I've Been Meaning to Read These

"What's on my nightstand" is a feature I like to read in Vanity Fair. My pile of books could be a nightstand. I thought if I took a picture of them, it might be a first step to reading one.

Any thoughts on where I should start?

Have you read any of these?

Do you make time to read books? How?

Happy Thanksgiving

Mrs. O Outdoes Herself at the First State Dinner

I guess there were some other people there too, whatever.

Anyway, about Mrs. O. Her gown, handmade in India by Indian-American designer Naeem Khan, features sterling silver paillettes (sequins) on champagne fabric, in an abstract floral pattern. The gown was made for Mrs. O to wear to the state dinner, at Naeem's family factory. You can't order it at Overstock.com.

Mrs. O accessorized with amazing drop earrings: fleur-de-lis and tear drop shapes in gold and purple stones. A stack of gold bangle bracelets and a sheer wrap.

I have no idea how she did that with her hair, but it's gorgeous.

Vintage Office Supplies

My friend Fiona at Cafe Cartolina has done some great posts on her blog about vintage office furniture and objects. Here are a few of them.

Ok, back to me!

In a moment of procrastination in my office today (so, so rare) I started looking around at some of the vintage office things I've collected. They all have special meaning.

This fantastic gizmo is the adding machine my dad used every single night at our kitchen table when he was working -- to total up his sales orders. He got an adding machine with a tape on it in the 80s, but he really didn't like it. He stuck with this. It's made by the Lightning Adding Machine Company from Los Angeles, circa 1950. The frame it sits in is Bakelite, and I'm lucky enough to still have the metal stylus that dials the numbers. I looked for these around the internet -- they're out there in all different shapes and sizes. Some people even have the original boxes. I'm kind of surprised I don't, my mom saved stuff like that. But I LOVE this, and I'm so glad I have it.

Speaking of my mom, this is her nameplate from her desk, she was the county recorder for many years. It's this cool felt background that the letters fit into, then the lucite goes on top. I feel like we should all have these in front of us, to re-arrange the letters at will. I think these letters are different fonts from different sets, but that would also describe my mom.

Here's my baby! Isn't it a beaut? Here's the sad part. It works, but not on my phone service. The phone company disabled some function in their whatchamacallit, so it no longer recognizes the rotary dial. I will never NOT recognize the rotary dial. I vow to move back to a more primitive civilization one day so I can use this phone. It lights up in the dark too, just like your cell phone. Rumor has it there's some device you can get to make it work. I keep meaning to check.

My dad's mug. He was an All-American baseball player at ND, and his roommate won the Heisman. Everyone who knows me eventually learns this.

This is from the consignment store we owned for a few years.

These were my dad's too, great for storing socks.

This was my mom's, and she would NEVER let me use it when I was growing up. Now I can use it whenever I want. But I'd give anything if she still was around to hide it from me.

My husband's dad's typewriter. He passed away recently. Love having this to remember him by.

Do you have any favorite objects in your office that hold special meaning? I'd love to hear.

A Quick Read

Here's a little something to get you in the mood for a winter of cozying up with books:

Fantastic stop action piece for the NZ Book Council.

Check it out here.

NZ Book Council has a great site too.

Gotta run! Happy weekend.

The Sitcom Room

I love to write.

I love to make people laugh.

So how hard could it be to write funny stuff?

I just found out. It's hard.

But FUN!

Back from my weekend foray into the world of sitcom writing.

I treated this experience as kind of a fantasy camp chance to do something I've always been fascinated by.

Here's what happened.

Flew to LA on Friday, and was able to spend some time with my daughter, which was great.

We had dinner, chatted, her friend came, and I heartlessly kicked them out so I could get my sleep, since we'd been told it would be awhile before we'd get that chance again.

Saturday morning we gathered and met Ken Levine, who was leading the class.

He's a veteran sitcom writer and producer. His blog is a must-read.

He makes video games on the side, it's amazing.

This may or may not be true, it's confusing. He also may direct porn movies, that too is unclear.

Ok, I'm kidding of course. Those are just comedy tidbits from the weekend.

Ken talked to us about writing comedy.

He's genuinely funny, so it was invaluable and entertaining.

He had great anecdotes, took our questions seriously, and offered practical tips. I loved hearing the terms writers use for different kinds of jokes. For example, one that should be funny -- but isn't --is a "like-a-joke"...you know, it looks like a joke, smells like a joke, but....well more on that later, unfortunately.

We were then given a scene to read, and watched a group of actors --Andy Goldberg, Barbara Howard, Mark Chaet, and Lucy Adden-- perform the scene. Most of what Ken had talked about (the good and the bad) was right there in one form or another, and it was up to us to make it better.

