We are family

31 March 2009 | 3 Comments

Nicola’s sister Anne and her partner Eric spent eight days in Seattle recently. We had a wonderful time. They are great company, people who like to eat and talk and drink and laugh, who know how to amuse themselves and are easy to make welcome.

I don’t have any brothers or sisters. I have four stepbrothers, but we didn’t grow up together and have never been particularly close: friendly, and legally connected, but not truly family. But if Nicola ever gets hit by a bus, Anne and Eric, and Nicola’s father Eric (I know, it’s confusing, so it goes) will still be my family.

anne-and-eric-march-2009
 
But Nicola will never get hit by a bus, because what would I do without her?
 
n-and-k-march-2009

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog 

Hollywood XX…

30 March 2009 | 3 Comments

… as in, what about those of us without that Special Y Chromosome? How’s it hanging for us in Hollywood?

Here’s an existential cry from a young woman in the film industry who wonders where are the women who will help her, and help her to help herself. Where are the extended hands, the mentors, the nurturing? Where are all the feminists?

I wish I could find this person and give her a hug. Buy her a beer or three. And tell her that in this, as in many things, gender doesn’t matter the way she wants it to. Women are not a Unified Front any more than writers or vanilla ice cream lovers or any other group of people. Commonality is no guarantee of understanding or support, even for people whose commonality is that they’re getting tromped on. Shared experience doesn’t necessarily produce shared perception or shared behavior.

My limited experience of Hollywood is that it’s extremely gendered in many ways — so much so that I, even with my southern background, feminist roots, media consciousness, and understanding of the history and power of socialization, am still blinking at the extent of it. I have been… hmm, surprised isn’t the right word, it’s something more like ruefully unsurprised to find that all strong women are not my sisters. And so I feel for this woman. It’s a real shock to find out that people you look up to will shit on you because they don’t know any better, or because you’re not important to them, or just because they can.

But here are two hard lessons. The first is that being a woman doesn’t automatically make someone a grownup. The second is that no one owes us help.

I think it’s almost always better to help each other: it’s a fundamental human impulse, and a good one. It saves lives and souls, and it binds us together in ways that shape history. It is a grownup thing to do. But it’s not a rule, or a right. So I give help and hope for it in return. I value those for whom helping is a value. But I don’t expect it, ’specially in Hollywood, and I am learning not to judge others by their unwillingness to help in any individual circumstance (which is for me the harder lesson).

Most of the time, help comes to us either in some random way (anything from small generosity to emergency response) or specifically because of a personal relationship. And relationships aren’t with women, or men, or any other categorical noun: they are with people. If I were drinking beer with this young woman, I would say Find your people. And make sure they are grownups. Chronological age doesn’t matter: what is important is a perspective that isn’t simply me me me, a perspective that recognizes that there’s probably enough pie out there for all of us, and that helping someone else get their piece of pie doesn’t mean I have to do without.

Finding those people takes time, but it does work. And it’s one of the challenges of youth that when we need real, concrete help, we often don’t have the relationship web to find the grownups we need. Which is why in spite of everything I’ve just said about no one owing anyone, I’d still like to kick the ass of every woman in Hollywood who’s shit on a less experienced woman. Because it’s wrong to diminish other people, women or men, as the primary path to success (if there is any meaning left to that word when you have to leave track marks on someone else to get it). It’s wrong to spit in someone else’s pie. And it’s more hurtful when it comes from someone with whom we hope for commonality, and whom we have mistaken for a grownup.

It’s good that women are finding more power in the film business (or anywhere else) — it hurts when we don’t see ourselves reflected in the culture. And it hurts in a different way when the only role models we find are people that we’d never want to actually be like.

I’ve talked about my vision to make things a little better for women in films. And here’s a group of young women writers who are doing it for themselves. Good on ‘em. I hope they’ll keep helping themselves, and each other.

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog, screenwriting 

Ms. Cahill for Congress

29 March 2009 | 7 Comments

I haven’t read Ms. Cahill for Congress, but Pat Holt has made me want to. Talk about how a teacher can impact students, change lives, make a difference… good for Tierney Cahill.

As well as selling me totally on the book, Pat raises an interesting point about “one story only” media coverage these days. I’m not sure I agree that this is the key driver of the many media failures we’re seeing. But it ties in for me to a larger notion that every “traditional medium” (publishing, newspapers, print magazines, television, Hollywood, yadda yadda) is in the throes of identity crisis. And although I believe in the power of the intarweb to tell complex and multi-layered stories, it’s still in its adolescence in terms of bringing focused attention to ideas, stories, cultural trends, etc. and in terms of providing access to cultural and political power (although the Obama communications team is at least making a start). Those who provide such content online are still learning how to do it best. And those who use it — we, the readers — are learning that focus isn’t just measured in MTV sound bytes and one-column articles.

