Go Big or Go Bust: Day 174 (they can be scary and they're beautiful)

Awakened at 6AM by a rather aggressive woodpecker who sounded like a jackhammer outside the bedroom window, I went outside to let him know how unhappy I was and was surprised to discover that he was a very big bird.  He flapped away but minutes later it sounded like he got into a quarrel with another bird which ended with one of them crashing into the roof. 

Then crows in the trees, one yelling, one whining, had a noisy exchange.  I started to wonder if there was some movement afoot.   Things are generally so peaceful.  This felt ugly and violent and I realized that only because of my size do I think of these creatures as harmless. 

A little while later, barn swallows did some kind of a performance flying back and forth very close to the house so I could see their undersides. 

Generally my relationship with birds is in listening to their songs which is a favorite part of my life in the countryside.  But only in Audubon prints or a rare photograph do I feel inspired by the visual beauty of a bird.  How I wished I'd had my phone at the ready so I could have caught at least a picture if not a whole video.  Here's something from Google Image which comes closer than anything else I could find to give you an idea of what I saw.   It made my day.

photo by Lillian Stokes,  2012

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 173 (a lesson in less-is-more from the garden)

I'm not sure if you've been paying close attention but I recently thinned out the lettuce.  Well, in fact, I only thinned out some of the lettuce, not because I've nailed balance in life but because the garden is only so big and there were no more empty rows to transplant to. 

I hardly made a dent in thinning out the row. 

I'm working on *time management* and *impulse control* so that I might experience the luxury of not being jammed up and constantly rushing.  This means fighting my tendency to the all-or-nothing in planting, in scheduling and in basically every area of my life.   

In the old days, I'd be on twitter for fifteen hours straight or packing so many different things into a day that the only possible outcome would be to be anxious, behind schedule by 10 AM and feeling (if not actually) inadequate. 

With my new discipline, I make up a list of what I'd (unrealistically) like to accomplish today. (If you wanted a visual image of this list, look to the hedge of lettuce, above). 

Next, with a cold heart, I put a star beside only what must get done today.  An image for the starred jobs might be the heads of lettuce which I transplanted to another row.  Usually it's only the starred things which get transferred to an 8 x 11 piece of paper and assigned to one or more thirty minute blocks.  This is not an easy moment as the fraction of what I want to accomplish which makes it onto this schedule feels paltry, it feels like what I should knock off before lunch.  But day after day, it's turning out to be pretty much all that I can actually accomplish in a day.  I seem to remember that the recommended eighteen inches between heads of lettuce also seemed like a crazy waste of space. 

I'm taking inspiration and hope from the example of the transplanted lettuce.

Look at the ones (on the right) which were transplanted out of the row and given enough room.  And look at the poor little lettuce on the left (in my right hand) which is jammed up and still suffering from the gardener's 'too much ain't enough' mentality. 

Both pictures were taken today.   All lettuce was planted at the same time.

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 172 ( on artist block and tears of joy)

Mr. Green donated the white board he'd used to make flip teaching videos and surprised me by mounting it.  I was caught off-guard on seeing that he'd also written on it: "The Louise Log   Anne Flournoy"  which, to my surprise, brought tears to my eyes.  And then I remembered that sometime late in Season Two, over-tired and scrambling to make an upload deadline, I was watching the episode's credits one last time for typos and on seeing saw my name, burst into uncontrollable tears. 

I guess after spending so many decades wondering if I'd ever get through my artist block, to see my name in something like a credit fills me with joy too powerful for words.   

Almost unrecognizable with the light bouncing up from the floor... but it's me!

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 171 (Lessons from Amy Winehouse)

Thanks for your rock solid support my friends.  Sorry that I can't follow through tonight with any pearls of wisdom from last night's dreams - there weren't any dreams! 

Maybe cause my brain was too busy digesting.  I'd listened to Terry Gross' Fresh Air after dinner which was all about Amy WInehouse and the documentary about her which came out this week.  From what I've heard and read, it's a heartbreaking story. 

I google-imaged Winehouse and studied her style and listened to her first manager Nick Shymansky and the filmmaker Asif Kapadia talk about her passion for music, her disdain for fame and for the business side of music.  My ears perked up cause wouldn't I love to have disdain for fame and the business side of web video and still get the word out. 

Amy WInehouse rocketed to fame. during the period when I was doing pretty much nothing but cranking out episodes of The Louise Log.  I missed a lot from 2008 - 2011, family gatherings, world events and great movies and music, Winehouse's music among them. 

