em's talkery

MADONNA

2012-02-13T04:00:00.003-05:00

Ahh, that half time show at the Super Bowl ...

For weeks before the big day, we heard about the ads, what they cost, the show, and Madonna.

I'm an Elvis fan. I'm a fan of Michael Jackson -- the magic, the electricity --there's something in the way he moved that I'll never forget. I'm not a sports fan or a Madonna fan, but when Madonna's on stage doing her thing, I'm a fascinated Madonna watcher.

I remember when she was arrived on the scene -- her name delighted and bothered people even before they saw her. Here she is in 1984.

What a zoom it was, from the unknown new girl on the block to celebrity -- headlines, boyfriends, lovers, marriages, blockbuster hit songs. And while she was rising and astounding us, Michael Jackson was rising and astounding us -- lighting up the sky.

Fun to see them together -- the gloved one was Madonna's date for the 1991 Oscars.

I think MJ was much more startling, amazing, and inventive creatively. I think Madonna's fame-name comes from her gutsy, outrageous display of her sexuality and her need (her own words) to display "truth or dare" revelations of her "blonde ambition."

I looked and looked for a video that shows why audiences are crazy about her. Despite too many credits at the end, IN BED WITH MADONNA shows off Madonna the actress, singer, choreographer, producer, star, uninhibitedly expressing herself.

Yes, she's aging. She's had many hits and still wins awards. Just recently she won the Golden Globe Award for 2011, for MASTERPIECES, a song she wrote and performed, that's just been released.

Well, there she was at the Super Bowl, the star of an expensive half-time show that reminded me of the Olympics. There were marching bands, choruses of men, choruses of women, acrobats, fabulous set changes, light changes, crowds of extras that suggested a gathering of people who were carried away by the spirit that was generated by their voices and bodies reacting to music.

The songs, some hers, some belonging to others, seemed to blend. I found myself focusing on the super high stilettos Madonna was wearing as she marched, knees-up, knees- down -- as she plied -- bent her legs in what we dancer's call "second" position, with her turned-out knees and her stilettoes (her feet) about three feet apart. Once she sort of skipped; twice guys flipped her in a cartwheel slightly awkwardly; she perched on someone's shoulders, stood on someone's shoulders; she was lifted and tossed and sang and sang. What the words were I couldn't really comprehend. I only remember a huge bunch of chorus girls chanting "we love Madonna, Madonna, Madonna" in an snap-your-fingers, clap-your-hands rhythm.

The words and music were sort of drowned out by all the stage effects. I was very impressed by the white-suited group of acrobats, though they upstaged Madonna. I remember her suddenly in a shiny black gown, singing, down on her knees worshiping Cee Lo Green, male singer, also in a shiny black gown. I wondered for a second if it was supposed to be sexual.

I have a strong impression of a slender, beautiful face, framed by long blond curls -- Madonna the star -- a bit stiffly, often in second position bump and grinding, knees up, knees down marching through the entire half-time show, showing me that Madonna was indeed it's star and main attraction.

"You never know exactly the minute, the place. You climb the hill all your life and you're going on and on. You reach a flat place now and then but a flat place is going someplace on the way up your hill. And then ... well, it feels the same. The wind's the same. You're still walking but ... but the top of the hill is gone and done with and you're going down. Not up. Going down. You don't quite know how or when going up got to be going down. But you're going ... down ..."

That's a quote from a play I wrote that comes to mind when I think about what she's doing and thinking today -- she's on a world tour now, being praised and undoubtedly also disparaged, singing, dancing, partying, living -- being "Madonna."

If I could, I'd tell her: As you've grown up over the years, you are what you wanted to be -- blonde ambition, truthful and daring. At the Superbowl, perhaps too much "ambition" was showing Give us more YOU, as you are right now.

(Video) WHAT WOULD AN ALIEN THINK OF US?

2012-02-11T04:00:00.002-05:00

John Cullum and Em have fun wondering how an alien would react to things we take for granted. Em figures an alien would be bewildered by people with cell phones -- a crowded street full of people talking out loud to themselves.

John contemplates how an alien would react if he saw hundreds of people seated in a large area, looking up at platform --watching a play being performed.

Out of the blue, John Cullum recalls a spooky, nerve-wracking, scary incident -- how long it took he doesn't remember, but what happened to him felt like an hour. He was onstage, starring in "Deathtrap" on Broadway one night, when a guy, seemingly an ordinary member of the audience, acted like an alien. The man got up from where he was sitting, walked down the center aisle of the theater, climbed the stage steps, and joined John and the cast on the stage in the middle of scene.

How John and the other cast members reacted, how tricky it was to get this very strange guy off the stage, is a very special, unusual stage-story experience.

GOD PARTICLES

2012-02-09T04:00:00.001-05:00

That's a photograph of a "God Particle." If you have any room in your brain for a new concept, it may be a way to find out if God exists

Next to John Cullum, my husband's side of the bed, there's a book by Stephen Hawking, a bible, and this magazine picture. He's fascinated by religion, "black holes" and this latest new theory.

Einstein's relativity, the Fourth Dimension, speed of light, black holes, and gravity are not my cup of tea.

I remember Newton and the apple, but what is "matter," why do things have "mass," why does "matter" have gravity -- when JC's talking about "particles," I find myself blinking -- not bored, but not sure what we're talking about.

I can chat about who's winning in sports, but except for the Green Bay Packers, and Roger Federer, it doesn't excite me. I don't know why "matter" is such an important issue, so I went on a Googling adventure.

It was THE Issue at a get-together in the packed auditorium at the Cern laboratory outside Geneva. The Lab houses the large Hadron Collider.

At the center bottom of this picture, you can see a tiny figure (it's in a dark jacket, brown pants), and get a sense of the size of the machine that is the world's most powerful particle accelerator.

It's mammoth. The Hadron Collider sends subatomic protons (smaller ones) racing in opposite directions through a 17-mile tunnel, getting them to move faster and faster until, at nearly the speed of light, they collide head on -- bang-crash-boom -- smash together.

The impact vaporizes the particles into tiny fireballs of pure energy. The scientists in charge of this say they have, with this process, re-created the conditions of the first moments after the Big Bang. Each collision is a mini Big Bang" creating so many particles that decay into many-many other particles. But one particle -- the one that Peter Higgs, top scientist at the University of Edinburgh, saw, noted, measured, and photographed occurs at the same place with each test.

It's called the "Higgs Boson." In particle physics "boson" is a rarely used term that, means particle. (My husband pronounced it "bow son" -- is that southern politeness? Maybe it's booson --sort of like a woman's chest?)

Anyway, It's a huge discovery. It's been seen by a second team that referred to the Higgs boson as "The God particle."

It needs to be proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this "boson always appears in the same space, same time. To me, reading through a mountain of technical descriptions, it sounded like much ado over nothing, but a particle, according to Hawking, is probably what created the world.

The woman who heads a third team, Fabiola Gianotti, said, "We cannot conclude anything at this stage. We need four times as much data."

Getting sufficient data requires many thousands of fireballs, and the giant accelerator will need another year or more to crank all of them out and allow Gianotti and her colleagues to announce whether or not they've proved the Higgs Boson.

Gee, if it's proved, does it prove God created the world? Did God create all the the other fantastical things that scientists can't really explain?

I'm not ready to debate any of this with bible-Hawking-book-reader-husband JC. But I'm not blinking, wondering what the fuss is about.

Now that you've read what irreligious Em has gleaned, here's a educated scientist summarizing what I've explained.

video platform video management video solutions video player

DEAR DARLING CELL PHONES

2012-02-07T04:00:00.001-05:00

All those people on the street, talking, chatting out loud to themselves ...

It seems like a world of crazies, until I see the wire crown on the talker's head, or the plug in his ear.

It reminds me of life before people stopped smoking. Most everyone smoked. There were whispers and rumors -- smoking stunts your growth -- it's bad for you -- you might get cancer from smoking. Then came headlines, lawsuits, statistics on lung cancer. And no smoking areas -- more, and then more.

Now, smokers are frowned upon, pitied, ostracized. There are rebels -- young, non-conformist females cluster outside their offices at lunchtime, puffing away. So I edge around them or cross the street.

Okay, there are whispers and rumors about mobile phones -- about 329 million people in the U.S. have them. And fancier, more amazing do-everything phones are selling like hot cakes in the marketplace. Okay, you love your cell phone. It isn't loud and clear that they're shortening you life, or maybe killing you.

So, let's skip the life and death consequences, and just look at WHY we're using them?

Is it for communication? For buying stuff? Is it also, perhaps, because as population increases, we're losing our identities as individuals? And what makes us unique is the people and things with which we're connecting. -- no doubt about it -- the cell connects with whomever we need to communicate, faster, much easier, almost magically.

Uh oh? Is it because a cell can take photos?

In a carton I have thousands of pictures of me dancing. I don't look at often -- it's like fiddling with clothes I've outgrown. Revisiting the day, the hour, the moment in a photo, for me, somehow diminishes the pleasure of now.

But maybe for you, the phone's the book you don't really have time to write -- your memoirs.

I'm thinking that chatting on your cell phone has become a sort of a universal comforting, energizing adjunct-- a NOW-tool -- like credit cards and ATM cards have been. It's something you can do that minimizes noise, the hustle and bustle, the sense that you're just another face in the crowd -- a DO that keeps you functioning in our every-day-more-complicated world.

It's wonderful -- communicating and sharing without touching. With a cell phone's invisible connections you can visit any place, be wherever you want be in the world.

Yes. We need them. Even if our call phones are the cigarette story, they're pleasuring us and helping us survive.

Hmm.

(Video) IF YOU COULD TURN BACK THE CLOCK...

2012-02-05T04:00:00.002-05:00

Em asks her husband, John Cullum, what time in his life would he want to revisit.

It's a question that many of us ask ourselves -- would you want a chance to start your career again? What would you do differently if you were a kid again?

John Cullum's answer surprises Em. His favorite time, the time he'd want to revisit, was his Junior High School days.

John explains that he was already playing tennis and winning matches, that he'd gotten his first part in a school play. He surprises Em as he delightedly mentions "Ethel Capps."

No, she wasn't a pretty young girlfriend.

What Ethel Capps taught him, how it led him to May Gadd, and a whole world that John fell in love with -- still loves -- that's what John Cullum would love to revisit if he could turn back the clock.

POOPED OUT ON POLITICS

2012-02-03T04:00:00.002-05:00

I'm weary, worn out

Can't take it anymore -- people telling me hour by hour, day by day, what's good, what's bad, what's sinful, dangerous, awful, shocking, wrong.

Hammered down, I am, by all the polls -- last year's, this year's, yesterday's, today's polls -- that prove who's winning, who's losing.

Weighted down, yes, I am -- from the scary, terrible news about my country -- this and that is failing, worsening every day.

I don't want to hear more stuff about this or that candidate --how much money they have, what taxes they're paying-not paying, and what this guy and that guy did wrong in his private or his public life.

I love Rachel Maddow but I can't handle her peppy, clear, accurate reports -- revelations about other seriously corrupt things that are going on.

Yii! Super Pacs. When, how, did they creep into our everyday news?

Yes, the curfew tolls the knell of parting day. But now, Super Pacs are knelling the DOOM of democracy where we the people used to actually pick and elect our leaders.

The commercials -- the brilliantly finessed truthful sounding untruths in Super Pac commercials -- dear God, the tons of money the Pac-guys are pouring into controlling who's going to be our next president!

Duh ... that's all I can mumble, about lower class, poor Dems who don't have the Voter Id's that a lot of Repub states already require, that force folks to spend $$ to prove where and when they were born, IF they want to vote.

Meanwhile, one candy candidate is winning, the other's bubble gum is popping, while what's-his-name is doing great but hasn't got a chance or does he? He's logically explaining how the unqualified do-nothing Muslim in the White House, "Entertainer of the Year" is handing out food stamps.

Sing-a-long -- "Tramp, tramp, tramp, Repub-boys are marching, cheer up comrades they are tramping into the mud everything that's crud, which is ABSOLUTELY everything.

Yep, the current Congress runs the depressed, stymied fearful, unsure country -- they're the boss not the Pres.

Hard to breathe under the heavy blanket of words about why we've got to get the floundering Pres OUT of the oval office -- it's a matter of life and death.

Hey lookie! Grab a laugh at the mashup of singing celebs -- Obama, Senators 1995, Reagan 1952, Cain, Clinton, McCain, Orin Hatch, Dennis Kucinich. John Ashcroft. Gee, wow, wooee -- wouldn't it be nice if presidential hopefuls started singing and went for a little harmony!

BLOOMBERG --WHY DO I LIKE HIM? (

2012-02-01T04:00:00.001-05:00

His name -- a Jewish name that lends itself into a nickname -- I think of New York City's Mayor as "Bloomy."

I see him/hear him constantly-- every time there's a crisis in my hometown-- there he is in the news. The decisions he makes certainly affect my life as a New Yorker.

This guy makes sense, explains things clearly, not excessively, but lays out a summary of what the issue is, and his plans for handling whatever it is.

I know from listening carefully -- my ear glued when I've heard him mention guns, and capital punishment -- that he's against capital punishment and is passionately concerned that we have stronger gun control laws. I know he supports -- respects, loves our fireman, cops, teachers -- he's for helping needy people (respecting them, whoever they are). At the same time, Bloomy's aware of the budget and knows what can the city can afford to do.

In a recent six-page spread in Newsweek, (an attack on Bloomy ), readers were warned that Bloomberg is super rich, making more money than the NY Times, Reuters, and Turner or Murdoch. Bloomy apparently has been gathering around him men and technical machines -- he's built a powerful network that sells its information services to subscribers. The network, "Bloomberg LP," is making 30% more money than any of them -- the article promoted the idea that Mayor Michael Bloomberg is trying to dominate the world financially

Okay -- Bloomberg LP. (limited partners) is an ocean of partners and services. It includes B-government, B-legal, B-news, B-media network. B-LP is a Bloomberg Information Center that can provide Bloomy and his subscribers the latest information about what's happening in the world of their endeavor --whatever their endeavor is.

So ... ? Money is as money does. He uses the money to support what he thinks is important. Digging into Bloomberg.com, NYC.gov and Chronicles of Philanthropy, I know Bloomy's generously helping the poor, trying to provide better education, medical help, financial aid. Here's a partial list of what Bloomy's supporting.

The figures aren't in yet on 2011, but in 2010, Bloomberg gave a total of $279.2-million to 970 nonprofit groups that support the arts, human services, public affairs -- stopping the use of tobacco (the smoking that's killing people throughout the world), and gun control -- he took his strong ideas on tobacco, guns, jobs and immigration to Washington. He's knocking himself out, working constantly on getting more jobs, higher paying jobs in NYC,

While building himself a large Twitter and Face Book presence, Bloomy's working with Face Book, Twitter, and TechCrunch -- selling them on creating new, major engineering offices NYC. He's determined to make NYC the world's #1 technology hub.

I can't help wondering when he has time to eat, sleep, and see his girl friend. Does he have one? Yes. Do we know much about her? No. Is he gay? Is that why he supports gay marriage? Probably not -- married for 17 years, he has two grownup daughters.

So is Bloomy hyper something, running for financial king of the world? for president in 2012? What about 2016?

I say no -- I think his Jewish background, his out-in-the-open expression of what he thinks, creates an insurmountable wall. But he's a man of the people, concerned about America, thinking, digging into possible courses of action -- a seat in the senate? maybe a fourth term as mayor?

I like him. I really LIKE him -- like what he stands for, what he's tried to achieve, has achieved. and his actions fit his words.

Hey, I'm not selling him politically. I'm just sharing what I've noted and have learned about a good guy who's running New York City and setting an example, perhaps, for other cities on what a good mayor can do.

CAN YOUR THOUGHTS TURN A KEY?

2012-01-30T04:00:00.001-05:00

Can your thoughts flip a lever, push a button, or open a valve?

Thought control fascinates me.

When I began to read an article in TIME about the latest advances in thought control, I thought it was spooky talk about magicians like Houdini.

Nope. A plain regular man has demonstrated that he can tell a computer, without touching the keyboard, to open and close valves. He's a manager at Ontario Power Generation, a nuclear plant on the outskirts of Toronto.

This guy can do it if he's wearing a device strapped to his arm that measures the ebb and flow of brain activity. The device, called the "BodyWave" is an iPod-size tool with three sensors that touch the skin and detect levels of neurotransmission -- ALPHA waves (your aware-but-relaxed waves), DELTA sleep waves, THETA, daydreaming waves, and BETA, your brain processes.

Alpha, Delta, Theta --the Greek terms turned me off. But by measuring these three waves and your brain processes, the BodyWave device can determine when your concentration has peaked, and you are primed to make an important, split-second decision -- for instance --when to use the scalpel during an operation, when to make a stock trade, when to putt on the 18th green.

I have to admit, I'm enthralled by the idea that the mind can do this. If people praying -- if prayer could make a difference ...? Is science on its way to proving that prayer can make a difference?

Apparently measuring brain waves has already been used at NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) for training pilots operating supersonic planes. At NASCAR (National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing) it's being used for training the crew in a pit, so that tire-changers, by focusing, will be able to remove five lug nuts in one second.

Measuring your focus is known as EEG. (Electroencephalography). When you get red-faced because you're embarrassed, it's a moment of intense concentration. Sensors can register it.

The electrical charges that occur in your brain when you're concentrating on something, means neurons are firing in synchrony. It produces a unique electrical signature that can be measured. When you stop concentrating, the synchrony breaks and the signature changes.

(So it's like the famous s "Rockettes" in a line kicking one leg--if one of them didn't get her leg up in unison with the others --wow, you'd notice it instantly).

It isn't terribly complicated. The Body Wave measures when the neurons change from synchrony. The device is plugged into a USB port; the computer can say if you are focused or
thinking about what to do on the weekend.

It would be great to know when you are concentrating, and when you are drifting, but, at present, the BodyWave has a flaw --it transmits data to a computer screen that shows if you're falling asleep, but there's no sound, or light signal that warns you to stop before you do something stupid. The inventor of the device, Mr. Freer, is a tinkerer and he's still tinkering, certain he can fix this problem.

Concentration -- how long I can sustain a thought -- golly, standing on one leg with a powerful spot light on you -- it takes huge concentration. Working on this post for my blog, my stomach's rumbling -- I notice a hangnail, look at the clock -- yep -- my mind's wandering -- I'm wondering what this post will mean to my readers.

"Stop!" I yell at myself, but I've been working for a couple hours. I know from novel writing, that I can concentrate intensely for about 30 minutes. I know that on a stage, dancing Mahler's Fifth Symphony, I concentrated for an hour. But novel writing and performing are things I've practiced for years. If I was attached to a device measuring my synchrony, right now, I bet it would tell me, "Enough said -- you're done, post this on your blog for readers to chew."

Is the BodyWave something you or I would want to buy? If we practiced, could we become a super concentrated person? (An "Avatar" is the term used in this video clip.)

Click and see what Freer's company says about it.

(video) LISTEN TO YOUR OWN VOICE

2012-01-28T04:00:00.002-05:00

John Cullum and Emily Frankel delve into the subject -- the importance of knowing what you think, what your instinct is, what you like. And learning to listen to your own voice, even as a director explains his ideas, his concept for the part you're playing.

Em feels finding her voice was essential, a major event for her as a writer. It's something she keeps touting to other artists.

John translates the idea into a practical thing for actors. You need to be you, who you are, and be able to hear what others are thinking and doing, and still, find your way back into being YOU.

RENT OUT ASPECTS OF YOUR LIFE

2012-01-26T04:00:00.002-05:00

Gee, what this guy did fascinates us.

Rob Baedeker needed money so he put ad on Craig's list, offering to rent out his camping trailer for $45 a night. He was doing what Airbnb.com does -- it's a website that rents space in people's homes where you can stay -- it's less expensive, often nicer than staying in a hotel in some of the big cities.

Was Rob desperate for money?

No. What I read, and learned about him (from Twitter, Newsweek, and the video below), is that he and his wife are both writers and editors. They have a four-year-old daughter, live in a three room rented bungalow. Their camping trailer is parked next to it. Rob wanted extra money for a vacation, and wanted to start saving money for their daughter's college education.

Rob got two offers -- one wanted the trailer for four nights, the other -- because the trailer wasn't available, decided to sleep on an air mattress in Bob's home office -- four nights at $25 per night. Rob checked out credit and references. He liked both customers. He definitely liked the extra $280. Later, he rented out a weed-whacker, his sander, his car, his dog, his guitar, his daughter's bike, her red wagon, even a stay at his house.

Now he's even renting out himself as a life counselor. (Look out shrinks, this may be a trend that'll cost you guys big money).

Is this a trend -- making money from things you aren't using? Perhaps it is. Other new websites are offering "collaborative consumption"-- ways to connect with folks who will rent out their cars, couches, personal services are on Rentalic.com, Snapgood.com, even dinosaur costumes or clay-pigeon launchers at $12 per day on Zilok.com.

The financial crisis seems to have inspired a new kind of resourcefulness. Aside from our awareness of the environmental consequences of things like plastic bags, throwaway stuff is becoming important. Perhaps our grandparent's "waste not-want not " maxim is coming back into vogue.

A book, "What's Mine Is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption," (by Botsman & Rogers) tells us that people who gain access to things they want without owning them will also "make new friends; and become active citizens once again."

"Gee, what could we rent out?" my husband and I asked each other.'' Sound equipment? Ours is high level professional, not portable, but it thunders, whispers, roars and rocks the house. Hmm. When cars, playing loud music, drive by our house -- dammit-- I hate it, I feel invaded, I cover my ears. Renting out our sound equipment is a dissonant loud NO Way!

Rent out our studio theater with its 65 seats for exercise? For a play reading?

Only if the renter provided assistants -- one on the downstairs door, one in the hall so strangers couldn't wander into our living quarters. But my dance floor -- gee -- shoes leave scratch marks. And there's just one lavatory ... Nope, renting the studio is out.

Okay -- what about my kitchen?

My kitchen is a fun place to cook.
I've got everything a cook needs.
All kinds of gadgets.
New stove.
New huge fridge.
A great dining table.
It's shaped like a mushroom
and seats four to ten.

I've got marvelous dinnerware -- oversize plates, bowls, cups, saucers ... but actually they are not dishwasher safe.
Hmm

Okay. what about our green living room.

Spectacular skylight.

Summer-green floor and matching summer-green ceiling.

Mirrors, big bird cage for our pigeon ...

Gee, the white porch furniture ...

Oh dear ...

The brown and dark red room where we film our videos? Golly, it would take me an hour to explain where things are and what NOT to use.

Of course I could lend/rent out my books if I knew the reader wouldn't eat while reading, and leave-grease spots.

NO. Grease spots on books are repulsive. We don't need the money. But if we did, well ... I could rent out me as a cook, or Dr. Em as a listener-adviser? Maybe we could barter -- if you, the renter, clean the four hallways and vacuum all the stairs in our building, you can rent JC and me out as guests, scintillating guests could spice up your party.

