoping this won't be one.

Is it any wonder I fell in love reading his blog? I mean, if the wonderful drawings (that so remind me of the late, great, Louise Fitzhugh's) weren't enough, his deceptively simple, bell-clear descriptions of his heart's map would.

I've remarked on my obsessive crushes before; this time was no different. Greedily, I burned through much of Michael's site. Then I ordered a picture. Then I ordered his journal, which arrived yesterday, and which I greedily burned through in about ten minutes. Now I'm re-reading it slowly, the way Michael created it. Call it my zen meditation for today. Since the journal is so delightful, it's not a particularly effortful practice, which makes it a useful meditation for a hard-ass like myself.

I love the Internet. I lose hours here, not minding, stumbling upon interesting sites like Michael's that introduce me to even more interesting people, places and things. I also like the mirrors they hold up for me, complete with wonderful life hacks for crazy folk who have a tough time learning our lessons.

You will be doing Michael a solid if you buy his journal. It is hard enough earning a living sometimes when you are well enough to work; for the ill, it becomes exponentially more difficult. But really, you will be doing yourself a favor as well.

And me. Because I want The Beany to be so successful, the next issue comes out in colo(u)r.

xxx c

All images © 2002-2004 Michael Nobbs

Dwelve on this

In a recent post, the ever-insightful Zenmistress of Businessâ„¢ (a.k.a. Evelyn Rodriguez) discusses the role of flexibility, living in the now, in a long and happy life. Jon Kabat-Zinn, whom she quotes extensively in her post, calls it "full catastrophe living": not living your life at the high level of stress we might associate with perilous events, but staying relaxed and in touch enough to take things in stride, no matter what those things are. As a tsunami survivor, she knows whereof she speaks; as a thoughtful and practiced writer, she speaks it eloquently (as always). At one point, talking about the renewed commitment she wants to make towards fully integrating this skill, she talks about wanting "to dwelve into the book and a face-to-face MBSR (mindfulness-based stress reduction) course."

Dwelve?

Yes, dwelve. To delve and to dwell. Or maybe to dwell, then to delve.

Gee. That it works in two directions makes it just about the greatest portmanteau word ever, I think.

xxx c

Book review: The Namesake

Like my favorite movies, my favorite novels seem to share a strong sense of place and a deep, inchoate longing on the part of at least one of the characters. And, perversely, I return to these favorites, Moon Deluxe, Ed Wood, Ham on Rye, Showgirls, over and over again.

The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri, is filled with characters who are filled with longing; most are either Bengali transplants to 1970s Boston or their 1st generation American children, and all of them seem to pine for some sense of belonging to something, a family, a country, a person, that will give their lives shape and meaning.

Lahiri won the Pulitzer Prize for her collection of short stories, Interpreter of Maladies, and I can see why. Her writing beautifully evokes mood and place without ever feeling fussy or self-conscious, and damn, her sentences are just plain elegant. Here she describes the transformation of a young woman who marries the title character:

Suddenly it was easy, and after years of being convinced she would never have a lover she began to fall effortlessly  into affairs. With no hesitation, she had allowed men to seduce her in cafés, in parks, while she gazed at paintings in museums. She gave herself openly, completely,  not caring about the consequences. She was exactly the same person, looked and behaved exactly the same way, and yet suddenly, in that new city, she was transformed into the kind of girl she had once envied, had believed she would never become.

As much as I enjoyed the book, I did find my interest flagging at roughly the halfway point, just about where the narrative perspective shifts from Ashoke and Ahsimi, the parents, and their son, Gogol/Nikhil, the namesake of the title. Short stories or novellas are quite different animals from novels, and perhaps Lahiri is less comfortable with the longer form.

Still, it is a magnificent story and, for the most part, a compulsively good read, the best new-ish novel I've read in some time.

And now I have all those good stories to look forward to...

xxx
c

The Greatest Condiment in All the Land

Two of the greatest things I ever got out of any relationship came from my marriage: an introduction to honest-to-God, Italian-American "gravy", as my former in-laws called it, (or "red lead" as Tony Soprano calls it) and to the Chicago-style giardinera that goes so perfectly with it. For the uninitiated, giardinera (pronounced "jar'-din-AIR" if you're from Chicago) is basically chopped vegetables and spices either marinated in oil or picked in vinegar.

The former, especially when packed with the exact jalepeno-to-celery ratio to achieve the proper level of fiery goodness, perfectly complements the dense, musky flavor of a long-simmered gravy and creates instantaneously and out of nowhere a weird, cocaine-like addictive grip on the unsuspecting diner that never really goes away.

The latter is overly crunchy, usually filled with weird, inappropriate vegetables like carrots and cauliflower and, as far as I'm concerned, is ass. Ah, well. Chacon à son gout.

I've looked and looked, but I've never found REAL giardinera anywhere outside of Chicago. Certainly not in L.A., which is not exactly renowned for its Little Italy. (Oh, wait, we don't have a Little Italy.) And I was so plumb frozen on my last trip back there that I plumb forgot to check the overpriced grocery store near my hotel to see it they stocked it.