But even I wasn't completely impervious.  It was probably because of the tabloids on the rack in front of the all-night grocery around the corner: part of the Amy Winehouse story got to and stayed with me. Naturally it was the pictures of her crazy beehive hairdo and her problems with drugs and alcohol.  (Oh and the chorus of that song about Rehab.) 

But It was essentially the human interest that cut through. 

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 170 (on panic attacks and guidance in dreams)

The highs are high and the lows are low when you set yourself up by going to psychics and having 'expectations'.  I'm frankly on the verge of something like an ongoing panic attack about what I should be doing to "go big". 

So it was kind of a nice distraction to stumble on this question:  "Do you mislabel violent and chaotic relationships as “passionate” and “complex”? "

I'll answer with a resounding 'Nope'.  One of the benefits of age is clarity and exhaustion.  I've gotten to the point where if people don't seem to be honest and sane, I don't even get out of the car. 

As far as direction, I'm going to ask for a clear dream.   I'll keep you posted. 

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 169 (The good news is that it crushed and broke me.)

So it turns out the psychic was RIGHT.  Yesterday was great... just not for any of the reasons I was hoping or expecting. 

I like to think that at my age and in my line of work, long-married and the mother of at least two and possibly four adults, I'm some kind of grand pooh-bah of emotional maturity.  Well the last thirty-six hours took me down a peg (or ten).  Apparently I'm also human ... which by definition means 'flawed'.   

Yesterday the brick wall of a personal future toppled down right on me (disappointment, fear, hurt feelings and anxiety).  The good news is that it eventually crushed and broke me. 

I have long experience with surrender.  Mostly I fight it off with all I've got and 'win'.  (NOT.)   But regardless of whether it's forced on me by inner or outer circumstances, an actual surrender is gold to someone as strong and willful as I am.  To the extent that I couldn't follow my usual path (suppressing everything in the interest of efficiency with work), I experienced a bona fide miracle.  I felt free - free of ambition, free of desire for anything more than honestly expressing myself.  And the wholeness of this experience was delicious beyond words. 

Storms come and storms go.  Maybe next time I'll remember to stop fighting everything that doesn't look like 'my plan'.   Letting go would be great but 'we're' not at that level. 

no filters

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 168 (this is hard being naked (figuratively))

I sat down to lunch with Mr. Green this afternoon and announced "GAME OVER." 

I feel like I'm not doing this right.  I want to pull it off.  I want to do a bang-up job of being naked in front of the world.  (figuratively)   I want to keep up my end of things on social media.  And in fact, this attempt to be open is probably exactly the therapy I need to counteract my childhood.  But--

Mudd keeps pointing out to me that all the stuff in Louise's head, in her voiceovers, is what has to come out of my head and onto the page.   "THAT'S the stuff!" 

Yeah yeah yeah fine.  Easy for you to say, Miss Mudd. 

Maybe today is especially hard because one of the psychics specifically pointed out: "JULY 6: YEAH.  All great"  

And?  I've been in tears, I've wasted time.  And I hurt someone's feelings. 

Tomorrow is another day.  In the meantime, there's tonight. 

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 167 (Vision Board: The Louise Log Hologram screening, summer 2016)

Hey, blame it on Dr. Kumar.  He did say "It could become a craze."

Sold-out crowd for first ever hologram screening at Raceway Park, Englishtown, NJ   July 2016

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 166 (in The Cloud today ... or is that a sinus infection?)

I think it's something with the sinuses cause the hearing keeps going in my left ear. 

Hey, when you spend the better part of your first sixteen years walking on your hands and running like there's a pack of wolves behind you, it's no wonder that you break your nose three times.  I'm lucky (and grateful) that I don't look like those years were spent in a boxing ring. 

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 165 (where did the day go??)

I overslept, breaking my day-old resolution to be up with the sun.  Forget yoga.  I don't have those seventeen minutes... or the twelve to lie there on the mat 'meditating'.

What was supposed to be one turned into two hours weeding the garden and transplanting those out-of- control potatoes (see Day 152) with the foot-long eyes.  Thanks to Marian Evans for encouraging me to go ahead and plant them. 

Managed to lose track of time and all focus as I 'multi-tasked' writing a couple of emails while I ate breakfast.   

Scrolled through facebook to see what everyone else is doing.  Couple of times.

Watered the garden and cooked dinner.  HUH?  Yup. 

Maybe if I actually get into bed by nine I'll have a better chance at accomplishing something tomorrow.  