Hmm. Of course, we'd need to know who's coming to your party. Relatives? Kids? How many guests, how old -- we'd need to know in advance, how long we'd have to stay...

I'm sorry I mentioned barter. Please don't make us an offer. Maybe renting out aspects of your life is an option for you, but NOT for me, or JC.

Hey, here's Rob, maybe you can do what he did.

DO YOU LIKE POETRY?

2012-01-24T04:00:00.002-05:00

"Are you in fact, America's most important living poet?" The interviewer asked John Ashbery.

(I'd never heard his name.)

Ashbery, who's 84, murmured humbly, "I get talked about a lot. I enjoy writing the way I do, which doesn't please a lot of people and pleases others enormously, and I guess that's all one can expect."

Belinda Luscombe, interviewing him for Time, asked Ashbery about fame and groupies. (I thought it was a weird question to ask an 84 year old poet, but Ashbery handled it perfectly.)

Ashbery replied, "I was once recognized by a sort of hippie taxi driver, but that was a long time age."

Belinda's next question, "How do you spend your days?" inspired J.A, to say that he writes maybe once a day, once a month, or sometimes just every three months of so.

(Hmm. So how does this poet pay the bills? Do his poems get bought? How much money can a poet make, these days? If my husband wasn't a successful actor, I'd be teaching dancing as exercise (I did for a year-- it cost me money to keep Dancehouse open, and interfered with my writing.)

B.L declared: "There's a wide discrepancy in critical opinion as to what your work really means. Shouldn't you straighten that out?"

"Not at this stage in my career" said honest, humble poet John A. " It was long time before my poetry was first published and then read and then discussed. Those stages took decades, and it wasn't until I was about 40 that I felt that I had an audience. My first book only sold 800 copies over a period of eight years. Before it came out, I was expecting to be hailed as a poet the next day in the press."

(Ahh --the quick sand -- one's expectations of success -- I had high expectations. At various stages of my writing career, four prestigious agents signed me up.and promoted me but I didn't go up, or down, or anywhere. )

B.L: "Do you ever read what the critics write about you and think, 'This is just ridiculous?'"

J.A.: "No, because maybe they're right. I haven't got that much confidence in my writing. It's more like hope."

(That tuneless tune the artist hums inwardly -- "who am I, am I worth bothering with?" If Em the writer, ex dancer has confidence, it's only for a moment or two.)

I took a coffee break and started looking up Ashbery's poems -- found quotes from his poems with thumbs up, thumbs down icons along the sides of the pages; found it depressing that thumbs --"dum-de-dum" -- could mean life or death for an artist.)

B.L rang the bell on success and failure, asking, "Do you ever think of death?"

"I've never not thought about it," said Ashbery.

(Yay J.A. -- even when we don't think about it, death is there. I think it's part of living, breathing, doing a day, ending a day, resting up for tomorrow.)

Ashbery told B, "There are not that many things to write poetry about. There's love and there's death, and time passing, and the weather outside, which is horrible today. I'm so glad I'm not writing poetry today. The weather gets to me when I write."

The talk floated around death and religion until B.L. said, "You grew up in an era when it was considered shameful to be gay. How would your work change if you grew up now?"

The truthful, unpretentious poet Ashbery replied, "There is a school of criticism that says that my poetry is so torturous and obscure because I've been trying to cover up the fact of my sexuality all these years, and I think that's an interesting possibility. But I'm not sure whether that's the generating force in my poetry. I think I would have been attracted to the surrealists anyway."

The Q & A session ended with B.L wanting to know if he could be the most important something else, what would it be?

Humbly, unpretentiously, J.A. said, "I guess it would be wonderful to be America's greatest living painter and have acres and acres of one's work to survey and have prizes and museums and wealth, but I think I'd rather stick with poetry."

Hmm.

I Googled. I've lingered over Ashbery verses, phrases that have left me with impressions of this and that -- nothing to hang onto but footprints in the sand of where the poet's mind traveled.

If you are in the mood to wander, click quotations or this link that will take you to some Ashbery poetry. Or visit the interview. Listen and see if your thoughts, as you watch, are like or dislike.

(Video) WE'VE METAMORPHOSED INTO DUNCES

2012-01-22T04:00:00.003-05:00

"John Cullum, you are not a dunce!," Em declares, and she proceeds to praise him for fixing broken watches and things like electrical circuits, even though he struggles with navigating on the Internet.

The Cullums blame Fire Fox, Google, and You Tube for constantly updating themselves. Just as John and Em figure out what to do on the Internet, and create a routine --oops -- there's a new way that has to be learned.

Old ways, old things, suddenly new ways and new things discombobulate both Cullums. Emily Frankel's fighting it. John Cullum is just plain pissed off!

WHO WAS THE GUY IN EDINBURGH?

2012-01-20T04:00:00.002-05:00

He was good-looking and very bold. I was wearing a striped black and tan, tight-fitting jersey dress. Great dress -- on a world tour with my dance company, I had to wear things that didn't get wrinkled.

In England and Scotland, my Dance Drama Company presented only four ballets. I appeared only at the end of the evening in "Romeo and Juliet," which Todd Bolender choreographed for me. I was training myself to be a stronger artistic director. Using a small tape recorder, I sat in the audience every night, watched the first three ballets, and whispered notes -- notes I'd give the dancers the next day. Not easy notes -- I expressed my real feeling, preparing to tell the truth to each dancer about what he or she was doing poorly and how to improve it.

At intermission, I'd race backstage -- don my costume, check makeup and hair, and head for the stage.

My "Juliet" got raves in Scotland, but in England the major ballet company had just premiered a full length version of the famous tale of star-crossed lovers, and London was in love with another Juliet, a famous new prima ballerina.

I needed morale boosting. After the show in Edinburgh, I sat with a few of my dancers in the hotel lobby, and had a drink, before phoning my husband, John Cullum, in New York. He was in a show. The time difference was weird. It was very expensive, but two minutes of I love you would cheer me up.

In the hotel lobby, the good-looking guy said "Hello --you're beautiful!" and after less than a minute of conversation, he smoothed my dress. Yes! He ran his hands down the sides of my striped tight dress as if he were molding my shape out of clay, and told me very nice things about the look of me. The specifics? I don't remember them, but he was very direct about inviting me to sleep with him.

I ummed -- probably mentioned that I was married to an actor in NY, but I was drinking a martini. What I do remember is that he was playing "Romeo." He named a famous theater in Edinburgh and suggested we meet after his matinee in his dressing room.

Did I say yes? Did I say no? I thought YES I will. I thought WHY NOT? Every evening after his show, my husband went out with his fellow actors and actresses. Was I worried, and jealous -- YES -- if you're married to a John Cullum, the best looking man in the world, you worry.

So I hemmed and hawed and murmured "maybe" to Romeo, and excused myself. I phoned NY. John was home. We talked and talked -- the bill was $76.00.

What happened? Well, I still have the striped, black and tan, tight-fitting jersey dress and it still looks good on me.

Yes, the next day, I thought about Romeo. I wasn't sure what his name was but the local papers raved about the young actor playing Romeo and said he was on the way to becoming a major star.

I spent the morning going over my taped notes, and delivered them to my company in a strong voice during the rehearsal that I scheduled for 3 to 5 in the afternoon.

I didn't know who Romeo was -- not really, not for sure, until I saw movie "Damages." Here's the trailer.

Yes, Romeo in Edinburgh was Jeremy Irons. (Like JC says, " Win some, lose some, some rained out.")

AGEITIS

2012-01-18T04:00:00.002-05:00

A well-known actress we know is suing a major movie website because when it revealed her age, she started losing jobs.

My husband, a legendary performer, is currently being offered jobs for dying grandpas, and great-grandpas with Alzheimer's. Why? Because his age is more or less known, because producers feel if you're over sixty, you are old. (JC would probably do better if he gained 20 pounds and walked with a cane.)

So artists are concerned with age. There's Picasso's haunted looking self portrait on the left. Here's a little Shakespeare: "Friends, Romans, Countrymen," keep away from the numbers.

Keep away from any food, food supplements, pills, talk shows, advisers, therapists, knowledgeable friends, counselors, TV doctors, real living doctors -- keep YOUR BODY & SOUL away from humans who say, "At your age you should ... At your age your shouldn't ..."

Keep away from I should be earning a good living. That's deadly. Also historical summaries: At age ____other artists in my field were already established. Beware of "a person my age shouldn't wear...." Beware of "a person my age can't ... "

If you' trying to sell a book, play, or style, or painting -- or trying to land a job, or go to college and get a degree, or learn a new language, craft, skill, technology, do not think about age. Do not wonder if anyone else has tried -- AT YOUR AGE -- to become a famous, successful, income-producing whatever ... Just do it.

Watch out for age-cliches, age-rationales, age as a factor.

NEVER think at my age I need a flu shot, vitamins, must keep my weight down, exercise, walk, jog. It's okay to be aware of bladder control, but why am I forgetting things? why didn't I hear that? -- THAT will get you to conclusions about how often you need to see the doctor, the dentist, the optometrist.

See doctors if, or when you absolutely need to.

Also, if you're registering or joining something that asks your age, lop off a large chunk of years. If you can't lie, then skip whatever it is.

A world science panel recently said "Age 90 Is the new 50.”

I don't think 90 is the "new" anything, but if age 90 IS the number that says you are old, think of Betty White, 89, and Warren Buffet, age 80, and if you're actually approaching that 80's, don't utter, mutter, or murmur it to anyone, including yourself.

So what about celebrating your birthday. I suggest DO NOT. If you get birthday cards, get the return addresses from the envelope, and throw the cards out. You can't stop people from saying "happy birthday, " but a bunch of people singing "Happy Birthday to YOU!" should be studiously avoided.

Aging is easy if you do the things I've mentioned above, carefully, discreetly and gracefully. If you can't lie, or avoid your loved ones, well ... you will age a little -- not a lot, if you wisely, carefully, cautiously keep eyes and ears open, keep on your toes, and steer clear of the pitfalls listed above.

OVERLOAD

2012-01-16T04:00:00.004-05:00

Facts, trivia, worldwide who's-who, wrong doings, war threats, nuclear, poverty, pandemics ... yowie.

I can't think.

Am think-IRKing, not working, just fumbling, mumbling.

Yes, CRUMBLING, while pronouncing names I never heard of till today -- people, places so down under, I can't even locate 'em on a map.

I'm not a sap, but gee, what I can't retain gives me pain, not just a headache, a sense of woe that won't go away, not today! Not when I'm in an overload mode.

It's a deluge of information -- constipation of a mind that can't find or see what's the priority for me.

OWS? POW'S? NOW issues? Candidates yapping and scrapping. The do nothing congressional freeze? I can't sputter, mutter, sneeze, shout, spit out what's worse, or who to curse.

Overload has corroded my brain's neurons, sensors, cells -- anything that tells me that my conclusions are delusions.

I'm confessing that I'm obsessing -- I'm out of whack! Despite my agility, I lack the ability to stop who's who-ing -- drop what's doing.

Yep, I'm thinking in rhyme because I'm not fine when I can't make sense of this nonsensical mishmash of trashy WHAT?

A ton of news --
Tons of views --

A lot of rot ...

It's doodley squat!

(video) DO WEIRDOS MAKE YOU NERVOUS?

2012-01-14T04:00:00.002-05:00

John Cullum and Em compare their reactions to oddballs they see on the street.

Do you deem a person a crackpot, strange duck, a kook, because of what he/she is doing or promoting? Or is it clothing? The person's strange demeanor? Is that what makes a person "weird?"

The Cullums wonder if they react because someone who's seems "different" makes them uneasy, and discuss whether they ought to change their ways.

ANXIETY

2012-01-12T04:00:00.000-05:00

Whee, this is important, I thought, when I saw the cover of my magazine.

Whoa, my Dr. Em self thought, as I delved into the 7 pages on WHY ANXIETY IS GOOD FOR YOU.

It's words, words, words defining, re-defining, explaining brain areas, hypothalamus, pituitary-adrenal (HPA), stria terminalis (BNST), amygdala, cortisol, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), phobias, panic disorder, social anxiety and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the relation of all this to DNA, white blood cells, hormones, and stress -- the kind that's self defeating, the other kind that inspires you to meet and conquer a stress-creating challenge.

Time magazine employs some very skilled, experienced writers whose articles I read, but often end up skimming because ... well ... maybe it's because I don't know enough -- too many references and abbreviations often keep me from understanding what the point IS, in the article. For me, it's as if I've bought a ticket to a play with an interesting title, good cast, even star names, but the plot ...? After I've met the cast, I can't connect with the drama. Even as I wonder if it's my ignorance, I blame it on the playwright, director, producers and sneak out of the theater at intermission.

Richard Stengel, the managing editor of Time, in my opinion, is a commercially-minded boss. He's in tune with the times. He knows what's hot or getting hot, and features topics that will sell, that get people to buy the magazine. Undoubtedly Stengel deals with his own anxieties daily, because every week he's putting together an action-packed, information-packed 70 to 90 pages of stories, pictures, and ads that will attract age 10 -100-year-old readers.

For this cover story seven authorities, at seven major anxiety treatment centers were consulted. If you need help coping with your anxiety, browse this list: Sally Winston, co-director of the Anxiety & Stress Disorders Institute of Maryland (ASDI); Elissa Epel, a psychologist at the University of California, San Francisco; Reid Wilson of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, director of the Anxiety Disorders Treatment Center; Michael Davis at Emory University; Dr. James Abelson, director of the Stress & Anxiety Disorders Program at the University of Michigan; Dr. Craig Smith, chairman of the department of surgery at Columbia University Medical Center and New York--Presbyterian (Bill Clinton's heart doc); Diego Pizzagalli of Harvard Medical School, director of the Center for Depression, Anxiety & Stress Research at McLean Hospital.

Eeny, meeny, miney, moe -- whatever is near you, that's where to go!

I perked up when the article referred to stage fright -- the churning stomach, sweaty hands, fearful thoughts like "Will I forget my lines? can I do that pirouette? can I produce the tears? will I get the laugh?" I was glad the article mentioned the sometimes HELPFUL use of anti depressants, sometimes DETRIMENTAL use of them, and encouraged us who feel anxiety, to practice converting scaredy-poop thoughts (my term) into positive thoughts. For instance, when the stage manager calls "places please," and you're ready to die -- you need to tell yourself, "Stop worrying, you always feel like this, the last time I felt like this you got a rave review."

It was seven pages of blah-blah -- not helpful, not serving any purpose -- just categorizing anxiety with words and acronyms, saying, if you are anxious, you better try not to be, otherwise you'll feel worse."

Famous wise men such as Soren Kierkegaard have said anxiety is "dizziness of reason." T.S. Eliot called it "the handmaiden of creativity."

Dr. Em says, If you are anxious, turn the page and make yourself think about something else.

JOAN DIDION IS NOT CERTAIN ANYMORE.

2012-01-10T04:00:00.001-05:00

To the left -- lovely Didion, after she had her daughter.

On the right -- Joan Didion, not lovely. It was taken recently, at a press conference in Brooklyn.

She told reporters, "I'm not certain anymore."

It's in her face.

It's in her new book "Blue Nights."

So? I used to jump in and express my feelings about this and that. Now, I don't jump, and quite instead of expressing how I feel, often I just shut up. I am not certain how I feel about a lot of things these days.

When I'm driving my car, I'm okay . I'm certain about where I'm heading. If it's somewhere new, I've checked the route on a map. I drive on confidently to the turn off -- be it a super highway or an unpaved road -- and make any necessary adjustments as the need arises. But socially, artistically, not being certain hangs over me.

Just by reading the titles of Joan Didion's works (a list is at the end of this post), you re-live her life-journey with her, climbing mountains that she climbed, using her ropes and ladders. Up you go! Down you go! Missing a rung, you slip, fall and hang on tight and heave-ho yourself up again, as you identify with what she loved, despised, reached for, got, didn't get, and left behind.

Didion's special gift is the way what she writes -- unfancy -- somehow her words speak directly to you, whomever you are. She knows success -- is well known in the literary world, has earned big money, yet, like us, sometimes she's anxious, unpleasant, angry, bitter. Other times she's amused, curious, searching for balance and wondering what reality truly is.

I catch myself wondering (as Didion wonders now in "Blue Nights") why did I spend my life climbing, learning all I learned? With the wealth of what I learned in my head, in my heart, I should be able to be --just BE.

When you pick a photo for a passport, a driver's license, or for a profile picture on Facebook, you don't select the worst photo, like the unlovely Joan Didion in the right. But what she was feeling-- troubles, woes, weariness, uncertainty are in that face on the right. She's not an actress. She didn't paste on a smile and tell reporters how happy she was that her new book is selling well, and has been praised by the critics.

That's Didion's talent. Her honesty touches us and involves us with what she's feeling. "Only yesterday," Didion writes, "I could still do arithmetic, remember telephone numbers, rent a car at the airport and drive it out of the lot without freezing, stopping at the key moment, feet already on the pedals but immobilized by the question of which is the accelerator and which the brake."

Hey Joan D -- want my advice? Your honesty is wonderful, but maybe it's time to. STOP squinting at the past. Box the past and position it on a shelf -- a high one, that you rarely need to access.

You worked and learned rung-by-rung to be what you are now. Write about day-to-day living -- speak of it simply -- speak with the wealth of what you are now. Publishing your new book, you're obviously still learning, still ascending, and still experiencing triumph.

My advice to Joan Didion is advice to me, if the shoe fits, it's for you, also. Stop wondering and being "not certain." Just Be. What you are, who you are, and, where you are.

Skim these titles, years:
* Run, River (1963) fiction; * Slouching Towards Bethlehem (1968) non-fiction; * Play It As It Lays (1970) fiction; *The Panic in Needle Park (1971 screenplay; *Play It As It Lays (1972) screenplay; * A Star Is Born (1976) screenplay; * A Book of Common Prayer (1977) fiction; *The White Album (1979) non-fiction; * True Confessions (1981) screenplay; *Salvador (1983) non-fiction; *Democracy (1984) fiction; * Miami (1987) non-fiction' *After Henry (1992) non-fiction; *The Last Thing He Wanted (1996) fiction; *Up Close & Personal (1996) screenplay' * Political Fictions (2001) non fiction; * Where I Was From (2003) non-fiction; *Fixed Ideas: America Since 9/11 (2003); non-fiction; *Vintage Didion (2004) non-fiction; *The Year of Magical Thinking (2005) non-fiction; *We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live: Collected non-fiction (2006); * Blue Nights (2011)

(Video) WHAT IS A "PRETTY GIRL?"

2012-01-08T04:00:00.003-05:00

Em surprises John Cullum. After getting him to sing "A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody," she quizzes him, and wants to know what makes a girl pretty? What does John observe about female passersby?

For John it's a tricky question, one a loving husband is reluctant to answer.

Reassuring him that she understands, that she knows she's his number one pretty girl, Emily pursues the question and delves into his answers, enjoying putting him on the spot, and really curious to know what is a "Pretty Girl" nowadays.

PAPER, PINS, PENNY PINCHING

2012-01-06T04:00:00.003-05:00

Why do I save paper napkins? Every morning I save the one I wrap around my toasted bagel so I can bring the bagel downstairs to my desk with my coffee. But later in the day, I don't throw the napkin out. I fold it and bring it back upstairs for tomorrow's bagel.

I save comfortable stretched-out panties -- some with un-elastic elastic and rips in the fabric -- my God -- some are maybe 15 years old! And I save bobby pins. I don't know why. After I use them, I put them back in a bobby pin box.

Why do I wear the black warm-ups that I bought 20 years ago in LA ? They're worn thin in spots; they don't keep my legs warm; I have to wear an elastic waist band to keep them up, but THEM I wear -- NOT the brand-new, well-fitting, tailored looking but similar warm up pants I bought last winter? I bought three pairs. I never wear them.

Why do I prefer my old things? Am I a penny-pincher?

Is it the syndrome of the housewife with the fancy parlor which she never uses, only uses if she's entertaining very special high-falutin' guests?

Uh oh... I think I'm beginning to understand this use old things syndrome.

I see it when my husband wraps the last bite of his steak in Saran Wrap. I see it in his closet that's crammed with shoes, jackets, pants, and shirts he no longer wears -- some of these things are former "best outfits." Also underwear. He's got about 10 unopened packages of shorts piled in one of his dresser drawers.

Furthermore, he compares prices when he shops, checking "ounces" in a package or a can, dividing it by the price.

I scoff at him, but perceive that it's the same as my saving paper, bobby pins, and panties. I think I should take all my old panties and his old jockey shorts -- throw them out! Today, immediately -- stop typing this post -- go upstairs and do it!

But ... no. I can't do it. A part of me thinks that all this has to do with time passing, the sense of aging, of you, yourself wearing out. You're comparison shopping yourself with younger folks because the old things in your closet are aspects of YOU that are no longer useful. And throwing them out ... well, throwing them out is ... well, it isn't death, but it IS preparing for the end of your life and throwing bits of you out.

Let's laugh. It's so typical, so common.

ANGELINA. JOLIE

2012-01-04T04:00:00.002-05:00

She's WOW perfect-- a stunning, head-to-toe sexy, gorgeous actress who can play any role.

When I saw her on the cover of Newsweek -- puffy kissable lips, sculpted cheekbones, eyes looking out from the page as if she could see me, I wondered why is she on the cover?

The answer was there beneath her perfect hands. "A NEW MOVIE A NEW MISSION, ANGIE GOES TO WAR." Angelina Jolie is emerging as a writer, director, producer, sort of like Clint Eastwood.

Her publicists are doing a great job -- she's thirty-six now, with six children, three of her own and three whom she adopted. (I know, from my own and my husband's show business background, that a star's words, photos, statements are worked on by press agents planning and collaborating carefully with their famous client.)

Ten years ago Jolie was wild, outrageous, unconventional -- I can't forget her wearing, around her neck, a vial of blood from one of her husbands, her bragging about making love in public places; her ugly remarks about her famous actor dad, Jon Voight, and I didn't invent the fact that she's touted her own bisexuality, and her tattoos.

Well, now the tattoos are mostly covered with makeup or lasered away. She's reconciled with her dad. She's been seen all over the world with refugees and displaced persons. Her quest to become a humanitarian has been helped by her partner, Brad Pitt. After all, he's one of the most famous international male stars in the world.

No doubt about it, hints have been appearing in major magazines and television shows about their marriage. Obviously their publicists have been told by them to transform the fascinatingly unconventional, couple in to an adoring Mr. and Mrs.

Hey, they are skilled actors, They've been a loving couple, playing a loving couple for six years. Acting is "acting" -- creating a feeling, a truth. In every movie I've seen Jolie in, she's what I watch -- my eyes go to her. Right now she' s "acting," performing a new role.

The NY Times writer who interviewed Jolie recently, before the opening of her film, Land of Milk and Honey, said, "Ms. Jolie is also aware that, given her image as a Hollywood star, her pursuit of more weighty matters may expose her to ridicule. For every critically acclaimed movie by George Clooney or Sean Penn, there’s a mercilessly mocked Madonna or Kevin Spacey vanity project."

