Birthday pic

Here's a nice birthday pic shot by my good friend and blogging inspiration, Matt Dentler.

But it brings up an odd dichotomy. I don't blog under my real name. Of course my friends know who I am but strangers get a more abstract view. I write both very personally, and yet not about my real life at all. I barely mention the kids, leave out tons of daily details and affiliations, and haven't (until now) posted personal photos. I've enjoyed the gray.

This is the second time that Matt has linked to me by name. I'm both flattered by the positive attention and wary. Does it matter? Will readers linking from Matt expect more of a dedicated film blog? Is there a downside to owning my random thoughts publicly? Will it reflect poorly on me? On John? I'm not really sure how I feel. (Like Peggy wrote once, " Embarrassed about your blog? Heaven forbid. The whole point of a blog is to put your life up where everyone can see and comment on it. Wait, though, you already did that!" rather hilariously referencing the documentary....)

I did have a lovely 50th birthday. It was great to celebrate with John, and Chris, and Kate and Matt, and the few others who I shall delight in keeping anonymous. In these narcissistic times we live in, it's nice to keep some zones of privacy. Isn't it?

From 40 to 50

So in more mulling about this upcoming birthday, I started thinking about this last decade. What happened between the landmarks of 40 and 50?

I'd been excited about turning 40. I fully expected a new tier of ease and self-confidence. Instead I ran into a brick wall. Ruptures in my marriage, the first serious seam I wasn't sure we'd recover from, then health problems and general disorder. 1997 was a difficult, painful year but I came through fine, stronger, better. This last decade an amazing one.

Some Highlights:

- Fell deeper in love with email. Hardcore. (Though surprised to just learn that my beloved Highland Chain provider actually started in Sept. 1994. Before that I wasted hours with the more often than not, dysfunctional AOL. Not sure exactly when email entered my life but it took with a vengeance. I remember when my neighbors brought up the Highlands Chain idea, the concept of a local internet community with email, I said, "what a stupid idea." Then I became the poster child, an intense power user to this day. (Thank you Richard and Susan Bates.)

- Mothered my daughter from age 9 to 19. My son from 7 to 17.

- Created and produced our IFC cable TV series Split Screen with John. Four years, 66 episodes, over 100 active filmmakers working. A true joy. Terrific entertainment. Spawning features The Blair Witch Project and How's Your News? while providing early first looks at American Movie and Waking Life. Tim P slipped out of our lives for awhile but in walked Amy Elliott and PH O'Brien in a big, big way. And Mike LaHaie. And Josh Braun. And too many others to mention. A wild ride indeed.

-Taking the plunge to direct and loving it. (Thank you Miranda.)

- Curated a night at The Moth in June 2001. In the Dark: Filmmakers Illuminate with storytellers Peter Hedges, Bingham Ray, Caroline Kaplan, Darnell Martin, Pam Yates. (Thank you Judy Stone.)

- Spent years getting a local school referendum passed. Personal power politics in a small town. Learning how to build coalitions and get things done. Along the way some surprising, deeply satisfying friendships.

The small town love and beauty of Garrison and Cold Spring, NY. Understanding what it's like to be in a place where parents and friends really look out for one another. A real community. A rich home while it lasted.

-Discovering the mind/body connection. (Thank you Healers: Mhairi, Karen Gorney, Linda Blaikie, Teresa Peppard, Karen Greathouse, Allison Anderson.)

-A serious committment to yoga and now pilates. (Thank you Magda Schoenfeld, Kate Graham, Shelley Gilbert, Angela D. Wendy LeBlanc-Arbuckle.)

-Cannes 1999 with IFC. An unforgettable night celebrating our 16th wedding anniversary. Attending the Dogma midnight premiere at the Grand Palais, the after party at the Hotel du Cap, the sunrise on Paul Allen's yacht. Spike, Jarmusch, and the Blair Witch guys in town in a big way too.

- Actually everything with Kevin Smith. The Movies. The Family. The Friendship. Hanging at the House.

-Natalie Goldberg's workshop at the Mabel Dodge Luhan House in Taos in 2000.