Fortunately, my other ex-Chicago ex-partner who now lives in L.A. was still there. I put out a giardinera alert, and he graciously purchased (and had his aunt ship) FOUR, count 'em, FOUR bottles of Dell'Alpe. They arrived today, mostly intact, and I immediately jumped online to tell all 12 of you about it.

Of course, in my search for an image to upload along with it, I found the online order form at the Dell'Alpe website. For nine bucks, I can get three bottles shipped to me any time the jones strikes. Which really does make me happy...when it's not making me feel like an idiot.

xxx c

Book review: The Year Of Living Famously

I cadged a couple of books from people on my Chicago trip, including The Year Of Living Famously by one Laura Caldwell, which looked suspiciously like an seconds table also-ran from the Chick Lit department. It was given to me by Jan's fabulously loopy godmother, Noni, who got each of us one for Christmas, insisting it was a terrific read and we would love love love it. I had my doubts, but the stack by the bedside was looking extra-grim, what with the crappy weather and global disasters and suchlike, so a couple of days ago, I cracked the sucker and hopped into the bathtub.

Well, it is Chick Lit, but damned if it didn't read like a house afire! I was halfway through this piffling little story about an orphaned Manhattan fashion designer (yes, really) who meets a dashing young Irish actor (I swear to you) in Vegas, of all places (no, no, seriously) and, after a whirlwind romance, moves in with him in L.A., marries him, gets her very own stalker and then, a year later, teeters at the edge of divorcing her now-supahstar husband who has won an Academy Award for Best Actor because she can no longer (after what...three months?) take the constant strain of living in the public eye (okay, okay).

Thing was, I was buying e v e r y t h i n g, wondering how the hell this Adjunct Professor of Law who lives in Chicago with her husband knew jack about the Hollywood game, when she made her fatal mistake: having the main character hire a "graphic designer" who was going to turn around her classic, "ivory, heavy paper, simple, elegant" wedding invites in one week. For cheap. HA! In your dreams, sister.

Still, it's a bitchin' good single-portion read, kind of like a literary bag of Oreos, and it's got me ready for something meaty. I'm thinking B.F.'s Daughter since I've burned through the Richard Yates oeuvre and I don't feel exactly Cheever-y. Thank you, Old Hag...

xxx

c

Kinsey

My friend, Patty, with whom I saw Spanglish, has been bugging me mightily (albeit nicely) about seeing Kinsey, mainly because she wanted to know if she was the only one who found it a little, er, hard to get into. I am sorry to report that she is not alone in her experience; for a film that's all about bringing sex to the forefront, Kinsey is decidedly unsexy. It just floats along on its pretty pictures and clever editing (although the retro/CGI montage of the Kinsey team's data-collecting trek across America was pretty disturbing, visually) and nice Carter Burwell soundtrack. No teeth, no electricity, no surprises and a bizarre, wearying kind of self-importance. Did someone decide that dialing up the pomposity would make a big, bad s-e-x movie go down better (sorry) with a still-Puritannical American audience? I don't know how true-to-life Kinsey is, but I'm of the opinion that you either play fast and loose with the facts and make a great fucking film or you hew to them like a maniac and make a great fucking documentary.

Other than that, I'm not exactly sure why Kinsey doesn't work. The script seems sound enough, there are more great performances than you can shake a stick at and Kinsey's own trajectory is a pretty fascinating one. I'm frankly baffled, because I thought director Bill Condon's Gods and Monsters was a superb film, thought-provoking, moving and finely calibrated in its emotional portrayals. And it was a period piece, too, although it felt timeless where Kinsey feels more like it belongs alongside the bloated, bland Hollywood epics of the time it documents.

Ultimately, I'm just not interested in analyzing exactly where Kinsey falls down. I'd rather revisit the  11-year-old Ed Wood or Crumb or the 15-year-old Reversal of Fortune for a fifth time (each) than watch this logy, lumbering Quaalude of a mid-century throwback again.

xxx c

Book review: Sideways

In the acknowledgments of his mid-Coastal road-trip buddy novel, author Rex Pickett thanks co-screenwriters Alexander Payne (who also directed) and Jim Taylor for their faithful adaptation of Sideways to the screen.

I'd thank them, all right, but not for being faithful.

The events of the story are, in fact, almost identical, save the exclusion in the film of a strange boar-hunting odyssey (which, ironically, I can almost imagine Pickett thinking as he wrote it, "Damn! This'll be great in the movie!"). There is a strong sense of place in both the book and the film, Pickett is clearly a SoCal denizen who has either logged a lot of hours in a lot of mid-Coastal non-hotspots or he has a keen eye and deft hand for recreating them.

But the film is so much more charming and nuanced and relaxed than the book it was shocking. Pickett, according to his back-o'-book blurb, "is a screenwriter living in Los Angeles. This is his first novel." I know all of us writerly types are supposed to hew to the show-don't-tell maxim, but it's a screenwriter's stock in trade: let the pictures tell the story.