Yep -- we put our stars on pedestals -- we knock them down. I don't know why I don't like Angelina Jolie or trust her. But gee, if a movie director's career is what she's promoting, I can't help wondering why in Newsweek there were three pages -- yes THREE full-size pages-- of wonderfully retouched photos of the Wow perfect Angie?

I think Angie's selling tickets, selling Angie, as an ever more starry star, director, producer writer.

Tell me if I'm wrong. I'll listen.

DEBRIS

2012-01-02T04:00:00.005-05:00

I'm looking out my window. It's the first Monday, the beginning of the first work week of 2012.

It looks the same -- gray street, gray, white, and red brick buildings, lamps posts, parked cars, meters like sentries that demand how much -- $18.00 for a half hour of parking on our street (last year it was $14.) It's a busy business street in the heart of Manhattan.

Yesterday, in the buildings across the street, like last year and the year before, I could see marvelously decorated Christmas trees on quite a few different floors -- all large -- bigger than the trees I saw last year, and all appeared to have been expensively, creatively, labored over.

Soon, maybe even today, they'll be in the street.

And steel Dumpsters will be in street, piled high with cartons, gift boxes -- piles of red, green, gold, silver things -- ribbons, bows, labels, cards, protective tissue, wrapping paper -- so many pretty things everyone picked out carefully, purchased, debated over how to handle, then wrapped, tied, taped and fussed with.

Like the Christmas trees. After the holiday you can keep the tree up for a week or two -- you can pretend not to notice the branches -- green becoming brown and brittle -- browned, dead, pine needles beginning to cover the floor around the base of the tree, migrating, magically moving into other parts of the house that have to be kept clean.

Nobody wants pine needles on the kitchen floor. I don't want pine needles in the bathroom.

So, we'll move our tree into the hall -- trees are elevatored or carried to the street, and laid to rest ignobly on their sides at the curb.

Sometimes the tree lies there and brown turns to gray until the garbage trucks and the garbage men arrive and the remnants of what once was your marvelous -- oh, this is IT tree! -- are disposed of.

Ours was a lovely tree -- a little crooked, but it grew and grew somewhere to be ready for us to chose it, buy it, make it into ours.

Well, it'll be Ground Hog day in a minute, then Valentines .... Happy New Year -- hello two zero one two! Hey, 2-0-1-2 will harder to type than 2011 ...

Oh my goodness, I forgot to give a holiday present to our postman -- well, tomorrow I'll give a holiday present to the whomever delivers the mail -- the woman who replaced our friendly postman who retired wasn't friendly. Maybe she'll perk up if I say I'm Em, what's your name?

Yep, things have changed since last year, but if you know who people are, even my street turns into a chummy neighborhood.

GREETINGS

2012-01-01T04:00:00.001-05:00

JOHN CULLUM sings the song
he wrote for Em's Talkery, Emily Frankel's blog.

The Cullums call the song 'HI FROM US."

RESOLUTIONS

2011-12-31T04:00:00.001-05:00

Emily Frankel, as last year was ending, asked John Cullum about his New Year's resolutions.

John hemmed and hawed until Emily announced that she had resolved to cook more dinners for him.

Recalling some of their old New Years Eve resolutions, the Cullums agree -- their best resolutions have been made, not on New Year's, but before the holiday, and during the new year, when something happens that requires a strong resolve to fix.

Yes, here's what we said last year, but the fact of the matter is -- every time we refer to our plans for corn bread, dinners, projects or leisure in 2011, change the number. Loud and clear resolve with us, hope with us that we'll hold onto them for 2012.

TYRA BANKS

2011-12-29T04:00:00.001-05:00

The stunning former model, Tyra Banks, is fascinating. She can model and look sexy, young, chic, elegant in almost any kind of outfit. She can talk her way into and out of and around almost any subject.

Tyra yells, screams, weeps real tears -- she can be very cruel, very sweet, motherly, sisterly, tender, as she confronts and subtly competes with much younger girls, and invariably wins first prize for beauty, talent, and know-how, no matter who, or how gorgeous her guest is.

Banks is a big gal -- 5'10", big boobs, broad hips, up and down in weight -- sometimes slender, sometimes borderline zaftig, voluptuous . She knows how to hide, disguise, somehow magically reconfigure her shape, along with her hairdo -- with one of her -- how many? I'm guessing she's got more than 200 wigs, and an endless array of formal, fancy, sloppy, cute, sleek, ultra haute couture, revealing outfits.

Wikipedia reports her yearly income is currently $28 million.

Every day she's on TV in the "Tyra Banks Show" or "America's First Model," which seems to have set the standard for reality show cruelty. After we briefly meet each contestant and each reveals how desperately she needs to win, and explains why she is sure she's the best, most talented, most truly destined to win, Tyra discusses the girl's assets, the girls' mistakes, and wham -- like God -- Tyra's stance, her manner, her judgment says she's God -- Tyra Banks suspensefully announces who won by revealing one by one, who lost.

For me, this is sadistic, and not entertaining. "America's First Model" is a show about ambitions and dreams that is inspiring more and more young girls to pursue modeling, a career that creates in little girls, who are still too young to compete, what I think is repulsive, obsessive vanity, along with a grab-bag of misconceptions about femininity.

We can't ignore Tyra's growing popularity. She won't run for president but she's a super powerful 37-year-old woman who's already a guru.

Here's a clip -- Tyra announcing the winner with a burning, relishing, intense look of delight in her eyes as the contestants wait for the ax to fall.

Have fun with this clip of clever Tyra Banks showing off, her "fat Ass."

CELEBRATING?

2011-12-27T04:00:00.001-05:00

Yay! Whoopee! Women are celebrating.

What? Why?

When I read articles. and there have been quite a few lately, about women becoming more powerful, earning more, being treated as well or better than men, I nod, but also I sort of cringe.

I'm a woman and I want women to do better don't I?

Well ... mm ... Hillary Clinton whom I admire and pay attention to, recently said, “I believe that the rights of women and girls is the unfinished business of the 21st century." Mmm. But celebrating our progress right now feels wrong.

It's great that people are more educated these days, and paying attention to women's progress, but I think other things are more important.

The end of DADT -- I'm celebrating that! You can enlist and be who you are. And focus on poverty, starvation, people trapped in cultures that are at least 50 years behind the times, with no doctors, no medicine, running out of water, people dying and thrown away like garbage -- focus on wars, civil wars, tribal wars and us, the big benefactor -- we're sending billions to the countries to help what?

Help whom? Help promote Democracy American style?

Yes, many of the thoughts I have today are colored by the dilemma of our country today where Democracy is not working. It's been taken over by Americans who have found a way to run the country -- to RULE the country their way.

Suddenly we have a ruling upper class and a lower class.

I'm glad women are progressing even though I'm not celebrating it. I'm glad more soldiers will be coming home from Afghanistan. I'm glad -- very glad -- that the Wall Street Protests are alive and kicking and happening throughout the country. I'm glad that my husband is working and we own a building and won't be poor, even if the country dips into a deeper depression.

I can't celebrate because I am fearful about what's ahead for America between now and November 2012, and I see that many Americans, feeling as I do, are no longer really sure they want Obama to be reelected.

I think Barack Obama is our hope -- his second term, a Democratic majority in Congress is what I'm focusing on, and yes, oh yes -- that's something I'll celebrate.

IS THERE A SANTA CLAUS?

2011-12-25T04:00:00.013-05:00

This is an excerpt from my e-book "Splintered Heart." (It's on Amazon.com) Is Marian Melnik me? Yes, AND no. All the characters in my novels have aspects of me. But the novel is not a story about me.

It was at Christmas time, when Marian Melnik was seven-years-old, that she had learned about praying.

The Melnik family was Jewish. They were not synagogue-goers. They were agnostics. Marian's father had explained it all to her in a cherished moment of real grown-up conversation.

"I'm an agnostic my dear, not an atheist. Atheism is something different." Anatol Melnik explained the difference to Marian carefully -- that there was a God but God wasn't necessarily Jehovah, Jesus, Buddha or the Lord. You could make up your own idea of God if you were agnostic.

Sometimes, when Daddy talked about things like Pharaoh and Ra, Thor and Vikings, Zeus and Hercules -- it was very interesting. But sometimes when he was talking about "alternative philosophies" like Ethical Culture, and "metaphysics" Marian could not help but let her mind wander. She would think ahead for big words to say, to show she understood. She knew her Daddy loved her smartness. He would smile, not his small-sized smile but his big one, when she managed to surprise him with a new big word.

"I absolutely comprehend," Marian said when her father was finished. And she did understand. Christmas was for Christians, not for agnostics.

Most all the children in the private school were Christians. The school was filled with red, blue, green, gold and silver decorations. There was a Christmas tree with colored lights, colored balls and tinsel in her classroom. There was going to be a Christmas party with candy canes, grab bag gifts, and Christmas carols.

Uncle Milton and Aunt Paula lighted candles, sang Hebrew songs, gave her cousins each a Chanukah gift -- last year a Mickey Mouse watch for Sammy, a locket for Natasha. Marian's best friend, Mary Ellen Warner was a High Episcopalian and she was going with her family to Acapulco for Christmas and New Year's. At Marian's home, the holidays meant that she didn't have to go to school.

But Agnostic was O.K., at least it made Marian one of a kind. Not "run of the mill" which was what Mary Ellen said about the Lutheran, Protestant, and Presbyterian girls in their class.

Marian tried to pray agnostically. She had been reading about Joan of Arc, who had talked to God and heard voices. Marian tried talking to her idea of God in her mind. She wanted Him to talk to her about Mamma.

Mamma stayed in bed most of the time. She was either tired or she had a headaches, or both things.

Daddy said, "Marian, I want you to promise that you will be brave and strong. And very gentle with Mamma. You've got to be a very extra special child for while."

In the bathroom with the door locked, Marian had looked it up in the Medical Book. She couldn't find out about "Tired" and "Headache" but she found out about Polio, Scarlet Fever, Sex, Spinal Meningitis, Syphillis, T.B. and Whooping cough.

She was terribly worried about keeping the promise that she'd made to Daddy. She prayed agnostically, that she wouldn't get one of the horrible diseases or the tired headache like Mamma.

All the girls in Marian's class expected dolls -- the kind that wet themselves or movie star dolls with real human hair and wardrobes. One girl was getting a fur coat and the boys were hoping for radios or bicycles. Everyone knew it was parents who gave the presents but the talk was still of Santa Claus and what Santa Claus might be bringing them.

"I know Santa's bringing me a pair of pink satin toe shoes, and a Punch and Judy puppet theater," said Mary Ellen Warner. Mary Ellen was taking ballet for grace, and elocution lessons for poise. "What about you, Marian?"

"Probably my parents are going to give me an Encyclopedia Britannica." An encyclopedia had already been ordered, not for Christmas but for the family's general self-improvement.

"An encyclopedia?" Mary Ellen Warner wrinkled her nose the way she did when a boy came over to play with them.

"Actually I think I'm probably getting a Bulova watch and a string of cultured of pearls and also probably a piano!" That impressed Mary Ellen Warner. When Mary Ellen got too snobby or stuck up, Marian had to invent ways of making her shut up.

"Couldn't we celebrate Christmas just this year, Mamma?" Marian asked her Mamma wistfully. Occasionally Mamma would say 'yes' to things without a great deal of fuss, but Mamma just said the usual -- "You'd better ask your father."

The thing about Christmas was not just the presents. It was the decorations and the music. All the children's voices lifted in song -- it made Marian feel as if she were part of a huge family holding hands around the equator of the world, looking up at the same stars and sending notes of music up into the clouds like the ever-larger smoke ring circles from her Daddy's cigarette.

The shiny fragile balls on the trees -- she wished she could have one of each color, just to hold them, look into them and see herself reflected. The icicle tinsel -- she wanted that too -- the silver fringe for a ballerina gown.

Last birthday, Marian's Daddy had taken her to Radio City Music Hall. She never would forget the vision -- the girl dancing with her Prince, her crown of diamond spires, her dress all glitter-gleam lace and sparkles.

And never ever would Marian forget the way the symphony orchestra came rising up from below -- musicians like penguins in their black and white suits, the silver and gold horns, the B O O M of the kettle drums, the up and down bowing-sticks of violins and cellos all moving together, all following their leader the Conductor who made the music get bigger and bigger until it filled every inch of blue space on the stage and in the theater which was one of the biggest theaters in the world -- her Daddy said.

"I am definitely going to be a musician when I grow up, a piano player or a conductor," Marian said to herself. You had to have alternatives, so if that didn't work out, Marian decided she wouldn't mind being a ballerina.

The Prince was part of it. Somewhere in the world, perhaps upside-down in China and growing up like her cousin Sammy was growing up -- there was a boy who would someday marry her. Marian knew, quite definitely, her Prince was not going to be fat like Sammy. Her Prince would definitely be as tall, as handsome as Daddy. She liked to imagine whirling and gliding with him to the rippling music that was in her ears when she was swinging on the swings at the playground.

A few weeks before Christmas, though she realized it was childish, Marian began praying for what she wanted from Santa. She was tentative at first. "Please let me get something for Christmas." But as the time grew closer, her prayers grew longer. She began to do "Now I lay me down to sleep." Then, to that prayer she added "God Bless Mamma, Daddy, Sara our maid, Uncle Milton, Aunt Paula, and my cousins," and onto that she added, "And could I have a string of pearls for Christmas. And a wrist watch. And could you consider a piano?

Marian wrote out a list, put it in an envelope addressed to Santa and placed it on the table in the hall, figuring Sara who was a good maid would show it to Mamma who would show it to Daddy. Probably they'd laugh but maybe they'd open it, and maybe they'd pay attention to the items on the paper.

The next day it was gone.

Nobody mentioned it, but that was hopeful.

A week before Christmas, Marian robbed her piggy bank. Using Mamma's nail file, she found she could scratch up into the slot and get out a few coins. In the locked bathroom, she managed to dig out two quarters, eight dimes, seventeen pennies, and three nickels.

More money came her way unexpectedly when she helped Sara organize the kitchen drawers. There was seventy-two cents in loose change which Sara said Marian could keep. And then on Sunday, when Marian got her Daddy his Times from the corner, he gave her a whole dollar bill tip.

The next day, at the 5 & 10, Marian bought a box of assorted balls and a pack of icicle tinsel. She wanted to have her own secret celebration of Christmas, her own private shrine. She knew even a small tree was out of the question, but she priced the miniature nativity scenes.

With $3.34 to start with, balls and tinsel using up $2.25, there was only $1.09 was left. It didn't take long to find out that even the least expensive "Little Town of Bethlehem" was out of the question, but on the other side of the counter there were other souvenirs -- Eiffel Towers, keys to the city, windmills, back-scratchers and rickshaws.

The rickshaw was IT. Such a tiny teeny thing, all hand-carved wood -- wooden wheels with spokes like tooth-picks, tiny grips carved in the handles that pulled the carriage -- it even had a teeny wood-carved cushion and the smallest of small little foot-rests for the royal lady who would hire the rickshaw to take her through the busy streets of Japan and China.

The price was just 79 cents, so Marian bought it. She put the remaining 30 cents back into the piggy when she got home.

After stringing the colored balls on red yarn, Marian hung them in her window in a graceful scallop. She draped eight tinsel icicles between each ball. On the window sill she placed her green hair ribbon and some absorbent cotton. Once the royal rickshaw was carefully placed on the ribbon, it looked like a roadway surrounded by snow drifts.

Marian presented the shrine to her parents the way the guide at the Museum had presented the Egyptian exhibit. She stood up very straight, gestured to the window sill, explaining that decorations were traditional, it was important to conform to traditions since she was going to become a non conformist when she grew up, and celebrating Christmas was a way of orientating herself to the heritage of mankind.

Daddy did not say anything, but as he was examining the rickshaw, he smiled an extra big smile. Mamma said, "But darling, where did you get the money for all these things?"

"It's just leftover stuff from school. Some lady gave me the rickshaw. She didn't want it because it was made in Japan." Mamma was like Mary Ellen Warner. You sometimes had to invent things for Mamma. Little white lies were O.K. to tell, especially when you told them in order to be polite.

The explanation seemed to satisfy Mamma, and Daddy started talking about the boycott, the surplus inventory because of the War.

The last night before Christmas Eve, Marian looked out up at a star.

"Please dear God, a pearl necklace, a watch and maybe a piano -- I would certainly appreciate that, but I'd especially appreciate it if You would show me that You are there!" She was thinking of Joan of Arc and her voices. "Even if you can't give me those things, just give me a little sign that You can hear me."

Christmas Eve, she hung up a stocking and read a poem. So it would be a ceremony, she sang "Silent Night" and "Away in the Manger," then blew a kiss to the North, to the South, to the East and to the West. Checking the clock to be sure it was a full thirty minutes, she thought long, hard, and prayerfully about her Mamma, did "Now I lay me down to sleep" ten times, very slowly. The prayer wasn't to Santa Claus, it wasn't for pearls, watch, or piano. Marian wanted to know if there was a God and this was God's chance to prove it.

She left the window open wide even though it was freezing cold, just in case there was a Santa spirit that might want to come in.

Christmas morning Marian sprang out of bed and rushed to the window. The stocking was empty. There was no sign, not even the tiniest indication that God or Santa had heard her prayers or that either one of them or anything like God or Santa existed.

Her room was cold. She stayed there most of the day.

When Marian brought up the subject at dinner, Daddy explained it: "Praying is something that people invented, it gives them comfort. Don't count on praying, dear. You have to do things yourself. What you pray for you do not necessarily get!"

She nodded. The philosophy was very clear.

A week later, when Marian came home from school, Mamma was gone. Sara said, "Your mother is in the hospital."

Marian felt as if she was going down the swooping curve on the Coney Island roller coaster and had left her stomach behind at the top of the hill. She wondered if what had happened had anything to do with being an agnostic, disobeying her Daddy's rules and praying to God and Santa.

Marian put her four dolls in a shopping bag to give to Mary Ellen Warner who thought having a lot of dolls was very important. The green ribbon went into the waste basket, the cotton was flushed down the toilet. Then she broke the Christmas tree balls one by one and put the pieces in the kitchen trash can. She handed the royal rickshaw to Sara the maid.

Sara said, "Maybe you should keep it, and give it to your baby brother. He's coming home with your Mamma day after tomorrow."

"OH!" Marian said.

She retrieved the green ribbon, put it and the royal rickshaw on a high shelf, so she could use them next Christmas, and teach her new brother about God and Santa watching over you whether you liked it or not.

NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS

2011-12-24T04:00:00.002-05:00

Emily Frankel introduces the poem that Clement Clarke Moore wrote and published in 1823.

John Cullum reads aloud, "Twas the Night Before Christmas."

MY FAVORITE GIFT

2011-12-23T04:00:00.007-05:00

Here's me last year, December 23, 2011, talking about my most favorite gift. In the video I mention my husband's job.

Though John Cullum is not in "Scottsboro Boys" which, alas, closed, he's going to be a guest in "30 Rock," and "The Middle" on television, in January or February.

Anyhow, I still feel the same way about my favorite gift -- it's not very expensive, not very rare -- just a gift that I was given in a brown manila envelope, stuffed with crinkled-up newspaper.

Why the gift is still my favorite, most loved gift is not because of the way it looks, but what the giver figured out, and why the gift was chosen.

CLOONEY MOONING

2011-12-21T04:00:00.007-05:00

Here's a photo of George Clooney's castle In Lake Como, Italy.

If you are a George Clooney fan, (I am, sort of), you notice that he's in the news more than ever. Is it just the fame balloon that's blown with more air because he's doing more films? Or because he's sexy, good looking, optimistic? Or because he's got ideas and issues he's promoting?

Time Magazine reporter, Richard Stengel, asked the actor/director/activist questions that has me wondering if Clooney might be a presidential candidate someday? (Surely George has seen Robert Redford in the film, "The Candidate," and is very aware of handsome, good-looking Ronald Reagan's switcheroo from actor to politician.)

Stengel asked George, "Are you disappointed in Obama?" Clooney, who supported Obama in his pre-election days, not only said "no." Clooney said Hollywood ought to be handling Democrats, who have not learned to promote their achievements.

Stengel said, "What about Reagan's comment, that a candidate needs to be a good actor?"

Clooney replied that Obama was a good actor when his back was up against the wall, but could use some pointers -- a good director's directing on how to handle day to day communication. George described the work he's been doing to help the Sudanese -- the satellite camera he installed 400 miles above the scene, so that the world could see the real war and see what's really happening in Sudan -- not tribal fighting -- the graves, tanks , helicopters.

Was Clooney tweeting on Twitter, Stengel inquired.

"No, said George. said. He explaining that he drinks in the evening and doesn't want anything he says or does after midnight to end his career -- where "you can kiss my ass" can be spelled all wrong. (It was an astute answer -- celebs are constantly misquoted, or attacked for accidental references that can be grossly misinterpreted.)

Re his fabulous home in Lake Como, Italy: George confirmed that his living there has inspired boat loads of tourists who are now saying he paid $25 million for his house. "Which I did not pay."

About the Wall Street protesters, Clooney said, "Every time there's an actual grassroots movement that isn't funded by people trying to increase a grassroots movement, is interesting."

(Mmm ... he answers questions, elusively, doesn't he ... )

When Stengel asked what George thought about billionaire Warren Buffet's statement that rich people should be paying more taxes, the wealthy Clooney didn't say yes or no. He said, "I don't know how you can argue about that."

At the end of the interview Stengel asked "Would you run for office?"

Clooney quipped, "No. I'd from FROM office. My job is much more fun."

A question I would ask my husband's friend George: You're not shy, in fact you seem to promote your very busy sex life with various gorgeous girl pals -- will you ever get married?" (All those different girls Clooney seems to be going steady with ... it makes show-biz-wise Em wonder a bit wickedly, but realistically -- with his reverence for the Clooney name, I would think he'd want a passel of kids? Could George Clooney be gay? )

Anyway, it's fun wondering. Here he is in a recent television interview.

SPERM DONERING ?

2011-12-19T04:00:00.001-05:00

Hmm ... You and your partner would like to make a baby but you can't make one?

Baby -- eyes, velvet-like perfect skin, sweet delicate kissable lips, wiggling limbs, tiny toes -- petal ears and grabbing needing-me-teeny tiny fingers -- breathtaking beauty ...

You can't make it without sperm.

Sperm donors ... Who are they? What do they earn? Why do men to it? To ejaculate -- the need to? Or is there something that I don't understand about ejaculating -- the joy -- enjoying the wetness, the mess? Or is there a profound joy in the seed of one's own seed?

I looked up Artificial Insemination. It can cost $2000 - $10,000, depending upon how and where you find a donor. And donors make contractual demands that may not fit with what a gay couple or a childless straight couple wants, sometimes absolutely desperately needs.

Nowadays, you can find 'donorsexual' on the web— a service for free.

Newsweek reporter, Tony Dokoupil, describes a married female couple's adventure, sorting through ads, forums, websites, picking out a right man who is giving his sperm away altruistically -- meetings with the man, learning about his health, negotiating parental rights, and his attitude toward revealing his identity to his future offspring, and finally arranging the donation.