-Paris for my 45th birthday with Nan and Beau. Amsterdam a few years later.

-10 days in Fiji. Then a year. Every second of it.

- Reel Paradise.

-New Zealand. And yoga for 30 days with Philip & Coral Savage.

- Cleaning the house to move first to Fiji, then again, more permanently, to Austin. Torture til I discovered the joy in dispersing our material goods. Christmas in July.

- Wireless internet

- Gaining weight steadily. Losing 30 lbs in 6 months in 2001-2002. Yea!!! Gaining it back in 4 years.

-Moving to Austin. Coming from a place I loved to a place I love even more! The easiest transition ever. Loving Austin with its great energy, wonderful people, and quality of life. All my wonderful good new friends here. Immersing fully into the Austin Film Society, proud to be part of its rich history and vital present.

-My friends. Those of you who see me through. Turn me on. Make me laugh. Make me think. Help me feel connected. Make everyday worthwhile. Thank you.

- John. Ever mercurial and exciting. Brilliant. Impatient and confrontational. But funny, and kind, and loving too. At the center of it all.

Turning 50 on Monday

I'm turning 50 on Monday. And while I feel no need for a big to-do or life changing marker, I am finding myself mulling a bit. Well, mulling a lot. About what a great ride it's been. How much I love John, and the kids, and a wide swath of friends. It all so unlike what I'd imagined. Not that I imagined much...maybe that was part of it. Sure I had glamorous images, like the NYC literai party scenes in Capote, or like Norman Mailer, George Plimpton and their set in the great doc When We Were Kings, but not really for myself. I had yearnings but a torturous present. It was hard to see past that.

Mulling more too because of a trip back into the files. Needing to find some paperwork for my sister...neither one of us clear about some banking from 20-odd years ago that's now essential as her first just turned 21. I climb up the steep ladder in the garage loft, perch on my grandmother's old suitcase, and take a deep breath. Long typewritten letters from my father. Breathe again. I realize I've come to prefer the imagined sanitized version of him. The real guy too difficult. The reality painful. Not dwelling on my own writing in this dalliance down memory lane. Instead letters from some remaining friends. Letters from many now passed out of my life. From Alison and Jessica and always the ones I love from Karl - cranky, and smart, and loving from so many years ago. I'd forgotten there were so many. And it reminds me to reach out and prod him into writing again right now.

These long years John and I have traveled together. It feels like a moment but it's actually 25 years. I think at the time Karen C. gave me a note with a quote from Marilyn Monroe that said something like, "Twenty-five years, that's a quarter of a century... Makes a girl think." My 25th birthday my first with him. 25 years later, unimaginable then, impressive and exciting now. "Half-a-life" "Half-a-life" rattling over and over again in my head. A ridiculous film that John, Bingham and I used to laugh about endlessly when we worked on the opening in NYC - and I can't even think why. Because of the guy's thick french accent? Because he was only 35? So now close to 50, the details gone to me, only the pleasure of the memory, and the amusement of the phrase in my head. It's been a half a life with John. Half a life ago, I could never have imagined I'd be so happy now.

accountability

For weeks, maybe months, my pilates teacher has been trying to get me to commit to the simplest home practice. We call it "swan at the wall daily." I drape over one of those big gym balls, with my feet against the wall, and lift up, into a a swan (or cobra - basically an arching up of the upper back forward, legs extended, hips lengthened.) It's a pretty cool move. Feels great, gets everything working. It only takes a few minutes. But it's taken Wendy weeks/months to get me to actually do it, instead of just saying I would. Why? I dunno...why? Because I'd always rather email. Or the ball is in living room and it's too chaotic and public. Because I'm resistant to most daily practices.

So now she's trying a new tact. Emailing me daily to probe my feelings and thoughts about it. She shared a quote about accountability and promises that I was going to blog about until I realized it was from Landmark Education and I worried there could be copyright issues. It's an interesting approach where she and I are bonded in this effort together. She talks about "my asking her to support me". Interesting turn of phrase but powerful -because since I do care so much about her, and the fantastic quality of insight, training, and smarts she has to offer me, I don't want to let her down. She's giving me so much, I want to make sure to do her justice. To honor her time and teaching. But why do I need to include her in the equation? Why can't/don't I just do it because it's good for me?