Instead, Pickett's novel is littered with insistent narrative assertions about the characters' smarts, sex appeal, inherent goodness beneath it all and, worst of all, their senses of humor. There is such extensive cataloguing of people's response to quips and jokes and witty one-liners that I actually stopped being annoyed and became fascinated. How many "i"s did this guy feel like he had to dot, anyway? Was this some kind of word-count padding? Or was it possible there existed a writer with lower self-esteem and belief in himself than me? Maybe I have a shot at this writing thing, after all...

The book did do an even better job than the film of piquing my fledgling interest in wine. But the film, with its confident, unapologetic and ultimately winning portrayal of complicated, flawed, but ultimately sympathetic characters, made me want to make art.

I wonder what Alexander Payne saw when he picked up the novel (or had it funneled to him by a minion or agent or however these things happen). Perhaps the answer lies in this archived Elvis Mitchell interview with Payne and Davis from KCRW's "The Treatment." I think I'm gonna have to listen. Sideways, the novel, isn't exactly a sow's ear. But it shares a pedigree with Sideways, the film, which is definitely a high-end jewel, and rare for being so.

xxx
c

Spanglish

I'll admit, I went into Spanglish not wanting to like it. I was one of three people who didn't like As Good As It Gets but my loathing was deep and pure enough for three million. My particular creative bugaboo has always been Wasted Potential, and believe you me, if you'd read Mark Andrus's brilliant, dark, tender, touching original screenplay for AGAIG, you'd be pissed off, too. I'm a lot older and a little bit wiser and I don't fall into deep, hopeless chasms of righteous indignation like I used to. Spanglish was...well, good. In a way. There are some charming scenes and some terrific laughs and some enchanting performances, Cloris Leachman is her usual crackerjack actor self, Adam Sandler has a few great moments and Paz Vega should be in every movie made until she dies.

Sadly, Spanglish was also very, very bad, in exactly the same way that AGAIG was. I'm beginning to think that the chief trick to good art is, as Albert Einstein said about, well, everything, to "make everything as simple as possible...but no simpler." Which is why it's as easy to go from rococco to kitsch as it is to go from Mies Van Der Roh to some tacky steel and glass box.

There's a real story about real people somewhere in Spanglish that I'd have liked to see. As the daughter of a charming, well-meaning, intelligent but often thoughtless drunk much like the one Leachman portrays, I know all about the damage mothers can inflict upon their children, and, by extension, their children's loved ones. But I don't know too many saints of the variety played by Sandler and Vega, who are given exactly one (delightful) flaw each, while poor Téa Leoni gets to play a skinny blonde antichrist. (Oh, and that whole thing about Leachman's character just giving up drinking after 60 years , and without anyone noticing for three weeks: Not. Gonna. Happen.)

To be fair to Brooks, had he cast a more inherently likeable actress (say, Renée Zellweger) as the unhappy Deborah Clasky, the character might have been a scoche more sympathetic. But it was his part to cast, he wrote and directed, and I'm guessing none of the producers had final creative control over casting, and he clearly opted for the shrillest of brittle harpies he could find. Maybe it's that i-dotting and t-crossing that's born of TV writing; after years of cramming problem, complication and resolution, plus a laugh every :30, into 22 minutes of sitcom, it's probably hard to recalibrate yourself to the delicate rhythms of (good) filmmaking.

But until he does, I'm afraid the James L. Brooks films I do see I'll see the way I saw Spanglish: free. Or on video.

After all, maybe they'll look better on the small screen.

xxx c

Closer to Python: My Mike Nichols Day, Part II

As I'm currently in the process of converting a play with music into a musical play, I'm newly fascinated by musical theater, especially the newer forms cropping up today: Avenue Q, Caroline or Change, all of Ken Roht's work, the Ramayana 2K4, which I guess better start calling itself R2K5 so it doesn't sign its checks wrong next year. Normally I have to wait for these things to come to the hinterlands (a.k.a., Los Angeles) or haul my carcass to New York, not an altogether unpleasant proposition, but generally a pricey one. So imagine my delight in learning that Spamalot!, the new Eric Idle musical based on material from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, was having its pre-Broadway run here in Chicago during my stay! For which I had already paid!

It's selling well, which is a good first sign. The Chicago run opened on Tuesday; I bought my ticket on Wednesday for Thursday, which was mostly sold out. Fortunately, the one good single ticket they had was really good: I was third row center at the Shubert, so I pretty much had Tim Curry, David Hyde Pierce and Hank Azaria singing in my lap for 2 1/2 hours (including intermission, so you know, not really).

They were all wonderful, as was much of the show. The supporting cast is staggeringly good; I particularly enjoyed the drag stylings of the very Python-esque Steve Rosen (who has some sort of Crohn's connection I'm anxious to bond over) and all I can say about Sara Ramirez is "you heard it here first, folks", that combination of good, gorgeous and funny comes along slightly less often than Halley's comet.

