A Brie Grows in Brooklyn

New summer dress.

Art In General (at Art in General)

Home economics, an earlier time.

During one of the many iterations of my life thus far, I worked as the executive director of a non-profit that rescued endangered animals. The non-profit was funded by a very wealthy woman who, along with being addicted to percocet, loved animals far more than she did human beings. 

After the tsunami in 2004, she wrote an email to the President of Sri Lanka. On the email, she cc’ed George Bush and Hilary Clinton, both of whose addresses she had in her Rolodex. She was infuriated that, in an attempt to make room for the survivors of the tsunami, the President had re-located a number of wild elephants. The human lives, in her opinion, were less valuable than those of the animals. The President of Sri Lanka answered the email; he asked her to come meet with him.

I lasted at this particular job for four months, which is a relatively long period for me.

I’m thinking a lot of the woman today, looking at the images of the destruction in the wake of the Oklahoma City tornado. It’s a tragedy that, yet again, is beyond words. I don’t know how to process what it means.

What I can process is the imagery. And what I’m noticing about the photographs from this particular horrific event, in comparison to other recent ones, is that the media is showing a lot of hurt pets. 

This is probably fucked up to say, but I wonder if a lot of that is because of some subconscious connection we make between tornadoes and “The Wizard of Oz.” Dorothy and her Toto. The news has become so closely entwined with entertainment that the way that even The New York Times reports on events is informed by the associations we make with pop culture. The image above, for instance, is one of 17 the paper chose to display on their homepage to capture the event. A horrifying image of a hurt dog.

I try to think of what good it does, to show all of these photographs. A lot of people do, and have since the advent of media. 

Today, I think of the woman I used to work for who cares more about animals than she does human beings. And I think of her seeing these images of dogs, and feeling profoundly, deeply affected by them. Maybe it will call her, and all of her money, to action.

I think it’s important for all of us to look at these photographs. I think it’s important because it prepares us. I think it’s important because, I suspect, these new super storms have a lot to do with what we’ve done to our environment. I think it’s important because bearing witness, collectively, as a society, is the only way we’ll take action to change things.

And I think it’s important because the people in the midst of it need our collective empathy and love, even if it doesn’t help them directly. They need the dignity of acknowledgement. They need to know that we are with them, that we care about them, that their suffering is ours.

I could ignore the images; I chose to feel them instead.

Caleb and I are trying to watch every movie he rented on his iPad for his trip to Asia, which by the way, is a lot of movies. They expire tonight, and we still have four left.

Watching movies because you’re ostensibly not wasting money by doing so allows for a real freedom to indulge. I’ve been like a junkie. I might say sayonara to life in a few minutes, and just polish the rest off.

Before I go, I must say, you should maybe consider watching “The Double Hour,” an Italian thriller from 2009. I was expecting like Memento level confusing plot twists, thanks to this New York Times review by Stephen Holden, but instead, was able to guess the ending by the second twist. Twist. Twister. Tornado. (I’m sorry for the victims.) 

I probably shouldn’t have read the review.

Basically it’s about a Polish chambermaid who meets an Italian stallion at a speed dating class. He’s a damaged man. He’s also a former police officer/current security guard at a very wealthy person’s home in Turin. While the pair are on a romantic date in the woods behind the house, they get robbed at gunpoint by a bunch of art thieves, who cart away millions of dollars worth of precious objects. Before the thieves leave, they shoot the chambermaid, or the Stallion, or neither one. Who knows. This is when the movie becomes a plot twisting thriller.

I would actually recommend watching it. Thrillers are fun! So are Italian sex scenes. The actress who plays the chambermaid looks like Monica Vitti. And the Italian stallion looks like a hot Colombian guy I once knew. I forgot how enjoyable it was to stay up late — and be tired the next morning — for a movie.

One of my favorite photography books of all time is “Tulsa” by Larry Clark, which incidentally also happens to be one of the most disturbing photography books of all time. Clark writes in the introduction:

i was born in tulsa oklahoma in 1943. when i was sixteen i started shooting amphetamine. i shot with my friends everyday for three years and then left town but i’ve gone back through the years. once the needle goes in it never comes out.

Because I’m going to Tulsa on Thursday, this week will be Clark week on my blog. The above picture is one he took in New Mexico. Read a sort of interesting interview with him here.

I’m going to Tulsa on Thursday.

Thanks to a fan girl post I wrote about Julie Delpy a while back (you can read it here), HuffPost Live asked me to sit down with her and Richard Linklater tonight to discuss “Before Midnight.”

The segment airs at 7:30pm EST, and you can watch it here. I am literally so excited, I might not be able to talk when it goes live. Julie Delpy is one of my idols. I am obsessed with her. She is gorgeous. And brilliant. And funny. 

Not to mention that “Before Sunrise” and “Before Sunset” might be the only movies I can watch endlessly, on repeat, and never stop loving.

In case you missed it this weekend, definitely check out this fantastic profile of Delpy in the New York Times Magazine. And watch me tonight!

People whom I intensely dislike today.

1. Beyonce

(False pregnancy rumors are not cause for outrage. Why not just tell the public: “Listen, I had a little belly in my blue sparkly onesie last week because I ate fucking Mexican food.”)

2. Angelina Jolie.

(Way to use a procedure that most women can’t afford to catapult yourself back into the spotlight. How about telling someone else’s story to raise awareness for the fact that the majority of women who die from breast cancer are low income and in the ethnic minority? Enough with the publicity blitz — you are not a hero.)

3. Judd Apatow

(Your movie “This is 40” sucked, and thanks for wasting 2 hours and 30 minutes of my life this morning.)

Sleepy Sunday.

The place where the city keeps its snow plows.

Strange desolation.

Being men. @bensheena @calebzipperer (at The Crystal House)