Excellent Michael Woolf piece in April Vanity Fair

Just caught up with this terrific, horrific, Michael Woolf piece on the Scooter trial/affair in the April Vanity Fair.

Around the corner from the trial of Scooter Libby, during a late-afternoon break, Frank Luntz, the Republican pollster, was telling me that the Republican Party is kaput. "The brand isn't just sick—it's dead. The G.O.P. is cracking up." (Luntz is a marketer marketing his new book, Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear, about political marketing, and knows he needs a compelling message. We have a brief discussion about whether his thesis about the end of the Republicans might get him some publicity.) The Bush administration, in other words, could well have brought one of the greatest marketing and P.R. success stories of the modern era—the rise of conservatism and the Republican Party—to an end.

Scooter Libby struggled to stay afloat as Karl Rove, Tim Russert, and Dick Cheney stayed safe. Illustration by Daniel Adel.

It may be smart to analyze the Libby trial and the Republican Party in marketing rather than political terms. Effective marketing is the Republican lifeblood—developing and crafting and delivering the message. (more)

Disturbances in the Field

I read a book years ago that I can barely remember save for the title: Disturbances in the Field. The words rattling in my head as all around, friends and family are weathering crises. All of a sudden. All around. Disturbances in the Field. Fissures. Human relationships so fragile and mysterious.

Jane and Darfur

It's true that I've the annoying tendency to understand the world through my friends. I say "annoying" not only because others have called it that, which they have, but because I know it is. "Lazy" and "indulgent" I suppose work as well. I engage through personal connection and anecdote. So be it. It's my way in.

Last week during sxsw I had the pleasure to run into two very good, old friends. The second, a British expatriate mother of four, ended up producing The Devil Came on Horseback. I discovered her involvement rather randomly. Having a post Doc Tour screening (The Trials of Daryl Hunt) drink with Annie Sundberg , she decided to show me the opening for her new film. She was rushing to finish for Sundance. The name Jane Wells appeared as producer. "Jane Wells!" I told Annie I used to have a good friend name with that name -- a young Brit in NY when we were in our twenties. We'd had our first kids around the same time, then she had three more. We'd been in touch only briefly. Oddly enough we'd run into her eldest on our very last day in Taveuni. He was there volunteering. We were hanging around the airport waiting to get out after the morning flight we'd booked was full. It was a delightful surprise.

This was another delightful surprise. A woman of priviledge, I'd last heard that she'd moved her family to Aspen. Didn't know why, or how it was working out.

I made a point of attending the Devil's first sxsw screening. Then Jane was, more beautiful and somehow youthful, than decades earlier. My jaw dropped as she began to speak. Even more after I'd seen the devasting documentary. The indulgent life I'd imagined in Aspen now replaced by a dogged obsession with the genocide in Darfur. Tonight I caught up with her numerous posts on the Huffington Report. I'm humbled and in awe.

Some samples:

From Nov. 23, 2005: The Drug that Chose Me

There is an old song by k.d. lang, "My Last Cigarette," with the line, "sometimes your drug chooses you... " I have been thinking the same applies to passions and causes. Why are some of us compelled to work in a food kitchen while others campaign tirelessly for the rights of the spotted owl?

Obviously my concern with Darfur and that particular genocide comes under this category -- in my lifetime I have been aware of, but disconnected from, genocide in Cambodia, the Balkans, Rwanda, Iraq....perhaps Darfur chose me....

