David Mamet's Writing Advice

I think my fellow Massachusian is quite good at writing. I love his advice he gives in an e-mail to the writers of The Unit, a show he was an executive producer on. He hits so many things on the nose. Here's a snippet:

THE PROBLEM IS THIS: TO DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN DRAMA AND NON-DRAMA. LET ME BREAK-IT-DOWN-NOW.

EVERYONE IN CREATION IS SCREAMING AT US TO MAKE THE SHOW CLEAR. WE ARE TASKED WITH, IT SEEMS, CRAMMING A SHITLOAD OF INFORMATION INTO A LITTLE BIT OF TIME.

OUR FRIENDS. THE PENGUINS, THINK THAT WE, THEREFORE, ARE EMPLOYED TO COMMUNICATE INFORMATION — AND, SO, AT TIMES, IT SEEMS TO US.

BUT NOTE:THE AUDIENCE WILL NOT TUNE IN TO WATCH INFORMATION. YOU WOULDN’T, I WOULDN’T. NO ONE WOULD OR WILL. THE AUDIENCE WILL ONLY TUNE IN AND STAY TUNED TO WATCH DRAMA.

QUESTION:WHAT IS DRAMA? DRAMA, AGAIN, IS THE QUEST OF THE HERO TO OVERCOME THOSE THINGS WHICH PREVENT HIM FROM ACHIEVING A SPECIFIC, ACUTE GOAL.

SO: WE, THE WRITERS, MUST ASK OURSELVES OF EVERY SCENE THESE THREE QUESTIONS.

1) WHO WANTS WHAT?
2) WHAT HAPPENS IF HER DON’T GET IT?
3) WHY NOW?

THE ANSWERS TO THESE QUESTIONS ARE LITMUS PAPER. APPLY THEM, AND THEIR ANSWER WILL TELL YOU IF THE SCENE IS DRAMATIC OR NOT.

IF THE SCENE IS NOT DRAMATICALLY WRITTEN, IT WILL NOT BE DRAMATICALLY ACTED.

THERE IS NO MAGIC FAIRY DUST WHICH WILL MAKE A BORING, USELESS, REDUNDANT, OR MERELY INFORMATIVE SCENE AFTER IT LEAVES YOUR TYPEWRITER. YOU THE WRITERS, ARE IN CHARGE OF MAKING SURE EVERY SCENE IS DRAMATIC.

All the advice is pretty brilliant and should be read by anyone interested in writing well.

via kottke

Snippet Of The Weekend

It's the first day of Passover and instead of working (albeit feeling very guilty about it) I am in bed, coughing my lungs out and trying to work from home. Working from home is much more fun when I'm not so sick that I just want to pass out for a few days. Anyhoo, yesterday I put on my rain coat because the weather got confused and instead of reminding us that 3,000 years ago we (Jews) were wondering in the desert, it reminded us of Noah and the flood. It's been raining, hard, for several days now...not to mention last week into tsunami territory and well now I'm sick and I blame the rain and no amounts of threats will change that.

So anyways, back to the raincoat, I put it on and a very nice smell escaped from it. You see over the weekend I visited A Salt and Battery, Peter had a hankering for some Fish and Chips, and it being very London weather on Sunday it seemed like the right place to be. Anyhoo, the shop is tiny and we sat there for quite sometime, coats on bar stools, our butts on the coats, enjoying incredibly delicious British food (seems like an oxymoron, but not in this case). In fact it led me to again confirm my suspicions, in order to make delicious restaurant food you have 1) cook relatively well 2)Have good, fresh ingredients. If you have those two things, that's a recipe to success. Of course in order to know what is good/fresh ingredients might not be so easy. So since we were in this place for a bit, our coats has acquired a distinct aroma of grease. A smell that I thought would be gone by the next day, but not so, can't say it's the worst smell in the world. A Salt and Battery also has a sister shop, Tea and Sympathy, right next door. As we were making our way back, in the light rain, I looked up to see two very bearded, burly men (might have been hipster posers) framed by a wooden window, sharing a very floral pot of tea between them, drinking out of very beautiful, but highly feminine cups. A nice image for the rainy day outing.