It's not an unqualified hit...yet. I'm hoping my issues with the show can be fixed in the Chicago run so it plays a good, long time in New York (and the hinterlands). Right now, it's a little draggy in parts, (especially Act One), it feels a bit repetitive and, for as clever as it often is, it's not clever enough. Maybe I've been spoiled by local (i.e., hinterland) geniuses like Ken Roht and Robert Prior, but I'm used to an extraordinarily high level of inventiveness; compared to Peace Squad Goes 99 or R2K4, Spamalot! does a lot of coasting on old material and not enough in the way of chewy surprises inside.

It's not devoid of them; I won't spoil anyone's possible future enjoyment by giving away all the treats, but there are some hilarious little fillips in many of the show's numbers, the kind of unexpected stuff that has you poking the person next to you and saying "look there!" and them poking you back to "no, look there!", which is pretty damned great. And the show as a whole does a great job of sending up musical theater.

But so did Peace Squad, and on a much tighter budget with far less lead time. Hell, I think we did send-ups on musical genres that hadn't been invented yet.

I wanted to give Spamalot! my unqualified love and affection, but at the end of the day (or the show), I just didn't feel like leaping to my feet like everyone else.

Nor did I feel like stopping by to congratulate Mike Nichols, the director of the hullaballoo, who was sitting there unrecognized for most of intermission (god, I love Chicago) along with his gorgeous wife. And I'm a big Mike Nichols fan, overall; I just wasn't feeling the love enough to blow his cover. (After all, what was I gonna say: congratulations...I didn't love your movie, either?)

In no way is this a pan of the show; I have no problem telling people to get their butts in the seats for this one. I only hope that by the time it gets to Broadway, it's as good as it can be...as it should be.

That is, as good as those shows in the hinterlands already are.

xxx c

Closer to Python: My Mike Nichols Day, Part I

The old McClurg Theatres are gone. It's kind of sad, among many other films, I remember seeing Lawrence of Arabia there (the re-release, sonny) as well as walking out of Ishtar. However, my disappointment was short-lived because they have been replaced a block away by the River East Theatres, a 20-count-'em-20, state-of-the-art theater complex with stadium seating (which is what happens when you finally let a short person design a movie house).

I dragged my friend, Jan, to see Closer. Well, not "dragged," exactly; I just warned her that I didn't think it was going to be very good, but that I wanted to see it anyway (we've been friends for over 40 years, so she's used to such perversity). Last year, I saw a stage production of Closer at my old acting studio in L.A. that was absolutely loathsome, not necessarily because of the performances (fairly strong) or production values (low-budget, but inventive and uniformly excellent) but because I felt the script was a modern example of a butt-naked emperor, albeit a well-spoken one. I remember leaving the theater that evening feeling not only vaguely unclean over my complicity in perpetrating a hateful, useless piece of "art," but with a gnawing feeling of anger that grew rather than dissipated with the passing days.

I am delighted to report that I feel precisely the same way about Mike Nichols's filmed version of the verbally facile Patrick Marber's play, Closer: it's a big fat shiny turd. (I'm mostly alone on this, but it's not the first time.)

The production values are superb, from the melancholic smart-and-lonely-loser songs of the soundtrack to the understated palette the designers use to dress and backdrop the actors. London itself has never looked more elegant, sad and chilly, in one scene where Natalie Portman is wearing a tank top in what you'd think would be summer, you want to throw a sweater over her little shoulders even before she mentions how cold she is. There is no respite to be had in any corner.

And that, I suppose some smarty-pants people will say, is the point: life is hard and love is brutal. To which I say "so what?" That's a revelation? That's a reason to drag my ass out in zero degree temperatures and pay $8.50 and give up two hours of my life?

Smarty-pants art is no longer acceptable. I don't care if you can write (really) pretty words and find (really, really) pretty people to say them. I need a little illumination with my non-news, thank you, along with some characters, even one character, I actually care about. If I want to see that life is hard (in London), I'll watch any Mike Leigh film. If I want to see that love is brutal, how about or Little Voice, The Lonely Passion of Miss Judith Hearne or even the original Alfie?

One note on the talents of the more visible people involved: they are uniformly top-notch. Each one of the cast delivers a pitch-perfect performance, and I have to say I was blown away by Julia Roberts who gives a far, far richer and more nuanced performance as Anna than she did as showy blowhard Erin Brockovich. And Mike Nichols has an excellent understanding of what motivates these people and how they interact with one another.

What I don't understand is his motivation for spending a year of his life on a project like this. I'm aggravated to have spent the two hours I did.

xxx c

*Which was, I realize now, a lovely piece of symmetry in that it was directed by Mike Nichols's former comedy partner, Elaine May.

Sideways

Some good things take a little extra time and effort to truly enjoy. Sideways, the terrific new film directed by Alexander Payne (based on the novel by Rex Pickett) is one of those good things. Not that it isn't immediately enjoyable on its surface; Sideways has a cracking good script and some of the finest, funniest performances I've seen on film all year.