We’re all, I hope, in the process of learning how to focus differently, how to decide when deeper attention is warranted. I think we have to, because otherwise stories like Cahill’s get lost. That’s a shame, and I hope that gap closes soon. I’m sure that when it does, it will be because the internet — and its readers — grew up a little.

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog 

Friday pint

27 March 2009 | 3 Comments

This is the last of the Virtual Pint archives.

The furniture is cleared, the floors are swept, and the virtual pub is now officially closed. But I hope that the spirit lives on, and that the conversations will continue. Start one anytime.

It’s nice to have all the words under one roof. I like it here. Thanks for being a part of it.

Enjoy your day.

  • Art and commerce (April 2007) — The economics of art.

  • It’s a party! (June 2007) — Nicola’s memoir. It, and she, are made of awesome.

  • More hope (August 2007) — The conversation about hope has been ongoing here, in fits and starts, for years. I hope (smile) that it continues.

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog, friday pint 

Related

26 March 2009 | 8 Comments

Nicola and I have a Great Big Box of photos. It’s all mixed up together — her history, mine, and ours all in a jumble of photos, in packets or loose (professional photographers everywhere are shuddering at this moment, I know…). I love every once in a while to drag this box out of the closet and look. I love seeing myself and my beloved people in different times and places in our lives.

It’s odd that N and I don’t actually have that many pictures of ourselves together, and we don’t routinely take a camera when we travel… for whatever reason, we just don’t think to do it. Perhaps it’s that although I love seeing photos of beautiful places, to me they are primarily art or story — I don’t often take pictures of places I visit in order to remember them. It’s photos of people that do it for me, and generally people-in-action (as opposed to the group-hug-everybody-smile variety).

Here are two photos that I really love. The first is my mother at about age 38. I always liked the photo, and I was jazzed when I moved to Chicago in my early 20’s and she gave me the shirt and the hat.

When I was 27, I asked a photographer friend to help me create the second photo. I wanted to give my mum a present, and I thought it might please her to see us being “related” — a metaphor of mothers and daughters made concrete.

My mum has these photos hanging side by side in her home. The other day, she scanned them and sent them to me. I am thrilled to have them in my virtual Great Big Box.

sharon-age-38kelley-age-27

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog, life 

Gone fishing

23 March 2009 | 2 Comments

Dear internets,

I won’t be seeing you for a few days. It turns out there is life beyond the computer (who knew?), and I’m going to get me some.

Back soon. And I’ll bring you a t-shirt!

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog 

Friday pint

21 March 2009 | 2 Comments

Every Friday I transfer posts here from the Virtual Pint archives. Yes, this is Saturday. Life is like that sometimes.

The penultimate pints, for your perusal and possible pleasure. Past is becoming present…

  • Hope and happiness (December 2006) — Continuing the ongoing conversation about hope. And mystery.

  • Screen and short stuff (December 2006) — I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to attend the intensive screenwriting course I mention in this post, but I did recently attend a FilmSchool weekend seminar which was terrific. So much to learn…

  • Words in my head all the time (March 2007) — Talking for the first time about “Dangerous Space,” and the sea change in my sense of writing self that led me here, and eventually here.

Enjoy your Saturday.

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog, friday pint 

Today’s LOL at our house

19 March 2009 | 3 Comments

Nicola has just posted the funniest thing this week.

The thing is, I’ve been involved in product development for a large-scale brand. Product specifications, designs, and prototypes have a lot of approval stages. Many people said yes to this. Did no one ever step back and say, Dude, wait a minute…

Way too funny.

And yes, I know I should be offering you something of my own instead of shamelessly piggybacking on my sweetie’s ability to find the funny, but hey — I gotta go to the grocery store now. Hang in there, all of you, have a lovely day.

Edited to add: Nicola thinks this may actually be an Onion-esque type of spoof, which I would find equally funny and also reassuring… because we worries about the intellectual future of the human race sometimes, precious, we do.

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog 

Ink and Spin

18 March 2009 | 3 Comments

Here’s a movie I’m really looking forward to: Ink, an independent film from writer/director Jamin Winans that’s playing in Denver now and that I hope will come to Seattle. It’s starting to build buzz as the next cult hit, and I’m doing my part to help that happen, because the trailer looks fantastic — eerie, fast-moving, layered, and maybe even some decent roles for women (say amen!). Take a look.

While you’re waiting for Ink to find its national audience and open in a theatre near you, check out this short film Spin, also from Winans. It’s a model of condensed storytelling, really nicely done.

I’ve been busy with, well, business — Humans At Work, job interviews, household matters. I’ve been away for a little while from fiction and from screenplays. To see work like this makes me want to dive back in and lose myself in some big project that will take me over, take me down deep, take me somewhere fascinating with some interesting characters… I can’t do that just now, but you know what? I think I’ll take take the the afternoon off and watch a movie.

Enjoy your day.

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog, movies 

Smart includes heart

17 March 2009 | 3 Comments

I’m cross-posting this article from my blog over at Humans At Work because it’s a story I want to spread. It’s a good story.

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under being human, blog 

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