Insemination requires a meeting, a method of injecting fresh sperm into the woman's vagina. If sexual intercourse with a stranger is out, it can be done in different ways -- at a hotel, in your car, or (as the married female couple arranged) in the restroom at Starbucks. The donor ejaculates into a cup, you, the female, take the cup and attaches it to your cervix. It's not a pretty picture, but sperm dance and can enter you.

It didn't work for the female couple, so they are trying again.

Dokoupil writes about the new Free Sperm Donor Registry (FSDR) that's set up like a dating service, with female recipients and male donors. FSDR has about 2,000 members, 400 donors, and already claims a dozen pregnancies.

Should we cheer? -- doctors have been moving procreation into the lab, and creating families for straight, gay, single, and married partners. There are fee based websites in the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia, jobs -- a sexually talented man can make (possibly) $12,000 from working twice-weekly.

There are serious concerns, diseases, weirdoes, falsified records, even the possibility that a busy donor might be creating potential incest

For some people I'm sure its sexy, exciting. For others it solves career concerns, and focuses their next 16 year -- baby growing up is a 16-year commitment.

With a baby you shape and control and re-define yourself. Yes, you can do all that without a baby but gee -- live -- why not let life happen?

I wrote about pets recently, and people wrote back about their pets, how their love surrounds you with unconditional love. Baby is much more than that. You create with the baby what baby needs -- a condition of love -- a fire burning forever, a perpetual flame. No fences, laws, rules, hand-me-down words tell you what this means. It's a deep, noiseless, indefinable, silent, inner feeling that never stops growing.

Can you name any one, single, solitary thing in your life like that? I can't.

Hmm.

Sounds like sperm donor is something to consider.

FAVORITE PLACES IN NYC (video)

2011-12-17T04:00:00.001-05:00

John Cullum loves the Empire State Building.

Emily suggests it's his out-of-towner self. The guy from Knoxville Tennessee who read about it, heard about it before he came to NYC, stzres at this building, delights in it whenever they go walking.

Yes, he likes quite a few other buildings in New York City -- mostly famous buildings that tourists flock to see. But John Cullum, who has lived in Manhattan for more than fifty years and loves his own home in the city, nevertheless, remains a tourist.

RAVELED SLEEVE

2011-12-15T04:00:00.002-05:00

I can knit a pair of socks, a scarf, a sweater. If I drop a stitch I can pick up the stitch, unravel a few rows, and re knit it. I definitely know how to fix a raveled sleeve.

Once I'm comfortable and wishing I would fall asleep, I start counting, and quote Shakespeare out loud to myself, silently, so as not to wake my husband: "One-ten-thousand --'Sleep that knits up the raveled sleeve of care."

I pronounce this number (it takes a second to say it), and then I say each word of the Shakespeare as if I were in an auditorium, speaking clearly, communicating each syllable, each consonant.

Next, lying there, I recite, "Two-ten-thousand. Sleep that knits up the raveled sleeve of care." Once again, with actress poise, I articulate each word.

Then, "Three ...um....sleep ...knit ... etcetera." I'm slightly impatient, not bored, but I speak my Shakespeare sentence much faster

"Four --." A dark thought, a touch of anxiety sneaks in, I can't help remembering something I don't want to think about. A voice on the news, a photo, a face, accident, crying parents ...

"FIVE ..." I remind myself to enunciate. I'm more or less reliving, reviewing an event that's waking me up -- protesters, tear gas, missing baby? Did the mother kill it?

"SIX" -- I begin to see a bunch of words forming as if my brain is a computer screen filled with letters that are spelling out words that I typed during the day ... Pets, Vets, candidate, commentator making anti-Obama remarks.

Soon I mutter, "Seven -- dammit, this is dumb -- this isn't working -- I'll never fall asleep ..." But while I'm complaining, I repeat "sleep that knits ... " scribbling bleach, Easy Off, Windex on a shopping list.

I murmur, "Eight. I should get up, make some hot water cocoa, what's in the fridge, anything to snack on? Why don't I write a post about biggest losers, diets, drinks, lying ads ...

Nine? Or am I on "ten?" I chant.. "TEN ten thousand, sleep that knits ... " while wondering if I'm on "eleven," deciding that next time I'll chant TWELVE TEN THOUSAND, RAVELED SLEEVE, and then, then ...

I more or less keep going, battling black thoughts, occasionally reliving an event, sometimes seeing typed letters. Words I wrote last month start mixing in with yesterday's words. I reach, eyes closed, for a sip of water from the glass next to my bed -- sip, change positions and start again with "one ten thousand. " And then -- well -- if I get to 30 ten-thousand, I get up. I head for the kitchen where I make hot water cocoa, and watch on the kitchen TV some late-night program on cosmetics, Bosley hair, cancer care, bed linens, while sipping my cocoa and channel surfing peevishly till the cup is empty. Off goes the TV -- off I go back to the bed and knitting, not knitting, complaining that sleep isn't knitting up anything, before I doze off and sleep, sleep.

Does my Shakespeare chant work? Does "sleep" knit up the raveled sleeve? Not reliably!

Maybe tomorrow I'll try "To be or not to be, that is the question --whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or take arms against a sea of troubles?"

Yow. I'm picturing the Titanic ...

I'm going back to knitting ...

ANDY WARHOL 2

2011-12-13T04:01:00.002-05:00

I never liked calling his work "Art," but critics and art lovers say Andy Warhol was a major American artist.

His paintings and exhibits evoked nothing in me but wonderment about why he was famous. But now, I read in Newsweek that the most important figure in contemporary art may be Andy Warhol. Not the Andy W. who died in 1987. That Andy, who gave us "100 Campbell’s Soup Cans" is called an "old master of pop art."

Today, in the art world, the other Warhol, the man who did wild things with his life like appearing on the "Love Boat" television show, making paintings by peeing on steel (as his canvas), creating totally static movies -- is inspiring, influencing, evoking imitators, and affecting culture today.

Curator, writer Jack Bankowsky -- who organized, in 2009, an exhibition called "Pop Life -- paired Warhol with Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst. (See my post "Hot New Art " that displays their art, including an $8 million dollar decaying dead shark in a tank at a museum.

Bankowsky said Warhol has created the “next step after art in which social climbing, shopping, cruising, and collecting are bound up in a roving social sculpture held together by art — which is to say business.”

Whoa. This critic is saying that Andy Warhol, connecting making money with his own 1982 "Dollar Sign" paintings, which depicted Warhol's feeling about selling out, was setting an example for all the artists who now do more than paint and sculpt — who appear in the tabloids and on TV, who design for Louis Vuitton, star in luxury ads. Their price tags matter as much as the weird, repulsive "art" they create.

In D.C., Warhol's creations are on display at the National Gallery, titled "Warhol headlines. The exhibit includes video, and film doings by Warhol, while at the nearby Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum, they're displaying 102 of Warhol's 179 shadow paintings that are various unintelligible images.

Buyers are grabbing early "Marilyn." His films -- "A great body of work ... simply breathtaking," said John Hanhard, a veteran film critic --.along with all Warhol's early works, are selling out. Andy's 1986 self portrait sold for $38 million, in May.

“I always think that quantity is the best gauge on anything,” Warhol once said. And like a maxim, it governs his art. When rich collectors pay millions for a single shadow painting, as though it were a Rembrandt, they aren’t understanding what Warhol’s products mean. But they are proving his point, anyway.

And Bankowsky said, “We have to accept the business/art network as what he’s about.”

That the body, figure, face, the very being of Warhol -- everything he did and was is worth millions ... well ... he looked sort of like a gay rock star.

Since I've written about him in this 1,100s word post -- my art, in which I sort of wildly intermingle my understanding, and my artistic opinion, and wild art is booming -- gee, at $10 a word, or $100 a word what I'm saying right here about Andy might be worth -- wow-- $110,000 next year!

ANDY WARHOL

2011-12-13T04:00:00.016-05:00

I never liked calling his work "Art," but critics and art lovers say Andy Warhol was a major American artist.

His paintings and exhibits evoked nothing in me but wonderment about why he was famous. But now, I read in Newsweek that the most important figure in contemporary art may be Andy Warhol. Not the Andy W. who died in 1987. That Andy, who gave us "100 Campbell’s Soup Cans" is called an "old master of pop art."

Today, in the art world, the other Warhol, the man who did wild things with his life like appearing on the "Love Boat" television show, making paintings by peeing on steel (as his canvas), creating totally static movies -- is inspiring, influencing, evoking imitators, and affecting culture today.

Curator, writer Jack Bankowsky -- who organized, in 2009, an exhibition called "Pop Life -- paired Warhol with Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst. (See my post "Hot New Art " that displays their art, including an $8 million dollar decaying dead shark in a tank at a museum.

Bankowsky said Warhol has created the “next step after art in which social climbing, shopping, cruising, and collecting are bound up in a roving social sculpture held together by art — which is to say business.”

Whoa. This critic is saying that Andy Warhol, connecting making money with his own 1982 "Dollar Sign" paintings, which depicted Warhol's feeling about selling out, was setting an example for all the artists who now do more than paint and sculpt — who appear in the tabloids and on TV, who design for Louis Vuitton, star in luxury ads. Their price tags matter as much as the weird, repulsive "art" they create.

In D.C., Warhol's creations are on display at the National Gallery, titled "Warhol headlines. The exhibit includes video, and film doings by Warhol, while at the nearby Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum, they're displaying 102 of Warhol's 179 shadow paintings that are various unintelligible images.

Buyers are grabbing early "Marilyn." His films -- "A great body of work ... simply breathtaking," said John Hanhard, a veteran film critic --.along with all Warhol's early works, are selling out. Andy's 1986 self portrait sold for $38 million, in May.
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“I always think that quantity is the best gauge on anything,” Warhol once said. And like a maxim, it governs his art. When rich collectors pay millions for a single shadow painting, as though it were a Rembrandt, they aren’t understanding what Warhol’s products mean. But they are proving his point, anyway.

And Bankowsky said, “We have to accept the business/art network as what he’s about.”

That the body, figure, face, the very being of Warhol -- everything he did and was is worth millions ... well ... he looked sort of like a gay rock star.

Since I've written about him in this 1,100s word post -- my art, in which I sort of wildly intermingle my understanding, and my artistic opinion, and wild art is booming -- gee, at $10 a word, or $100 a word what I'm saying right here about Andy might be worth -- wow-- $110,000 next year!

WORKING WITH CLOONEY & EDWARDS (VIDEO)

2011-12-11T04:00:00.002-05:00

When John Cullum was performing on TV's "Northern Exposure" and "ER," he got to know both these actors, who have gone on to play roles in many other shows.

Em wonders what makes them different.

George after "ER." no matter what role he played, is always George Clooney. Anthony Edwards played the "Boy in the Bubble" in "Northern Exposure," and the lead doctor, Dr. Green, in "ER." ( John C. played Dr. Green's father.)

Why has George C become a major star, while Tony E -- he hasn't disappeared, but he is no longer the celebrity he was in his "ER" days?

Actor John Cullum deliberately does not keep track of anyone's celebrity status, but Emily does. She thinks it's because George is himself, and Tony becomes another person, with each role.

FROM MY WINDOW

2011-12-09T04:00:00.008-05:00

Good days, bad days -- days when things seem bright colored and hopeful, other days when things are fading, and people that mean something to you are leaving the earth, and things you count on have disappeared..

You would think that by now, having experienced the ups and downs, seen how things change, I would be able to nod and say, "This is normal. This is life. C'mon, Em, you know that every day you live is one day gone from your life."

Why can't I banish the fact that things you love have to die?

Favorite things wear out. Green leaves turn brown, crinkle, fall from the tree to be blown by the wind, or swept into a pile that's burned or buried. The blue gold pretty petal of fire on candle melts the wax, burns out and it's gone. A day begins as the sun rises and ends as the sun goes down.

A dear friend died. I knew she was ill but didn't know she was, dying. Her well-known husband died a few months ago. A few days ago, when her secretary phoned to tell me she'd left the earth, I thought the phone call was about the luncheon tribute for her husband. Now the tribute will be for both of them.

Is that why from my window the world seems to be withering and crumpling -- wars, politics, poverty, corruption -- a sense of gray, and no solutions pervade my thoughts?

Even so, I do find solutions -- my work's going well, our home is clean, comfortable, and running well.

Ho ho -- looking out my window is telling me to look inside my house -- see the colors, enjoy the small doings --what's light, bright, and clean in my office, in all my rooms. Be the woman in Picasso's picture.

My home sweet home reminds me that growing old is something NOT to dwell on. Yes, you have to glance at realty, and see what you see, but you have to move on.

My friend is no longer alive and what I see out my window is gray and dark. But if I turn around, what's outside my window is behind me -- oh yes, I can feel my grief and miss my friend, but inside is the world I made, that I can see and be in.

Ho ho! Now is the time to enjoy NOW.

ROGER AILES

2011-12-07T04:00:00.005-05:00

Republican candidates hire this guy and eagerly seek his advice. Fox network’s founder, 71-year-old Roger Eugene Ailes, was a media consultant for Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Rudy Giuliani.

He brags about promoting his clients the way American Idols have been promoted, the way X factor is currently promoting itself as the latest, super best talent show.

Ailes is currently advising republican candidate Rick Perry.

His tactics for handling the easily impressed, already somewhat brain washed American public, include mixing Tea Party and Republican ideas into snappy sounding slogans, "hot" cliches about debt, big government, leaving taxes alone, the failed Obama, the poor confused Democrats, the importantance of not supporting unemployment insurance, unions, and wasteful spending on pork -- like Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare.

Yes, he has a great list that includes just about everything that I think is desperately important.

I'm appalled that we are daily, hearing Repubs telling us how wonderfully well they'll run the government that Obama isn't capable of running. What we're already hearing are untruths, logic that isn't logical, and the media is busily, happily, constantly helping the Republs sell all this to us.

Is he a Dick Cheney? No, but sort of a Karl Rove. Both of them established themselves and made sure we know who they are. We don't know much about Ailes, though one can research him and read about he's done, and whom he's supported, and what Ailes says he believes in.

I usually want to know more about the person behind the public person, but looking at Ailes, his picture, resume, and bio, I can't find anything to like about him, anything in his history or personal story that makes him more than another self-made man, who's risen in today's world where being a bit of a crook is a plus -- where being even more than a "bit" crooked, is respected, and highly paid.

A can of Drano has a skull and cross bones on the back. It's a deadly poison. It can kill you.

I'm putting a skull and cross bones on Ailes. What he's doing, selling with all his might and mane, can kill more than what the Republicans have been killing.

Killing? Yes. When you stop growth, destroy hope, bury possible solutions, you are killing what millions and millions of Americans need to survive.

You know the name now. Put him with villains and enemies on your personal XXX list. If you don't have one, make an XXX list now with A for Ailes at the top.

WILL ANTONIO BANDERAS "MAKE IT?"

2011-12-05T04:00:00.001-05:00

He has an indefinable something---intensity, animality, and a focus that reaches you, in the audience, as if he were right there in front of you.

He's gotten awards, rave reviews and star billing. You'd recognize him if you saw him on the street, though it might take a moment to remember his name. I didn't realize Banderas played Tom Hank's lover in "Philadelphia," an Oscar-winning film about a lawyer who was fired when his bosses realized he had AIDS. I was very moved by the tender-loving relationship of the two men. It's an Em Oscar for Banderas, that during those scenes, I didn't think "Oh that's Antonio Banderas." I didn't realize till the credits rolled, that macho Antonio was playing the homosexual lover.

He can play almost any kind of male role -- heroes, villains, and madmen. He's always fascinating, though sometimes, the smoldering sensual- sexual element in his eyes and bearing is almost too much, as if he's been directed to send out a stronger, hotter message. Occasionally I've found myself thinking he's over-acting, but mostly his choices as an actor -- jumping out window, leaping across roofs,, singing, dancing, dueling, fighting -- are brilliant, unpredictable, amazing.

I think that most people, watching one of the very famous star actors in a film have the star's persona, the star-actor's name in their minds, not the name of the character. Can you imagine seeing a movie with Cary Grant, not thinking it's "Cary." Even when Charlton Heston did those TV sitcoms, he was always Charlton Heston, "Moses," or Ben Hur."

So why hasn't Banderas become one of those top stars? Is it the scripts, the producers, the breaks?

In the most recent photos of him, like this one with his wife, Melanie Griffith, Banderas seems to have a different cheek bone structure. Was his face "fixed?" Or is it his short-cropped hair, or the fact that he's 51-years-old? (Aging is tough for everyone, but for an actor it can be devastating, especially an actor like Banderas, who's forte has been playing the leading man/lover.)

Will Antonio Banderas become a major star name? Has the time passed for him? Was he hurt by his marriage to Melanie Griffith? Maybe her determination to remain head-to-toe young/sexy/gorgeous is influencing him.

I don't know. I know actor John Cullum, who is not a major movie star, is never aware of how he looks, and doesn't rev up emotion, never over-acts. Cullum figures out who the character is in terms of the story,. and searches for the positive elements in the role -- who and what the character loves and what he 'wants to achieve.

What can I say to the handsome Antonio Banderas? Based on my experience as director/wife, I'm saying Antonio B, be YOU less, be the person you are playing in the show much more. The time hasn't passed. You have already "made it."

IS MOTHER NATURE AN EMEMY? (video)

2011-12-03T04:00:00.001-05:00

Big question -- are we into an age of Nature's fury -- rains, hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes, fires, floods?

Em wonders if there is solution, and can't help thinking about Al Gore -- how he's been warning us for more than a decade, that many things we are doing on a daily basis, are causing weather woes.

The Cullums don't disagree, but Em worries, John, who isn't a worrier, takes things. handles things specifically as they happen.

ANITA HILL

2011-12-01T04:00:00.010-05:00

What Anita Hill did 20 years ago is burned in my mind. We remember moments like O.J. sweating, holding up his hands to show that the leather gloves didn't fit. I remember how embarrassed Anita Hill was, sweating, determinedly truthful, describing Thomas quizzing her about pubic hair on a coke can.

She gained national attention in 1991 when she alleged, at Clarence Thomas' Senate confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court post, that Thomas had made provocative and harassing sexual statements, when he was her supervisor.

Grilled by 14 white Senators on national TV, Hill testified that while they worked together, Thomas made sexual overtures, described pornographic films, and bragged repeatedly and graphically, about his sexual prowess.

Watching her on television, I was impressed and amazed at her poise and the courage it took to testify at the hearing. I couldn't help thinking what I would have done had I been in her situation as an employee -- what will happen to her -- will this blight her life, embitter her -- how will she be able to pursue a career as a lawyer?

What happened -- well, she took a polygraph test that found that her statements were true. He declined the test, calling it a "high tech lynching."

Nevertheless, the Senate confirmed Clarence Thomas by a 52 to 48 vote.

Today, Justice Thomas is in history books. He has a great life and great job. He's been married to Virginia Lamp since 1987. Professor Anita Hill, age 56, has never married. She writes, lectures, is teaching law at Brandeis University's prestigious law school.

Off and on, over the years, liberals and conservatives have attacked Justice Thomas, claiming his decisions are based on his personal needs and political beliefs. Last year, Virginia, founder of a Tea Party activist group that's funded by a personal friend of her husband's, got lots of media attention for her group after she phoned Anita Hill and left a voice mail message asking Anita for an apology.

It was ugly, and inappropriate. Anita handled it briefly, didn't let it become a an important issue. She brushed it off.

I admire her and like her. I met her at a celebrity dinner party where she was one of the guests of honor. She was friendly, easily accessible, and fun to talk to -- a very educated professional who's going on with her work stronger than ever. She loves teaching, and appears quite often on TV. Her articles are published in the NY Times, Newsweek, and in scholarly publications.

What happened to her on television in 1991 has affected many working women. Though Hill didn't specifically claim legal "Sexual Harassment," the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission logged a record 9,920 harassment complaints in the past year, 50% more than the previous year, despite the fact victims know it's difficult to get their cases resolved. A recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, said 44% of voters think Hill was telling the truth, while support for Thomas' version of events has declined from 40% to 34%.

Anita Hill's autobiography "Speaking Truth to Power" was published in 1998. Her second book, "Reimagining Equality" was published a few weeks ago.

Boston Globe.com reporter summarizes what happened 20 years ago. As you listen to what Anita says about it today, you get a sense of a strong, down-to-earth, womanly woman.

Here's the link http://youtu.be/1DBte0lxfLc

DISILLUSIONMENT

2011-11-29T04:00:00.004-05:00

It is creeping in -- into our language, into our day-to-day feelings, into what we do for fun, and what we talk about seriously.

Do you trust the written word? I don't.

News reports? do you trust them? Are we being told everything?

No.

Is what we are being told shaded by the guy who's conveying the facts?

Definitely yes.

Do you trust authorities, experts, past presidents, authors, generals, statesmen, financial whiz guys, inventors (like Steven Jobs)?

No. I think they're conveying what they believe and what they want us to believe.

Do you trust banks, car manufacturers, and hey -- do you trust doctors?

Holy smoke, who do you trust?

The current White House? The President?

(I'm hearing mmms, and maybes, lots of I dunno's.

What about the food you buy? Canned goods? Johnson and Johnson products? Drugstore brands?

No, no, no.

Nothing can be trusted. There are thousands of hands that are involved and they can't all be washed, and they belong to bodies that are attached to brains of individuals,. and each individual who lives now, has the un-sureities, insecurities, doubts -- experiences that I've had that makes me unsure of everything I've mentioned thus far.

Golly, we weren't unsure -- we flew, we soared around when we elected Obama. But now, with the media spider spinning its web, telling us how to feel, what to feel, what not to feel, what's new, what's old, what's right and wrong, we are trapped. Because the media spiders themselves are disillusioned, trapped in the spider webbing of the advertisers, big spiders, who are trapped in the corporate communal web spun by groups of spiders -- giant mesh nets that are covering land, buildings. whole cities, whole states even.

The sense of feeling free, able, capable of standing on our own two feet has been squeezed, pressed down into a lump.

We've got a stuck Congress, a president who can't move, a lot of unreal hot air talk about taxes and debt ceiling and health care that make people who can't get jobs seem like ants, tiny living creatures worrying about survival underneath the giant mesh blanket that's laying on top of our daily world.

Hey hold on -- I am one person. Many "one" persons, single persons, are feeling what I'm feeling.

Like me they're sad about people not working and confused by the liars, cheaters, dissimulators, whose best seller book -- words, articles, on-camera opinions and misinformation -- are smack dab everywhere.

Okay , I'll name some good things.
[1] My books are going to be published.
[2] As I blogger, I have figured out better what I ought be writing about.
[3] Things that cross my mind that I am feeling and express, are things that others are feeling. Yes, it helps me if I say what's on my mind, and it helps them to hear that what they're feeling is also bothering me

So my disillusionment creates a unity, and in unity the illusion of beauty, good things, hopeful things becomes reality.

BAD GUYS (video)

2011-11-27T04:00:00.016-05:00

No doubt about it -- the Cullums can't stop complaining about the major corporations, they don't trust.