But like the wines the characters savor within it, the film itself has subtle charms and notes that only reveal themselves upon greater (and quieter) reflection. My writing partner and I laughed pretty much non-stop through an extended sequence where the two main characters, one-time college roommates who are making a pre-wedding pilgrimage to Santa Barbara wine country, make a detour to the best man's mother's house. But it was only after the movie, or at least well into viewing it, that we realized how remarkable it was that we cared so much about two characters who are, on the face of things, pretty darned despicable.

I won't spoil the film by going into detail. I'm not even sure whether details are the best way to sell someone on this really beautifully crafted gem of a story. I think the most remarkable feature about Sideways is its reality: it pretty perfectly creates a world and then does an amazing job of drawing you in.

Fine performances, an awesome script, pretty pictures and a bitchin', homage-to-Saul-Bass poster, Sideways is like a media home run.

Hmmm...no wonder the communicatrix loves it.

xxx c

• [UPDATE] My review of Sideways, the novel

Proving doctors wrong, one patient at a time

Since writing this post, I've aggregated a number of helpful Specific Carbohydrate Diet-related links, both internal and on other sites, on this dedicated SCD page. I'll say this upfront: I have never been the dieting type. I'm pretty tiny, it's pretty much genetic, and I pretty much top out at about 5 lbs. over my fightin' weight of 104 lbs. B.G. (Before Gold's); I guess if I worked reeeeally hard at it now that I have some muscle on me, I might be able to make it to blood donor weight.

But I'd have to work really, reeeeeeeally hard at it, now that I'm on the first restricted food plan of my life: the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, or SCD. I've been following it with "fanatical adherence" for over two years now, ever since I was released from my 11-day incarceration in the IBD ward of Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles.

That's one of the crazy things about the SCD, as its major proponent, Elaine Gottschall, B.A., MSc., has emphasized repeatedly on the many Listservs and bulletin boards she still frequents for sufferers of Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis (UC) and autism, in order to work, the diet must (at least, initially) be followed with fanatical adherence. As in, no "just this one cupcake" or "just this one beer" or even "just this one sip of Coca-Cola", you either follow the SCD 100% or she very kindly but firmly insists that you are not actually following the SCD.

Elaine Gottschall stumbled upon the precursor to the SCD when her young daughter was diagnosed with UC. After dragging her from specialist to specialist, she finally met Dr. Valentine Haas, who put Elaine's little girl on a diet he'd found successful in alleviating a number of gastrointestinal disorders. Her progress was slow but steady; to this day, some 40 years later, she remains in remission (and on a modified version of the SCD). Elaine was so impressed by this remarkable recovery that she went back to school to further research the diet. She subsequently wrote a book about the SCD, outlining the science behind it and including an extensive list of allowed and disallowed foods, as well as a batch of recipes that she had come up with over the years.

Very simply, the premise behind the SCD is this (from Seth Barrows's site):

The premise of the diet is that damaged intestinal walls and bacterial overgrowth are a part of a vicious cycle that wreaks havoc with the body's health and immunity. The diet restricts the types of carbohydrates that feed these pathogens, thereby restoring the body's inner ecology. The SCD diet is very similar to a Paleolithic diet, except it allows the consumption of certain legumes, fermented dairy products, and dry alcohol.

The SCD also resembles the Atkins diet in certain respects (although as SCDers are always quick to point out, unlike Atkins, you can be on the SCD and eat a lot of carbs. You just can't eat any of the good ones). The diet basically excludes all disaccharides and polysaccharides, which pretty much in turn excludes all processed foods, since they rely heavily on sugars and starches.

So for 2+ years, I've had no ice cream, sherbet, sorbet, cake, cookies, cupcakes, candy, pasta, pizza, rice, tofu, potatoes, pancakes, waffles, syrup, bread, bagels, crackers, chips, gum, soft drinks, Russian/French/Thousand/Ranch dressing, ketchup, coffee, beer or chocolate. And that's a partial list.

But for most of the past 2+ years, I've been healthy. I've put back the weight I lost in my initial Crohn's onset and actually gained enough energy to start a weight-training program. I've been tapering off my meds successfully and plan to be off them completely by early 2005.

My doctors still think diet has had nothing to do with my recovery. This is a fairly standard reaction, I'm told, which is sad. Out of all the doctors I've met since I was diagnosed, only one was even aware of the diet, and as he said, "It's really hard to follow and we can't explain the science so we don't really recommend it to most of our patients."

So if you know of someone with Crohn's, UC, IBS, candiasis, celiac disease, cystic fibrosis, or even a parent of an autistic child (there's an incredibly brave and intrepid parents' SCD group which Elaine has lent a great deal of support to), please send them here. Or here. Or here.

The SCD can't cure everyone, but it can't cure anyone who doesn't know about it.

xxx c

UPDATE 3/4/11: I fell off the SCD wagon roughly two months after writing this post, and did not get back on (with fanatical adherence) until September of 2010, which I did through the aid of hypnotherapy. (The hypnotherapist, James Borrelli, cured my wandering eye for carbs in one session. WELL worth it.) While I can't blame falling off the diet for the flares I suffered afterwards, there are many, many things that can trigger a Crohn's flare, I know that I feel better, look better, maintain a healthier weight and have way less G.I. distress (not to mention much less stinky gas) when I follow SCD 100%.

