Rear Window

While replying to a work-related email, I noticed a company name and address in the sender’s signature line. After the business part of my reply, I wrote a P.S., “How’s your view?” I inquired. I knew the recipient received the email because the next morning there was a sign in the window of his firm reading, “Good morning, Ashley” in big black letters. I noticed the sign when I walked into my kitchen and looked out the window while making tea — it turns out one of my windows looks almost directly out over theirs (they are one floor down from me).

Every morning, from nearly every window of my five window apartment, I am greeted by a group of art students (the upstairs neighbors of my email recipient’s firm) who paint, sculpt, draw, and Papier-mâché directly across from my kitchen. The art teacher’s office, decorated in macramed plant holders and wall-hangings, is nearly within arm’s length of one of my bedroom windows. Above the art school lives a family with two small children — who love to look out their windows during thunderstorms. The family’s latest aquisition is a black and white painting of a leaping frog, which, after much debate, they finally decided to hang next to their Viking range, above the computer desk. I watched that whole scene play out from my kitchen window one Saturday afternoon, while I was cooking.

Nighttime is more exciting. My neighbors across from my living room window (we live in an “H-shaped” building, so our living room windows look out on to each other) come home around midnight, their bright lights (sans curtains) flood into my apartment. From their nocturnal activities, I’ve guessed him to be a restaurant manager and her to be a model. She’s always coming in late at night with rolling luggage and a suit bag (and leaving the apartment mid-morning) while he doesn’t leave till late afternoon. They’re definitely not married. They also fight quite a bit. And, his feet smell. The latest fight was about his looking at other woman, and his ridiculous gold sneakers. I have to agree with the girlfriend on that account, the sneakers are ridiculous looking. How do I know? Apart from seeing them first-hand in the elevator, he also airs them out on the ledge of his living room window, cracking the window open when he does this — a sign of odorous feet, perhaps?

I know I’m not alone in watching my neighbors’ lives play out like a television series. The New York Times found other people who freely admit to spying on their neighbors, either for folly, their health, or artistic/journalistic purposes. In New York, we learn to live in tight quarters. We stand closer to people in the subway during rush hour than we ever would allow during a conversation. Personal space is a whole lot less personal in a city. We become somewhat unwitting voyeurs, but curiosity sometimes overrules our manners. Our neighbor’s life may be entirely different than our own, more exciting, sad, colorful, happy, sex-filled, lonely … or perhaps it’s because their lives are exactly like ours. We come home, hang up our coat/throw it down on a chair; check the mail/answering machine/fridge; use the bathroom; relax on the couch/watch TV; have sex; cook dinner; go to sleep and start it all over again.

City living is a mash up of reality television and a really great novel. People are living in front of you, acting on their own accord, but you provide the dialogue of their lives; you imagine their personalities beyond those four walls and what makes their life worth living; then you turn the page to see what happens next.

JOURNEY NYC

“People just don’t want to know about this issue – it’s hidden, it’s criminal, it’s perverse and yes, it’s happening on our own doorstep. Journey is a remarkable piece of collaborative, creative and confrontational art that profoundly challenges people’s perspective. Come and see for yourself and tell us if you agree.”
-Emma Thompson

If you are in New York this week, make sure to visit JOURNEY NYC. Produced by the Helen Bamber Foundation, this provocative art installation depicts the “journey” of trafficked women in the sex industry. Drawing from the experiences of a survivor named “Elena,” Journey is told in seven stages (each stage is designed by an artist using the interior of a shipping container as their canvas). The seven stages include:

1. Hope
– Designed by Oscar-winning film designer Michael Howells

2. Journey
– Designed by sound engineer and music producer Mick Martin

3. Uniform
– Oscar-winning costume designer Sandy Powell

4. Bedroom
– Coco de Mer founder Sam Roddick

5. Customer
– playwright Ewan Spencer and photographer Simon Stephens

6. Stigma
– Turner Prize winning sculptor Anish Kapoor

7. Resurrection
– Oscar-winning actor Emma Thompson, Royal Designer Mike Dempsey and V&A prize winning illustrator Laura Carlin

From the Helen Bamber Foundation’s website:

“Journey brings together creativity and the art of survival to show what it means to be bought and sold. It demonstrates how one woman’s story can help us understand a subject that is as painful as it is incomprehensible. Trafficking is a crime without borders. Trafficked people become illegal, stigmatized and invisible. The state of New York is a major entry and transit hub, but authorities and agencies are pouring huge resources into supporting victims and prosecuting traffickers.”