Lady Gaga Isn't The Only One

Making interesting music videos that is. Here's a French band Hold Your Horses! recreating a bunch of classic paintings. So much fun to look at.

Reminds me of this old animation, Kunstbar.

Completely Unscientific Observation

I have a theory about couples. It's completely unscientific, the only evidence I have is from couples I met and from countless facebook photos I've seen of people dating/engaged/married. Here's my observation: people who date look alike. Shape of head, coloring matter, even the shape of the nose might attract you to that certain someone that looks familiar.

For example, I think my boyfriend and I could pass off as brother and sister - we both have huge dark eyes, wavy dark hair, and we both have an oval shaped face. I know some people might cringe at this (hi Peter!) but there it is, my unscientific observations. I'm sure you've heard people refer to old married couples as starting to look alike after living together, except I don't think it's the time factor, but in fact, from the start they had some physical traits they recognized in their partners that they recognized in themselves (unconsciously)

We are all self-centered to some extent and it makes total sense that we want to seek a partner that looks like us. Call it the Narcussus couples, but I actually think it makes a whole lot of sense to be attracted to someone that reminds of you, but still different enough without the icky factor.

Of course there are caveats, people may be romantically involved for all sorts of reasons (money, status, crippling low self-esteem, loneliness) and maybe physical attraction doesn't enter into those equations as much. I know this is not an all encompassing theory, but I've definitely see a trend.

Some Like It Hot Color Photos

Wowza. Look at Marilyn's dress. In black in white it was sexy, but in color it's scandalous. She looks beautiful, all the photos are worth a look though. I like the one where Tony Curtis is putting on lipstick dressed in drag.

Random Idea

If I ever own a bookstore I will name "There's a Double Meaning In That" and feel all smug about a Shakespeare reference. I'm not sure why, but this idea makes me giggle when I think about it.

Incredibly Inspiring

I'm not one for good-feel stories, usually finding them gag inducing but this just warmed my heart on snowy, wet Friday morning.



It takes a lot sometimes to believe that one person can have such a huge impact, but here it is. One guy, seeing a way to reach to kids and teachers alike. Inspiring.

via Israellycool

The Saddest Book That Will Make You Snort

Or at least I snorted with laughter:

What You Should Drink After (and Before) Working Out

My favorite drink on the list:

Beer

Really? YES, Absolutely! Researchers at Granada University in Spain found out something pretty cool a few years ago. When it comes to recovering and rehydrating after a workout, beer is better than water. Spain seems like a pretty cool country. They probably conducted half of the experiment to find that out, took a siesta to make love to their beautiful wives, then another to ravish their beautiful, younger, mistresses. Then they probably rolled a clove cigarette and drank some brandy. Then they finished the study. Probably. Anyway, here’s what they found:

The subjects in the study were asked to run on a treadmill at temperatures of 104°F (40°C) until they were close to exhaustion. Once they had reached the point of giving up, researchers measured their hydration levels, motor skills, and concentration ability.

Half of the subjects were given two half pints of Spanish lager to drink, and the other half were given just water.

Garzon said that the rehydration effection in those who were given beer was “slightly better” than those who were given only water. He also believes that the carbon dioxide in beer helps quench thirst more quickly, and that beer’s carbohydrates replace calories lost during physical exertion.

Looking At The Future

From Rep. Paul Ryan on what is going to happen because the monstrosity passed last night.

What about the practical consequences of Obamacare? “Soon, we’ll see individual-market insurance companies go out of business and dump their people,” Ryan says. “Tax increases on capital are going to hurt the economy in 2011. These arbitrary Medicare cuts will adversely affect the providers and therefore their beneficiaries. You’ll have the Internal Revenue Service beefing up its enforcement of this new mandate, which people have no clue is coming. And you’re going to have employers dump employees in this exchange once it’s up and running — funneling everyone into a government-run rationing system. Then we’ll see a big spike in insurance rates, and the Democrats are going to wager that they can just blame the insurers for that, and therefore that means they will need to institute insurance price controls or have a public option. Our side is going to say, ‘Look at what you just did to ruin our health-care system,’ and focus on repeal.”