Change your life: write a blog

While I'm new at this whole blogging thing, I think it's safe to say that "Why Blog?" is a perennial question amongst bloggers. And I include the variations on this, such as: "Why am I blogging about this?" Or better yet, "Why am I blogging about this?" Who am I to be writing things down and throwing them out there for everyone, or no one, to see? It's a hot question in the blogosphere lately. Hugh MacLeod points to a staggeringly long entry on Frank Paynter's blog that asks "Why Do We Blog? I think the sheer number and fervor of the entries answers the question more eloquently than any of the excellent essays themselves: we blog, most of us who do, because it plugs us in, to the community, to the questions, to ourselves. (I'm putting aside those who blog exclusively for the bucks; neither the question nor the answer is of much interest in that case.)

Evelyn Rodriguez weighs in on the Why Blog? question this morning with an interesting spin on the issue: what I'd call the "Morning Pages" motivation:

I was thinking that blogging could be an excellent practice for someone in "transition" figuring out and wondering what they would like to do next in their lives. Your writing will lead you into what's next for you if you just focus on one day's post at a time. The pattern between your posts will reveal what your voice whispers but is too shy to shout. And your surroundings and other writers and readers that stumble across your path will inform you as well. Writers become keen observers - about the world about them and the world within. Pay attention to what tugs at you and write about that.

For the uninitiated, one of the chief tools of Julia Cameron's watershed book on personal transformation, The Artist's Way, is Morning Pages, basically, daily journaling within very specific parameters designed to empty the mind of clutter and provide a peaceful, open space for growth and change.

What's marvelous about Morning Pages, aside from the inner peace they give to type-A whack-jobs like me who suck at sitting meditation, is the reverse map they provide. In looking back over where you've been , you tend not only to see more clearly where you are but also where it is you are headed. Pretty nifty, that.

Of course, there's also the huge bonus-extra of getting better at writing and thinking and listening. As I mentioned in my recent post about morphing from copywriter to actor, change is mostly born of lots and lots of boring-ass, repetitive work: what I call logging the miles.

Interesting side-note: while I picked up The Artist's Way on a lark, it wound up getting me to dump advertising completely and become an actress. At 33. In Hollywood. Which, for those of you who aren't intimately acquainted with the way things work here in hyper-youth-oriented LaLa, is completely fucking insane. But it turned out to be not only the perfectly perfect thing for me to do, spiritually speaking, but also a good financial move. Go figure.

But I'd have done it for free (and did, for the first few years) because of the joy it gave me.

Just like blogging.

Go figure.

xxx c

P.S. Today's JPEG is the Japanese kanji "henka," or the symbol for change. From the ever-wonderful about.com. Beats that triangle we used to use in high school chem.

Best of the flyer table

One of my continual frustrations as a theater rat with a scrabbly foot in the design world is the unforgivable lack of pretty in most show flyers. They'll pay the lighting designer, they'll pay the costume designer, they'll sure as shit pay the director, they'll get everything on stage looking Sunday-go-to-meetin' purty, and then crap all over themselves with an ill-conceived, poorly designed flyer. It's like my crazy Polish art teacher whined about back in silkscreen class: the packaging on materials being sold to artists is among the dullest and horsiest design there is. Ah, sweet irony. (Of course, I say this knowing full well that our website is among the ugliest in town, but I'm not web-proficient enough to do anything about that end of the design thing. So there.) [UPDATE 10/9/07: our beautiful new site, designed by me and developed by Jen Rocha, is available for viewing here.]

Anyway, out of the (no lie) 25+ (!!!) flyers on Evidence Room's box office entry table, above left are the few I found that I wish I'd done myself. Designers, feel free to step forward and introduce yourselves:

• REDCAT's tasty season brochure. Yum, yum. Of course, they've got funding out the wazoo and ties to one of the West coast's greatest art communities. They'd be stoned for anything less than stellar design.
• Jon Rivera's Dogeaters flyer. Great use of oversize medium, color and imagery. Love the crazy low-end Photoshop work on Imelda's eyes, too.
• For juicy, juicy printing alone, the flyer for Phacts of Life (show running at The L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center's Renberg Theater). Chris Rooney did the design; may have to email him for his printer's digits. The show looks kinda cute, too, and features the always-hilarious Sam Pancake and a stellar roster of guest stars: Mink Stole, Kate Flannery and Mike Hitchcock.
• Finally, I just plain liked the image on the flyer advertising Todd Noel's work. Not as nuts about the rest of the stuff on his site (and not crazy about the font the Toddster chose for the flyer, either), but it got me to type in a URL and click, which is more than most of those flyer jockeys do.

xxx c

An Angelyne Primer

Okay, I've actually got some people reading this thing, and apparently, they're not locals (one's from Germany, I think, and the other from Canada) because if they were, they'd sure as shootin' know who Angelyne, a.k.a., "She Who Is Famous For Being Famous", is.