84-year-old Helen Bamber, a truly amazing woman who has worked tirelessly with victims for 60 years, will be on site along with Emma Thompson, Sam Roddick, and HBF co-founding Director, Dr. Mike Korzinski. After you make your way through JOURNEY, find a moment to talk with one (or all) of them. They are truly extraordinary people.

JOURNEY NYC can be found on Washington Place @ Washington Square East, NYC, from Tuesday, November 10th-Sunday, November 15th from 12p-8p. A trip through the installation is free and the experience is priceless.

Everyday Tastes: Are You High-Brow or Low-Brow?

My blog/Twitter friend, Kitty, sent me a link to this awesome chart, which begged to be posted immediately.

The real question is, where you do fall on The Brow? I’m somewhere between high and upper middle-brow. I do like a well-made dry martini with a lemon peel (upper middle-brow) and I actually own a decanter from a chemical supply company (high-brow).

Click to enlarge

Girls Like Us: Legends in Their Own Time

Everyone has a story about their introduction to the music of Carole King, Joni Mitchell and Carly Simon, the music that not only defined a generation of women, but also the generations that came after. Our mothers played their records, revisiting their youth and taking a moment to view things from Both Sides, Now; tearing up when they talked about Joni Mitchell’s lyrics, humming ”Natural Women” around the house or “Love of My Life” as they rocked us to sleep at night. My stories parallel those of many others my age. Carole King’s voice had always felt familiar to me. I don’t recall the first time I heard her music or how I learned all of the lyrics to her Tapestry album, it simply feels intertwined with my molecules. Carly Simon’s music and lyrics spilled into my ears through the movie soundtracks of the 80’s-90’s. Joni Mitchell’s music came to me via a college dorm mate during our first week of freshman year. I heard “I could drink a case of you and still be on my feet …” Joni’s voice was unlike any other  I had ever heard. I don’t recall my dorm mate’s name, but I never forget Joni Mitchell’s. She became the soundtrack to four years of college.

I knew these women’s histories through their music, but I didn’t know about the lives they lived behind the music until I took a Women in Rock class in college. We started with Billie Holiday, The Boswell Sisters, and Ella Fitzgerald, and worked our way to The Shirelles, The Chantels, The Ronettes, and Carole King, Joni Mitchell & Carly Simon. The history of these musicians and their personal lives was fascinating. Every time I entered that classroom I felt excited and alive, as if the history of women in rock was unfolding right before my eyes.

That feeling was reawakened twice recently. First, when I read Sheila Weller’s “Girls Like Us” a definitive, beautifully written and meticulously researched account of the lives of Carole, Joni and Carly. And again this past Monday, when I went over to the Merkin Concert Hall, where Weller’s book was turned into a performance of Mitchell, King and Simon’s music by five Broadway singers: Liz Callaway (who also narrated the event), Ann Hampton Callaway, Jessica Molaskey, Capathia Jenkins, and Barbara Walsh (along with musical director Jeffrey Klitz, director Dan Foster, writer Sean Hartley, and John Pizzarelli on guitar). Weller was also on stage, reading passages from the book.

Between taking turns at the mike to singing some of the “Girls” greatest hits, each performer shared a story about how they discovered Simon, King and Mitchell’s music — Ann Hampton Callaway even got to co-write a song with Carole King. The group also came together on a few songs including a re-arrangement of “You’re So Vain” that deserves to be released as a single.