I love the fact that he has been listening to Metallica all week, it's great to know some people are still vigilant and not ready to give up.

Also what Karol said rings true: Stop the damn crying.

Thirteen

This song is so wonderfully simple and beautiful...my favorite kind of music, hence the love for Elliott Smith. I only heard of Alex Chilton once or twice before, NPR did a small story because he passed away last week and then they played the above song. He sounded like a great and true musician. I instantly forgot the song but because Peter is basically a human music encyclopedia I was able to with just a few descriptions (the guy who just died, sounds sort of like With Stripes quiet song about friends (it doesn't at all), something about school) he was able to find the song and play it for me non-stop. So thanks to Peter I'll be listening to this song all week and you can too. So, so pretty.

Obama's Promises

via Insty

The Ever Brilliant Mark Steyn

On the Health Care bill's job creation:

Meanwhile, Obamacare will result in the creation of at least 16,500 new jobs. Doctors? Nurses? Ha! Dream on, suckers. That’s 16,500 new IRS agents, who’ll be needed to check whether you — yes, you, Mr. and Mrs. Hopendope of 27 Hopeychangey Gardens — are in compliance with the 15 tax increases and dozens of new federal mandates the Deemocrats are about to “deem” into existence. This will be the biggest expansion of the IRS since World War II — and that’s change you can believe in. This is what “health” “care” “reform” boils down to: fewer doctors, longer wait times, but more bureaucrats.

What the what really means:

Investor’s Business Daily argues that the “health” debate is really a proxy fight on the size and role of government. According to their poll, 64 percent of people think the federal government has “too much power.” Correct. But a big chunk of that 64 percent voted less than 18 months ago for a man and a party explicitly committed to more government with more power, and they’re now living with the consequences. Obama is government, and government is Obama. That’s all he knows and all he’s ever known. You elected to the highest office in the land a man who’s never run a business or created wealth or made a payroll, and for his entire adult life has hung out with guys who’ve demonized (deemonized?) such grubby activities. Many of which associates he appointed to high office: Obama’s cabinet has less experience of private business than any in the last century. What it knows is government, and government’s default mode is to grow, and grow.

The thing that scares me the most about these proceedings and reminds me Kafka like stories are not just fiction if government grows:

Obama and Pelosi are strong-arming swing-state congressmen into taking one for the deem. It’s appropriate that it should take banana-republic maneuvers to ram this through, because it’s about government so powerful it can make up the rules as it goes along.

Read the whole thing.

Glamorous Life

It is such when it's almost 70 degrees, sunny, and you are about to see the one you love. "Without love it ain't much."

7 Reasons To Support Israel

A bit too, um forceful for me, but some people need to hear the message. While personally I agree on all points, I can see how the last point would be moot on non-religious (Jews or otherwise).

On Walking

It amazing how slow and unproductive walking can seem when you have to pee, badly.

Going Green Can Make You Mean

The whole holier than though attitude just because you switched to florescent lightbulbs and don't use plastic bags in the store seems to have an adverse effect when it comes ethical dillemas.

According to a study, when people feel they have been morally virtuous by saving the planet through their purchases of organic baby food, for example, it leads to the "licensing [of] selfish and morally questionable behaviour", otherwise known as "moral balancing" or "compensatory ethics".

Do Green Products Make Us Better People is published in the latest edition of the journal Psychological Science. Its authors, Canadian psychologists Nina Mazar and Chen-Bo Zhong, argue that people who wear what they call the "halo of green consumerism" are less likely to be kind to others, and more likely to cheat and steal. "Virtuous acts can license subsequent asocial and unethical behaviours," they write.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Or from Jim Gaffigan's twitter: Happy unofficial alcohol awareness day!

