I'd describe 2009 as the year of the dark cloud with the silver lining. It feels like there has been lots of disappointments and little success. But for each dark cloud - I have focused on the silver lining. I am thankful for these silver linings

1. Mom Kicking Cancer. She was diagnosed with a really bad cancer earlier this year. We thought she might have only a year to live - but she's actively kicking cancer's ass. yay for mom.
2. The Best Boyfriend in the World. I can't even begin to talk about how awesome the boyf is. I'm very thankful for him.
3. Traveling. My flexible schedule (aka lots of free time) have made it possible for me to visit my grandparents, my dad, my mom and visit Anna in Peru. It's important to connect with people in person.
4. Friends. I know a lot of people, but I let few into my heart. When I think of those close to me, I am amazed by them. I need to remember there are more good people in the world and there are lots of people I could be better, closer friends with.
5. My Pup. A good dog is better than all the people in the world. I've just learned this dog-owner fact.
6. My Body. Although I could lose a few pounds, I am in great shape and I've never (knock on wood) had any major health problems. I'm happy with my mind, my intelligence and what I create using all my cells.
7. My clean carpet and my nice house. It's come a long way from the bachelor pad of 3 years ago. My home always must be my favorite place in the world and it is.
8. My container garden. I was not to be stopped by having no backyard to plant in - I took over the driveway and created a flourishing garden with trees, roses, flowers and herbs in containers.
9. My newfound excitement in science and future studies. I've always been a predictor - seen and created the future. The only people I knew who did that were crazy sibyls not using scientific methods - that is, until I found out about future forecasting based on science methods. I know this study is something I wish to pursue.

With every disappointment, I find a silver lining. I find something to learn. Some way to improve myself. A new perspective. Because I believe everything happens for a reason - just sometimes you don't know what that reason is.

I love a metaphor. Usually when you tell someone you love them it's full of flourishes, flowers and bits from the heart. Gushy, soft musings. Full of metaphor and comparisons.

I was reminded of a metaphor I used to tell my dad how I loved him. I would always say, I love you a whole vacant lot. Why? Because that was the biggest thing I could think of. Today, I still remember the original vacant lot, and it still makes perfect sense. However, I can understand why you might be confused, that's just how my brain works.

Photo by Steve Vance via Flickr.

Imagine all that filled with love. That's the metaphor.

Seeing We Live in Public a second time has brought up a wash of TV memories. If you've caught me in a belligerent mood at a party you know my two favorite things to faux-brag about are my unbelievable introversion (everyone just sees me in extrovert mode) and the fact I haven't owned a TV for 15 years.

I have a deep hatred and aversion to television and the content and media produced and distributed on/with it. Of course, there's a much longer story to this. You can't hate something, unless you've loved it.

I don't believe I consumed more TV than average - probably less. I spent much of my prime TV watching years in Iowa - where we were lucky to have 3 or 4 channels. But I did spend loads of time from when I was 10 until 14 consuming television - many hours every day. Prior to then, it was cartoons and nature programs. A few Harryhausen stop animation and fantasy films. Around that time TV networks and cable really took off. I remember when Nickelodeon was launched and when MTV used to play music videos. (I still remember seeing Axel Rose crooning and swooning about his sweet child.) I'm a gourmet cook and can whip up the most complicated dish with only a few sips from the Joy of Cooking. That comes from my years of watching Jeff Smith's Frugal Gourmet. I had perfected chocolate souffle when I was 13. My absolute favorite show was You Can't do that on Television. Even then, I was attracted to the interrupters. It was horrible Canadian Television with lots of green slime. But better than anything created in the US.

Shortly after that time though, something shifted. It was about the time I discovered philosophy and decided I wanted to be in control of who I became, not shaped by the world around me. At that time, I became selective of the media I consumed. Already I started the long and tedious process of re/unwiring my programming. Of course, first you have to realize what your programming is. There was also the added challenge of being an adolescent girl of divorced parents living on her own.