One day it may happen that we wake up and feel we must act, and naturally we want others to act too. We hope to influence others to see the way we see, feel what we feel, give where we give and help as we wish to help. Every cause worth its salt recognizes this and acquires or solicits celebrity and influential spokespeople. Lobbyists might be hired, politicians pick their issues, journalists pick their battle cries. Americans put on their bumper stickers (well I do) and as a result we all hope to sleep better at night, perhaps having "done something." Sometimes we are collectively bombarded as with the tsunami...sometimes a creeping consciousness occurs and grows. (more)

The latest: Good News from Deep in the Heart of Texas

Austin, TX.-- Something good came out of the Texas Capitol yesterday: a unanimous vote cleared the proposed Darfur Divestment Bill (# 247) through the senate committee stage. As Rep. Corbin Van Arsdale, (R-Tomball) explained, it was a signal to the world that even Republicans in the President's conservative home state can work in a bi-partisan way to end what the UN has deemed the greatest humanitarian crisis in the world today: the genocide in Darfur...

....I was grateful that the authors of this legislation asked me, and others involved in the documentary about the genocide in Darfur, The Devil Came on Horseback, to testify before the senate committee. We were in Austin for the SXSW Film Festival and the opportunity to add first-hand witness testimony was serendipitous. At Sundance in January we had attended a lackluster panel "Making Movies That Matter, Matter" and I had wondered whether, beyond the runaway success of An Inconvenient Truth (a film made by a politician), documentary really has any place in American politics today. A far more robust SXSW panel on political documentaries "Doc Politics As Usual" took place at the same time as the Senate hearings and we had to divide up our creative team to speak at both events. It was a good moment to see the confluence of political will and the power of film. (more)

i think the end of my sxsw 2007 highlights

The Buzzcocks! Almost embarrassed to still love them 30 years later. But I do as much as ever. The songs burned into my brain. I could sing What do I get? in my sleep. (No love!)

Finally made it to the Flatstock poster show I've been missing for years. What a delight! Wall after wall of pure great design - in the form of rock posters. Loved so many of them. Some favorites though it was hard to choose: www.thesmallstakes.com, methanestudios.com,ruralroosterclothing.com,mojohand.com, largemammalprint.com,voodoocatbox.com, hammerpress.net, pushmepullyoudesign.com, www.ghost-town.net, antagonistdesign.com, ocholocopress.com.

Watching Emily Hubley's animation from the upcoming The Toe Tactic accompanied by original music by Sue Garner, with Angel Dean and Doug Weiselman at the Hideout. I hadn't thought I'd get there. I was restless and still in the running-around-mode when the magic of the original live soundtrack and the animation took hold. I'd seen the work before, but not like this. As Emily said more eloquently in her introduction...something about the magic of the great creative collaboration, that mysterious something we're all a part of, bursting forth.

Watching Nick Drake: A Skin Too Few Saturday morning at the Convention Center theatre with the music crowd. Seemingly spun out of thread, as there are few photos, no audio interviews, and definitely no film of the hauntingly beautiful singer/songwriter. A sad tale of an even sadder life. I'm sure I loved it because I find the music so absolutely perfect. It works as a film on very simple terms, very well formed to its subject.

All in all a terrific week.

Anne Thompson: the voice behind Risky Biz - new site

Anne Thompson, the savvy entertainment writer/columnist/industry analyst/blogger who created the Risky Business brand many years ago, has a new home online with Variety.com. Her new blog is: Thompson on Hollywood. She's always a great read!

Oh, and this about Professor Pierson

DISSENT PIECE

UT class gets a lesson in film promotion

Students serve as producer's reps for documentary critical of Michael Moore.

By Theresa Everline
SPECIAL TO THE AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Friday, March 16, 2007

In a large studio classroom on the University of Texas campus last week, 20 students bounced ideas off their teacher, the lanky and gregarious John Pierson, a lecturer in the department of radio-television-film.

This was no textbook exercise. Their real-world, semester-long task was to promote and seek distribution for a documentary already having its world premiere at South by Southwest.

To make things more interesting, the focus of their efforts was the film "Manufacturing Dissent," a documentary by directors Debbie Melnyck and Rick Caine that critically examines Michael Moore, the notorious filmmaker sanctified by liberals and vilified by conservatives.

The first screening at the Paramount Theatre on Saturday loomed a mere three days away.

(full article)