Our group had more women than men. Hooray! Letterman would have been thrilled.

My group: Rachel, Jim, Barbie.

We set off for our writer's room. Ken and his seminar partner Dan O'Day led us to a nice comfy room complete with junk food and white boards. We knew how to attack the scene now--and we had until 2:30 am to do so. For better or worse, I was the team leader, which meant I had the final word on what stayed in and what didn't. (Also I had to clean up the pop cans when we were done.)

Our group worked a long time on the story. Ken had convincingly showed us that's the key: good story, jokes will follow. We learned that adding jokes at the end has its disadvantages. We giddily discussed the idea of having a character simply say "Traffic joke here" so we could be done and go to bed.

We had a great time working together, laughing, taking breaks, being silly at times, visiting, learning the whole time. There really were a couple times I wasn't sure we'd get done, or get anything good. We did though--just like on Project Runway-- we made it work. Rest assured that expression came up more than once. But there are plenty of chances to adopt catchphrases in a writer's room, so we didn't need to stick with that one. Jokes and phrases get beaten to death, and this in itself becomes funny to you.

We wrapped up at 2:30 am, knowing we'd meet again at 9, when our actors would return to do the scenes from each group. They spent 10 or so minutes with each script, and since we weren't able to give them any direction, the words on the page were pretty much all they had to help move things along.

This experience is hopefully the closest I'll ever come to knowing the agony of being a stand-up comic and having your jokes bomb. Some of the jokes our group had thought were sure things fell flat. It was so intriguing to watch all 3 very different versions. After each one, Ken astutely and very kindly gave his opinion about what worked and what didn't. I was thrilled that he said one of my lines was funny. It made up for when he labeled another the dreaded "like-a-joke"...what?

Next, we were treated to a fun panel discussion with Ken and some veteran writer friends of his:

Tom Straw,

Marley Sims and Fred Rubin.

Ken, Tom, Marley, Fred

They were generous with their time and expertise. It was inspiring to be in a room with a group of people who so clearly enjoy what they do.

I'm still super tired, and need to get some sleep before work tomorrow, but I wanted to share the highlights with you before I have my re-entry into reality tomorrow.

What did I take away? (I mean besides the towels and silverware.) It was fun to see who the others in the group were, why they were there, and how we all did together. I really liked the group process. I'm looking at the stuff on TV in a whole new light now--I cannot imagine the agony of having to endure this process on a show you hate. Our badly written scene was torture enough. But if you loved it--what a joyous way to spend your days.

I also understand the value of a person who can come in and fix a script. That would've come in real handy for us around 2 am.

For Ken's own account of the weekend, be sure to visit his blog at the link above.

Be back soon.

Out on a Limb

I'd like to share this adventure with all of you who come to visit my blog!

Thank you so much, by the way.

I'm off to California for the weekend, for a writing experience called The Sitcom Room.

I'm going to take the easy way and out let another blogger tell you about it.

You can be sure you'll hear my version soon!

This is by Liz Finn-Arnold, who attended in 07.

How many times have you watched a sitcom on TV and thought, "Hey, I could do that?" Last weekend, twenty aspiring writers came together at the LAX Hilton to test that theory.

The Sitcom Room, an exhausting, yet exhilarating two-day event, was the brainchild of veteran TV sitcom writer Ken Levine. To me, the event was the ultimate summer camp for aspiring writers and/or TV geeks.

The seminar wasn't cheap, but then, it wasn't your typical seminar. There weren't any stuffy meetings, awkward networking, or boring lectures. This was a hands-on event, in which four teams of writers were given the basics of sitcom writing by Ken and then sent into "writers rooms" to revise a 12-page scene from an imaginary sitcom called Still Married.

Armed with junk food, various laptops, and imaginary network and studio notes, each five-person team gladly accepted the challenge to rewrite the problematic scene. In order to make the experience realistic, Ken, and his seminar partner, Dan O'Day, interrupted us around 4:30 PM, just as we were getting on a roll, to give us "imaginary bad news." This news meant we had to scrap a lot of what we were writing, back up, and start over. I've been sworn to secrecy about the imaginary bad news, but let's just say it left many participants broken-hearted.

My team worked the longest on our script -- about 14 hours in total. We spent hours trying to figure out the two main characters, coming up with backstories for each of them. After doing the "heavy lifting" of creating a detailed outline of the revised scene -- we began the actual writing process. It was after 10 PM. The rest of the night was spent polishing the script and punching up the jokes. This shouldn't have been difficult considering EVERYTHING sounds funny after 2 AM. And yet, it was.