Top of the list of un-favorite things are the guys who are promoting, with carefully constructed campaigns, reasons for us to support them, buy their products, and buy into the idea that they are altruistically helping us lead better lives.

Yes, it's Halliburton, Oil Companies, and Fracking.

Plus, our friends say they hate: Dems, Repubs Do-Nothing Politicians, Bank of America, Time Warner, Monsanto, Subcommittee in DC, Comcast. Talipia, Blue Fin GMO Fish, High Fructose Syrup. Planned Parenthood, Penn Football Coach, Godfather Pizza, Russ Limbaugh, Skinny Fashion Models, Herman Cain, Religious Zealots, Coco-Cola, Doomsday Predictions.

Even so, John's pet hate is medical ads. Em hates their mattress. John tries, but can't comfort Em when she calls the manufacturers "Big fat Liars!"

HILLARY'S HAIR DO

2011-11-25T04:00:00.008-05:00

I pay attention to what Hillary Clinton says and does, and of course, how she looks.

The latest articles about Hillary suggest a tougher, harsher woman. I still have a vision of her in the room with Obama -- a scary vision of thoughtful, wise people hoping, waiting for, wanting Bin Laden dead.

Now we have photos of the bloodied corpse of Gaddafi and yes, we know our State Department and Hillary wanted him OUT of this world, because in it, he killed every possibility of freedom for his people. Hillary laughed as she told a reporter." We came, we saw, he died!

Killing a human -- even someone who's evil -- chills me. And Hillary tossing her head
-- wind in her hair, her latest hairdo in disarray -- her enjoying the moment doesn't feel right to me, even though I know that she has seen the horrors of what Gaddafi did to his people.

Back in the early nineties, My first impression of Hillary Clinton -- bleached blond, who didn't bleach her eyebrows -- it said to me that she was a confident woman, pleasing a famous, important husband, who liked blonds.

Seeing Mr. and Mrs. Clinton the first time on TV, she seemed to be a highly educated, know-it-all, secure wife. Even though I wondered about Bill Clintons's affair with Gennifer Flowers, Hillary's attitude toward the "other woman" pushed it out of my mind ... almost.

That Hillary's heath plan was summarily dismissed bothered me -- why did our new President encourage his wife to create it? Surely he discussed it with her. Why didn't we hear more details about the plan? Anyway, I admired the way Hillary smoothly, uncomplainingly disappeared into wifely duties, and changed her style.

(She wore more colorful clothes, more lipstick, and clipped her hair back, sometimes wore a headband. Was that when she started tweezing, bleaching her eyebrows? )

When whatshername? the secretary, sued Clinton, yuck! The hotel room scene, the woman's attention-getting revelations, and other rumors about other women that were in the headlines -- true or false? I didn't want to deal with it. I liked the sense of unity I got from the Bill, Hill, and their daughter Chelsea, until ... BOOM, CRASH.

Monica Lewinisky ... Bill's lies -- the impeachment drama we devoured on TV along with nasty stories about Hillary's friend who killed himself and Whitewater real estate -- the endless investigations by lawyer, Kenneth Starr.

Amazing, that I still remember Flowers, Starr, Whitewater and whatshername, and the Hillary with another hairdo who emerged from the mud and ugliness -- new home in Chappaqua, New York -- out of the blue, her run to become Senator. It was an exciting win for Hillary -- I celebrated with the loving happy wife hugging Bill and Chelsea!

No need for me to recapitulate the pants-suited Hillary, her new look (shorter permed, coifed hair), the energetic, down-to-earth woman who ran for president and discussed, argued, confronted issues with the wonderful man we elected. Even though I switched and voted for Obama, the loser Hillary's demeanor was -- my God-- she was a remarkably good loser -- not shy about expressing her disappointment, up front about the millions she'd spent on campaigning, not bitter, or resentful. Hillary was matter-of-fact, practical, respectful as well as realistic, graceful, and quite cordial, as she supported the winner.

When Hillary agreed to be Obama's Secretary of State, I felt safer and rejoiced, and I continue to celebrate Hillary Rodham Clinton. She's become, for me, America's number-one heroine.

Yes, with the Republicans' hammering away on "poor Obama, our the failing president," who hasn't wondered what would have happened if Hilary had been elected?

I've wondered, but only briefly. We have two trustworthy, exceptionally brilliant people working together, and it works. Even so, her hairdo tells me something in her is turmoiling, compelling her to change what she sees in the mirror and present herself in a new way -- a way that might be construed as younger, more attractive to -- men? or other women?

When I wear more eye makeup, lipstick. a ribbon, or scarf that looks pretty, it's for men. If I wear glamorous, expensive things I'll be more attractive to women.

The picture on the left was recently on the cover of Time. -- more makeup, longer, loose unconfined hair, pearls, bracelets, ruffles peeping out of a tailored chic suit -- it tells me that the older wiser Hillary is perceiving a lot of things. Though Bill speaks as if they're living together, these days the Clintons are miles apart, and we're waiting to hear about Chelsea and a grandchild.

Hillary made a strong announcement a few months ago about women and the family being her main concern for the rest of the 21st Century. But I'm not sure where she is heading. It wasn't clear then, and it isn't clear now if she will continue as Secretary of State.

Her hairdo says (to me), that Hillary Clinton is not sure. She's not happy with the way she is now. Well ... who is, when you know that yesterday you were younger and there were more things that you'd never experienced to look forward to?

I'd like to tell her, send her a message by carrier pigeon, or put it in a four-inch caps in the NY Times. "Hey, Hillary, whatever you do, I'll be in your corner, cheering you on."

THANK AND GIVE

2011-11-24T04:00:00.003-05:00

"We gather together, and ask the Lord's blessing ..."

The date for the holiday is on our calendars. We look forward to whatever we've planned, be it supper with friends and family or a fancy dinner at a restaurant.

What a gift we humans have been given -- hunger, appetite, the powerful need to eat, consume food, and fill our bellies. As important a gift, as the gift of day and night for working and resting -- our need for sleep -- the inner clock of living, pursuit and anticipation and gathering up and preparing and satisfying hunger.

Could it be that EATING runs the world?

Watching any of Mother Nature's creations -- creatures or flowers -- grass, trees, or spider, worm, bird, tiger, or whatever -- we see again and again the cycle of waking -- eating/feeding/being nourished -- and sleeping.

Ah yes, but also we humans can think and translate what we think into a language of action -- we can pray, laugh, cry, remember other days, and "thank."

What a gift of gifts -- thank implies God, wonderment and joy, an awareness of being alive and in charge of whatever you are. And from it, comes the desire to share.

Yes, thanking becomes the need to "give." Yes, we humans can give!

Can animals, birds, insects, or flowers do that? They can nurture, but can they pick up and hand over, bestow what is precious to something, anything, any other thing like themselves or different from themselves?

And that is what I am celebrating --
that we have day and night, the need to eat, to give, and thank.

JOHN CULLUM EMAIL TO EM

2011-11-23T04:00:00.003-05:00

John Cullum's "Thanksgiving" Email to Em:

I am from a large Southern family of which my mother was the matriarch, and every Thanksgiving was an big, exciting affair with aunts and uncles and cousins, some of which I only saw once a year. Emotions were high, and along with love and good spirits were moments of family squabbles of epic and frightening proportions that sometimes resulted in enduring resentments. This tradition still continues with my nieces and nephews and though we may not give as much thought as we should to the pilgrims and indians, it’s a time when our different families renew their connections to each other and that’s a lot to give thanks for.

But the most memorable Thanksgiving dinner for me was the one a young redheaded dancer made for me in her Artist In Residence studio in New York City. It wasn’t a turkey, just a large chicken, and it never occurred to me that this gorgeous girl could even cook, but boy, she could – all the trimmings, fresh cranberry sauce, stuffing, sweet potatoes, vegetables and all. I could hardly believe it. There she was, the best dancer I had ever seen, gracefully whirling around a tiny kitchen, whipping up a dinner as good as any I had ever eaten, and all for me. Never had a Thanksgiving meal been made exclusively for me and me alone, and with such love. It was an experience I couldn’t walk away from. And I never did. I guess Emily decided if I was going to keep hanging around, she might as well marry me. Which she did.
John Cullum

Thought this might please you, Em. Your loving hubby.

EM EMAIL to John
holy minorka catfish what a loving darling hug thrill tickle delight this gives me. Very truly yours, your wife

WHAT ABOUT THE X FACTOR?

2011-11-21T04:00:00.004-05:00

Click! Have a quick look!

You heard the raves. You saw Brian Bradley's act. You heard Simon Cowell's summary and judgment about the big future ahead for the boy. What did you think while you were watching this? I liked the kid. I found his song-dance-act (whatever you call it), not very interesting. For me, it was a lot of incomprehensible words and a lot of meaningless stomping.

Simon Cowell has been selling The X Factor for two years, saying it's different, more exciting, and will be much more successful than American Idol. So what's different about this new show?

The X Factor's Simon Cowell is, maybe, perhaps, a bit nicer. He jokes more and shows off how he's feeling more than he did on American Idol. On the new show, he is still knowing, confident, judgmental, but maybe, perhaps, more self-assured.

X Factor has a handsome British- accented, intelligent-sounding announcer introducing the acts. I like him. Idol's announcer often seemed to be selling himself more than the talent.

The new show's judges -- Paula Abdul and Simon, much, much more than on the old show, tease, flirt, hug, punch and snuggle with each other. They're so lovey dovey cute that you can't help wondering if they're in love, even if you think, (as I think) that it's acting. As for the other two judges -- LA Reid, a knowledgeable black record producer, has a friendly professional manner that reminds me of Idol's Randy Jackson. The stunningly haughty, classically beautiful Nicole Scherzinger sounds and looks as if she's totally immersed in her response as a judge, and she expresses herself quite eloquently.

So what about the talent? The 14 year old Brian Bradley's insulting manner with Simon before he performed, and Simon's glowing response afterward, opens wide the golden doors of a future for the boy. As I said, I didn't get anything from Brian's song, "Stop Looking At My Mother" -- no rhythm to rock with, no words to grab onto, so I can't predict what's ahead for him.

Perhaps LA Reid will become Brain Bradley's guru, adviser, manager, and another Justin Bieber will be born. For me, the most memorable moment in X factor was when LA Reid, Nicole, and Paula -- with Simon eying her -- joined in with the audience waving their arms, doing the shoulder-rocking dance of approval that entire audiences do to show each other, show the world, how swept away they are, by the performer.

For me, the shoulder-rocking is like catcalls, whistles, hoots, and shouts. It's what you do, nowadays, to win votes for the guy you're rooting for, and show that you're with it, you're cool, and you were knocked out by the guy.

The X in the show's title intrigues me. What is the X factor when you're judging talent? What is the indefinable element that defies words, but inspires a thrilling, intense focus on a performer as if he's a already star?

Thus far, on this new show, the X factor is my focus on Simon and Paula.

I mean who cares about talented new kids when the older kids are playing a love story script before our eyes?

INCOMPATIBITIES (video)

2011-11-19T04:00:00.006-05:00

Em reminds John Cullum how difficult it is for her to accompany him to any museum. By the time he has oriented himself, she's finished and ready to leave.

Is it incompatibility or a basic difference in their minds?

Em thinks John approaches new plays, new scripts, in the same way he approaches an excursion to New York City's Metropolitan Museum or MoMA, the Museum of Modern Art.

EMOTICONNING

2011-11-17T04:00:00.004-05:00

Do you use emoticons? Do you do a lot of texting?

Smileys, keystroke expressions -- colons, parenthesis, dashes, and texting -- are for me what Pig Latin used to be -- a kid's way of excluding the adult world. Pig Latin is good to talk around your parents cause they won't know how to speak it.

Here is is a sample sentence: "Igpay atinlay isyay oodgay otay alktay aroundyay ouryay arentpays auscay ethay ontway ebay ableay otay understandaye. "

Yes, I used to speak Pig Latin expertly, but now it seems a really silly thing to do.

Why are so many people, adults as well as kids, texting and using emoticons. Why are others turning "you " into "U?" Why not express what you feel with words and say "I'm amused," rather than "LOL?" or inserting a Smiley, or ((: ?

Is condensing words, expressing yourself with symbols and abbreviations, an easier or faster way of communicating? Does it communicate more fully?

Does it imply you're with it? Cool? Too busy to waste time with an email? Maybe it makes you feel frisky, peppy, young, but it makes me fret. I have to search for the symbol and look it up. You are sending me on wild goose chase

Well, texting, emoticonning makes self expression simpler, briefer. But what is it really commentating? Isn't communicating the reason why you're cell-phoning, chatting, emailing, texting, sending pals emoticons ? Isn't it why you're on Facebook reading my blog, reacting to it and sending me comments?

Actually, when people send me emoticons, or keystrokes, I tend to skim what they've said.

Niall Ferguson (Newsweek columnist) said Americans 13 to 17 send and receive about 3,339 text messages per month -- girls average about 4000 or more. He said "If the earth was hit by a gigantic asteroid or engulfed by a super Tsunami, a teenager might send a last message -- C U later. or : ( ...

Yes. I had to look it up to figure out that it means "I'm not happy."

I think this stuff dumb-downs your mind. I think you need to use language, and words, more and more, not less and less.

Aside from words on TV and in films, writing words and reading words, gets you living a life other than your own, feeling things other than what's in your personal world -- looking at art, nature, the sky, the stars -- those twinkling far away specs that can light up your mind.

Hey guys, kids, grownups, old folks -- try NO texting, NO emoticons. If you're not sure what to say dig for a word, maybe another one and another -- say them, send them, toss them out and catch what gets tossed back at you and you're hearing and seeing and saying and feeling things.

Try it. It makes you taller, smarter --probably younger, sprier, and also rich -- richer in some of the ways, maybe even all of the ways you want to be rich.

RUNNING OUT OF TIME

2011-11-15T04:00:00.001-05:00

The sense of time passing changes. I remember when a day seemed so long -- so many, many things that were going to happen, things I was waiting for, endless waiting for a friend to arrive, for a walk, for hop-scotch on a sparkling sidewalk, a trip, for a game to begin or end, waiting to eat, rest, put away my toys.

I remember when time was a school day, stuff to learn, memorize, study, draw -- crayons, chalk, scissors, colored paper, glue, and homework. And tests -- tests, tests, tests -- blighting my life, hovering over me.

Then came the time when I was getting nice looking -- time was time to scrub away blackheads, shampoo time, time to check in the mirror, time to try different cosmetics, and my period -- oh dear -- was Aunt Jane going to arrive? (The euphemism, back then, was "Aunt Jane" or "the curse.")

And then came the "time" for dates. A second later it was time for getting married. Wasn't I too young? Did I need legal permission to say the vows? Were vows important? Oh my --I thought, at age 18, "I am running out of time -- if I'm going to be famous, I have to make it, do it, become something extraordinary now."

I was running around a racetrack, the clock. And its numbers -- 12, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 9 10 11 12 knelled the hour, the date, the day of the week, the week of a month, the changing seasons, the year.

Twenty-five -- I dreaded that birthday, thinking "I'm old." thinking, "No I'm not." Thinking "better hurry, you'll be twenty-six in a minute."

I knew I wasn't old, but I knew I better look out or I was going to turn into one of those older girls, who weren't girls -- they were women, committed to some career that I knew wasn't really what they had in mind when they were children. But wasn't that life? You had to conquer what you wanted to get, and get it while it was still within reach, or it was gone, gone.

Thirty -- bad day at "black rock." I didn't want to climb over the rock and ever be 31, or horrors, 35. I read biographies of older women and men who managed to be successful after 35. Time was an hour glass, filled with colored sand. trickling down, running out of the top awfully fast, and the sand wasn't really sparkling, like sidewalks used to be. The sidewalks I hurried along didn't sparkle when I was rushing from morning dance class to a rehearsal, to see an agent, to discuss publicity photos, racing to another class. (In your thirties you know that the sparkling flecks in the cement sidewalks are an illusion created by the sun.)

Faster and faster I went -- went to a shrink to learn how to slow down, enjoy the present. Oh dear -- he fell in love with me and turned patient Em into the doctor who had to "cure" herself, and him.

And hold onto what I knew was the essence -- to do something, be something that no one else was, and be famous. In books? I was already in some books. Be great? I wasn't great, but I was exceptional. Be successful? I was more successful than most people I knew but what was successful? Who would I, could I be other than me?

Hurry, hurry, I thought, when I found myself weeping for things I lost -- love lost -- chances lost -- dreams that vanished.

I learned how to create time by being super efficient, remembering things, making lists, planning, organizing, hiring help, buying time.

Banishing time.

I woke this morning as an older woman, and thought I am not running out of time. I have more than enough time to do whatever I decide to do.

ARE WE OUT OF STYLE (video)

2011-11-13T04:00:00.004-05:00

"Wow," the Cullums exclaim, remembering how they used to dress up, dress fancy, in order to be noticed, get heads turning, photographers clicking away, wherever they went.

Recalling their extravagant chic outfits, that probably inspired lots of people to imitate them, the Cullums are aware that what they wear, nowadays, is different -- not head turn around things, but clothes that enable them to do what they want to do, without calling attention to themselves.

Have the times changed? Or is it us? the Cullums ask themselves. (They know that they KNOW the answer!)

BIG LIAR HATE LIST

2011-11-11T04:00:00.002-05:00

Every once in a while I have to YELL out and name the names of the bad guys, and the worst of the worst.

The Alleve baloney -- sure, it's easier to take two pills instead of 8 Tylenol pills, but Alleve is naproxen -- it can create major health problems.

Guys, close your ears and eyes to the ads. Don't switch to Alleve. It's potentially bad for you.

TempurPedic mattresses-- they don't stand by their warranties. Ours is lumpy. it started getting lumps 5 years ago. It has a sag in the middle. Yes, we called! Yes we wrote letters. We'd have to prove it with photos, and photos don't show the lumps or the sag.

The worst guys are Oil Companies -- nowadays they've got tailored, choreographed handsome, authoritative males telling/selling us how careful they are about protecting us. (BS, baloney -- BP, Exxon, and all the others are careful?) Yes, the Oil guys are re-explaining how good for everyone it is that they drill under our land for natural gas that they'll sell back to us at higher than ever prices.

And Halliburton, who is/was Dick Cheney, and the Bush family, who keeps changing its name so that we don't realize it's the power behind various "fracking" oil companies that offer great deals to home owners so the company can dig for natural gas under their home sweet homes -- poison the water, the air, the foliage, the pets, and often the family.

Under various names, Halliburton, has made tons of money from the war in Iran. Reliable sources (Associated Press, Yahoo.com, Glassdoor.com, and the "UK Guardian"), tell us that Halliburton (under one of its names) continues to be on our federal government payroll.

Huh? Why? How come?

I don't know why. But facts about this monster corporation are disguised and thoroughly hidden by the company's expert legal staff. It's got 52, 00o plus employees, in 70 countries, with hundreds of subsidiaries, an annual income revenue of $18 billion. All I can do is yell.

And include on my hate list, the sex medicine that makes sure you can get it up, anytime, every time you might be in the mood. Also all the insurance companies --Geico, Progressive are the big names selling you bargain rates. (You may save money, but based on my experience, you probably won't get a human someone on the phone to comfort you, if you have an accident.)

Also, I'm yelling about medicines that help the medicine you're taking work better, though the extra-help-medicine on top of yours might make you sick, crazy, suicidal, or kill you.

And here's a yell about the latest crop of bad guys who are encouraging you to pay them to help you into bankruptcy so you won't really have to pay all your bills, (except what you have to pay them.)

They are on my hate list. They should be on yours.

Along with a huge, loud YOWL about the media, the advertisers, the guys who are making money from selling us what sells to the indiscriminating, DUMB buyers who've been brain-washed since childhood by various representations of reality -- cute animals, birds, butterflies, bees, flowers, stick figures, slang-talking cartoons -- that have been creating a culture of violence.

My husband and I filmed a video blog that I'll post soon -- "Favorite liars." I was hoping to get strong supportive comments from him on my big liars list, but hate is not what John Cullum expresses. He gets annoyed, bored, irritated. I HATE things.

The picture at the top of this post is very ugly. Hate is very ugly. What's being done to us is very, very ugly.

TWO YOUS

2011-11-09T04:00:00.007-05:00

When pressure is on you to do something -- start it, finish it, make a decision, confront an issue -- you're immobilized.

There are two yous -- Grownup you, and Child you.

Grownup Em has had experiences, learned the rules, and coped with many things.

Child Em has needs, fears, impractical dreams, and expectations. She often feels quite small, vulnerable, and not very capable.

Child Em panics. Wants to hide, or sleep, or watch a dumb TV show.

Grownup Em tells Child Em what to do, or not do, and calms her by pointing her in a direction.

If you remind the child, parentally -- patiently, logically, lovingly -- the child feels safer, and can even handle rather scary things. Therefore, the Grownup-you needs to guide the Child-you into "Tackle one thing at a time."

The Grownup knows how to organize disorder into an orderly sequence of activities.

Like -- "One two, button my shoe,
Three, four, close the door,
Five, six,. pick up sticks.
Seven, eight, close the gate.
NINE -- you're fine!
Ten is not the "big fat hen,"
It's just the end.

So LOVE your child and coddle your child,
Tell the child in you it's okay.
Help the child push worries away.
Banish, make vanish all the fears --
And strongly advocate "no tears!"
The balm is being calm.
It' helps the two yous
Unwind, and re-find
Peace of mind.

VOTER FRAUD?

2011-11-07T04:00:00.006-05:00

Here's Al Sharpton and guests.

Watch, and listen -- it's the liberal side of a looming BIG, MAJOR, IMPORTANT, URGENT issue.

Oh boy, Sharpton makes disenfranchising voters sound like a new Republican tactic, a new way for them to win the election in 2012.

Gee, I can't help remembering when George W Bush was elected -- the voter fraud issue -- after weeks of legal battles over the recounting of votes in Florida, the findings that proved Al Gore won that election. On December 13, 2000, though Gore sharply disagreed with the Supreme Court verdict that ended his bid for the presidency, Gore said, ''Partisan rancor must now be put aside. I accept the finality of the outcome, which will be ratified next Monday in the Electoral College, and tonight, for the sake of our unity as a people and the strength of our democracy, I offer my concession.''

Gore won the national popular vote by more than 500,000 votes, but narrowly lost Florida which gave the Electoral College --271 to 266 -- to Bush. And we got Bush/Cheney, war, 4,810 dead, Abu Ghraib prison, waterboarding, and on goes the list of wrongdoings.

Is voter fraud a serious major issue right now?

Here's what I learned from Brian Montopoli, reporter, for CBS Online News' Hot Sheet. The Brennan Center for Justice, a think tank at New York University, reports that 34 states have introduced voter identification laws this year that create hardship for 3.2 million Americans who want vote.

Republicans say they're promoting new restrictions on voting because of voter fraud, because voting machines -- new ones and old ones -- are too easily hacked.