While each woman put their own signature on the music, they also had stand-out songs that not only showcased their voices, but revealed their very core. Sometimes it was unexpected, like Jessica Molaskey’s rendition of “Raised on Robbery” with her husband, John Pizzarelli’s amazing accompaniment on guitar. Molaskey’s interpretation of the song was funny and a slower (but still jazzy) version of Mitchell’s original tune. It was a little piece of brilliance. (Jessica Molaskey, if you happen to read this, please record that song, ASAP). Sometimes the rendition took your breath away, like when Barbara Walsh sang the combined “Song to a Seagull/Both Sides, Now.” Walsh’s performance of the songs was sublime. And sometimes it just knocked your socks off: like Capathia Jenkins version of “So Far Away,” which was one of those rare moments when you witness that what makes a song legendary is its ability to transcend the original artist/songwriter and truly belong to the performer. Similarly, Liz Callaway and Ann Hampton Callaway’s duet on “That’s the Way I Always Heard it Could Be” was divine. When you hear the interwoven voices of these sisters, there is no need for any accompaniment. Liz’s pure, strong soprano combined with Ann’s jazzy mezzo/alto was like witnessing the interplay of a violin and a cello. They share an instinct for song and sound that is without peer.

Though the vocal talent of the performers was evident, it was the music, the shared history that each performer found within her song, that made the evening magical. While Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon and Carole King are three female music legends, they are also the poets who recorded the history of women in lyrics and measures, rhythms and records. They helped define who we are, who we raise and who we continue to become. But at the same time, they are still girls like us.

Whip It: Kicking Ass & Taking Names … all to a Killer Soundtrack

Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut had been something that many critics claim they did not expect. But honestly, critics, what were you thinking? she would just stop at the actor-producer hyphenate and call it a day? Why?

Luckily, Drew Barrymore thought why not? when it came to shepherding Shauna Cross’ novel, DERBY GIRL to the screen. D.B. produced the film, called the shots from video village, and even took a supporting role as Hurl Scout “Smashley Simpson.” Her multi-hyphenate efforts paid off. “Whip It” is a fun and exhilarating romp around a derby track matched with an equally thrilling soundtrack (thank you, Randall Poster!) featuring everyone from The Ramones to Tilly and the Wall, Jens Lekman and even Dolly Parton. The tunes provide the perfect segue way into the fast-paced competition sequences. Though not perfect in execution, watching these actors whip around a track allows the audiences a slick view of the action, leaving them just shy of a sensation of having eight wheels laced on their feet.

Ellen Page’s Bliss Cavendar/Babe Ruthless provides us with a newcomer’s look into the sport and an honest portrayal of a teen who doesn’t quite fit in with the popular tribe of girls, but doesn’t try to either. She embraces her lack of confidence and finds something she’s good at, roller derby, and with that, her tribe. Page, screenwriter Shauna Cross and Barrymore all deserve credit for staying true to the look and feel of the kind of teenager many of us were: decent kids, always in our heads, a little self-centered, but mostly just looking to belong to something bigger than ourselves.

Perhaps the biggest standout performance in this crew of derby girls, (which includes an awesome performance by Juliette Lewis as rival roller girl, Iron Maiden, and Alia Shawcat as Bliss’ best friend, Pash) is Kristen Wiig as fellow Hurl Scout, “Maggie Mayhem.” Wiig shines whenever she’s on screen. You want to know more about her both on and off the track. She gives us a sense of Maggie’s past (though she is furnished with a tiny back story, unlike most of the other girls) that she plays solidly throughout the film. She is the grounding force in the derby and a perfect foil to Bliss’ mother, Brooke Cavendar, played beautifully by Marcia Gay Harden. Maggie Mayhem tells Bliss what Brooke Cavendar cannot seem to handle telling her own daughter, “Put on some skates and be your own hero.”

“Whip It” reminds us all to look past some of the ridiculous movies that will define this generation of teens (High School Musical, Hannah Montana, etc) and see there is finally a soul akin to John Hughes. If “Whip It” is any indication, and I think it is, in Drew Barrymore we will finally have a director (and a woman at that) with enough sensitivity and candor to reflect images of our teen selves back at us, and who encourages us to find our inner Bliss.

Still Crazy After All of These Years [& Thank God!]

