Television!

Yeah, so HBO cancelled Enlightened, a show that I was quite fond of for many reasons. Mike White, one of my favorite, multifaceted writer-directors, somehow got paired up with the specialized talents of Laura Dern to create the show about a middle-aged woman trying to reassemble herself among her co-workers after making a spectacle of herself during a nervous breakdown in her corporate office.

Only Laura Dern could have played this character, a woman so much the opposite of self-aware, who you feel both disdain and pity for, while tension builds and builds as you move through each episode – something that is clearly the work of White and Dern as a team. If you have ever seen Chuck and Buck, you’d know what I mean, or Dern’s character way back in Blue Velvet. I loved that tension, which is hard to portray in both acting and/or writing.

I was so looking forward to this series, and it did not let me down. It did exactly what I expected in very unexpected ways. “Amy,” Dern’s character is just not likable, but by the end of the first season, the viewer, no matter who you are, will see themselves in her character – all the ugly, self-centered parts, and the parts that mean well.

We all mean well, and we find something beautiful and childlike in what she tried to discover about herself among the sea turtles on the hippy-dippy retreat she was on after her breakdown, which she reflects on occasionally in the episodes in the first season. And in the second season she comes back to try to take the corporation that she works for down, for all the corruption and environmental havoc only she knows they are guilty of.

Anyway, I loved this show, and like many other AMAZING shows, like Deadwood, for instance, HBO has cancelled before they even had time to percolate. Fuckers! On the other end, I am grateful for the risks they have taken and support they have given to shows like Girls, Six Feet Under, Sopranos, Big Love, OZ, etc.

I guess I will just have to cry my way to April 7th when Mad Men starts on AMC.

Buckle Down

Just buckling down, finishing up work, shipping them out and working on a few pieces at once. I finished up those few I had posted about earlier and they are on my site here – some of them on their way to Houston for my show that opens on the 5th, while some are on their way to Miami for the Red Dot Fair, and even more are packed up now, waiting to be shipped out to Latrobe, PA for a show at Saint Vincent College. Lots going on, so that’s good. I started a new one called, “I Waited for You,” but this is a really bad cell phone camera shot of it:

It’s a 36-inch square, oil, paper and linen on canvas and it still needs lots more paint and embroidery, but the basic composition is there. I’m also working on a tiny piece of my dad on a cell phone, a medium/small panel with some Hebrew on it, and considering doing some garment sculptures, but am going to need a sewing machine for it. It’s going to be very different for me and quite unsaleable, so it’s a bit of an unnerving idea. There’s also this animation idea I’d like to try. It’s super simple, but I think I need to to it. …Could be the drugs talking though. I don’t know.

Something big that I started completely sober is my book. Not an Artists’ book. A creative, autobiographical piece of genuine non-fictional, soon-to-be- novel-sized book.

I also put Horsebucket on super sale for 80 bucks until January 1st, so swoop in on the rest of them while they last.

I saw The Family Stone today, not a bad movie. I was intrigued with the family dynamics. I also saw Hard Core Logo the other night and it was also not too bad. Interesting, but expected more. Still, had I not expected anything, I would have wound up liking it more.

OH! Speaking of REAL writing. Real good writing that is, You MUST see my boyfriend’s new book page and READ THE DESCRIPTIONS of the books. They are absolutely hysterical! And I must say he is not really exaggerating much at all because you can see from his descriptions that he’s a damn talented writer and funny person. Buying one of his books ain’t no shabby, bad idear either. You’ll find out in a short amount of time why I fell in love with him.

My Top 99 Favorite Movies

…just because.

51 Birch Street
7 Up Documentaries
Airplane
Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams
All About my Mother
Amalie
American Splendor
An Angel at My Table
Annie Hall
The Apartment
As Good as it Gets
Barfly
Being There
Betty Blue
Blazing Saddles
Blue Velvet
The Bobo
Born Into Brothels
Broadway Danny Rose
Chuck and Buck
Cinema Paradiso
Clock Watchers
A Clockwork Orange
Danielson Family Movie
The Deer Hunter
Defending Your Life
Detour
The Devil and Daniel Johnson
Dial M for Murder
Dr. Strangelove
Edward Scissorhands
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Fargo
Frances
Frida
Fur
Garden State
Goodfellas
Gray Gardens
Hannah and her Sisters
Happiness
Harold & Maude
How to Draw a Bunny
I heart Huckabees
The Ice storm
In the Realms of the Unreal
Juno
Kill Bill
Killer of Sheep
L’iceberg
L.A. Story
Lolita
Lost in America
Léon (a.k.a. The Professional)
Magnolia
Manhattan
Me and You and Everyone we Know
Modern Romance
Mr Death
Nikita (a.k.a. Le Femme Nikita)
North by Northwest
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
The Party
Personal Velocity
Pi
Postcards from the Edge
Price of Milk
Rabbit-proof Fence
Radio Flyer
Raise the Red Lantern
Rear Window
Rope
Ruby in Paradise
Run Lola Run
Secretary
Short Cuts
Siesta
Smart People
Snow cake
Stardust Memories
The Squid and the Whale
Sweet Land
Swoon
Tarnation
Things Behind the Sun
This is Spinal Tap
Thin Blue Line
Thumbsucker
Topaz
Trains, Planes, and Automobiles
Vertigo
Volver
Waitress
Welcome to the Dollhouse
What’s up Doc?
Where’s Papa
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
Year of the Dog
You’re Gonna Miss Me

OOPS! from one of my favorite movies

EDIT: I am very sorry! This posted as a “new” post, but it is an old post that I was trying to edit. It was a scene from a Peter Sellers movie, “The Party,” that I now find problematic in this day and age. I meant to take it down, not republish it! Sorry about that. I hope I have not offended anyone because that was why I wanted to take it off my blog.