The "Vulnerability Assessment Team," at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois, found that the old machines can be hacked by anyone with an 8th grade education, with parts that cost $10.50. You can hack the new Diebold voting machines by inserting a piece of "alien electronics"-- it costs $26, requires a decent amount of knowledge and access to the machine, but it is possible to do on "every electronic voting machine."

Roger Johnston, leader of the assessment team, told Salon.com, a national online media magazine that reviews technology, "This is a national security issue. It should really be handled by the Department of Homeland Security."

At the moment, the Republican voting reforms that are designed to prevent fraud are discouraging first time, young voters and low-income voters -- and yes -- these are voters who tend to vote Democrat.

New laws in Kansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin require photo ID. (Only One in 10 voters has them, according to the Brennan Center report.) Other states have cut back on early voting that's used by millions of Americans. Two states have disenfranchised voters because of their past criminal convictions, despite the fact that these voters are currently taxpaying members of the community. Florida and Ohio are eliminating early voting on the Sundays before election day, which is when some African-American churches organize voters to go to the polls.

Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi, house minority leader in a congress that has vowed to stop everything President Obama is trying to do, has been traveling, making speeches, attending town halls, working with state legislatures to revise these laws, and meeting with local church and community groups, revving up voters in the states where they now have to fight red tape and spend money to obtain voter ID's.

Wow! It's a huge problem that could take billions of dollarts to solve. Nowadays, nobody can win without the loser claiming fraud. No doubt about it, the new laws will keep a lot of people who elected Obama from reelecting him in 2012. It reminds me of the debt ceiling issue that hangs over our country. There are solutions, but in my opinion, a Republican in the White House will not solve or fix any of our current huge issues, including voter fraud.

Back and forthing over what I've learned, I think we need to reelect Barack Obama and get a Congress that will help president Obama pass legislation and tackle the urgent issues in America.

CAMPAIGN TIME (video)

2011-11-05T04:00:00.004-04:00

Oh boy! Not already! It's happening, we're in it right now!
Em Frankel and John Cullum both feel as if they're still recovering from the last campaign -- Hillary, Obama, and all those Republicans lined up, planning to run.

It seems ridiculous, hugely time-consuming, and very boring --to have to hear the sales pitches of candidates, and their pals, their PR guys, who are figuring what sells, loading us with polls and opinions of not very significant information.

Can't we wait till January 2012?

ROLAND PETIT

2011-11-03T04:00:00.004-04:00

Does the name, ring a bell? Roland Petit, age 87, died in July. If I were writing about Alvin Ailey. you'd probably nod, but Petit?

Who is/was he? Why am I writing about him?

He was a French choreographer, a creator of 176 works, who continuously reinvented his style and became a master in the arts of pas de deux, dramatic ballet, as well as abstract ballets. He was married to dancer "Zizi" Jeanmaire, who performed in a number of his works as well the films he choreographed.

Petit is gone. My mom is gone, my dad's been gone for a long time. My brother was drowned, and others -- professional dear friends like Todd Bolender, Sophie Maslow, and Robert Joffrey are gone -- as well as others who aren't famous people, who' have made a mark on the world.

What's a "mark?" Something they built, did, or created that you admire because it defined something you wished you could do, or maybe it was a vague something or other, undefined in your mind.

Roland Petit collaborated with other very famous creators, designers, composers, performers -- names you'd recognize. He made them more famous, and, I think, he made their stardom and his own, vaster, more important.

When I was an up-and-coming dancer, I knew his name, but he was in a far-away land. Of course, I secretly wondered if he'd discover me -- my compelling face, the special concentration that I have, that makes an audience focus on me. (I've seen me in movies. I had a powerful something or other -- I don't know what it is. )

His stars (the ones he discovered and the dancers whom he used as guest artists), all had an animal sensual radiance. Petit saw bodies, especially perfectly proportioned females. And somehow, in working with these various girl/women -- he imbued them, their souls -- with deeper elements of whatever was already there -- humor, curiosity, joy, lovingness, rage, despair. He made them more fascinating, more radiant.

I write about him because the effect he had on the art world lingers, like the Aztec, Mayan, Inca chiseling.

For instance Leslie Caron. That Petit found her, directed, shaped, and launched her, is one of the reasons why I'm not able to put the fact that he's gone out of my mind. Okay, Fosse did that too, with Gwen Verdon and maybe with Ann Reinking, (whom I don't include on my personal list of special/favorite/ radiant performers, but she was powerful in Fosse's "All That Jazz.")

I am searching for a way to express what I feel about Roland Petit, and others, those whom you knew, who affected you and are gone. They live -- really live on — their words, gestures, deeds.

They are not gone. Pay attention, nod, acknowledge any moment, anything about them that you remember.

Do it -- remember them, the people who made a MARK on you. Do it intentionally.

I am thinking about how I'll feel at the end of my life. I could be there in a minute. So I'm saying to you, though you may not hear it, hold on to whatever MARK I might have made on you and your world.

ALEC BALDWIN

2011-11-01T04:00:00.003-04:00

He's getting looser, but wiser, gentler, sharper, sometimes meaner, and boy oh boy, we are seeing more, and more, AND MORE of Alex Baldwin.

In lots of ads, very big commercials for a bank card, and do-this, try-that ads that suggest better, healthier, less expensive ways to do various things -- I can't remember what -- but on Ted Turner's movie channel --wow -- Baldwin talking about movies -- there's no one who's as direct, sincere, knowledgeable as Alec B.

Remember, all the bad press he got because he yelled at his daughter, and the divorce stuff? It's fading. It seems unimportant as we watch him, and are getting to know him as he's growing up into a leader.

Former actor Ronald Reagan was a leader. Like Reagan, Baldwin has played many different roles -- heroes and villains, quite often revealing unattractive aspects of himself (physically and mentally), but Baldwin remains attractive -- admirable, honest, trustworthy, yes -- and lovable.

I think Baldwin is deliberately expanding himself, his name, his presence, all over the media; in a methodical, thoughtfully considered way . I think he's making plans to run for public office. He's a "star" who doesn't behave like a STAR, and he is positioning himself to go for something major.

Okay, I know he admires my husband, John Cullum, and Baldwin has said so in public more than two times. (I heard him) -- Cullum in the musical "Shenandoah," inspired the young Alec to become an actor. He had good taste. John Cullum, in that musical, playing Charlie Anderson, was classic -- heroic -- fatherly -- a man to believe in -- a man who loved his family and his country.

So, since I feel that image still resonating in Baldwin (as it does in many many people who saw that show) why not Alec Baldwin as a mover and shaker in politics?

Yes, I am predicting, that one of these days we'll be seeing Mr. Alec Baldwin running for President.

DARK AT 4 pm (Video)

2011-10-30T07:43:00.003-04:00

What about daylight saving? It was something we looked forward to, most of us, when we were kids.

John and Em get stuck -- about "time falling back." It doesn't seem as if it's a big issue to John, but Em is bothered -- she finds it depressing that when daylight saving ends, and we turn the clock back an hour, the streets get dark in the late afternoon.

It's not a serious problem, and not something the Cullums can solve, but they sympathize with each other in the special loving way, that they have, supporting each other's point of view.

.

HORROR FILM GUY

2011-10-28T04:00:00.004-04:00

I haven't liked horror films ever since, as a very small child, I saw 'SHH, the OCTOPUS" (Click -- read what I wrote about this.)

I wondered how does Guillermo de Toro, the creator of 'Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark," a new hit, feels about his film?

( He's 47. His films are: "Cronos(1993) ; "Mimic," (1997), "The Devils Backbone, (2001). He also directed "Blade II," in 2002; and "Hellboy," (2004).)

Time Magazine's Gilbert Cruz, asks: "You grew up in Mexico, where a scary drug war is going on. Why not make a movie about that?"

Del Toro says: "I'm not a filmmaker who can speak directly about politics without addressing it through fable or parable. It's just not in my makeup, and the horror film is a very political genre. But I cannot go back to Mexico as a director because of the kidnapping of my father. A film is a highly visible venture, and I can't risk it."

(Cruz and Del Torro briefly discuss the fact that del Torro's father was kidnapped by bandits and held for ransom for 72 days in 1998. Though his father survived, it continues to haunt del Torro as a storyteller.)

Del Torro says: "Like fairy tales, there are two facets of horror. One is pro-institution, which is the most reprehensible type of fairy tale: '"Don't wander into the woods, and always obey your parents." The other type of fairy tale is completely anarchic and anti-establishment."

(Hmm ... this sounds ... well, very intellectual, but I'm not sure what he means.)

Cruz : "You have an interesting living situation, with a house, separate from your family, for just your books, your posters, your art and your work."

Del Toro explains that he dreamed of having a house with secret passages and a room "where it rained 24 hours a day ---that when you're over 40, you fulfill the desires you've been harboring since you were seven."

Cruz: "What did your wife have to say about that?"

Del Toro: "She was happy. When you're 7, your mother throws away your comic books. When you're 40, you should be able to prevent that."

(Hmm ... "dream house ... comic book collection ...?" I'm sensing artist del Toro doesn't trust the wife, that their tastes are not compatible.)

Cruz: "How do you deal with people who think of the fantastic as infantile?"

Del Toro: "I try to avoid long conversations with them. You cannot convince a Buddhist to become a Protestant any more than you can convince a person who embraces realism as the highest form of art that fantasy is an equally important manifestation. It's impossible."

(Mmm .., I wonder how Steve Jobs. or Microsoft's creator, Bill Gates would react to this big blanket remark?)

Cruz: "You speak as if your art is your religion."

Del Toro:: "It is. To me, art and storytelling serve primal, spiritual functions in my daily life. Whether I'm telling a bedtime story to my kids or trying to mount a movie or write a short story or a novel, I take it very seriously."

(Why can't this del Toro just say yes? Why does he layer everything with extra intellectuality?)

Cruz; "Why do you always wear black?"

Del Toro : "I have been told it's very slimming. [Laughs.] But let me tell you, no matter how I look in black, you don't want to imagine me in white."

(Reality -- black hides the dirt. When you wear black every day, your clothes don't need a lot of washing. Maybe you do, but nobody sees it.)

I can accept horror films, as art, but it isn't art that I seek out or enjoy. I think that horror flicks encourage the taste for violence, the lust for shock, ugliness in people who haven't grown up, are stuck in adolescence.

I feel, from what Guellirmo del Torro says, that he knows he can make money making horror films, and his "artistic" creativity is snagged in making money.

VICTORY FOR VETERANS ? ?

2011-10-26T04:00:00.008-04:00

Many veterans who gave themselves to winning our wars are already back home.

Hurray. They're alive. That's a personal victory!

We're patting them on the back, thanking them. And many of us are glad -- not thrilled -- but most of us are relieved that President Obama is bringing our armed forces home from Iraq.

I am not sure we've supported the wars and what our fighting forces have been doing. I feel guilty about this. The wars they've been fighting, the rebuilding they've been doing seems -- not wrong -- but gee, unnecessary.

I understand that we've been fighting to stop terrorism, to subdue the Taliban, and Al Qaeda but I'm in vaguesville, when it comes to who the enemy is right now, and what we can win.

What's strong and important to me is my deep disapproval of the wars. I can't accept our recruiting men and women to KILL, or BE KILLED when words, talks, meetings, negotiations, NOT fighting, but talking might accomplish the same thing.

Anyhow, it's good that we've been hailing Veterans who are coming home now, and applauding them. Yes, with parades and pictures of them in local newspapers, perhaps, but very limited medical facilities. Is there any sort of GI bill -- can they go to college, are they getting real help with jobs, housing, and money to help them reestablish themselves in income producing careers in America, 2011, and 2012

I learned from my reading, recently, about a veteran who's using leadership skills he acquired in the service to mentor young people. Yay for him!

Another veteran is now devoting his time to "HIRING HEROES," an employment program for returning veterans facing a tough job market.

There's a first response group of veterans -- they're organized to mobilize quickly, and help with disaster relief, in the Us and abroad.

That's great, but it seems minimal when it comes to how many veterans are getting help. And what about all the men and women who will be returning from Iraq?

Here's an official list:
Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America: lava, org
Purple Hearts Home, build handicapped accessible homes for vets: phhnc. org.
Team Rubicon. Emergency disaster relief teams: rubiconusa. org.
The Mission; links wounded vets with public service: missioncontinues.org
Operation Medicine Institute; organizes teams throughout world: opmedinstitute. org.
Carolina for Kibera; health & sports programs for Kenya's slums: cfk.unc.edu
Hire Heroes, emplyment for returning veterans: hireheroesusa,org

I am VERY glad that attention is being paid, though, in my opinion, it's paltry. To me, it's because the wars we are fighting with billions of dollars and powerful good minds doing the very best they can to WIN, are not being won.

I haven't found an answer to what we are winning that justifies what we've been spending, and what's happening to men and women who fought these wars.

Here's a film -- a "sell" that I'm NOT pushing you to watch. It's saying what I've already told you, like an advertisement, presenting what's happening to our veterans optimistically.

The film saddens me. Okay, let's do better, do more for our veterans, but loud, very loud in my mind, is stop the wars, stop the WAR IN AFGHANISTAN.

PETS AREN'T PEOPLE

2011-10-24T04:00:00.006-04:00

Those adopt-a-pet ads — sad-eyed pooches, needy cats ... on which, on what do I focus?

We had a dog named "Teechie," a cat named "Helpy" and a large, white pigeon named " Little Soup." They helped us teach our son JD the facts of life.

And of course, pets taught us other facts-of-life things.

The cat combed, and climbed and tore parts of our burlap walls. We found a new owner for Helpy. When our male pigeon laid an egg, we were stunned and thrilled. We let Little Soup fly around the house once a day, even though pigeon poop was a bit of problem. A friend, emigrating to Puerto Rico, was delighted to adopt Little Soup. Before we moved to Malibu, a New York neighbor who had "Daisy," a dachshund, was thrilled when Teechie became Daisy's live-in playmate.

Those pets in the ads touch me, but I find myself remembering our pets, and also -- golly -- I can't help thinking of the sad-eyed starving children in the pictures from all over the world.

And also thinking about what I've read about endangered species -- the 19, 265 living things -- 2,364 mammals and birds that the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) keeps track of in order to help governments identify species in need of protection.

Stop-stop – I tell myself.

My mind jumps to Al Gore -- climate, environment things -- stop-stop – too many things in every direction -- my energies have to focus on my own life and people whom my hands, my mind, can help.

It's a choo-choo train of thought -- polar bears, whales, and dolphins, then earthquake, tornado, hurricane victims, and then those damn ads -- the pets seem to be speaking to me.

Stop-stop – but I can't stop -- practically everyone I know has a pet or two or three pets, and every time I'm on the street I see dogs as the children of the people who have them on their leashes -- every time I visit a friend I see them cuddling. petting, taking care of their beloved pet children.

Gee, pet children? And there are so many, many real children that need help. My God, they're the life that goes on after we're gone! We must help the children, hands on, money, and thoughts -- even if we're just helping other helpers help a child.

No, I can't adopt a pet. And I can't take on a child. Our lives, mine and my husband's, are already over filled with tender responsibilities. I can't close my eyes and not see the sad-eyed pet creatures that need a parent, but I know you understand, because you, most of you, have the love of pets, and pets that you love in your family.

But golly, if I could, a child would be number one on my list.

ARE WE INFLATING INFLATION? (video)

2011-10-22T04:00:00.006-04:00

John Cullum is laughing, Em's musing.

John is actually quite concerned about what's happening with money, these days, but feels that it isn't inflation. Prices are just going on.

Em thinks it's inflation...

Since JC is the Cullum family shopper, the one who provides the food, household, home, and office supplies -- he knows what things cost now and remembers what they used to cost.

"I'm a penny pincher," Cullum says.

Em, delighted that John has taken the shopping chore off her agenda, snuggles in, glad that he's watching over them.

PASSWORD ART

2011-10-20T04:00:00.003-04:00

How to make sure fire, strong good, password?

You have to define yourself, and find a sequence of letters, digits, that you can remember.

So your source is significant -- it could be a ditty, a jingle, or maybe a spur of the moment feeling, or --of course -- you can go with what you've read about hackers, and create a complicated password like Google recommends.

Okay --be it numbers, symbols, cuss words, whatever you pick, nevertheless, needs to be an expression of you.

Like a profile picture? Do you pick what reveals what you are today? Or what you were? Or what you wish you could be?

I'm getting quite an education on twitter.com. I have noted, and now avoid, the f---, the s--- word users. the sexy come-on tweeters. Much of what's tweeted, isn't writing -- it's spur of the moment self-expression. And I'm seeing a lot of this on Facebook -- gee, guys -- what's this need to take off your clothes in words, and blurt out, vomit out, belch out a semi -chewed, undigested thought?

Work and think and create a passwords as if it's poetry. What you choose ought to be based on what you've learned, and what's deep, deep in your mind.

I'm saying dig into your childhood. "One, two, button my shoe" -- "Jack be Nimble" -- or maybe "Row, row, row your boat." Or latch onto the present -- what's in your bank account, or a relative's name, an enemy, a song -- some real thing from which you extract letters. Then, intersperse the letters with numbers or symbols. Your password won't be forgotten..

Signing in will be a moment, a couple of seconds of reverence -- a reference to something that is important to YOU.

Example:
"Mary had a little lamb, it's fleece was white as snow." M&hA(lLiF)wWaS

I love John Cullum

i&l%J@C

We are spending more and more time, trying to find ways to be secure on the Internet. Why not turn that process into a poem?

I LOVE EDISON

2011-10-18T04:00:00.001-04:00

Thomas Alva died October 18. 1931 so I'm mourning him, saluting him right now.

I wrote about Edison, with passion, in my book.."Somebody, Woman of the Century." My heroine, Cordelia, after a spat with the man she loved, was hoping to hear from him. He socialized with Edison.

From chapter 32:
"Two days became four days, without hearing from Jackson. Was it already a week? Had she missed his phone call at the office? The date, what day of the week it was, was attached to names in the news, events in the lives of others. The 17th of October, Scarface Capone was sentenced to eleven years in the penitentiary. The next day, eighty-four-year-old Thomas Alva Edison died at Glenmont, his home in West Orange, New Jersey. Realizing it was a personal loss for Jackson, she couldn't help wondering if he'd be at the funeral. Newspapers and radios announced that all nonessential lights throughout the country were going to be extinguished for one minute during the evening of October 21st, as a tribute to Edison. Was it Jackson's idea? It could have been.

The date happened to be the 53rd anniversary of Edison's most famous invention — he was the father of incandescent light, and much more, so much more. The time for the blackout was 9:59 p.m. Cordelia was browsing through the celebrity files, thinking she might write a tribute to the inventor. Of course you couldn't ask the nation to play an Edison record, at 9:59 p.m., on their Edison phonographs. Or arrange a nationwide turn on of all radios. Most people wouldn't realize that their favorite radio announcer was using an Edison microphone, that stock market ticker tapes, flashlight batteries, camera film, the electric locomotive, composition brick, automobile electric starters, all that and more than a thousand other inventions which affected people every day of their lives were Edison babies. The day before he died, he'd been working on a process that turned goldenrod, the common backyard weed, into synthetic rubber. Would the world be riding on goldenrod tires someday?

"Checking the clock, Cordelia pictured Mina Miller Edison, Thomas Alva's wife for forty-five years. Would Mina mournfully watch her clock? like me, Cordelia thought, with my dream of being a woman who leaves a mark on the world?"

And me, Em the writer blogger -- I can't bring myself to throw out TIME Magazine, JULY 5 2010, and an article by Bryan Walsh, a deep digging researcher whom I also admire, from whom I gleaned:

"At Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School in Washington, children in the third-grade class bend over model cars designed to run on solar power. Working with a team of professional scientists from NASA and other federal agencies, they're putting finishing touches on the cars -- learning the way all trainee scientists learn -- through the sort of dogged trial and error that has always been the preface to American invention, a method Thomas Edison helped pioneer.

"Edison patented 1,093 mechanisms and processes, devices that would give birth to three enduring American industries: electrical power, recorded music and motion pictures.-- it's as if he spent his career inventing the biggest things, things that for me define 20th Century."

I learned that after three months in school. Edison was taught by his mother at home, where he put together a chemistry lab. As a working teenager earning dimes as a railway newsboy, Edison spend $2 (nearly two days pay) so he could enroll in the Detroit Public Library. At 16, he was an itinerant telegraph operator for Western Union. In his early 20s he was creating his first inventions: forms of telegraph equipment. In Boston, he attended n public lectures at the new Boston Tech, which later, become the globally influential Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

in the 1870s, he created his own inventor community in Menlo Park, N.J. The laboratory and workshop -- his "invention factory" — Edison once boasted , was th eplace where he and his team could develop "a minor invention every 10 days and a big thing every six months or so."

That's a rate that would suit Steve Jobs. And kids today. And astounds me.

WHAT WE DO ALL DAY LONG (video)

2011-10-16T04:00:00.007-04:00

The Cullums think their daily routine is normal, very standard, and average.

They feel that their daily routines aren't special, or very interesting.

It's just breakfast, lunch, dinner between work -- each in their own office. JC, between acting jobs, works on writing music for his "Jack Tales" and "Bible Ballads" musicals. Em, writing posts for Em's Talkery, is currently figuring out how to sell her novels that have just been published as e books on Amazon.com.

The fact is, they enjoy their daily routines, and think they're very very lucky.

NEWS ITIS

2011-10-14T04:00:00.012-04:00

I love Rachel Maddow for her energetic freshness, intelligence, down-to-earthiness. But nowadays, if I tune her in, I change the channel.

For me, right now, there's too much bam-wham- slam, scratch, jab, punch, and coo.

Coo? Yes, the knowing, comforting tone, the sigh that's telling me "that's the way the cookie crumbles."

Too much news, and too many others are on me and at me, plastering me with info, opinion, their personal point of view (POV) -- and coo.

Right now, I like Lawrence O'Donnell -- he's slower, wearier, and much less everything. His realistic, sort of sad, pained demeanor suits my tired, weary, sad mood. Maddow's perkiness, her positive, passionate, seemingly un-stoppable flow of information, and her marvelously mixed but balanced personal reactions are exhausting.

Rachel tires me out? Yes! I don't want to be revved up by her.

The Ed Show, Piers Morgan, Wolf Blitzer, Anderson Cooper, Chris Matthews ... mmm ...Lots of good words in the wind with information that I can grab onto, or ignore but ... well ... I get restless listening to them . Piers is interesting but mostly does interviews. Chris Matthews' politics -- I am not interested in the IFS, and MAYBES on candidates. (Not now-- maybe in nine months I'll pay attention.)

Scott Pelly? The CBS anchorman that replaced Katie Couric? Dull! And the other whatshis-her names? They make me sleepy.

Now Charles Grodin -- golly, like Scott Pelly, he was a commentator on 60 Minutes for a while -- what fascinating fun he was on that show as well as in so many movies! Grodin has a sense of humor and -- for me, right on the money -- clean, sharp, fresh political observations. Hey, if Charles Grodin were the guy on CBS Nightly News, or anywhere, I'd glue myself to the channel and listen, chuckle, oggle, and be -- well, maybe I would be influenced!