I will open this post with a Jedi mind trick: You will go see Carrie Fisher’s “Wishful Drinking” on Broadway. Now.

I thought I knew what to expect as we made our way to our seats on the first night of previews. I read the book version of “Wishful Drinking” and had a sense of the story we were about to witness played out on stage. In “Wishful Drinking” the book, Carrie Fisher talks about her family. Her friends & lovers. Her career. Her drugs. Her mental illness. Her ECT. Oh, and Star Wars.

In the show, however, Carrie Fisher the writer/actor/Princess of Alderaan, has an energy and comedic timing that the book simply cannot convey. She talks about her FAMILY, with the help of a visual aid, which feels like a set of vintage Hollywood trading cards. Everyone from Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds to Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton are a part of her collection. Her FRIENDS & LOVERS, including Paul Simon and Bryan Lourd. Her CAREER. Her DRUGS (ok, there were too many things I could have linked to on this one, so I went with the most recent). Her MENTAL ILLNESS. Her ECT. And STAR WARS. I resort to using caps when describing these things because Fisher’s life is big and bold and she lives it big(ly) and boldly. It’s also scary, joyous, painful, and funny as hell. She manages to strike a delicate balance between all of these emotions and delivers her story with warmth and a welcomed sense of nostalgia. She makes a life that sounds so outrageous to all of us also seem so accessible.

It cannot be denied that Carrie Fisher is a great writer. But it must not be forgotten that she is an equally great performer. In “Wishful Drinking” she truly is her STORY. And what a f*cking story it is.

You can find “Wishful Drinking” (somewhat ironically) at Studio 54 (till January 3rd, 2010) or on the bookshelf of your local bookstore. You can also find Carrie Fisher (and her bad-ass humor) on Twitter and blogging on her website.

Disclaimer: If you go to the show, be prepared for big time audience participation. Think Blue Man Group-type participation, but with words, cursing, and a sex doll. Ok, not at all like Blue Man Group.

All The Sad, Young [and Middle-Aged] Literary Types

Crowds descended upon Brooklyn Borough Hall/Plaza and Columbus Park today for the Brooklyn Book Festival (btw, poor website and flyer layout, BBF! The microscopic signs on the vendors didn’t help, either). I rode the 3 train to Brooklyn for the book festival’s “Literature in a Digital Age” panel. Per my reading of the panel description, this what I thought I was going to hear:

Some say the “age of the book” is ending and a glorious new “digital era” is dawning. Others turn the page and keep reading. How do new forms of media affect our literary culture, and how do writers and publishers adapt to them? Featuring John Freeman (The Tyranny of Email), Dwight Garner (Read Me) and Sarah Schmelling (Ophelia Joined the Group Maidens Who Don’t Float: Classic Lit Signs On To Facebook). Moderated by Maud Newton, blogger ofmaudnewton.com.

Before I dissect the panel, I need an aside in order to talk about my admiration for Maud Newton and her website. Newton is, and has always been, my favorite literary blogger. I stumbled upon her blog in college and it still remains as the first entry I put onto the bookmarks bar of every computer I’ve had since. When I read her blog, I feel as if I’m a breath away from turning a page instead of clicking my computer’s track pad. She is the internet’s throwback to the printed word writer. And, apart from myself, she was probably the second American to discover the incredible Scottish writer [my favorite living writer], A.L. Kennedy … and one the first to blog about her (this isn’t the earliest piece Maud wrote about her, but it has the best ALK-related links). As a panelist for the Literature in the Digital Age event, Maud would have been a wonderful choice and fulfilled every aspect of literature in the digital age (she blogs, she tweets, she reads books on her iPhone, etc).

As a moderator, however, Maud fell short of engaging the crowd. The conversation she started felt too intimate for such a large space. So much so, that the panelists physically turned their bodies away from the audience to engage with her personally. Maud is also high-literary minded, in that it seems the printed-on-paper word is her only god. This would be fine, but not for the moderator of a panel who needs to keep an open mind and press questions on panelists about the various facets of the digital age and how it affects books — including the buying and selling of books — and how authors engage with their audiences.