I didn't say goodbye to the tube until college. Of course, I just switched drugs - preferring the interactive black and green BBS chatrooms and limited 5 line profiles to passively watching programming. When 12 baud dial-up was unbearable I saved up the money from my art modeling gig to buy a 28 baud modem and installed it myself. I briefly had a boyfriend who studied in the broadcasting and TV group and one late night conversation led me to the realization that those who create the media do not consume it. You couldn't. You had to be beyond it. That's when the nail went in my TVs coffin. I wish I could say I took my 13 inch out to the backyard and introduced it to my sledgehammer or used it as target practice - but I wasn't into guns and violence at that time. I merely sold it.

That was 15 years ago. Since then, my TV interactions have been few and far between. I never bought another one, although for about a year, I rescued a huge push channel, big box TV from the street and left it on my Berkeley front porch pointed out to the street with the "snow channel".  It was some form of art or rebellion or commentary on something deeply philosophical I forget about now.

The television is very powerful - because it programs you. The internet is the same. The media may be different, but the activity it does is the same. You watch, you learn. Mirror neurons. Creating and building neural pathways. You become/evolve what you surround yourself with. Television isn't in my trusted network.

The Second installation of my Science Column on Suicide Girls is Live. In it, I talk about NASA TV, Magic, Kurzweil responds gracefully under fire and French Nature Films featuring Octupi and Vampires. Here's a snippet.

Read the rest of the article (and comment too!)

I am the ox that plows the fields, but I do not get to reap what is grown in them. I try to be satisfied in my role, but it makes me sad sometimes.

Then again, neither does the seed reap the benefit of what it becomes.

It is a dream come true to be able to make personal films and have them shown in great theatres such as Landmark's. Tetro is the kind of film I might have been making 35 years ago, had my career not taken an abrupt and sudden turn as it did with The Godfather. Sure, it was exhilarating to find myself an important Hollywood director, with all that came with it. But as the years went on, I found myself trying to avoid becoming a gangster film director, with all that came with that: stabbings, shootings, car crashes and strangulations. It became pretty clear that even if well-paid, a Hollywood director is expected to do what the company who employs him wants. And most times it is a genre film of some type, if not a gangster film, then take your choice between a thriller, a caper film, a romantic comedy (nothing wrong with that) or sci-fi epic (nor that). I found myself dissatisfied, and frustrated over the fact that even though I had made successful films and won plenty of awards, I still would have to go, hat in hand, and beg permission to make something really new.

With Apocalypse Now, I ultimately found I had to finance it myself. Financing movies is a perilous activity, especially when the films are as unusual as I wanted to make. At first Apocalypse Now seemed as if it would bury me—the initial reaction wasn't good, despite some acknowledged spectacular scenes, but it was deemed too philosophical or worse, 'arty'—which is the ultimate damning word that can be used on a film. Well, I thought, weren't most of Ingmar Bergman' or Michelangelo Antonioni's films 'arty but good'? As were the many films of Federico Fellini or Akira Kurosawa? Maybe those films weren't financial powerhouses, but they stayed with you and were inspirational. And also, they were all different from any other films being made. That in the end is my main criteria for enjoying a film: that I never saw it before or anything quite like it.

Many years went by.

Then, taking inspiration from my daughter who had learned the very same tricks from me, I decided to return to my youth, and realizing that the smaller the budget of a film the greater the ideas of that film could be, began to self-finance the very kinds of films I had hoped to make at the beginning. It was like trying to find my place, after being away a long time. I took a story from Mircea Eliade, Youth Without Youth. When it was done, I found the film audience had ventured even further away from anything other than the pre-made, pre-measured genre films that I had tried to escape from, and now wanted even their independent films to be mini-Hollywood ventures. No matter, I thought, the idea was to find myself and I had done that. Now, the next step was to pick up where I had left off, and write an original story and screenplay, something I hadn't done for 30 years since The Conversation.

The result is Tetro, which you are about to see soon at a Landmark theatre near you. I hope you will find it moving, as it is drawn from real emotions related to my experiences and life—though not in any way autobiographical. I hope you wish me well on this new career of mine. It was the one I always wanted from the beginning, to be an independent filmmaker, writing stories and making personal films. God knows what will come next!

Sincerely,
Francis Coppola

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This is the kind of director I want to be. These are the kind of films I want to make. Apocalypse Now is one of my all time favorite movies, along with another by Mr Fellini.