I crawled into bed around 4:45 AM, with a slight buzz from all the sugary junk food and the excitement of the evening. After a quick nap, we reassembled the next morning at 8:30 AM to watch professional actors (Andy Goldberg, Jeremy Licht, Kimberly Wallis, KerriLee Kaski) run through four very different versions of the same scene. The actors only had ten minutes with each team's scene before performing it. And although we didn't get to give the actors nearly enough direction, it became clear from the performances where we had story problems, and which of our jokes worked (The Iquana 2000) -- and which ones tanked (The ThighMaster).

Afterwards, we headed to lunch with our teams and then worked on another round of rewrites based on the feedback from the run-through. Some of my team members were understandably disappointed that our scene wasn't perfect and didn't quite work out as well as we had hoped.

Me? I was giddy. Ken Levine told us that we were "funny" and pointed out several specific funny jokes in our scene. Ken Levine is a writer whom I greatly respect and probably even idolize. His blog is funnier than most current sitcoms (don't believe me, read his Sorkin parody) and he's written for some of the best shows (Cheers, Frasier, MASH, Everybody Loves Raymond) in sitcom history. Getting praise from him (I'm so not worthy) is the equivalent of being told you're pretty by Cindy Crawford. I can live with being "less than perfect" under those circumstances.

There were more pleasant surprises for us after lunch, when a panel of well-respected comedy writers (Fred Rubin, Marley Sims, David Isaacs, and Sam Simon) regaled us with stories from the trenches. While comedians sometimes disappoint in real life, I find comedy writers NEVER DO. They are truly hilarious people who can tell stories like nobody else. Makes sense, right?

The entire two-day event was like playtime, at least for me. And yet, I worked harder during those two days than I have worked in a very long time. There wasn't even time to kick back and enjoy cocktails with my fellow attendees. Instead, we bonded over bad Chinese Food, bad jokes, and bad Wi-Fi connections (Wi-Fi was blocked in the hotel's conference room for some inexplicable reason and most of us [especially the bloggers in the group] were experiencing severe withdrawal symptoms).

As an aspiring TV writer myself, with three spec TV scripts and three pilot scripts under my belt, I embarked on this weekend eager to mingle with other writers. I was also curious to see how I would do writing with a team. Part of me worried that I'd find out that I hated writing in a room full of writers (each trying to be wittier than the other). Luckily, my fellow writers were truly pleasant, funny, intelligent, and easy-to-work with. And happily, I found that I could thrive in this group-writing environment. Granted it was only one extremely long day and night (and people may have been on their best behavior) -- but something tells me that I could get used to the creative collaboration that occurs in these rooms.

I also gained a newfound respect for even the lowliest sitcoms. Sure, it's easy to mock obvious targets (but I won't). Take it from me, people – being funny is a lot harder than it looks. And unless you try it yourself, you won't believe how much attention is painstakingly paid to every single word on the page. If I had to guess, I'd say that even the worst TV show (and you can list your own nominees) is comprised of a kick-ass writing team that takes comedy a lot more seriously than you think.

So next time you watch a lame sitcom and think, "Hey, I could do this," think again. Or put your money where your mouth is. If you really think you can write better than the professionals, you should attend the next Sitcom Room seminar. I'm fairly sure that Ken Levine will be hosting another one sometime in the future.

To hear about the experiences of my fellow Sitcom Room survivors, check out the blogs of Christina and Rich and Michael. And of course, check out Ken Levine's account of the event, as well.

Fading Ad Blog by Frank H. Jump

This is a photo I took in Des Moines during a visit to the East Village neighborhood there,

which I posted back in September.

I love finding these kinds of ads on buildings in cities, and looking at how they've melded with the current surroundings -- or not.

I wondered if anyone else out on the internets shared this interest. Silly me: there's a whole fantastic blog dedicated to preserving these on film.

Here's a look at some of what Frank H. Jump, an artist/teacher from Brooklyn, has archived on his site, Fading Art Blog.

Frank's Fading Ad Campaign began as a photographic project documenting vintage mural ads on building brickfaces in New York City.

As he describes it, "Fading Art Blog has since grown to become a collaboration with urban archaeologists around the country and from here in Brooklyn as well."

Frank's blog contains research, history and comments about the photos and places,

which now are from all over the world.

Frank's inspired me to be even more aware of what may be left behind on some of the great old buildings I love to photograph.

Ezra Jack Keats

Ezra Jack Keats: a lyrical name I first saw on a book called The Snowy Day in a children's literature class in college. I think I was a junior, and this was one of the first classes I'd taken via the college of education that I absolutely loved. The professor was passionate about her subject, and she passed that on to us in class. I couldn't wait to have my own classroom full of books to share with students.