The panelists represented a tiny slice of internet pie. Freeman and Garner may write online (sometimes) but they are still journalists and writers of the old school. Even Schmelling’s work is primarily in print. As a result, the panel felt like a dusty old paperback that’s been sitting for too long on a high shelf at The Strand. What they were missing was someone more acquainted with social networking, digital media and the publishing world. Perhaps a marketing head (or even assistant) at one of the big houses, a digital media strategist, or even a blog/Internet-savvy publicist. Ideally, they should have had someone fromHarper Studio, where they are changing the face of book publishing and how authors (and imprints) build audiences & interact with their readers.

An additional ingredient that may have helped keep this book panel from the bargain bin would have been to have someone under age 30 representing some aspect of the publishing industry. Let’s face the truth here, my generation (theNet Generation) has grown up with computers. I’ve spent most of my life carrying around everything from floppy discs in my backpack to USBs on my key ring and Google Docs housed somewhere in cyberland. Though panelist John Freeman didn’t appear to be too far off from 30 — a quick Google search only turned up the phrase “young editor of Granta” — he isn’t savvy to new media and confessed Granta has only started tweeting recently. Granta is online, but like the New Yorker, with limited access, and no pay by the article option to unlock individual pieces.

In addition to these discrepancies, none of the panelists has ever read a book on an e-reader. I believe it was Garner who offered a sliver of hope to the rest of the dusty paperback panel: a reader will soon reach up onto the high shelf and buy them: “Readers are up 5 percent from last year. People are putting aside more time at the end of the day to turn off their computers and read, offline.”

I’m not certain where this statistic came from, but I’d like to believe it’s true. We can all use the break from the backlight of a computer. But when I log off, I turn on my Kindle. It reads like a book, there’s no backlight (it’s all ambient light), and it saves me time, money (at $299, and bet $7.99 and $10 per book, it’s already paid for itself twice over), space and it’s convenient — all things a New Yorker living in the digital age (and in a city-sized apartment) can’t live without.

P.S. I was a little disappointed to hear Maud Newton say one of the reasons she started her blog was so she could avoid having to interact with people face-to-face. That’s how people thought when blogs first started in the 1990s. It was a way to share your words, but hide behind them as well. Now the internet brings people together: Reuniting friends, allowing for people across the country or the world to collaborate, or nearly missed connections the chance to bump into one another or even, the opportunity to avoid each other.

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This is a day where I look in the mirror and I don’t judge myself. I am happy just being alive.

Eight years ago I didn’t know how many of my extended family members and friends were still alive. They were trapped in in stairwells, on the streets of lower Manhattan, in college dorms surrounded by clouds of smoke, and, fortuitously, stuck with flat tires on bridges instead of delivering an order to Windows on the World, or had decided to take a meeting uptown instead of in their office in Tower 2, overslept and were still on the train enroute to work at Cantor Fitzgerald, and even in a chemo treatment instead of at their desk in Tower 1.

I was in Ithaca, NY safe in my college apartment, glued to the TV and trying frantically to get through to ANYONE on my cell phone. I was relaying news updates to a high school friend via instant messenger, since she was living in Morocco and they were censoring the news. By 5pm everyone we knew was accounted for, but many others were not so lucky.

Take a moment to look in your own mirror, to reflect on the life you’ve lived over the past eight years. Hug your family a little tighter, kiss your partner a little longer. Relish the simple “I Love You” as you sign off a call or say good-bye. Appreciate every minute of the day, because, as we learned in 2001, it can all change in an instant. la vita è bella.

Fishing For Work

I’m taking a brief break to work on actual writing and securing my next gig. I’ll be back in September. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with a picture of a most excellent doormat.

Ta-Da!

Some people spend nine months incubating a child.

I [and about 100+ others] spent nine months of hard labor on this:

Click image for link to trailer

It takes more than a village to raise a movie and they’re way more expensive and needy than children. Why do we bother? Well, probably for the same reason why people have children. Because LOOK at how beautiful they are! How marvelous! They are a reflection of our stories, can reach beyond the boundaries that we may have slammed against, and they are filled with the promise of possibility.