EDWARDS IN THE DUMPSTER

2011-10-12T04:00:00.005-04:00

He's in the dumpster, more or less, with quite a few other famous names.

We often throw out our heroes after we've put them high above us on pedestals, because of who they are, what they did, said, or accomplished.

John Edwards, before and after running for vice president with Senator John Kerry, has created and supported many important projects that helped people socially and economically. He was certainly someone to consider as we were looking over Democratic candidates, along with Hilary Clinton and Obama.

Despite the fact that Elizabeth Edwards, his wife, had cancer, she stood bravely, lovingly by his side. While they were campaigning -- and they were a powerfully sympathetic couple.

John had an affair. The details made salacious headlines. The woman got pregnant. He lied and said it wasn't his baby; later, he admitted it was. Meanwhile, wife Elizabeth, who'd published a first book about finding solace after the death of their son and her struggle with cancer, published "Resilience," about living with an incurable cancer, and becoming a victim of her husband's adultery.

What's the story behind her story? We'll probably never know, but maybe the years of sadness and woes parched John Edwards sexually, and made him vulnerable and desperately needy. Yes, clearly he lied about his love life, and also, he apparently, finagled with campaign financing. His selfish, recklessly irresponsible behavior devastated his dying wife, and their children, and hurt his mistress and their child.

At the moment, in Raleigh, N.C., Wade Smith, one of Edward's lawyers has withdrawn from Edwards' defense team because Smith himself has a conflict of interest. The trial is scheduled for January 2012 . Edwards could be fined $1.5 million for misusing funds, and could go to jail for 30 years. Also, heavy, heavy hanging over his head is what he did to Elizabeth and their family. .Now she's dead and their children live with their grandparents. Does he see them, I don't know.

What about his extraordinary record -- all the good deeds he's done for people with medical problems, money woes -- all the money he's donated, and money he's raised for those who desperately need it?

Can we, can the world, can you and I ever trust a man who has lied the way Edwards lied? No. I don't think John Edwards can return to politics, but he could be helping people as he did before he toppled off his pedestal. This man has skills and enormous knowledge, expertise -- like Tiger Woods, like Eliot Spitzer -- he does not belong in the dumpster.

What's my personal feeling about all this?

I am hoping that one of these days John Edwards will be out in the world, back in the world working -- working harder than ever -- helping people and redeeming himself.

AUTISM

2011-10-10T04:00:00.001-04:00

Kids? What's happening to them?

They're being studied, measured, medicated, tested, taught how to play, and communicate with other kids and adults.

A kid with communication problems, who doesn't pay attention or talk, or reach out to play with other kids, is said to have "Asperger's." In 1944, Austrian pediatrician Hans Asperger, who studied thousands of patients, published a paper defining people who are "autistic" as impaired in social interaction.

Okay, back then it was a major, fascinating new idea.

In the 70's and 80's the theory emerged that these disorders had to do with females -- mothers, who were college graduates, marrying college graduates -- that people of similar temperament were mating. By the 90's, the categories of unions that produced autistic children were proved by statistics that showed (are still showing today), that those who have higher than average levels of autistic traits, without any full blown disorder, are marrying and having children at a higher rate than ever before -- thus, we have more autistic children.

Okay, autism was affecting a lot of people, and more and more research was important, and being funded.

Today, there are tons of articles, photos, advice, pills, and talk about autistic children and why, nowadays, there are more autistic children. Is it chemicals -- stuff in the air, in the home, in everything -- in furniture? cars? food? pets, clothes. toys,. games, electrical outlets? Do kids get it from watching television?

Wise men -- doctors nad, scientists -- have come up with diagnoses: Hyperlexia, Dyslexia, Angelman Syndrome, Autism Dementia; Alexia, Rett Syndrome,- Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, (ADHD), Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. (OCD), etc. etc.

Hmm. Do I have Asperger's? I'm verbally adept, and definitely impaired socially -- I don't like parties, have very few friends -- write them -- rarely, hardly ever, even chat with them on the phone for more than a minute.

I can't help mentioning my personal mother/wife, experience -- and EM logic. It seem to me that as you're growing up, you make choices about who to play with, what's fun, what interests you. The choices you make very early on are what you see, hear, and feel from your parents and family.

Is Asperger's like Altzheimer's -- a disease that can be seen in MRI brain scans? Or is it an affliction that's been created by medical doctors and scientists attempting to explain, treat, help people -- make, in fact, a big business over what happens to people as they grow up in today's world?

Yes, MRI's, scans have been made. Thus far, Asperger's is not seen, not yet diagnosed by brain scans.

Could autism be normal functioning of a certain type of mind? While I'm asking myself this quietly, I read about the Director of the Autism Research Center of London's University of Cambridge, Simon Baron Cohen. He said that autistic behavior can been seen in any group of people who have had strong math, science and tech skills, people who can be sorted out by socio-economic standing, relationships, and psychiatric profile -- people with depression, bi-polar disorders, and substance abuse issues.

Cohen reminded his colleagues that their tendency to mate with others of similar background is also typical -- birds of a feather, flock together.

Other scientists, with high ranking credits, agree. Others are horrified by this idea.

I feel like a kid -- I'm trying to figure out if "autism" is a real disease?

I feel (don't know, just feel) that many fears, many things that depress us and haunt us have been created by what we see, feel, hear, watch, use, buy, crave, participate in, learn from observing, identify with in our everyday more complicated, confusing world.

Yes, I think we have created "autism."
.

LOS ANGELES VERSUS NEW YORK CITY (video)

2011-10-08T04:00:00.004-04:00

Oops, this video came out very yellow and we ought to record it again, but the second time might not be as much fun as this first time.

Where is living day-to-day better? Where's the better place for John Cullum, for Emily Frankel to earn a living?

It doesn't matter to Em, writing can be done anywhere. But John needs to be in NYC. In LA, even 10 years ago, JC found himself sitting around, sometimes for months, without even an audition for a grandpa role. In New York City there's always work. Auditions, play readings, meetings, benefits, tributes.

Life for the Cullums, living in the heart of Manhattan, means noise, congestion, shopping problems -- getting food and supplies. Home means climbing five flights. They don't have an elevator in the building they own -- an 100 year old 5 storey loft building where they have a big home on one floor, a theater, dance studio and offices on another floor.

Life is LA is easier, more relaxing -- there are stars in the sky, wonderful vegetation, flowers. But John and Em agree, life in NY is what they want right now.

GLORIOUS GLORIA STEINEM

2011-10-06T04:00:00.001-04:00

She's a big name woman who helped to change the face, the stance, the status, of girls, gals, sweethearts, babes, mistresses, brides, divorcees, ladies -- all women.

(Including me. And when all women are involved, so are all men.)

Steinem's still talking, taking on the masculine world, defining and redefining what a woman is, what a woman can be.

One of the founders of what we came to call "Women's Liberation" -- Gloria Steinem has more than survived moving out of the limelight, into what she is now.

She states what she is with humor, clear speech, the ability to communicate on the level of the best reporters, and shapes her idea of what a woman is by revealing who Gloria Steinem really is -- a caring, nurturing, person who teaches, and reaches out to others.

I admired Gloria Steinem when MZ Magazine arrived in my mailbox every week. I admired G.S. when others said important things that rang the bell in my head and the heads of woman throughout the world. I used the names, wrote about these women in my novel, "Somebody, Woman of the Century."

(...Susan B Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Emmeline Pankhurst, Victoria Woodhull, Simone de Beauvior, Kate Millet, Betty Friedan, Shirley Chisholm. Bella Abzug Germaine Greer, and quite a few others -- too many names to list here.)

Gloria Steinem, in my novel, affected the lives of my main characters in various ways, borrowed from my experience, and the way she affected my life. I didn't need woman's liberation to tell me that I could do and be and take on whatever I wanted, whether it was a male or female thing. I didn't accept the rules, mores, or standards that were my mother's, her mother's, and the hand-me-downs from the last century and centuries before that.

But gee, every female friend I ever had, every woman that I know, every female I've identified with, and every character I have created has worn, dressed in, and covered her naked real self with the hand-me-downs.

Gloria Steinem took on that mountain of vintage things. She's climbed the mountain of what womanhood was supposed to be, and from her work has made the route to the summit, a pathway for all women.

All woman? Listen to what Gloria Steinem says and see for yourself.

SPEEDING ALONG

2011-10-04T04:00:00.004-04:00

When my husband was performing in two Shakespeare plays this summer, at the Delacorte theater, in Central Park, he took a subway to the park every day, then walked, wended his way along the curved, complicated path that leads to the backstage areas of the theater and entrance for actors.

After each performance, he left the stage area in a golf cart. It is the Shakespeare Festival's policy now. Actors don't walk through the park after a show. It's not safe. They are driven to the park's east side or west side exits, in one of the park's golf carts.

Zoom -- speeding along, you sit in a seat and hold onto the cart's rails. The wind's in your face. The driver is your chauffeur. He knows how to avoid crowds and collisions with humans and other carts. When he crosses the one road that he has to cross, at the stop light, he waits until there is no other traffic.

It was interesting -- it got us where we needed to go, in a easy-going way that enabled us to relax and see things we ordinarily wouldn't have seen.

The cart left us (passenger Cullum, wife Em, other actors, guests) on fifth avenue, where we could safely flag a taxi, or head for a city bus or subway.

What a ride! What a easy, pleasant way to get around.

In Los Angeles, our son has a 2010 Mini Cooper sports car. He wants to buy the 2011 new Mini Cooper because it comes with a warranty to fix major things (transmission, brakes, etc). Therefore -- "Please Mom and Dad, if I buy a new car, and trade in my old Mini Cooper? I might need a ."loan."

Why? He explained that the cost of repairs is unbelievably high, sky high because it's a foreign car. Son JD said it's much more economical to buy a new car.

Holy smoke, Holy Cow! Do you see the new car ads? Do they drift over your subconscious -- those "new" cars -- the shiny, pretty "tin," (dent-susceptible), same style cars that have been overpriced, are now higher-priced?

The ads proclaim, and tout great mileage --it's the same mileage the manufacturers were getting three years ago when their cars were gulping down too much gas! The new (same as the old) lovely color cars continue to dent from a pebble, and crumple if anything -- be it a tree branch, guard rail, bike -- or other car -- happens to even slightly graze it.

The Shakespeare Festival of 2011 is now an event on John Cullum's resume. JD, our son, is still mulling over buying a new car so save money? To avoid hassles of car repairs that sooner or later every car needs? The fall weather has peeked in on us, disappeared, reappeared, and we're dancing in the rain more often than usual, I think.

I can't help thinking traveling on shanks' mare (they way people did it before there were autos) is a way to go.

It's good exercise.

Getting somewhere -- wherever you live -- means traffic jams. And riding around, looking, searching for a place to park.

What's the hurry? Hurrying to get somewhere distracts and wastes the time for seeing, hearing, smelling, absorbing and living -- just plain breathing and taking in the scenery and living your life.

NEW DOINGS (video)

2011-10-02T04:00:00.003-04:00

Emily asks John Cullum what his latest, newest project is going to be.

"IF -- " John says immediately If I'm not working on a show."

And that expresses what's on John Cullum's mind. Like most actors, getting the next job is foremost on his mind.

John discusses "Bible Ballads," -- it's been an important, number-one creative project of his for more than a year. Emily reminds about the "Jack Tale" -- a play, a one man show, a recording maybe, that the Cullums have worked on together for quite a few years. (On and off, that's the way their projects develop.

Talking back and forth, you can see, and hear that they're cooking on it, he's not sure yet what to focus on, and she's stirring the pot.

STUCK

2011-09-30T04:00:00.004-04:00

I feel weary, lazy, boxed in. I can't concentrate or do what I ought to be doing.

I suspect many other people feel this way too.

I want to do something incisive, strong, but can't. I can complain -- and have complained -- about all the high level, brainy analyses of what Obama is doing, not doing, needs to do. And right now, again, I'm complaining about the opinions, polls, the babble -- the repetitious sing-song of the Repubs -- the selling techniques they are using to make Obama a failed president, and keep him failing, stuck, immobilized, even though it is immobilizing the country.

What can we do?

Wall street protest-- yay!

Write, call, fax, e-mail our congressmen-- yay!

Listen and watch Obama making his latest speech --yay!

But we can't get out of this stuck state -- can't extricate ourselves from the every day more looming financial crises. And we are heading into the same threat, the threat the Repubs used before -- they're threatening to shut the government down.

People need help desperately. FEMA needs funds. FEMA won't get funds unless the White House renegotiates, and cuts support to Americans in other life and death, major areas.

Whoa! Don't we live in a democracy? Don't we have a government of the people, by the people, for the people?

The books say: "Democracy is a government in which all people have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives -- equal (and more or less direct) participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law."

The Repubs have figured out a new way to control and rule the nation. They've re-defined, and renovated. Legally, more or less constitutionally, they are reconstructing "democracy." They stop Congress from functioning.

They don't want Obama to be able to function as president. They are electioneering -- campaigning to show Americans that the only way they'll get jobs, and other legislation, will be if a Republican is elected.

Right now, President Barack Obama can only try and keep trying -- till the next election -- to rally Dems, and perhaps shame some Repubs, who don't like what the Repubs are doing. Could Obama get enough representatives to support him? Is there any way for the President to stop what's happening in the House of Reps?

I don't know. I don't think we have a House of Representatives right now.

We have a Repub House that is campaigning -- has been have been campaigning -- since they were elected in November 2010. They are working full time to win the presidency in in 2012.

When you are stuck in the snow, you get a shovel. In traffic, you try another route. In water, you swim or grab a boat. In mud, or quicksand you grab anything that might lift you up and out of what's sucking in you down.

Got shovel, rope, pole, boat, another route? -- I'll take anything you offer.

LIKES

2011-09-28T04:00:00.005-04:00

What's all this stuff about LIKE? Is it Facebook-itis, a tweeting virus we've caught from reading and writing and responding to comments, little summaries, adages, photos, film clips?

Is LIKE all we need to do, in order to respond to words, ideas, moods, philosophies, projects, products that people are proposing?

Click LIKE what? The candidate, the Author, the seller, the inventor of whatever it is, is rewarded with a LIKE, which in Internet terms, is MONEY?

No.
APPROVAL?
Sort of ...
So LIKES are building a career?

Not specifically. LIKES are primarily a promotion of yourself. If you say something that people like, others notice, and add their LIKE to the other LIKES, and thus, you're accruing a name and with a name you can teach, preach, beseech each and every friend to send you more friends, more followers.

I'm thinking we need LIKES to be in various colors, or degrees..."like" a lot, "like" a tiny little, a ha ha LIKE, thrilled LIKE, scared LIKE. Also, LIKES plus an um, ugh, eek, pooh, yuck --maybe even a LIKE spelled backwards ...an EKIL

I have to admit I'm bored with "like" as a measure of anything these days. It's too easy to "like." It's not even as satisfactory as a hello, or a hi.

Actually, I dislike LIKES. And now we're getting more and more interactive LIKES. Tell your favorite commentator you LIKE his show? LIKE that singer, that dancer performer? LIKE that ad? that movie? It's as if everything is in a beauty contest and you are involved with picking who's got the best legs.

Gee, wouldn't it be wonderful if "likes" could get us out of the political doldrums, and between now and November 2012 we could text in, email, Tweet, Facebook share our "LIKES!" (Hey, Apple or Google would probably develop and sell us some sort of hack-proof security system that knows, recognizes, real LIKES, lying LIKES, and truthful, heartfelt DISLIKES.)

Then, wow! On November 6, 2012, we will go to a booth, and pull or punch a lever based on what we feel -- not like -- what we know is right.

BILL CLINTON ON HILLARY FOR PRESIDENT

2011-09-27T04:00:00.003-04:00

When former President Bill Clinton speaks I pay attention. I like him, his politics, and his amazing mind. Despite his playing around with other women and my sense of what this has done to Hillary Clinton as a woman, I like him.

Clinton, a few days ago, laughed off what former Vice President Dick Cheney's said about Hillary running for president again. During recent interviews promoting his new book "In My Time," Cheney suggested that Hillary Clinton should run for president in 2012, against Obama..

Cheney's remarks, Cheney selling his new book that defends the wrong things Cheney has done, are almost unbearable, but Bill's response was the response of a seasoned wise professional. He said:

"Well, you know, I'm very proud of her, so I'm always gratified whenever anyone says anything nice about her. And I very much agree that she's done a good job," Clinton told Bob Schieffer on CBS's "Face the Nation."

"But I also have a high regard for Vice President Cheney's political skills, and I think one of those great skills is sowing discord among the opposition. So I think he's right that she's done a heck of a job. But she is a member of this administration, and committed to doing it. And I think he, by saying something nice about her in the way that he did, knew that it might cause a little trouble," Clinton continued.

"I don't want to help him succeed in his political strategy. But I admire that he's still out there hitting the ball."

Here’s the video:

IDOLS

2011-09-26T04:00:00.002-04:00

You build them up, and make them kings, queens, leaders, label them number one -- great, The Greatest, favorite, the best. You follow them on Facebook, on Twitter, and take in their words, their doings, approve, disapprove. applaud, ennoble and adore them.

Hey, by writing this, I'm doing it -- playing what I call the " fame name" game. Ears and eyes absorbing news alerts, headlines, gossip -- digesting all of it like essential vitamins.

It's energizing, like a pep bill. Events in an Idol's life are YOUR life too.

So who's actually in the Idol fame game right now? (Don't bother linking to the links, if you're busy with your own idols -- look at my links when you're bored.)

Justin Bieber? (wrote about him last June.)

And J lo? She's getting oldish, but J lo's HOT again right now.

Is Simon the honest, mean creator of American Idol one of your idols? Amazing guy, is he going marry Paula Abdul?

What about Michael Jackson? He's still a vibrating, powerful musical entity, like Elvis.

Oh sure, other names are wafting about -- Sarah Palin looks more beautiful than ever. (Thank God she's biding her time about running for president.) Lindsay Lohan's always good for an OH NO, NOT AGAIN!. I can't help hoping Paris Hilton's fading.

Having Googled, I know the who's are mostest biggest celebs for the moment.

1 Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) 12,516,236 followers SORT OF LIKE HER
2 Justin Bieber 11,737,023 followers DON'T LOVE HIM
3 Barack Obama 9,602,976 followers LIKE HIM A LOT.
4 Katy Perry 9,054,420 followers --DONT 'KNOW WHO SHE IS
5 Britney Spears 8,924,496 followers DON'T LOVE HER
6 Kim Kardashian 8,913,646 followers WHICH "KARDASH" IS SHE?
7 Shakira 7,551,084 followers DON'T KNOW HER
8 Taylor Swift13 7,435,705 followers DON'T KNOW HER
9 Ashton Kutcher 7,386,783 followers BIG SELF-PROMOTER
10 Ellen DeGeneres 7,270,099 followers LIKE HER A LOT
11 Oprah Winfrey 6,994,849 followers DON'T LOVE HER
12 Rihanna 6,761,923 followers NOT INTERESTED
13 Selena Gomez 6,758,557 followers DULL CUTE BORE
16 Justin Timberlake 5,622,163 followers LIKE HIM A LOT

Where's Madonna? No new lover? No new adoptions? And Brangelina -- her with her not believable maternal smile? Is Brad getting fat? I wish he'd move out and re-marry Jennifer A who's aging, alas, quickly.

What about FALLEN IDOLS -- Roger Clemens, Kobe B? And Tiger Woods. (I want Tiger to win again!) And SLIPPING idols -- Mariah Carey, Halle Berry, or FORMER idol Mickey Rooney, and the FOREVER idol, Princess Diana?

Yes, I'm naming the names that have grabbed, are still grabbing, and getting YOU reading this post, wondering what Em's going to say next..

I think the idol game is like climbing up an unstable vine -- you're breaking branches, knocking off twigs and buds as you're clutching and holding on -- yep, you're climbing up an imaginary vine like Jack and the Beanstalk.

Beware -- fee, fi, fo, fum -- it's going nowhere -- it's dumb.

FIXING THINGS (video)

2011-09-24T04:00:00.005-04:00

If you are planning to move to New York City, bring your tools.

Why? Because when things break down in New York, you can spend hours and hours trying to get help, get what's not working fixed or replaced -- and things do wear out --windows won't open, doors, walls, ceilings, bathrooms develop problems, appliances break down,

John Cullum describes his recent labors around their home, explaining that you need to know how to jerry-rig things. His advice: " Get a book, and make sure you have tools." Aside from the fact that service people in New York cost anywhere between $80 and $150 an hour, it can take weeks to get a fixer, or a broken part replaced.

FONDA FOREVER

2011-09-22T04:00:00.001-04:00

Yes she's amazing. Yes, she looks beautiful. Yes, she knows a lot and she shares it.

Her newly done face bothers me. When comedienne, Carol Burnett, one of TV's most brilliant creative performers, had her face fixed, it bothered me.

A familiar face is familiar -- you do more than recognize it. You are traveling along in your life with a face that's like your own face -- changing (okay, maturing), growing older along with you.

Older --the word doesn't bite, but, well, maybe your attitude does.

The Fonda who has made mistakes, survived, reinvented herself, apologized, I admire. She's a doer. The Fonda with the new face declares strongly she is a doer. Though what she's doing now is more or less the same -- promoting her new book, selling her know-how about love, sex, and exercise.

But it isn't the same. With plastic surgery, she's done something major to herself. Announcing it, she's calling attention to herself in a way that's bound to get extra special attention -- her latest very personal revelations are like stripping off her clothes.

Why? Well, maybe Fonda feels that her exercises (which she's touting as refurbished, updated for an older body) are more important than ever. Maybe because her life as a divorced woman, right now, has been wonderfully enhanced by her younger look-- she feels that she's back in the swim -- breast stroking, floating, gracefully paddling along and doing better than women who are 10 years younger.

Is she? Well, here's the show-biz-wise Em's "yes." Jane Fonda is back in the marketplace for lovers, admirers, fans, jobs.

Personally, I don't really want advice from another woman who had surgery to transform herself. -- to me that means what she was before the surgery bothered her, upset her, depressed her. She's fixed lines in her forehead, bags under her eyes, tautened her cheeks, and neck.. She looks good. (She'll look better to me when her face muscles settle in on the new Fonda.)

But her latest aphorism is "It's much more important to be interested than interesting."

And she's making herself more interesting by talking about sex, and obviously she's looking for work -- leading roles, challenging parts that will enhance her career -- yes, mothers, mother-in-laws, grandmothers, but a younger matriarchal strong woman looks better on film. The camera has a cruel, harsh eye. So maybe more roles, better roles, will be coming her way.

So stop. Shut up, stop complaining, Em -- the New Fonda created by Fonda will keep her working in movies and on the stage.

Maybe what's making me uneasy is ... should I, could I, do I need to do what she's done?

Hmmm.

MEDIA MADNESS

2011-09-20T04:00:00.001-04:00

When did it happen, that the Media became the adviser to the President, to the White House, to the nation, to the world?

The media is a bunch of salespeople, educated, nice looking sales clerks who are shaping your life and mine.