The Caldecott Medal is an award given to the book voted that year to have the "best" illustrations. The Snowy Day was the winner in 1963--but I had never seen it until college. That seemed so strange to me, I read any book I could get my hands on as a child. I was taken by the simple illustrations mixed with collage, and wondered about the author.

Looking at them now, they're just as fresh and joyous as they were 40 years ago when they were created. I'm fascinated by the New York art scene that produced these classic children's illustrators. Here's a little background on Ezra Jack Keats, via a bio from the Greenville, RI Public Library website.

• Jacob Ezra Katz was born on March 11, 1916 in Brooklyn, New York to Benjamin and Augusta Katz, two Polish immigrants born in Warsaw.
• He was the third child born to his parents.
• He had an older brother named Willie and an older sister named Mae
• His father Benjamin was a waiter in a coffee shop on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

Keats expressed an interest in the arts at an early age. "I think I started painting when I was about four years old. I really dedicated myself to what I did, avidly and lovingly. I drew on and colored everything that came across my path, with the indulgent approval of my mother."

His favorite place to draw was at the kitchen table. In fact, he drew directly onto the kitchen table top. His mother took a tablecloth and covered Keats' murals and would show the drawings off to visitors at every opportunity.

His work has a mural-like quality, even on a small page.

Keats' father would often come home from work with a package of brushes or some paints for Keats to use. Benjamin Keats also supported his son by taking him to museums to see famous paintings. The painting Third Class Carriage by Honore Daumier swept the young boy away when he saw it.

When Keats was eight years old, he realized that in one of the toughest neighborhoods in Brooklyn, the boys started to treat him with respect when they realized that he could paint.
He was nine when he first started telling stories. The other kids loved the stories so much that they would beg him to tell them more.

• Keats attended public schools in New York City, but he never received any formal training in art.
• As a high school student at Thomas Jefferson High School in Brooklyn, Keats won a prize for one of his paintings in the National Scholastic contest and was offered a scholarship to the Art Students' League as a result.
• In 1937 he secured a job as a muralist for the Works Progress Administration (WPA).
• In 1940, he found another position as a comic book illustrator for Five-Star Comics.
• In 1942 he began working on the staff of Fawcett Publications illustrating background for "Captain Marvel Adventures," a comic book.
• On April 13, 1943, Keats joined the United States Air Corps. Taking advantage of his skill as an artist, the Army trained him to design camouflage patterns.

It was on February 8, 1948 that Keats had his name legally changed from Jacob Ezra Katz to Ezra Jack Keats, possibly a reaction to anti-Semitism of the time.

Following the war, Keats found work as an illustrator. He also was an instructor at the School for Visual Arts in New York City from 1947 to 1948, and at the Workshop School in New York City from 1955 though 1957.

• He went to Paris in 1949, and supported himself by painting.
• Keats started his career as an illustrator of children's books in 1954 with the publication of Jubilant for Sure by Elizabeth Hubbard Lansing.
• He illustrated books for others until about 1960.

The first book he both wrote and illustrated was The Snowy Day, which was published in 1962 by Viking Press. It's rare for an author to win the Caldecott for a first book. The book was noted not just for its art, but for its treatment of the main character, an African American boy named Peter. Peter appeared in six more books by Keats. He grew from a small boy in The Snowy Day to being a teenager in Pet Show. Peter was inspired by a picture of a little boy Keats had seen in the May 13th, 1940 issue of Life Magazine.

Keats illustrated thirty-three books, twenty-two of which he also wrote himself. His books have been translated into sixteen languages including Arabic, Danish, French, German, Japanese, and Norwegian.

Ezra Jack Keats died in a New York hospital of a heart attack on May 6, 1983. While Keats had never married or had any children of his own , he always considered the characters in his books to be his children.

Take a look at some of his beautiful work.

This fantastic website offers you a chance to peruse all of his work, and to order prints.

And this is so cute! A short film inspired by The Snowy Day, starring the filmmaker's little brother.

Vivian Maier 1926-2009

A link to these incredible photographs just came up on my twitter feed, courtesy of

Penny De Los Santos, senior contributing photographer at Saveur.

The story of where they came from is breathtaking, intriguing, and historical, especially if you're interested in Chicago.

John Maloof bought the negatives (30-40,000 of them!) at an auction, and began to develop them, uncovering the stunning work of Chicago street photographer Vivian Maier.

His blog about the photos and his research on Vivian is here.

Trust me, it's worth a visit, and these photos are just the tip of the iceberg.

I'm so grateful to Penny for posting this on twitter.

Penny's own work is brilliant as well.

Best of luck to John as he completes this fantastic project.

ps Just found an article from yesterday in The Independent about Vivian, hot topic!