2008 in Review
Jan. 1st, 2009 11:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rinue1. What did you do in 2008 that you'd never done before?
I successfully adapted a narrative from page to screen. (I tried one time before, when I was maybe 12, at which time I wrote an extremely faithful but not at all good script for Alice in Wonderland.) I was the producer on a respectable $16,000 budget short, which is nothing money when it comes to film, but which is a step up from my previous guerilla producing. That film was also my first time working HD - I spent the rest of the year with 35mm, also a first. (I've been on 35mm shoots before, but not as part of the camera department.) I learned how to use a spot meter. I edited on an AVID. I did my first work as an AD, and my first work as a stills photographer. I acted in my first feature and my first web series. I realized I could comfortably sing much higher notes than I thought I could. I got used to playing the open B guitar chords without having to look them up every time. Oh - and I became a minister and conducted a wedding.
2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I said that I should work on one of my novels and one of my feature scripts, and I did, although I haven't finished any of them. This year I need to get Tomaso sorted - get him on some kind of assistance so that he's not homeless, but get him out of my house. I'll make an effort to get him on some anti-psychotics, but I am not sure that's a battle I can win. Aside from that, I need to finish my thesis film and paper, and get to a point where I'm making an income that can support me - which mostly involves a lot of auditions, a lot of writing, and a certain amount of teaching. I've also decided to actually sit down and record an album, just because. And at some point I'll officially register Rocker Box Gasket as an llc, so that I can start fund-raising for one of the features (Pedestrians or The Hunger Artists - whichever script Ciro and I think is ready to go when the time comes).
I also want to learn the dance from Bande à Part.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
No. A friend's brother did, but I've never met him.
4. Did anyone close to you die?
A lot of celebrity deaths hit close to home, but the people I know are still alive. My sound recordist's friend died in a car accident during the shooting of "The Sleeping People," but that's pretty far removed from me.
5. What countries did you visit?
I think just the U.S. and U.K. this time. I'm still mooning after both Iceland and France, although I bet I'll make Canada first. (I've never been.)
6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?
Money and sound equipment. Maybe some new bookshelves. I'm going to be devastated if I don't get into film festivals, and furious if none of my poems are published.
7. What date from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
I don't remember the date, but my most braggy event was probably the garden party with Princess Anne. And of course I will always remember election night. What a stunning relief that was.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I directed a film that Mike Leigh found interesting.
9. What was your biggest failure?
There was a lot of conflict and associated misery both at home and abroad, and I'm still not sure how I could have avoided it, which means it could easily happen again.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I've had a cold for about the past three months. I think it is the same cold, even though it keeps entering new permutations. Currently, it is livable - a sore but breathing nose and enough catarrh to be irritating but not to stop me singing or speaking so long as I have the occasional whiskey.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
Hahaha buying things takes money. I did wind up with a beautiful 1952 Decca recording of Aida, some lovely silk camisoles, yellow shoes, and a UN Peacekeeper pin (a prop from "The Sleeping People"). I also inherited some of Aunt Caroline's things, including a sapphire and diamond ring, a shrimp made from purple and turquoise seed beads, and quite a number of books.
12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Val got married and has made serious headway on her novel (even though she doesn't always think so). Treehavn and The Bloke managed the snarl of paperwork necessary to move to Canada. Ciro's mother moved to Italy. My Dad retired and became much happier. REL is working hard to not fight with me so much, which sounds like a backhanded compliment but which is very special to me. Ciro is back in school and took a semester of incredibly demanding classes, and made all As. He and Andrea have both been painting a lot, and have gotten much better. Ed became a long-haul trucker. Chad began the Self Actualization project and has been doing all kinds of awesome. My mom directed her first big musical show. Geoff started the Policy Stew blog.
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Jesus Christ, Greenspan. You had no idea markets could fail? Read a book that isn't by Ayn Rand sometime.
The senate is positive that Bush deliberately broke the Geneva Conventions, and nobody thinks that's important.
The Zimbabwe sewer system is not a person, but there is a person who shut it off.
14. Where did most of your money go?
School, rent, and not starving.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Obama.
16. What song will always remind you of 2008?
"Gobbledigook," by Sigur Ros.
17. Compared to this time last year, are you happier or sadder?
Happier.
ii. thinner or fatter?
Maybe fatter? Mainly, my breasts seem bigger. Which takes some doing.
iii. richer or poorer?
Even further into the negative money.
18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
I still haven't visited the Poetry Society, partly because it costs money. I miss acting. There are friends I don't see very often. But mostly, I did what I needed to do.
19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Worrying and being angry, but there wasn't much way around it and still isn't.