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 164 (on going BIG ... and on limits)

I'm not sure if you caught the pictures of our large and over-crowded garden and the gentle suggestion by a friend of a friend on facebook : "All things in moderation."  Who knew that the garden would be a training ground for the next phase of The Louise Log.

lettuce, the BEFORE

lettuce, the AFTER   (You can't see this but these plants are four times the size of those in the BEFORE picture.)

Being new to gardening, I don't know how others deal with the good luck of having too many seeds grow into plants.  Last year I just went with it.  It's true the yellow squash got moldy from a lack of air, the dill and mustard greens went to seed before we could even get to them and the cucumbers ... forget about the cucumbers.  They were so numerous that we couldn't cope.  Even the local food pantries began closing their doors when they saw us coming, bags bursting. 

So when it looked like a similar scenario might be unfolding, I broached the subject with Mr. Green of thinning out the seedlings.  As usual, he was quick and decisive: "I’ll never do that.  It’d feel like throwing out … babies!"  I realized that I was going to have to take responsibility here.

And so I did.  I faced off with that part of me that wants to do more than is possible, the part that's both overly thrifty and greedy, that wants to cram too much into a day, too much into a garden, and ultimately wants to delay looking squarely and decisively at what is possible.  I surrendered and thinned out the lettuce. 

The issue is limits.  In the garden, it's the limits of physical space within the garden fence.  With The Louise Log it's much more complicated, there are all kinds of limits. 

I'm grateful to my friend and colleague Mhairi Morrison (star and creator) of the wonderful show Feathers and Toast for writing this beautiful description of a crisis of limits (falling behind schedule) I know too well.

"The temptation would be to go into next week as a chicken and flap around madly trying to do everything that I have been putting on hold for months but instead I shall focus on the eagle and soar above it and remember that the chips will fall where they will."

You might want to watch an episode of her wonderful madcap show.  It's purportedly a cooking show but I'd call it more like I Love Lucy meets new age philosophy.  There's even an episode on 'being the eagle'. 

Mhairi Morrison in an episode of Feathers and Toast

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 163 (on Miuccia Prada and on being original)

The thunder and lightning was so intense here today that I was afraid to be on the computer.  Perfect opportunity for the vision board! (for maybe the third time in my life).  I couldn't not rip out this picture: first because the model looks so serious and intelligent while wearing this completely crazy makeup and hair and second because the clothes, which obviously are not cheap, are so unflattering...  let's call a spade a spade.  They're ugly! 

Even superficial people can look interesting, like they have depth.

A number of years ago, The New Yorker did a fascinating profile on Miuccia Prada in which it mentioned that she takes an active interest in women artists and in collecting their work.  I was surprised to learn that and of Ms. Prada's background in political science.  She sounded deep and very smart. 

So I've been struck by what looks to me like Prada's intentional effort for a while now to make the ugliest clothes possible and to photograph them on models having bad hair and makeup days.  It's dramatic.  It's not 'nice'.  It's actually art. 

As an MFA student in sculpture, I was clear that if you want to make a name for yourself as an artist you must distinguish yourself.  You can't do work that looks like anyone's else no matter what.  Oddly, this first principle seems to have fallen away from my consciousness.  Maybe in film and video it's always been easier to disregard it.  But is this what's driving the design team at Prada? 

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 162 (we need your suggestions of 'influencers')

To quote the old Firestone tire ad, it's that time for The Louise Log where-the-rubber-meets-the-road.  Dr. Kumar said that this show "could become a craze".  Not being from the big marketers, I'm getting some help to try to make the 'could' in his prediction a firm 'will'. We're in the last stages of preparing to get this web series out in front of a much bigger audience.  

And I need your ideas.  Ideas of names. 

Some little shows have become huge with the help of a person with a big following who discovers, falls in love with and starts talking about a show.  If you have a suggestion of one or more of these high-profile 'influencers' who you think might fall in love with and plug The Louise Log, please send them to me at anne@thelouiselog.com or leave them in the comments.  If you have ideas of how best to reach these people, I'll be all ears.

I thank you in advance.  Really.  And truly.  THANK YOU. 

My vision of which influential people to approach to plug The Louise Log.   "Foggy"

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 161 (on fame and success)

I was talking with a dear family member over the weekend who shares my impulsive approach to work, who works full-throttle on whatever he feels drawn to and who has been successful by any measure.  But he doesn't feel that he's been successful.  He isn't rich or famous or powerful.  If only he'd focused on one aspect of what he does instead of spreading himself thin, he feels sure that he'd be reaping these rewards.  I pointed out that Ben Affleck or Matt Damon had said something like "Fame is the greatest single thing in the entire world.  For about twenty minutes."   Anyway.

