Three Trees in Late Autumn by David Pullman

I was sent several versions of the below on the same day (I have real sentimental sweethearts for friends). My friend David Pullman, an amazing artist, sent me this version, along with the image above of his work.

A group of professional people posed this question to a group of 4 to 8 year-olds, “What does love mean?”

The answers they got were broader and deeper than anyone could have imagined. See what you think:

“When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn’t bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That’s love.”
Rebecca- age 8

“When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different.
You just know that your name is safe in their mouth.”
Billy - age 4

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Oh crap…they killed Chef…you bastards!

I am watching the “Chef Returns” episode. I have to keep shoving my sleeve in my mouth, screaming with hilarity. I can’t take it, its too funny!

Bwahahahaha…Super Adventure Club…I hope the “SAC”s of this world get a sense of humor.

Trey & Matt Rock!

What a send off. What a resurrection. Darth Chef. Brilliant. Bravo, dudes! Masterful execution, funniest episode ever, and shockingly, most poignant. Check out the show online here.

Peace,
Melissa

Famous Firsts by American Women
1896— Alice Guy Blaché, the first American woman film director, shoots the first of her more than 300 films, a short feature called La Fee aux Choux (The Cabbage Fairy).

I’ve finally finished editing The Art of Love & Struggle. The director, Jessica Habie, and I will be screening it March 28 at the Two Boots Theater. Check out the full invitation here!

I’m starting work on a new film and then considering a move, perhaps north or west. NYC just isn’t fun any more. Its too much work with very little return these days. Too expensive, Soho has become an outdoor mall, rents in Manhattan are beyond prohibitive, the boroughs don’t do it for me. Its a lovely place to have grown, explored, hidden in and emerged from. And it will be a great place to visit, in the future, with my family. I can’t see having a family in NYC - it would be too expensive, too complicated and I’m not too impressed with an education system based on class, not equal opportunity.

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ella es el cantante de mi corazón - 03.2006

Woman who sings the crying woman
As to Luther did the Inquisition
The arias forged the amplitude of the chords in the throat
But the loudspeaker forged the harmony of a conscience birthed in my neighborhood
Saint Nicholas, every day at five in the morning
In the cold of the mountain, my market city
There, where my umbilical chord is buried, under the cactus plant behind my mother’s house, this is where I will always return, poor, little, daughter- this is grandmother’s wisdom

Lila Downs

I fall in love all the time. In good times, its daily. In times like these, in the shadow of outline of good times that are coming, still huddling from the frost of now and recent nows not so fabulous, my heart huddles out of reach.

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You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be. And one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls you to stand up for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid…You refuse to do it because you want to live longer…You’re afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid you will be criticized, or that you will lose your popularity, and you’re afraid someone will stab you, or shoot at you, or bomb your house; so you refuse to take the stand. Well, you may go on and live until you are 90, but you are just as dead at 38 as you would be at 90. And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Sermon “But If Not,” November 5, 1967

I have been struggling with an edit. Avoiding, analyzing, dancing back and forth and circling around, looking for comfort. There is no comfort, except the end of the job. There is no cessation of thought in what I do, I must be thinking, creating, paying attention ALL THE TIME. So I dance.

The dance.

Of…

….procrastination…

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