20. How will you be spending Christmas?
We were up in Boston and just stayed around the house. Sang in the choir at the midnight mass, as usual. Not many presents; didn't remember to make a film. Did start work on a photo project REL, Ciro, and I are doing. Watched The Muppet Christmas Carol, the Aimee Mann Christmas special, and Being There.
21. Did you fall in love in 2008?
No. But I do love the people I love.
22. How many one night stands?
None.
23. What was your favorite TV program?
We're still loving Battlestar Galactica, QI, and the American version of The Office. Am behind on Weeds, but I like what I've seen. Mostly, this has been the year the entire family became deeply obsessed with Top Gear.
The web shows I'm following are the zombie comedy I Am Not Infected and gamer satire The Guild.
24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
I have added many names to my enemies list, but I tend to keep it unpublished so that I can choose unexpected moments to enact wrathful vengeance. There are also a number of people I don't trust, to such an extent that I try to forget conversations with them so I won't accidentally try to use the information I got from them.
I have officially shifted my "state I most want to vote off the continent" from Missouri to Alabama. I realize this loses us the song "Sweet Home Alabama," but to be honest, Watergate does bother me, and I think a Southern man might do better befriending Neil Young than George Wallace.
25. What was the best book you read?
I am still working my way through Postwar, and it is still brilliant. Otherwise, I've read quite a lot of books, many of which were good, but none of which especially stood out.
26. What was your greatest musical discovery?
A ton of good music came out this year, but most of it was from people I already knew about. So I guess Vampire Weekend? I'm having trouble with these books and music questions, because I have only a vague feeling for the line between 2008 and 2007 - my emotional year didn't split in January.
27. What did you want and get?
Rights to a Jonathan Lethem short story. A certain amount of fannishness from the Dallas Museum of Art.
28. What did you want and not get?
A congenial 5th term. Ciro's father out of my house and in someone else's care.
29. What was your favorite film this year?
The Fall. Also very good: Let the Right One In. My best picture pick is WALL-E, though.
30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 28, and Val and I had our traditional joint birthday party. We were too busy to set up anything fancy, and wound up just inviting people over for talking and gin.
31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
It would have been really nice if a very well respected poetry magazine had accepted my work, even though most of them take longer to respond than they've had my manuscripts for. It's not a lot of money, but I'd feel really good about it. At this point, it almost feels like a slight that nobody reputable has taken an interest in my poems, although it is entirely possible that I have a higher opinion of them than they merit. But they seem as good to me as some of the stuff that shows up in The Writer's Almanac.
And I know this is silly, but it would have meant a lot to me if Jonathan Lethem had written to let me know he'd watched my film.
32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?
Nouvelle Vague ingenue photographer.
33. What kept you sane?
This American Life. And Birgitta.
34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Michelle Obama. That woman is a stone fox. If I went up against her in a courtroom, I would be reduced to a blubbering mass. Which honestly is not that different from how deer-in-headlights I would be if I saw her outside a courtroom, but maybe she would be nice enough not to use her formidable intellect against me. Also, the dress she picked for election night was an interesting piece of work by a progressive American designer, and she looked badass.
35. What political issue stirred you the most?
Prop 8 pissed me off like no other, but the continuing revelations about the authorization of torture by the American military have my anger off the charts, particularly since I know nobody is going to indict the people behind it. Bush deliberately and with forethought contravened the Geneva conventions, and Rumsfeld declared that the only way for something to be torture was if it killed someone - which is more usually the definition of execution, and would mean torture did not exist. The only reason this isn't in front of the World Court is because they're worried the US would pull out of the UN over it. And much as I love Obama, he's all about healing, whereas on this matter I think it is better to stab someone full of sharp needles. Not to get information, or anything, since information extracted through torture is both unreliable and unadmissible, but as an object lesson.
I was pretty upset about the earthquake in China, and about the lack of progress in (and complete ignorance about) New Orleans.
36. Who did you miss?
Ciro. Birgitta. Kerry.
37. Who was the best new person you met?
Robert Loeser, a good AD and a good person to be around.
38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008.
People are okay with getting screwed over, and expect me to be okay with it also, even though I'm not particularly. On the other hand, this means they forgive me for all kinds of things I don't expect them to.
I am good enough at being calm and professional in difficult situations that people who aren't good at those things forget I could be otherwise and assume they can panic or yell at me because I'll handle it. I do handle it, but Jesus. I have been offered the solution that I could be much less reasonable, but I don't really think that makes it better. The important lesson is just an underlining of how important it is to have a team you can trust and love.
Other lessons that I learned that are not valuable because they don't change anything are that people with wonderful and honest intentions don't necessarily know themselves well, that Ciro is both stronger and weaker than I thought.
39. Quote a song that sums up your year:
"We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics. They will only grow louder and more dissonant. We’ve been asked to pause for a reality check. We’ve been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope. But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope."
