Vote!

Just a friendly reminder to early vote this weekend, or regular vote on Tuesday (November 4th)! This, like every, election is important, and your voice deserves to be heard. Try as people might to silence it. Yes, those are all individual articles discussing different issues - there are that many different kinds of attempts to suppress voters this election - not to mention future elections. If they're that scared of you voting, that means your vote is that much more important.

Vote!

Surprise: Homeless People Are People

In this heartbreaking video called "Cardboard Stories" from the group Rethinking Homelessness, homeless people in Orlando share an interesting, hopeful, sad, and sometimes surprising fact about themselves:

You can read more about Rethinking Homelessness' goals and history at their website.

[via Neatorama]

#HireTheseWomen

I'd #HireTheseWomen. I just hope that someday they #hireme.

#YesAllWomen

ICYMI: This New Yorker article does a good job of distilling the recent, explosive #YesAllWomen hashtag. Other great articles on it at Slate, TIME, and WaPo. I'm sure I'm missing some, too, so please feel free to reply with your favorite articles or tweets.

I'm on vacation right now, and I sometimes miss the big news stories while I'm away. I'm glad I didn't miss this one. I won't go into a long discussion or a series of stories on this subject, but to address the utter banal truth of #YesAllWomen, here's a quick anecdote:

There are two ways to walk the two blocks home from the subway after work: the shorter way and the populated way. For the first several months we lived in our new apartment, he would lead us the shorter way and I would lead us the populated way. Finally, I told him, "I don't want to go that way anymore at night." "But this way is so crowded." "Yes, which means it's so safe." He had never thought of it that way. Here was an open, perceptive, feminist man who completely missed that #YesAllWomen have to choose between safety and convenience.

Also, when to and not to wear my headphones while walking alone is a nightly battle.

New Synopsis for Pixar's "Inside Out"

Pixar released a new synopsis for the very intriguing Inside Out. I'm stoked for the new film from always groundbreaking Pete Doctor. The synopsis is essentially unchanged, but a little fleshed out, from the ones we've seen before. Check it out!

From the tepuis of South America to a monster-filled metropolis, Academy Award®-winning director Pete Docter has taken audiences to unique and imaginative places. In 2015, he will take us to the most extraordinary location of all - inside the mind of an 11-year-old named Riley. 

Growing up can be a bumpy road, and it's no exception for Riley, who is uprooted from her Midwest life when her father starts a new job in San Francisco. Like all of us, Riley is guided by her emotions – Joy (Amy Poehler), Fear (Bill Hader), Anger (Lewis Black), Disgust (Mindy Kaling) and Sadness (Phyllis Smith). The emotions live in Headquarters, the control center inside Riley’s mind, where they help advise her through everyday life. As Riley and her emotions struggle to adjust to a new life in San Francisco, turmoil ensues in Headquarters. Although Joy, Riley's main and most important emotion, tries to keep things positive, the emotions conflict on how best to navigate a new city,
house and school.

Reactions to the footage that was shown at D23 last year have been positive so keep those fingers crossed!

[via /Film]

ICYMI: Maya Rudolph's Comedy/Variety Show Premieres May 19th

Starting as a one-off special, Maya Rudolph's variety show on May 19th at 10pm will serve as a pilot that (we hope!) NBC will pick-up to series. Therefore, we should all watch it! Especially Neilsen homes, if those still exist. More info at EW. Looking forward to it!

Goodbye to an Artful 2013, Hello to an Artfuller 2014!

I feel like a lot of year in reviews are pretty much either brag-fests or suck-fests - what did we accomplish, what went wrong, why this was the greatest year EVER OF ALL TIME, why this year BLEW DONKEY CHUNKS, etc. I was thinking about writing what I did and did not accomplish this year. I think it's a good idea to really sit and think and analyze, "How did I move forward and how can I learn from the ways I didn't move forward," but they may be better suited for personal introspection than a blog post read by a whopping seven people. Frankly, that's five and a half people too many. I will say this was a really big, super-stellar year for me, life-wise, and I'm very grateful for that. I hope 2014 brings a lot of amazing things, too, and not a lot of sad, bad, unhappy things. I hope I grow as a writer and finally start to live up to the opportunities I'm given and seizing. I hope I become a better friend, daughter, sister, wife, co-worker, citizen of my community and the world. And for you, my dearest seven readers, I hope you all had a fantastic 2013 and an even more amazing 2014. If nothing else, your loyalty to my ramblings certainly have earned you that much.