They are vocal, assured. They've got big words and factual references that a staff digs up. They're telling Obama what the "global new deal" ought to be, and selling the media's new deal prospectus to us.

Yes, selling it. And they themselves are gussied up, advised, directed by advertising experts in convincing the market place -- that's us, the audience. They're putting down, demeaning, minimizing, psychoanalyzing Obama. They're patting him on the back with condescending compliments -- "Obama's nice idea is all wrong," and showing photos of his downcast, worried face.

They are Joe the plumber. We are Joe the plumber. Yes, I'm Joe the plumber, but I stand back and look at the words like birds in the air -- pigeons flapping their wings and dropping their excretions wherever, whenever nature calls.

We have Pew Polls, Gallup, Nielsen, Rassmusssen, YouGov, Zogby, Ipsos, Harris, etc etc. We have preachers, politicians, commentators, authors, editors, staff writers, all manner of news personnel birding out strong convictions, judgments, critiques.

I can't plug my ears. I don't close my eyes. I like to see the lay of the land -- squint sometimes and see the sparkle dust in the air. But statistical numbers and warnings are opinion shapers that confine me to what the media ladies and gents are selling.

Also, we've got housewives from everywhere, Jersey shore folks, winners, losers, celebs, talky talking telling their tales about nothing and nasty news, nifty news, nerdy news, all the latest news about e v e r y t h i n g.

None of it is news. It's views. It's do-do.

BELIEVE IT OR NOT (Video)

2011-09-18T04:00:00.003-04:00

What about those doomsday predictions? Bombs, another 9/11 disaster, what about the end of the world in 2012?

John Cullum says he's not superstitious, but nevertheless, he pays attention to the don't whistle, knock on wood traditions, and develops a few superstitious routines in rehearsal that he maintains during the run of a show. For instance, Cullum goes over certain lines before each performance -- makes his entrance, the same "good luck" way.

Do the Cullums believe in fortune tellers? ESP? NO, they both say. Yet they chat about the plans they made, a long time ago, in fact, about where to meet IF disaster hit New York.

SOCIAL NETWORKING KIDDIES

2011-09-17T04:00:00.008-04:00

Some of your dear friends, even peers with whom you're chatting about LIFE, are probably kids.

Consumer Reports, [June], said 7.5 million Facebook users are younger than 13 -- five million are 10 or younger. (FB says users must be 13 or older, but as you know, a birth year can be fixed.)

Actually, you're already sharing things with people you never met. Still, "likes, bulletins, Tweets, latest news from kids -- doesn't it sort of reduce the feeling that you've communicated, and shared things with friends?

Want to get rules passed and make sure kids will be banished from Facebook? From Twitter? From wherever you're chatting, browsing, exchanging ideas? I'm not sure it can be done.

Kids find ways to do whatever they really want to do. Yes, as a parent, or employer, you can find out where they hang out, who their friends are, do they have "bad" habits -- drugs, booze, smoking? Do they sniff illegal substances, have sexual doings with friends, or themselves? Do they steal, shoplift, borrow money -- are they involved with anything evil? There are many perilous places on the internet that anybody can access -- dangerous, even deadly activities.

Oh yes, you can protect the kids -- with rules, drug tests, advice from sociologists, psychoanalysts, pills for depression, attention deficit disorders and allergies. You can supervise, say stop, mustn't do that, that's wrong, that's bad. You can check, guard, make rules, put up fences, gates, walls.

You can enforce all your no-no-no admonitions.

That's why I'm writing this post.. I think no-no admonitions are producing anger in children, and more rebellion, and deeper, uglier, killer-kill-'em-feelings. inspiring all sorts of creative ways to circumvent what their elders want.

I think -- instead of "no" say YES.
Make "stop" into START,
Turn "don't" into DO.

Starting someone's mind -- not stopping it, thwarting it --but encouraging action is much easier. You can promote recreations, activities, things to do. Including browsing, social networking stuff and other Internet things that interest YOU, while educating yourself on how to educate the kid.

How much time do YOU spend social networking -- messaging, chatting, absorbing weird, amusing, sometimes just plain boring bla bla on the Internet?

Kids are THERE -- they're already opening your mind, probably, even though you don't realize they're kids. Remember, what's old for you and me, is not old for them, and new ideas, new things are cooking and brewing in their lives.

Try a YES. Challenging kids might challenge you. Aren't there new worlds for you to conquer?

MADELINE ALBRIGHT

2011-09-16T04:00:00.003-04:00

I like our former Secretary of State -- her wise ideas, her ability to speak directly and honestly, and feel she did a good job, communicating America's concern with other countries.

Actually, after I wrote this essay, I put it in my discard pile. Albright is not HOT or even lukewarm these days. I figured most of my readers wouldn't be intrigued by her. I could hear younger readers muttering, "Why read about her --I'd rather hear about Rihanna, or an older movie actress who's singing now, like whatshername -- Gwyneth?"

Well ... Albright has been a major person in the world. She was never very pretty, and now she looks thinner, older, and more fragile, but gee -- her energy is inspiring.

I've always admired her for being tough like TV's "Judge Judy," though never harsh. (Click and read what I wrote about Judge Judy Sheidlin in My Pal the Judge. )

Like Hillary Clinton, Madeline A. seems to have an extraordinarily broad grip on facts, geography, and international politics. Both women retain their femininity, even their sweetness and grace, when dealing with over-bearing macho men. And yes, both these women, major women in the news, in the world, are slipping out of the limelight.

Okay, Albright is more or less retired, but she teaches at Georgetown University, lectures, gives speeches, and writes. Madeline Albright knows when to take a back seat, and she definitely knows when to take over and drive the car.

M.A. has said important things:
"There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women." (Oh boy, do I ever agree -- when I meet a woman like that, I sense it, feel it, and head for the other side of the room.)

M.A. said: "I was taught to strive, not because there were any guarantees of success but because the act of striving is in itself the only way to keep faith with life." (Hey, that's practically my motto.)

M.A. said. "What people have the capacity to choose, they have the ability to change." (Powerful, somewhat complicated thought to dig into -- it helps you discover what's important to YOU and go for it.)

In her published "Memo to the President Elect, How We Can Restore America's Reputation and Leadership," M.A. wrote:
"There is a significant moral difference between a person who commits a violent crime and a person who tries to cross a border illegally in order to put food on the family table. Such migrants my violate our laws against illicit entry, but if that's all they do they are trespassers, not criminals. They deserve to have their dignity respected." (Oh my yes -- this needs to be loudly declared and publicized in all those states that are now jailing immigrants.)

Albright's books. "Madam Secretary: A Memoir," and "The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God, and World Affairs," have been best sellers. Also. "Read My Pins, Stories from a Diplomat's Jewel Box"-- published in 2009, it's reverberating in my mind.

Albright loved to wear pins and chose to wear what reflected her mood -- flowers, butterflies, balloons, insects -- she wore a huge bug pin when she discovered the Russians were bugging the conference room. She tells how her three monkey pins -- see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil -- annoyed Russia's Putin when she told him she'd worn them because of his policy toward Chechnya.

Her pins speak to me in the way that current fashions speak, and tell me what's going on in the minds of the men and women who wear them.

We reach into closets and drawers and grab the clothes, the colors, that say what we're feeling today.

Okay, showing your belly button. the "crack" in back, your muscularity where ever it is on your torso -- showing any of your lovely bulges -- says what's on your mind, and IF that's what's on your mind.

Well ... Sloppy is sloppy; shabby torn holes in your jeans means shabby and torn; and very tight, revealing low cut -- well, sexy is interesting but ...

I'm affected by M.A. Like her, I think it is important for women to help one another -- help males and females -- remind one-and-all, that how you dress, your style, the fashionable way you present yourself, is fashion and fashion is temporary.

So here's why I'm publishing this, here's my big message:

Don't just do what others do, guys.

Pick your pins carefully. BE YOU!

WISHFUL THINKING

2011-09-14T04:00:00.002-04:00

If you are a would-be writer, James Patterson's thought processes will interest you -- the state of his ego, compared to yours and mine.

In my office's lavatory, there's a magazine rack. The magazine I grabbed fell open -- lo and behold-- James Patterson, writer of books that I've read, liked, didn't like, hated, admired -- was talking about himself.

Everything this guy writes turns into a best seller. For me as a reader, quite often the story is too slick and hard to follow -- too often I have to re-read to stay with the plot.

In July's Time, answering readers' questions, Patterson said, "I'm a story teller!" He explained that he has a staff -- he works on many projects simultaneously -- screenplays, short stories, comic book ideas, kids' books, as well as mystery novels. (My staff is John Cullum, my favorite actor, reader, and Fran Weil, web designer, editor-- we work on one project at a time, though Fran is also creating the covers for my e-books.)

Patterson "loves to write plots," and admits, "I don't remember my character's names, but characters are not my specialty." (Gee, more than anything I enjoy birthing a character -- everything about him/her -- they become part of my life.)

Back in his mid-twenties, Patterson's s first mystery, "The Thomas Berryman Number," was turned down by 31 publishers but got the "Edgar" award for the best first novel. ( Edgar is the literary world's Oscar for mystery writers.)

Is Patterson super lucky? Or is it his talent? My first novel was turned down 55 times so my agent stopped sending it out. But major agents have represented me. One of my novels was published by Bantam; my biography, written by a sports writer was published by Prentice Hall. Neither book sold 10,000 copies --both were "dumped" by the publishers, on sale in bargain pins.

Patterson says he learned early on that "story" is what matters. He said, "My favorite books,- 'One Hundred Years Of Solitude,' and 'Ulysses,' are very complicated but my own style -- we just tell a story." (His favorites are considered masterpieces by many critics, but for me, they're a struggle to read.)

"What's the hardest part, for you, as a writer?" a reader asked Patterson.

"The end, to make sure it's there. If I'm not satisfied, then I don't feel like I enjoyed this dinner somehow," Patterson explained, adding that he's "very emotional about writing the end." (To me, he sounds like a very emotional, business man, but I like him, he's down to earth, and unpretentious.)

Since most everyone I know, at some point has wanted to be successful writer, I wonder how Patterson's revelations affect you. (I have to admit, his success makes me feel like a failure.)

A reader asked Patterson, "Wwhat do you do when you're not writing?". Patterson said that he was a family person -- he loves to travel and he loves golf. Well, I'm blogging on Facebook -- is that a recreation? I don't earn a living from writing, but the fact is, my recreation is writing.

How does Patterson feel about other authors who criticize him for not having much style? He says, 'There are thousands of people who don't like what I do. Fortunately there are millions who do."

I'm saying that I don't think I will be a best seller writer when I grow up. My wishful thinking is down-to-earth practical. I just want what I wrote to be read.

Hurray -- my novels are being published as e-books, and YOU are reading this post!

MAKE FRIENDS WITH ROBOTS

2011-09-12T04:00:00.002-04:00

Want a pal, a toy, a helper for your home, or office?

University of Chicago's new library has a Librarian robot that sorts books faster than a human can. (I've worked in a library, sorting books -- my eyeballs rolled. I found it an almost intolerably boring job.)

In Ohio, Motoman Robotics created a bartender robot that mixes drinks in less time than a human takes, and can crack lame jokes. (How lame is lame? If I owned a bar I'd hire a real bartender.)

Google's negotiating, getting permission, so its robotic car that can drive itself, can be tested as a taxi service in Las Vegas. (Wow, you wave it down? What about traffic jams, and tips? What happens if you change your mind?)

Roxxxy made by Bell Labs comes with lifelike skin and artificial intelligence. (Gee, do you actually um ... uh, does a sex robot kiss you back?)

The pentagon is getting a "Mule" from Lockheed-Martin, a robotic truck that can fire missiles. (Yes, they're working on robotic soldiers.)

Self-service checkout at the supermarket, industrial robots carve animal carcasses in slaughter-houses, law offices have artifical intelligence software to read legal documents. Yes, machines are kicking workers out of their jobs. (So don't plan on being a cashier, butcher, or paralegal.)

Top-notch surgeons use robots. A medical bot can cost $2.2 million, says manufacturer Intuitive Surgical, of Sunnyvale, Calif. (It makes me nervous that they sold 400 of them just last year.)

Ever considered buying iRobot's Roomba, the vacuum cleaner? (I have -- love watching it bump around chairs, table legs but we don't have rugs.)

iRobot's also selling Ava, a three-foot-tall droid on wheels that tabulates data on a tablet computer (Gee. Ava could keep track of show biz doings, though with JC's manager and agent working for him, we don't really need to know who's doing what.)

Clearly, bots are already having an impact on jobs. And robotics are helping our kids, creating games, new worlds, and toys that shape young minds -- better than Smurfs, Elmo, windup cars, toy-soldiers or Barbie dolls. (Think--good God -- how many blondes we're seeing nowadays.)

The Hanson Robot Doll has changeable heads -- Einstein, Zenoa-do-it all boy, Alice do-it-all girl, and a head you can design. If you've got $15,000 to spare, you can buy your kid a sibling, an Uncle/Aunt, or get yourself whatever you need.

Hey someday, a robot could be writing this blog for me. Click, and see where we're heading.

What about a receptionist for your business?

Here's "Leonardo" -- a lovely loveable pet.

SELLING YOU (video)

2011-09-10T04:00:00.002-04:00

Em wants to do a video blog about self promotion, and advise would-be artists about selling themselves.

John Cullum talks specifics, and describes how Em, back in the days when she was just a beginner, sold a dance duo, (herself and Mark Ryder), even though they had no program, no photos, or choreography.

"You sold yourself, alright -- you sold what you invented, Em."

Em admits she used her writing skills back then -- creating a brochure, a program with descriptions of the choreography. John reminds her that she even wrote reviews for the program she was selling before it existed.

As their discussion unfolds the story, Em wants her readers and friends to know that "selling" yourself isn't difficult if you sell what you believe in.

MICHELE BACHMANN

2011-09-08T04:00:00.004-04:00

When I first saw her about two years ago, I thought, "OH NO" What I saw in that photo, the face, the words that were quoted seemed ... oh dear, so righteous, so self-promoting, and unseeing of the real world

Now KA-BOOM, Michele Bachmann is all over the news, proclaiming her truths.

Her face is symmetrical, perfectly shaped, unwrinkled.. BUT -- gee -- her eyes. The beam of her blue eyes bothers me. Those eyes stare at the camera and beyond, and say she's utterly secure about her ideas and thoughts -- be they religious convictions, certainties, personal ideology.

That look in her eyes is not just what she's figured out. It's in her genes, her bones, her bearing, her thoughts and language, her everything.

She's almost beautiful but there's a cold something -- sternness? Or is it an unbending, impenetrable will? a stiffness? Whatever it is, it makes me very uncomfortable.

I don't like her. I don't trust her. I don't feel any approachable womanliness in her. She's not a person with whom I can, on any level, share or communicate.

Her bearing says "keep away." It's as if she's one of those wonderfully tended green lawns in the center of the city park. And there's a keep off the grass sign.

Sarah Palin, whose ideas scare me, is preferable. Though I would hate (yes, "hate") to see Sarah as President of the United States, she has a feminine beauty, warmth, humor, inner joy -- and even with all her convictions that to me are wrong, prejudiced, limiting --- she's a much more acceptable candidate. Despite Palin's "sell" -- the often repulsive (to me, repulsive) ways she has promoted herself, I find Sarah Palin beautiful and real.

Bachmann is not.

I don't like the look of her. Yes, it's ridiculous, to base my attitude toward a viable candidate, based on her looks, not her politics.

What Bachman stands for -- her connection to Republicans, her opposition to things I feel are essential to America, I can't begin to discuss.

When I see Rick Perry, hear his tone, feel his energy, I respond to the man. Like him? Yes, I like him -- he states who he is and expresses what he feels. Though the thought of him as president makes me shudder --I think he'd be a nightmare for our country -- I can still listen and look and at him and explain why I totally disagree with him.

I've written this post to explain why I simply cannot think about Michele Bachmann. Newsweek called her the "Queen of Rage." In my opinion, she's not a queen of anything, except, perhaps, blind ambition.

DAREDEVILING

2011-09-06T04:00:00.002-04:00

Have you been on a roller coaster recently? Have you seen them lately?

Remember -- OH WOW -- OH JOY-- your heart beating in your throat -- wishing. praying it would be over before the cars started to move?

That coaster in the photo -- it's 12 heavenly horrible seconds, falling at a 121 degree angle. Obviously, it's one of the greatest, most marvelous, most scary, sickening, terrifying, dangerous amusements that you can love, live through, and brag about.

Is it better, more WOW than bungee jumping? Better than soaring? Is pursuit of the thrill why Houdini did what he did? .And whatshis name -- (had to Google him) -- David Blaine, 38-year- old magician? He submerged himself in a chunk of ice in New York City's Times Square, and almost died, broke the records by holding his breath for 17 minutes 4½ seconds.

Did Blaine get what he was after -- fame, notoriety, wealth? He was gravely ill for quite a while afterward, but since then, he's done other incredibly dangerous ventures. He's doing what boxers, football players, and other sports super-heroes do -- committing themselves to winning, even if it permanently damages their bodies, and shortens their lives.

But heading for the park, enduring the roller coaster won't make you famous or rich. Is it the thrill of the thrill? The fun of scare-yourself-to-death fun? Is that what we get from a roller coaster?

Someone on Yahoo.com said, "I always will try to get on a roller coaster as soon as I enter the park. Its torture, but as you get off the ride, you feel so vibrant and alive!"

Howard Belkin, psychiatrist at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan, said the reason is rooted in a deep psychological need to conquer something. The release of adrenalin and dopamine makes one's heart rush, a rush that many get addicted to."

Belkin also said that the roller coaster is a version of being tossed in the air by your dad. "If you like it, you will scream with joy. If you don't, well, you may throw something up yourself."

Ph.D. John Elliot, a doctor/professor with stupendous education credits, currently provides performance consultation and training to business executives, professional athletes, and corporations, nationwide. Clients have included Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, Adidas, NASA, the United States Olympic Committee, The Mayo Clinic, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, and hundreds of elite individual performers.

(Part of me is very impressed by where he studied, that client list, and curious about his philosophy -- the other part of me is instinctively, immediately "hmm," and skeptical.)

In his best seller, "Overachievment: The New Science of Working Less to Accomplish More," Elliot said, "You are innately designed to use your personal power. When you don’t, you experience a sense of helplessness, paralysis, and depression — which is your clue that something is not working as it could. You, like all of us, deserve everything that is wonderful and exciting in life. And those feelings emerge only when you get in touch with your powerful self."

Susan Jeffers' bestseller summarizes her philosophy in the title: "Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway."

Gee, should I be heading for an amusement park? I don't feel helpless, paralyzed or depressed.

I jumped from the horrendously scary parachute drop at Coney Island on my very first date with John Cullum. Yep, I really did. I wanted to show him how bold and brave and fearless I was.

My powerful self isn't quite as powerful as it used to be, but hey, Cullum is in my life. I am not going to do any roller-coastering ever again.

Watching this scary life-threatening venture is fun enough for me.
Daredevil jumps from mountain in Antarctica

WINNING (video)

2011-09-04T04:00:00.002-04:00

"What makes a winner?" Em asks John Cullum.

His theories are usually objective. Em wants to know why John Cullum won -- got jobs, was able to build the career he built as an actor?

John says he's not a winner, but Em is certain that there's a special something that John Cullum has.

They discuss tennis winner Andre Agassi, who has expressed resentment about being pushed by his dad.

Em persists, and gets John talking about who and what pushed him -- what made him a winner.

HE - SHE BALONEY

2011-09-02T04:00:00.002-04:00

Time Magazine is war- mongering.

SHE -- a bit thick-waisted, in heels, with her mop like a flag -- looks resentful; HE -- holding the baby and baby's bottle -- looks compliant, and cooperative.

The magazines's managing editor, Richard Stengel, says "I'll wager that there is no one who is married and employed who does not have this conversation -- heck an argument -- with his spouse about who does more at home and at the office."

Hey, Rick Stengel, c'mon, that's out of date!

War between the sexes? Why sell it now? Why feed us baloney on how it's more so, worse so now, and who's winning, and why?

What's the purpose of encouraging this focus on the numbers, the theories, psychological, sociological mumbo-jumbo that explains why males and females are different, and who's working harder, earning more, and do they deserve it?

The various take-off-your-clothes issues are well-covered by movies and television, and pop performers, who are demonstrating wildly, passionately, how to be uninhibited, utterly crude, grunting, screaming, dancing -- shimmy-shimmying their way to way-way over the top acting that's rocks us, socks us in the gut -- oh boy, does it ever!

Males and females in relationships -- legal, illegal, gay, straight, AC-DC or any variation thereof, aren't arguing about who does more work. They might argue/discuss who pays the bills, but that's just like talking about the weather.

Maybe it's good sign, maybe things are getting back to normal -- maybe there's no shocking latest horror, scandal, lies, cheating, thievery, slander to tout -- nothing we ignore except war horrors, and war is in that Do-Nothing-Arena where we do nothing but attack the White House for doing nothing, or attack the Republicans for building Do- Nothing into an sky-high, insurmountable wall.

I am bored with this baloney. I wrote a post about this nine months ago -- peruse Sheconomy Versus Heconomy 12/6/10.

SUMMER'S GOING

2011-08-31T04:00:00.002-04:00

My feet are still bare. I'm wearing short shorts. The sun is shining.

My air conditioner's purring.

Gnats are visiting. Banished temporarily with a perfumed kill-em, that I shouldn't be breathing in but I do -- rather breath it than scratch bites.

Still got summery wander lust -- feel like going for a walk when I ought to be working.

I already ordered my new calendar but it hasn't arrived.

My summer exercise outfit's hanging on the jogging machine that sits, unused, in the rear of my dance studio. The studio's exhaust fan is hooked up, just in case it gets over 80 degrees.

Yes I'm still summering. but with the day, the date, the word S-e-p-t-e-m-b-e-r comes gray, grayish things of weather, chores, doings, clothes, pleasures, approaching events -- brown and gold leaves, orange pumpkins, turkey days, Xmas decorations, Happy New Year.

I want to hang on tight to today, the ease, the soft breeze and easier living, visions of high golden fields, richly petaled red, blue, lavender, purple blooms.

And outdoor feasting, grills hot dogs, hamburger, steak, potato salad, cobs of corn, ice cream, iced drinks, people in sunglasses lolling on the beaches, reading, swimming, tossing, batting balls.

I didn't do any of that this summer, but summer means all that to me because that's what I have seen and that's what I feel like when the weather is balmy-- my do it now, get it done, hurry up, keep going, get there inner motor just unwinds, or slows down, or maybe it takes a rest, restfully slows ... gets slower, changes pitch --plays a softer, legato, lullabying melody.

So yes, summer is going. and I'll keep going,
doing my work, creating, like mother naturem a safe place for what I am ...
a shaped poised child who's privileged by what I inherited from my family and the thousands of dreams I dreamed and garnered from living though many seasons -- keep going with the balmy warming moments that can be found almost every day no matter how cold it may get before nest summer arrives.