First of all, she's not as Famous-for-Being-Famous as she used to be. A del.icio.us search for "angelyne" tags turned up zippo.

A Google search turned up the official Angelyne website linked to above, along with a page from the World Artists Video website pimping Angelyne's video (L.A. Video's "virgin" release), serving up the 411 on the enigma herself, as well as how to hook up with the Pink One's fan club. Again, sadly, this page apparently hasn't been updated since 1997, suggesting again that perhaps Angelyne's star isn't shining quite as brightly as it once did.

Angelyne has been in a smattering of film & tv, but her IMDb listing is deceptive: her greatest celebrity comes not from the films she has acted in, but in those that have shown her image. Her billboard image. Because that's what Angelyne does: buys (or otherwise obtains) media space and plasters it with gigantic likenesses of herself in repose, either alone or avec her custom Pepto-pink 'Vette with the Angelyne plates. (I wanted to sprawl on hood of said vehicle when I spied it in the Pavilions grocery store lot, but years of Catholic school have burned into me an irrational fear of doing anything even remotely outside the law.)

There's a less interesting, "isn't-she-just-so-representative-of-phony-old-L.A.?" angle to the Angelyne story that people seem to latch onto. (And for the record, I'm pretty sick of people crapping on L.A. when I've been to plenty of so-called "real" towns that are way phonier and in a much scarier way.) But that Google search also turned up a pretty good (unpublished) article about Her Pinkness by a guy named John Mendlessohn. He spent some up-close-and-personal time with Angelyne, and serves up good info for the uninitiated or undecided.

I do not count myself among them: I adore Angelyne. Not because I want to drive a pink Corvette or see my face plastered all over the city (especially if I have to do dubious things to get it there) but because Angelyne is so essentially, explosively, unapologetically A-N-G-E-L-Y-N-E. This girl seems to have figured out who she is and what she wants and, despite all reason that would argue against success, has gone after and achieved it like Mormons prowling for fresh meat. In other words, her truth is not my truth (any more than Mormon truth is my truth) but boy-o-boyardee, do I respect her for isolating it and giving it the room and respect it needed to shine.

xxx c

List #1: Shake That Funk!

Since my brush with death (well, okay, my brush with losing my colon) and subsequent epiphany two years ago, I'm a pretty happy gal 99.99% of the time. No lie.

I have not, however, reached that zen-like state of peace wherein the joy with which I greet each morning stays unflaggingly through a Day of Horror.

There are many things that bring me joy, but many of them require time (Caddyshack, trip to New York), money (shopping, trip to New York), or serendipity (random compliments, first date that blows your doors off, seeing that asshat Expedition get pulled over 1/2 mile down the I-10 for blowing through the on-ramp light in the carpool lane).

Plus, sometimes I'm not really even looking for joy. Sometimes, not-funk will do me just fine.

Also, making lists is one of those things that makes me happy. Heck, even reading other people's lists makes me happy.

So here are five things I've discovered that not only will shake your funk, but will often leave your home looking better, cleaner and more organized than before. The hawk-eyed will note a repetitive quality to most of the items. That's because these are really meditations in disguise. There's a monkey-work thing to occupy the chattery part of your brain so the real you can re-calibrate and get some goddam (mental) peace and quiet. As my first shrink/astrologer liked to say, meditation doesn't have to mean parking your ass on a cushion.

Five Ways to Shake Your Funk, Domestic-Goddess Style

1. Wash all* your dishes. By hand.
2. Scrub your tile grout with bleach** and a toothbrush.
3. Iron your sheets***.
4. Shampoo your wall-to-wall carpet...with a hand-held spot cleaner.
5. Sew something. Curtains seems to work the best, since they have long seams. (NOTE: Do not sew curtains made from burlap with a chiffon
   backing, no matter how good an idea it seems at the time.)

xxx
c

*This works really well because generally, the dishes have piled up in direct proportion to the size of the funk.

**Actually, I use all-purpose cleaner with bleach, but go ahead and be as environmentally conscious, or not, as you want. Mother Earth will do better with your head screwed on right.

***Only works with all-cotton sheets. If you dig percale, substitute window-washing or vertical-blind cleaning. And never iron dirty sheets! Ew! Stinky!

Words to live by

I like pretty things. And for personal reasons, I'm pretty interested in examining the nature of fear right now.

So as I was catching up with my perpetual six-month backlog of New Yorker magazines last night, this illustration caught my eye. The caption, which I did not scan, reads:

"Five airplanes will fly the artist Jenny Holzer's aphorisms over the Hudson on Oct. 30-31 and Nov. 1, from 1 to 3:30 P.M."

This morning, I looked up Jenny Holzer, whose work is pretty intriguing (although I think a site devoted to art ought to look rather more...um...artful). She's been shown everywhere, but a huge part of her work is about getting art to people who wouldn't ordinary be exposed to it via site-specific installations and unusual media.

There's a good Wired interview with Holzer in which she discusses a piece of virtual reality art she created for the Guggenheim SoHo. In talking about creating art in a new medium, she makes an interesting point about effective communication in general:

WIRED: Do you worry that the technology will become the master in place of the artist?

