Archive | Film Matters

Ann Dowd: Committed, Compassionate

Beztie and I toasted the Summer Solstice by going to hear our favorite character actor, Ann Dowd, speak at the SAT-AFTRA Theater about her brilliantly built career, from Philadelphia with the late, great Jonathan Demme, to Compliance, The Handmaid’s Tale, and, our favorite, The Leftovers. Dowd’s the best kind of transplanted Masshole: compassionate, committed, plainspoken as fuck, and a matter-of-fact witch. Her favorite phrase: “Can you believe?” Also she speaks with audible em dashes and is a legitimate late-bloomer; her career didn’t really take off until she was 56. Since I believe celebs stop growing as humans the minute they get famous, she may be one of the only palatable ones around. Oh, we just loved her.

Lilacs Twice and Desert Sun

June 14, 2017 in Film Matters, Ruby Intuition, Travel Matters, Weather Matters

Lately I keep whispering to myself: “You saw lilacs twice this year.” And it’s true. I saw them bloom in Brooklyn in early May, and then again when I traveled up to Provincetown and Greater Boston later that month. It was a shock, really. I’d been driving up terrible old Route 6 of Cape Cod when this heady fragrance started supplanting the gas fumes. It took a hot minute to realize the smell was not me having a stroke but lilacs. Again.

These last few months have been like a magic hour that just hasn’t ended.

I had so dreaded this year. Had seen the writing on the wall about the demise of my NY1 show and labor journal job; had been waging a legal battle of the sort that few long-time New Yorkers elude (housing-related); had regarded the second half of my forties as–oh, I’ll just say it–the beginning of the end. The boobs falling, the hair greying, the eyesight fading. You get the picture. Not pretty. Continue Reading →