Not solid on what my resolution will be next year - last year was more photos, this year was more music... I'll keep you updated.

In the meantime, these two posts on the NKF blog are pretty solid reads.

Oral Fixation: Bun in the Oven

So proud of my sister for telling her story at "Oral Fixation: Bun in the Oven" this year.

I've always been a strong supporter of women's rights, but it was truly eye-opening to have it all hit home so directly this year.

It was so scary, educational, and inspiring watching Wendy Davis' filibuster, knowing that the outcome had direct implications for my sister and her husband's lives. Scary because if she had received the test results a few weeks later, she would not have been able to have her procedure in Texas. Educational because, while I know one in three women have an abortion, I never knew before why a woman would have one after 20 weeks. Now I do. If more people watched Nicole's story and the stories of the many women like her, I know they'd rethink their opinions on abortions after 20 weeks. And i was inspiring to see someone stand up so strongly for women's rights during a time when they're being taken away slowly but surely nationwide. Just today, the Supreme Court agreed to hear an absurd case arguing that a corporation (Hobby Lobby) can refuse to cover contraception - contraception! - for their employees on the grounds of religious freedom. As Colbert would say, I laugh to keep myself from crying. It's that bad.

In order for women's rights to stop being attacked all over the country, more brave women like my sister need to share their abortion stories (and electing Wendy Davis as Governor of TX can't hurt, too!)

'Catching Fire' and 'Frozen' Kick Box Office Ass + Thoughts on 'Frozen'

'Hunger Games: Catching Fire' and Disney's new 'Frozen' have proven (for the billionth time) that having well-rounded female protagonists in big studio movies pays off. Both are on track to break all kinds of records - Catching Fire is the third movie ever to break $250 million on or under eight days (the other two: The Dark Knight Rises and The Avengers - so basically, Katniss is equal to the entire Avengers team) and Frozen may pull in $100 million in its first five days, shattering Thanksgiving weekend records.

What makes me even more happy about this is that both films are really good! I've already commented on Catching Fire (though I could go into further detail: I haven't even mentioned Jena Malone's perfect depiction of Johanna!). I just saw Frozen this afternoon, and I really loved the strong story of sisterhood, the delightful takedown of traditional Disney princess romances, and the way the hero, Anna, completely leads the film. She is not a passive protagonist: She constantly makes bold choices and gets herself into and out of trouble. Without spoiling anything, the ending proves this point to the nth degree. An extra perk? The movie passes the Bechdel Test within the first five minutes.

Bonus! Jennifer Lee, the screenwriter/animator behind Wreck-It Ralph wrote and co-directed Frozen. She's the first female director of a Disney animated movie, and I think the influence is both clear and welcome. I say this not to take away from Ms. Lee's individuality as a writer/director (I'm sure Kathryn Bigelow would HATE it if someone said that her directing clearly had a "female influence"), but simply as a woman who has experienced a lot of the same emotions, relationships, and thought-processes that I saw onscreen today that have not been present in any previous Disney features, which makes me think (logically) that Ms. Lee may have had something to do with that.

Sidenote to anyone else who saw Frozen: how much did you love the "You fell in love in one day!?" takedown (yes, I realize Anna and Kristoff kiss at the end of the film, but they have a very different "one day" than Anna and Hans, plus they only kiss and aren't getting married or anything rash like that)? And Anna telling Kristoff, most assuredly, that the way to end the eternal winter was simply to talk to her sister (and work things out like two normal human beings, instead of blowing the whole thing out of proportion like they'd do in another movie)? Loved it.

Oh! And I'm SO HAPPY that Kristen Bell is finally in a good movie. That lady deserves it!! Way to go, Woman Formerly Known as V-Mars!

Rolling Out Obamacare

TPM has a great round-up of various states' ads for their new health insurance exchanges and marketplaces that will open on October 1st and hope to cover seven million people in the next year. A lot of the campaigns are clever and fun. Some are more informative than others, but I think they're all interesting enough to get people who need insurance or pay high premiums for individual insurance to take a look. I really like the one that emphasizes that when insurers compete, you win!