Pretty cute old My Guinness ad. Wishing I can sip one right now. #notanalcoholic #promise

Love, Fear, and Loyalty

So much of what is best in us is bound up in our love of family, that it remains the measure of our stability because it measures our sense of loyalty. All other pacts of love or fear derive from it and are modeled upon it.

-Haniel Long

Aha! Those Numbers

I was always curious about those mysterious numbers on the milk carton. Thought it was some kind of quality control. Well it turns out those number denote where the milk came from and now you can see for yourself!

via taetopia twitter

Benign, Benign, Benign!

Dawn Summers got somegood news on Wednesday! Very excited about the benign lump! Huzzah!

Rapture

Adore this song by Pedro the Lion from his Control album. I especially love the last part of the song. I almost posted "Steady wins the race", which is also a fantastic song.

Ready For Work

Yup she has my purse and lunch bag in hand. This kid is going places. (It's blurry but too cute not to post.)

Toyota Over Hype

Even if one believes all the hype, the reaction so far has been a giant overreaction. Fifty-odd deaths over 10 years and millions of Toyotas is a drop in the bucket compared to the general risk of being on the road at all.

It’s entirely possible that more people will be killed driving to the dealer for the recall than lives will be saved from going through the safety theater demanded by the Department of Transportation.

Exactly what Theodore Frank says, this stuff is more hot air than actual safety issues. I'm really skeptical about James Sikes' story of 90 mile acceleration, something just sounds fishy. Might be a good time to buy a Toyota though...although I've been wanting a Honda foe a while.

Enjoy Life

I think that's his message:

There Are So Many Reasons To Love Christopher Walken

Here's another:

But just in case you thought Christopher Walken was just being weird in our interview, Anthony Anderson had a little tale to tell about working with him on the set of Kangaroo Jack. (Yes, Christopher Walken was in Kangaroo Jack.) According to Anderson, Walken walked around the set with a microcassette recorder, "and he would just fart into the microcassette." "And then during our close-ups, he would play his farts while we were onscreen, to break Jerry O’Connell and myself. It worked. It’s hard to keep a straight face when you’re listening to Christopher Walken’s flatulence on a soundstage in Australia." Asked to confirm, Walken replied, "That is not not-true."

I really want to see the new play he is in, Martin McDonagh's A Behanding in Spokane.

My Next Dress

I'm thinking I'll be allowed to buy this dress by my birthday.

Hilaire Belloc’s "The False Heart"

I said to Heart, "How goes it?" Heart replied,
"Right as a Ribstone Pippin!" But it lied.

Adore This Photo

Marc Jacobs

Too "Good" For Twitter

From way back: "Smac talk!: Mac owners who talk sh*t about pc owners! #illbeheretilltuesdaytrythefish"

Felt like sharing my "brilliance."

Update: Slight edit from @realdawnsummers to make it more authentic: Smac iTalk: When Mac owners who talk sh*t about PC owners!

Cockroach Paradise Alert

A friend posted this photo on facebook, from a building in Brooklyn:

It basically translates to "People! Don't be like swine! Please take your garbage downstairs. You are creating a cockroach heaven with your own hands." That's Russian poetry right there, made me think of passive aggressive notes.

Related: My ringlet of tasty death!

Something To Lift Your Day

I think scientist should study this piece of music on its voodoo to make you feel transcendent. It might have to do with subconscious movie references this brings up but I'm guessing it's just fucking beautiful. I'm not a huge opera fan, but I have seen a few good ones that have made me a convert.

Dolphins Are Assholes

A while back (maybe a few years ago) the subject of dolphins came up. Now you might think that this would be a positive topic of conversation all about how cute, smart, and friendly the creatures are. Not so, a friend started with the "dolphins are assholes" talking points and from there the conversation degenerated. It wasn't so much that dolphins are asshole (although they are), it was more the fun of making the other half of the table gasp at our irreverence towards the creatures.

