Honey, you’re looking great. What an ordeal this has been. Four years culminating in… Hold on. We’ve made it this far. Let’s step into the light. In a few short days things will start to change. My aim in podcasting my novel has been to entertain until that change comes.…
Category: Photography
There were heaps — accumulated reminders of a life — all around. Everything that served as an archival asset, or a teaching aid for future filmmakers, I boxed and hauled over to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Clothes, I donated. Books, I culled down to the essentials…
All through life, instinctively or intellectually, we adapt to survive. Even insects have some boss strategies, for example, the formation of a chitinous exoskeleton, which is the somewhat see-through shell that encapsulates and protects a shrimp or a spider. I have a theory about directors who succeed in the movie…
Lethal stress can come at you no matter whether you’re onscreen or off. Actors in Hollywood have committed suicide by swallowing ant paste, Nembutal, or barbiturates. George Sanders (check out his performance in All About Eve) swallowed five bottles of pills in Barcelona and left two suicides notes. One in…
A friend of mine who lives far away told me she was having a hard time, and then reaching out (beautiful heart) she said she was worried about me in lockdown Los Angeles. I was about to tell her not to worry and then I changed my mind and said…
Chapter 20, in which Billie travels to Vegas and comes to a seismic realization. I tended to think of sleep as something healing, freshening, and cleansing. I traced this somewhat peculiar notion to parental influence. I distinctly remembered – though I couldn’t have been more than four at the time…
There is a kind of courtship that goes on between producer and director, a kind of wooing. The producer holds the means of movie making (money) and the director, if they’re any good, provides the vision. There’s a honeymoon period, and often an inevitable falling out. It was a form…
The film industry started to shut down on March 12th, and for the week prior, while my husband was on set I was climbing up and down ladders, doing a deep cleaning on the house the likes of which this place has never seen. When he called during the afternoon…
Don’t worry. It’s not contagious. I am increasingly persnickety; about the state of the world, modern discourse, and, hell’s bells, my favorite bakery is closed for renovation. Translation, I’m in a mood. To combat my discomposure I walk, write, read—generally in that order—and in between all have many cups of…