Who doesn't like beating the insurance companies and getting better coverage?

Save the New Amsterdam Market!

One of my favorite things about living in lower Manhattan (in addition to the many, many subway stops) is the New Amsterdam market. Usually held on Sundays from May to December, it's the best place in New York to pick up local ingredients, produce, and delicious, delicious meals, snacks, and desserts. For years now, Sunday has been my husband and my's favorite day of the week - heading down to the market for a great breakfast or lunch, grabbing fun new or old favorite provisions for the week, and then wandering around the weird little side streets around the South Street Seaport. Unfortunately, the Howard Hughes Corporation (HHC) is threatening to end all of it. They want to bulldoze the whole seaport and replace it with condos, hotels, and even more retail shopping (like the already gross Pier 17 mall and strip of now-abandoned-thanks-to-Sandy Abercrombie and Fitch and the likes). There's hope that the new mayor will put a stop to the development, since it needs to rezone the entire area before it buys up all the land, but candidate Christine Quinn (who said she supported the market) voted for the rezoning back in March. Lame. Honestly, I can't imagine who would be idiotic enough to put up hotels and condos in an area that was devastated by a hurricane less than a year ago, but that's neither here nor there. What is here and also there is a great article about this whole mess over at Serious Eats. It's a medium-sized read and well worth it. And in the meantime, I'm going to make sure I hit up all the now-monthly (because of the uncertainty, I think) market this fall.

Good Morning!

What a morning.

It's a great one in Texas. The battle was won, though the fight is far from over.

It's a great one for gay couples and supporters of gay couples throughout the country. It's not as big a victory as they deserve, but at least it wasn't a defeat.

But let's not forget that although this morning feels good, the court still struck down one of the key tenants of our constitution - ensuring that all its citizens are allowed the opportunity to vote. We must not forget that, and we must fight against it.

Apologizing, Ask Amy

Amy's advice here is heartfelt, a little heartbreaking, and utterly true. Apologizing is a difficult skill that takes humility, vulnerability, and courage to learn.



I wish someone had given me great advice on such a difficult subject in frank and honest terms like this when I was younger, but I'll gladly take it now, too!

[via Videogum]

Yay!

Let's have a fantastic, fun, awesome, happy, love-y dove-y, wonderful, blissful, super duper amazing and stellar 2013! We deserve it!

Happy Last Moments of 2012!!!!!!!

You did it!!!!!!!!!

GITS More Movies Like This, Please

Another great post over at GITS for the end of the year, this time on the movies he thought were extra special this year, ones that he wants to see "more like this" - some I agree with, some I don't, but I definitely agree with his list of the types of movies he wants to see more of (for more of this list, hit the link):

* More movies that take risks.

* More movies that approach narrative in different ways.

* More cinematic movies.

* More quirky, whimsical, oddball movies reflecting a distinctive take on the world.

* More movies where the focus is on characters, not special effects.

* More movies that have no reason to exist other than the fact they have a great story to tell.

I hope I can write a few that live up to those expectations next year - or at least one!

Raising Lambs at Kinderhook Farms

From Serious Eats, a more in-depth look at raising lambs at Kinderhook Farm, the place the fiance and I went to for our farmstay earlier this month:



It's lovely to see a more in-depth look at the farm and who works there. I didn't get a chance to meet the super cute sheepdogs, but that's just because they were on duty, and it was pouring outside. Clearly, they were more dedicated to their work than I was to meeting them, which is as it should be.

September 11, 2012

Vice President Joe Biden's speech today really summed it up, eleven years later. I've linked to it here from TPM, as David Kurtz explains Biden's relationship to tragedy and loss. It's a very moving speech.

Four More Years!

... Of Parks and Recreation!

... Also, President Obama!!

Great convention, great speeches, and a great vision for the future. Now we just have to all go out and vote! (seriously, mark your calendar, draw a smiley on your hand to remind you, whatever you have to do!)

We did that and we can do it again! Together! Forward! Down with cynicism, up with citizenship! Other campaign jargon!

Feeling Down? Tell a Good-Natured Joke!

Although the jokes in this Scientific American article are pretty corny all around (even the "mean" ones), it's good to know that when you're in a tough situation, gallows humor isn't always the best way to go if you really want to brighten your mood or outlook on it.