It was instructive and very helpful for me to observe this dilemma in someone else.  I know that with his intelligence and energy he's capable of doing whatever is necessary to become rich and famous.  But I also see that it's not in his nature (nor is it in mine) to constrain and suppress his life force to (for example) sit at a desk all day every day cranking out a novel every year (a web series episode every week) whether his (my) heart is in it or not.  

And in fact, to do that might just make him (me) physically ill! 

It's clear that he's actually 'living the dream'.  He's on fire all day every day doing what he's doing.  And he's even making a significant difference in the world and getting paid to do it.

This doesn't mean that I'm giving up on the hope of getting The Louise Log out to a wide audience, but it helps me to realize that I'm already 'living the dream' and to be grateful for that.  It hasn't always been so. 

Today I finished vacuuming my new studio and this part, the office.  Hoping to move in tomorrow. 

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 160 (on how a loathesome hit film inspired me)

Today I was overwhelmed with emotion - joy at the earth-shaking rulings by the Supreme Court (and at my new studio), mixed with relief at the capture of the escaped convicts and all this eventually displaced by anguish over the terrible hardships faced by the previous generation.  It doesn't even sort of pull together into a story.

I wanted to get some relief from my inner turmoil and having heard good things about the new "hit from Sundance" Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, dragged Mr. Green to go sit up close to a huge movie theater screen.   "Beautifully scripted"  "Perfectly cast"  "Chunks of gold"   Variety, The New York Times, The Hollywood Reporter and apparently everyone else is mad about this movie.  Finally.  Something great to go feel inspired by.

From the first two minutes, it rubbed me the wrong way.  And then, for my money, it richocheted between annoying and repulsive all the way to the end credits.  But, in a funny way, even 'bad work' is inspiring.  And it's empowering. 

I'm happy to be back home in the peace and quiet of my own life (and studio).  Here's to making new work there without a single thought to which audience segments or studio executives it might appeal.  Since very few of you saw yesterday's pictures of the inside of my studio, here you go. 

The so-called 'conference room', where I might hang a swing from the overhead beam.

the 'office' part in the way back, with a wood stove

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 159 (my new office and studio)

HERE IT IS.  Pre-furniture.  

My friend Kitty suggested hanging a swing from the overhead beam in the big room (the so-called conference room). 

 All the way in the back is the 'office' part, with a wood stove.

I can't wait to move in.  TOMORROW.  

- a white board for a 3-month schedule

- a desk and chair

- a standing desk

- a bookshelf 

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 158 (on my new office and studio)

I have a history of tiny little offices in New York City apartments.  My first office was a room that had once been a kitchen.  It was about 5' X 7,  partly tiled in white subway tiles (with an inset band of burgundy tiles) and had a north window facing the now tony Gretsch building's parking lot in Williamsburg.  I loved this little office.  The space felt like it concentrated my ideas and protected me from distractions.  I wrote the script for and produced my feature film (How To Be Louise) in this office.  There were some cabinets left over from the kitchen days for storage, and a thick piece of plywood served as a desk.  The desk stretched from wall to wall (supported by file cabinets) and when I sat at it, my back to the window, daylight poured in over my shoulder. 

The Director of Photography Vladimir Tukan is behind the camera on the far left, standing in my white-tiled office.  Lea Floden, Louise in How To Be Louise, is on the far right. 

After the kids were born, we moved four times in seven years and I was thinking more about diapers and getting a nap than about an office.  In the third apartment, I had a desk in the bedroom. In the fourth apartment, I commandeered a hallway and wore ear plugs to block out the kids.  This is still my office in New York City but now it has a fourth wall with a lockable door in it.  It's a small office, about 6' X 9' and I love it. There's room for the camcorder and a couple of hard drives, but the paper I've accumulated, God help me, the reams and reams of paper, there's no way it can all fit in this office.  There are files in the basement, files in my bureau, in the linen closet and every other closet and bookshelf in the house - trying to keep track of it all is a full-time job.

Upstate, I'm back to a desk in the corner of the bedroom and a bookshelf filled with, yup, papers.  But I've had an eye on one of the sheds.

Maybe you saw the picture of me pick-axing a dirt floor last week?  Tonight that dirt is all smoothed out, covered with a layer of crushed stone and ... paved in cement tiles.  This shed is about to be my first-ever, free-standing 'office and studio'! 