So it was great to find "Top 5 Very Good Reasons To Punch A Dolphin In The Mouth" , most of the comics are not as funny as I hoped but I liked the last one: "Anything that smiles that often need to be reminded that the world is a cruel place, dark place."

A Good Sport

Say what you want about Sandra Bullock's acting abilities, but the woman seems to be not only gracious, but has a good sense of humor to boot (I liked how she teased Barbara Walters during their interview). I haven't seen "The Blind Side" and I hope Bullock really did deserve her Oscar. And while I find her earlier comedies endearing (I liked "While You Were Sleeping" a whole lot, "Miss Congeniality" was cute) she plays the same person over and over again (I also find that a lot of her movies tend to be annoying morality lessons about drunk mothers and little communities being demolished by the big guys, the kind of generalities that make me gag a bit.)

Anyhoo, Sandra Bulllock became the first person to win a Razzie and an Oscar in the same year.

House Wife Glory

Last night I managed to wash and dry about 10 loads of laundry in under an hour and half. Serious superwoman abilities here. I managed to fold 90% of it in under this time. Obviously, I need to get better goals lest this is what it will take to make me feel accomplished.

Political Faith

"I knew that there was a right-left division, I had a pretty good sense that people like Dick Armey were not good to have rational discussion with, but I didn't really have a sense of how deep the divide went." - From a New Yorker Paul Krugman profile,(where to me he comes off as a bit of douche.)

This is why I don't understand and respect a lot of people on the left when they try to talk about their politics. It's not the actual ideological divide, it's the fact that they call the other view stupid, ridiculous, and evil - instead really engaging in a discussion of different world views, that gets me really annoyed. Maybe conservatives do this too, and I don't notice, but I find conservative minded people are much more readier to discuss the issue at hand than say a liberal who will pass a moral judgment on you if you question something they fervently hold as true. It's like there is no other alternative to the view, that to me seems so incredibly narrow minded and more like faith than real philosophical reflection.

via Kottke (again) who thinks Krugman's political interest has a "born-Christian vibe" I'm not sure if this a compliment form Kottke, or just an observation. I would tend to take that comment as a dig, politics shouldn't be about blind faith and that's what I think it has become, something to believe in when nothing is left.

Google Learning Curve

Google logic in determining search results demonstrated:

A rock is a rock. It's also a stone, and it could be a boulder. Spell it "rokc" and it's still a rock. But put "little" in front of it and it's the capital of Arkansas. Which is not an ark. Unless Noah is around.

Fascinating.

via kottke

Song of the Night

Can you tell I just re-watched Mama Mia? Parting thought, Colin Firth must really want an Oscar nomination playing all these gay guys.

Not So Random Movie Thought

The only time basketball is interesting to watch is when it's part of a silly 80's movie plot or a certain Zac Efron movie I recently watched. Seriously, the real game puts me to sleep. The only time it gets excited is when the hero makes that slow motion shot, you know where time slows down and everyone makes that an "oh" face. Doesn't really exist in real life expect a glazed over look to appear on my face.

Wild Flowers & Shame

I love the Bruce Campbell's Old Spice commercials but this is also hilarious. Inspired by Dawn Summers.

Missing The Little Gnome

For the last few weeks our house has been overrun with the little gnome (aka my niece) and her parents. Since Saturday it has been very quiet around here without them. Family living far away is the worst. Anyway, the toys have been packed up and the pile of laundry is waiting for me at home. It's been fun while it lasted even with the separation anxiety crying and the poopy diapers. I will miss all of it. In the meantime I'll get to remember the very sloppy kisses I got from the munchkin, her strange fascination with my photo hanging in the living room, the way she says Aya, when she means my mother, how she nods her head when she says yes, hearing her laugh while sledding, and the way she not only accepted Peter as her kin, but wanted him and no one else to carry her around the MET (she has good taste in men, obviously). It's all been incredibly endearing and I really can't wait to see the whole family again. Living far away from people you love really, really, sucks.

P.S. My niece has the best toothy smile ever. Mischief and sweet.