-Will.i.am and others, using text by Barack Obama, "Yes We Can"
I successfully adapted a narrative from page to screen. (I tried one time before, when I was maybe 12, at which time I wrote an extremely faithful but not at all good script for Alice in Wonderland.) I was the producer on a respectable $16,000 budget short, which is nothing money when it comes to film, but which is a step up from my previous guerilla producing. That film was also my first time working HD - I spent the rest of the year with 35mm, also a first. (I've been on 35mm shoots before, but not as part of the camera department.) I learned how to use a spot meter. I edited on an AVID. I did my first work as an AD, and my first work as a stills photographer. I acted in my first feature and my first web series. I realized I could comfortably sing much higher notes than I thought I could. I got used to playing the open B guitar chords without having to look them up every time. Oh - and I became a minister and conducted a wedding.
2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I said that I should work on one of my novels and one of my feature scripts, and I did, although I haven't finished any of them. This year I need to get Tomaso sorted - get him on some kind of assistance so that he's not homeless, but get him out of my house. I'll make an effort to get him on some anti-psychotics, but I am not sure that's a battle I can win. Aside from that, I need to finish my thesis film and paper, and get to a point where I'm making an income that can support me - which mostly involves a lot of auditions, a lot of writing, and a certain amount of teaching. I've also decided to actually sit down and record an album, just because. And at some point I'll officially register Rocker Box Gasket as an llc, so that I can start fund-raising for one of the features (Pedestrians or The Hunger Artists - whichever script Ciro and I think is ready to go when the time comes).
I also want to learn the dance from Bande à Part.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
No. A friend's brother did, but I've never met him.
4. Did anyone close to you die?
A lot of celebrity deaths hit close to home, but the people I know are still alive. My sound recordist's friend died in a car accident during the shooting of "The Sleeping People," but that's pretty far removed from me.
5. What countries did you visit?
I think just the U.S. and U.K. this time. I'm still mooning after both Iceland and France, although I bet I'll make Canada first. (I've never been.)
6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?
Money and sound equipment. Maybe some new bookshelves. I'm going to be devastated if I don't get into film festivals, and furious if none of my poems are published.
7. What date from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
I don't remember the date, but my most braggy event was probably the garden party with Princess Anne. And of course I will always remember election night. What a stunning relief that was.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I directed a film that Mike Leigh found interesting.
9. What was your biggest failure?
There was a lot of conflict and associated misery both at home and abroad, and I'm still not sure how I could have avoided it, which means it could easily happen again.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I've had a cold for about the past three months. I think it is the same cold, even though it keeps entering new permutations. Currently, it is livable - a sore but breathing nose and enough catarrh to be irritating but not to stop me singing or speaking so long as I have the occasional whiskey.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
Hahaha buying things takes money. I did wind up with a beautiful 1952 Decca recording of Aida, some lovely silk camisoles, yellow shoes, and a UN Peacekeeper pin (a prop from "The Sleeping People"). I also inherited some of Aunt Caroline's things, including a sapphire and diamond ring, a shrimp made from purple and turquoise seed beads, and quite a number of books.
12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Val got married and has made serious headway on her novel (even though she doesn't always think so). Treehavn and The Bloke managed the snarl of paperwork necessary to move to Canada. Ciro's mother moved to Italy. My Dad retired and became much happier. REL is working hard to not fight with me so much, which sounds like a backhanded compliment but which is very special to me. Ciro is back in school and took a semester of incredibly demanding classes, and made all As. He and Andrea have both been painting a lot, and have gotten much better. Ed became a long-haul trucker. Chad began the Self Actualization project and has been doing all kinds of awesome. My mom directed her first big musical show. Geoff started the Policy Stew blog.
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Jesus Christ, Greenspan. You had no idea markets could fail? Read a book that isn't by Ayn Rand sometime.
The senate is positive that Bush deliberately broke the Geneva Conventions, and nobody thinks that's important.
The Zimbabwe sewer system is not a person, but there is a person who shut it off.
14. Where did most of your money go?
School, rent, and not starving.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Obama.
16. What song will always remind you of 2008?
"Gobbledigook," by Sigur Ros.
17. Compared to this time last year, are you happier or sadder?
Happier.
ii. thinner or fatter?
Maybe fatter? Mainly, my breasts seem bigger. Which takes some doing.
iii. richer or poorer?
Even further into the negative money.
18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
I still haven't visited the Poetry Society, partly because it costs money. I miss acting. There are friends I don't see very often. But mostly, I did what I needed to do.
19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Worrying and being angry, but there wasn't much way around it and still isn't.
20. How will you be spending Christmas?
We were up in Boston and just stayed around the house. Sang in the choir at the midnight mass, as usual. Not many presents; didn't remember to make a film. Did start work on a photo project REL, Ciro, and I are doing. Watched The Muppet Christmas Carol, the Aimee Mann Christmas special, and Being There.