Last Fall, trying to justify to myself that I wanted this entire shed, including the lean-to section in the back, all for my own, I explained to Mr. Green that the lean-to part could be my office (as I like small spaces to concentrate my thoughts).  The other part, which is twice the size and with a higher ceiling, could be where actors and I could sit around a big table and have table readings before we shoot.  (And hey, it could even be a place to shoot.)  Mr. Green said something like: "Oh.  A conference room. You need an office and a conference room."  So now my shed has been dubbed my Office and Conference Room.  It sounds so corporate that it makes me laugh out loud but, in fact, tonight I'm not laughing.  I'm completely in awe. 

We finished the floor tonight.  I went in, closed the doors and said in a voice so low that even if someone else was there, they couldn't have heard me:  "This is my office.  This is my studio." 

But I'll tell you, I wasn't feeling AT ALL like I 'owned this room'.  I felt more like when I first meet an intimidating person or a very powerful and large animal or when I walk into a building or a room that takes my breath away. 

While we were fixing it up, I went through spells of worrying that it was too big, that it would overwhelm me, that I'd feel ridiculous, that I don't deserve it and, the topper, that because of it, I'll never do anything again...  Tonight I can't wait for tomorrow so I can go vacuum it, wash the windows and move my stuff in. 

Pictures tomorrow. 

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 157 (the power of imagery)

The surprising power of that one 'Own The Room' photo, on the side of a phone booth, has me thinking about how I might better make use of pictures to help me to 'go big'. To hammer home the point (to myself), I want to recount a couple of experiences.

- A number of years ago, I went to see a healer who works with imagery. On my first visit to see him, he 'prescribed' images to visualize three times a day for twenty-one days. Thanks to his treatment, I was saved from disfiguring facial surgery. 

- When I moved to New York City, I'd been trying to stop smoking for the better part of ten years. Living on Rolaids to deal with the constant burning in my stomach. I'd throw away cartons of cigarettes to reinforce the firmness of my resolve. But I'd always started up again.  

One night, heading home on the #1 train, stomach burning, some teenage boys  bounded onto the train. I was only twenty-six, but watching them in basketball jerseys and shorts as they threw a basketball around made me feel old and tired. They had beautiful muscles and were bursting with life and energy and innocence. 

And then, one of them pulled out a cigarette and lit it.  It was as if someone had taken a rock and smashed a plate glass window between us. The image of their youth and health was obliterated in that instant. I suddenly got the destructive power of smoking. And I never smoked another cigarette. 

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 156 (the power of the positive)

So I guess the cat is out of the bag when it comes to the truth about me and my inner voice, that it's a very lively relationship.  Today I had an unusual experience with it.

Someone recently paid me a compliment on something fundamental.  (It's neither false nor real modesty that's stopping me from saying what it was - am just blanking out.)

Generally songs get stuck in my head, sometimes random meaningless phrases.  Today I hit the jackpot and this compliment got stuck in my head.  Hours later, I can still feel the glowy, relaxed, hopeful feeling after hearing my inner voice replay this compliment.  Who knows why this positive affirmation replaced the usual who-do-you-think-you-are self-criticism, but it did.  Effortlessly. 

I have a sneaking suspicion that it's related to this image/intention of 'owning the room'.  I get images.  Or they get me.  This 'owning the room' one feels like it could change my life. 

Cate Blanchett as Elizabeth l totally owning the room in that whole movie (a movie I've been meaning to watch again ever since it first came out)

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 155 (You spot it, you got it.)

Mr. Green awakened me at 5:30 this morning in a rather unpleasant way.  He was snoring.  I managed to be a good sport and not go ballistic or storm out of the room with my pillow, giving him the silent treatment as I have in the past.  I actually even stayed in bed, going back to sleep a number of times until finally at around 7:30, unable to take it anymore, I leapt out of bed, accidentally dragging the top sheet with me like a live Greek sculpture and shouting (without anger) "Marriage is so GREAT!  Everyone should be married!"

I would actually say I owned the room!  So what if there were only two of us in it.  I could have been on a stage with a massive audience.  I was so fully myself and my feelings.  (And not mean.)

And then later on, Mr. Green and I got into a little bit of a row, me taking the point of view that rocks have consciousness. 

Now I don't mean that rocks have the same consciousness that we do (á la inanimate objects like Chairy in Pee Wee's Playhouse) but I'm sure they have some kind of consciousness and it all came together with this new obsession of mine: this rock is totally 'owning the hill'.   So I'm thinking, Oh yeah.  There's an expression which has often been turned against me.  This time it's in my favor: "You spot it, you got it."