HOLZER: Not really. I think the problem is more whether you can start from zero and make sure everything you put in is right. I've never been particularly paranoid about a medium being overwhelming. I think the real problem is whether you're talking about the most important thing and whether you're doing it in a way that's accessible to almost everyone. And whether you can do it in a way that's not merely didactic - that what you're conveying is felt as well as understood. Same problem in any medium.

Yeah. What she said.

xxx
c

Bonus extra links: a cool, interactive Holzer-aphorism project on the web. Explanation here. Straight link to the project "Please Change Beliefs" here. Check it out.

Illustration by Marcellus Hall of aphorisms by Jenny Holzer, via The New Yorker

"Drive, drive, drive; branding, branding, branding."

Back in the go-go '80s, my art director and I made silk purses out of some serious sow's-ear assignments and so were let into the inner sanctum: pitching spots for the second pool of a wildly successful TV campaign for the agency's big, fat American car account.

The campaign was the first (yes, really) to use Boomer music to sell to Boomers. It was such a radical notion back then that many of the artists passed on the opportunity to score cash, either for fear of compromising their art or of tarnishing their image among their fanbase (i.e., diluting their own brand). Hell, it was such a new thing, maybe no one knew what to ask for. End result was the client had to pay scads of money for really expensive soundalikes for many, many executions.

Anyway.

Kate (art director) & I were pretty passionate about creating good work back then, and, in my Virgo-perfectionist-good girl way, I was even then concerned with adhering to Campaign Strategy, Brand Personality and Unique Selling Proposition. Not really a problem; to the contrary, I enjoy working within the confines of an assignment way more than blue-sky creativity. Blank pages make me panicky.

And we could be mostly honest! The cars had been restyled to look hipper. They had even re-engineered some stuff to make them...um...drive better and stuff. So we wrote spots to tell (boomer) America how these cars were made just for them, with (boomer) music and (boomer-relevant) stories to match. But for the client, there was always one thing missing: enough "branding."

We puzzled and puzzled over this: the campaign had, we thought, successfully redefined the brand. People were talking about it (buzz), people were buying cars (sales), what exactly was the problem here?

Our older, wiser creative director, a real Car Guy from the three-martini-lunch days, explained: frames on the storyboard that featured close-ups of the car brand doohickey affixed to the vehicle. Lots of them. So we added them, alternating them with driving shots, until there was an acceptable ratio. Which Kate, as an Advertising & Branding Specialist, would point out when she took the clients through the visuals: "Drive, drive, drive; branding, branding, branding."

So the magical, mythical marketing tool of "branding" came down to this: two young women slapping more product shots on a storyboard so we could get this sucker in the hands of directors, producers and stylists who would do the real work of making this product seem meaningful to the consumer. And this was considered successful branding. By everyone. At least, everyone I came in contact with back then.

And in a way, it was. The process (of advertising, movies, film, etc) has become so transparent to consumers that even the hipper advertising of the 1970s, 1980s & 1990s seems quaint, if not outright camp. The emperor is buck naked; branding is dead. Hugh MacLeod speaks of it elegantly (and way more concisely) here. (He'll also lead you to lots more great links on the topic because he's good like that.)

I've no doubt that as the marketplace has shifted, the processes at agencies have gotten more sophisticated to try to adapt to the new reality. I doubt that our impertinent display of cynicism would be tolerated in a meeting, especially a client meeting, today.

But while I've been out of the development game for awhile, I'm still a consumer. And an employee: I act in these masterpieces of marketing that I then see on TV (as often as possible, I hope, if they're airing National Network). And I gotta say, I think there are still a lot of marketing peeps out there more interested in ramming a USP down someone's throat than they are in initiating a dialogue.

xxx
c

See SAW?

I love scary stuff, but I am a big baby. My workaround is to see all scary movies early enough in the day that there is still loads of daylight to wash away the creepy.

My movie-going friend, Lily, feels similarly, so we hit what we knew would be the very scary Saw for the first show at 10:45 a.m.

Not early enough. This movie makes Se7en look like Bambi. There are some fine performances (although the first few scenes are a really badly acted exception), it's super-stylish, and it's a really good story with only minimal barriers to belief (as Lily pointed out, are there two cops anywhere who would [a] visit the dark and creepy lair of a sociopathic serial killer without backup and [b] do so armed only with their service revolvers and a smoke machine?)

But the torture/killing in this is so sick and heartless, it makes you wonder who could come up with it. Well, apparently handsome, young Leigh Whannell, who plays lead opposite a (sadly) puffy Cary Elwes, can. He shares story credit with the director, James Wan, and has sole screenwriting credit.

Yow.

Well, I guess congratulations are in order. Young man wrote a big hit. He can act, yessir. And he scared Lily and me so bad we had to walk it off in the shoe department of Nordstrom's for a good half-hour afterwards. No purchases; just a Holly Golightly kinda thing.

Wait a minute, just got an idea for the perfect psychic palate cleanser...

xxx
c