21. Did you fall in love in 2008?
No. But I do love the people I love.
22. How many one night stands?
None.
23. What was your favorite TV program?
We're still loving Battlestar Galactica, QI, and the American version of The Office. Am behind on Weeds, but I like what I've seen. Mostly, this has been the year the entire family became deeply obsessed with Top Gear.
The web shows I'm following are the zombie comedy I Am Not Infected and gamer satire The Guild.
24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
I have added many names to my enemies list, but I tend to keep it unpublished so that I can choose unexpected moments to enact wrathful vengeance. There are also a number of people I don't trust, to such an extent that I try to forget conversations with them so I won't accidentally try to use the information I got from them.
I have officially shifted my "state I most want to vote off the continent" from Missouri to Alabama. I realize this loses us the song "Sweet Home Alabama," but to be honest, Watergate does bother me, and I think a Southern man might do better befriending Neil Young than George Wallace.
25. What was the best book you read?
I am still working my way through Postwar, and it is still brilliant. Otherwise, I've read quite a lot of books, many of which were good, but none of which especially stood out.
26. What was your greatest musical discovery?
A ton of good music came out this year, but most of it was from people I already knew about. So I guess Vampire Weekend? I'm having trouble with these books and music questions, because I have only a vague feeling for the line between 2008 and 2007 - my emotional year didn't split in January.
27. What did you want and get?
Rights to a Jonathan Lethem short story. A certain amount of fannishness from the Dallas Museum of Art.
28. What did you want and not get?
A congenial 5th term. Ciro's father out of my house and in someone else's care.
29. What was your favorite film this year?
The Fall. Also very good: Let the Right One In. My best picture pick is WALL-E, though.
30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 28, and Val and I had our traditional joint birthday party. We were too busy to set up anything fancy, and wound up just inviting people over for talking and gin.
31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
It would have been really nice if a very well respected poetry magazine had accepted my work, even though most of them take longer to respond than they've had my manuscripts for. It's not a lot of money, but I'd feel really good about it. At this point, it almost feels like a slight that nobody reputable has taken an interest in my poems, although it is entirely possible that I have a higher opinion of them than they merit. But they seem as good to me as some of the stuff that shows up in The Writer's Almanac.
And I know this is silly, but it would have meant a lot to me if Jonathan Lethem had written to let me know he'd watched my film.
32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?
Nouvelle Vague ingenue photographer.
33. What kept you sane?
This American Life. And Birgitta.
34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Michelle Obama. That woman is a stone fox. If I went up against her in a courtroom, I would be reduced to a blubbering mass. Which honestly is not that different from how deer-in-headlights I would be if I saw her outside a courtroom, but maybe she would be nice enough not to use her formidable intellect against me. Also, the dress she picked for election night was an interesting piece of work by a progressive American designer, and she looked badass.
35. What political issue stirred you the most?
Prop 8 pissed me off like no other, but the continuing revelations about the authorization of torture by the American military have my anger off the charts, particularly since I know nobody is going to indict the people behind it. Bush deliberately and with forethought contravened the Geneva conventions, and Rumsfeld declared that the only way for something to be torture was if it killed someone - which is more usually the definition of execution, and would mean torture did not exist. The only reason this isn't in front of the World Court is because they're worried the US would pull out of the UN over it. And much as I love Obama, he's all about healing, whereas on this matter I think it is better to stab someone full of sharp needles. Not to get information, or anything, since information extracted through torture is both unreliable and unadmissible, but as an object lesson.
I was pretty upset about the earthquake in China, and about the lack of progress in (and complete ignorance about) New Orleans.
36. Who did you miss?
Ciro. Birgitta. Kerry.
37. Who was the best new person you met?
Robert Loeser, a good AD and a good person to be around.
38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008.
People are okay with getting screwed over, and expect me to be okay with it also, even though I'm not particularly. On the other hand, this means they forgive me for all kinds of things I don't expect them to.
I am good enough at being calm and professional in difficult situations that people who aren't good at those things forget I could be otherwise and assume they can panic or yell at me because I'll handle it. I do handle it, but Jesus. I have been offered the solution that I could be much less reasonable, but I don't really think that makes it better. The important lesson is just an underlining of how important it is to have a team you can trust and love.
Other lessons that I learned that are not valuable because they don't change anything are that people with wonderful and honest intentions don't necessarily know themselves well, that Ciro is both stronger and weaker than I thought.
39. Quote a song that sums up your year:
"We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics. They will only grow louder and more dissonant. We’ve been asked to pause for a reality check. We’ve been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope. But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope."
-Will.i.am and others, using text by Barack Obama, "Yes We Can"
