Fans and a large dehumidifier cope with some water damage on my floor.
So, late one afternoon, my building caught fire. My apartment was fine; other people weren’t so lucky. This is part two of lessons learned. Check out part one for my initial thoughts on having a backup plan and other realizations.
Stuff Matters!
It would be nice if I had a zen-like approach to material possessions. I think I lead a fairly minimalist life but when I couldn’t get back into the building, all I thought about was my stuff. I knew the fire didn’t reach my apartment but I was worried about water damage. I pictured water pouring down on my brand new MacBook Pro and soaking the pillow-top mattress that I like so much. Plus, books, photos, art, letters from friends, keepsakes, personal items, clothes and everything else.
So, late one afternoon, my building caught fire. My apartment was fine; other people weren’t so lucky. This is part one of lessons learned. Check out part two for my thoughts on the importance of communication after the fire.
I got the call around 6:30 PM.
“Oh, Joe, I think your building is on fire.”
It was a friend of mine, John Hanshaw, who lives nearby. He could see my apartment building and said that it was surrounded by fire engines.
I really didn’t believe him at first. DC sends out fire trucks for everything. They roll not just for fires, but for medical calls as well. This is because the ambulances are unreliable and sometimes can’t find the right address. The thinking is that the local fire company knows the neighborhood better.
But this makes the city a “land of sirens”, with fire trucks constantly racing down streets, sirens blaring. After a while, the commotion becomes so much background noise. Continue reading “Lessons from the Fire – Part One”
A table read at the DC Shorts Screenplay Competition.
The comedy Interview Date won the DC Shorts Screenplay Competition. This was a funny script, with some great lines highlighting the similarities between looking for a job and finding love. It was performed with five other scripts on October 16, part of the ScriptDC screenwriting weekend. The audience at the reading voted for their favorite and selected Interview Date, as a I wrote for the Pink Line Project.
Chris Guillebeau speaks at the Barnes and Noble in downtown DC.
Last night, I listened to Chris Guillebeau speak at the Barnes and Noble in downtown DC. Chris is one of my favorite bloggers, from the Art of Non-Conformity. His message is that you don’t have to live like everyone else, that you should follow your passions while looking to leave something behind.
He lives what he writes about – he’s on a quest to visit every country in the world and has been in 125 of them so far.
Now he has a book, also called The Art of Non-Conformity, and is off on a 5o state tour to support it. His publisher thinks he’s crazy. As a writer myself, I think he’s crazy – North Dakota?
While his DC reading was standing-room only, his next stop in West Virginia will be less attended. Chris emailed the one person signed up for the reading, telling her to make sure to be there.
In person, he’s much like his blog – more curious about the audience than himself, non-judgemental, cognizant of how lucky we in the West are to have the “problem” of following our dreams. After speaking for a bit (and filling in DC on his 50 state map), he took questions from the audience.
Why did he write a book? Blog posts don’t change lives, was his answer. His goal in writing the Art of Non-Conformity was to get people to positively change and to share his and others stories of how to do it.
One goal of his book has been to bring people together. In the Q&A session, he let the audience answer each other’s questions, covering such diverse topics as entrepreneurship and conflict-free diamonds.
What I like about Chris is that he doesn’t say that there is one magic answer for everyone – it’s not Scientology or the 4-Hour Work Week. Your quest to change yourself, and the world, can involve very small steps – life experiments, where you get away from your desk and visit an art gallery. Or start learning a new language during your commute.
Unlike other so-called “life hackers”, he believes that the quest for efficiency is overrated. A new method of burning through your email is meaningless. It’s better to figure out how you can pursue adventure while helping others.
In his view, the core questions to think about are:
What do you want out of life?
What can you offer the world that no one else can?
In a city filled with well-paid people trapped in bureaucracy, these questions have enormous resonance. The Art of Non-Conformity aims to guide people in finding their own answers.
Tired of the same old Hollywood formula? The treacly love stories, the gross-out horror flicks, the not really funny bromances? Think that you can do something better?
Now’s your chance to learn how to write a screenplay at ScriptDC. This three day event takes place downtown on October 15-17. It’s sponsored by local filmmaking organizations, including the DC Film Alliance and Women in Film and Video. ScriptDC features a full slate of speakers and events designed for aspiring filmmakers.
The highlights include:
A Friday night film screening and speaker.
A full day of speakers on Saturday, including Ed Burns (The Wire), Claudia Myers (Kettle of Fish), Mike Million (Tenure), Kelley Baker (The Angry Filmmaker), Jon Gann (DC Shorts) and Megan Holley (Sunshine Cleaning).
The finals of the DC Shorts Screenwriting Competition, where you can pick the winner of this live screenplay reading featuring local actors.
Sunday morning pitch sessions, where you’ll have a chance to sell your screenplay idea to producers.
Script critique sessions where the first five pages of your script will be evaluated.
ScriptDC is the largest conference of its kind in the mid-Atlantic. What’s unique about it is its broad approach. Not only can you learn about how to write a screenplay, you can see scripts acted out live, and meet producers and filmmakers who have been successful.
I’m going to be at the screenplay reading on Saturday night – I was a judge for the contest, helping to select the finalists. Looking forward to seeing the scripts read live.
Use discount code DCSHORTS when registering for Script DC and save $75 on registration! http://scriptdc.com
The Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa was awarded the the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature. It’s a brilliant choice. Unlike some of the Nobel committee’s more dubious awards, Vargas Llosa is a storyteller with an important message to share. Moreover, he is not some stuffy academic – he’s been actively engaged in the world, a voice for moderation in fanatical times.
And most importantly, his books are a joy to read. He’s frequently compared to another South American, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who won the Nobel Prize in 1982. Both writers are part of the Latin American Boom. While many American writers retreated into the minimalism of Raymond Carver, the Boom authors wrote sprawling, worldly, intensely entertaining works that hovered on the edge of reality. The multi-generational saga of the doomed Buendias in One Hundred Years of Solitude is an excellent example of Boom fiction.
Two great books show the incredibly range of Vargas Llosa.
Aunt Julia and the Script Writer is a deranged masterpiece, a comic coming of age story about young Mario, who has fallen in love with his sexy aunt. Interleaved with this story are the tales of a Bolivian script writer, who has enthralled Lima with his radio soap operas. The book grows progressively more absurd and surreal, as the comic inventions of the script writer lead to real-world chaos.
A reviewer on Amazon referred to The War of the End of the World as “Macondo meets Jonestown”. That’s an apt description of this epic novel, based upon real events. Set in Brazil in the 19th century, the book is centered on Canudos, a religious cult that essentially secedes from the rest of the country. It becomes a safe haven from oppression, until the army decides to wipe them out.
What makes Vargas Llosa’s work so appealing to me is his concern for individuals, not mass movements. He’s been an a foe of dictators, whether they be Fidel Castro or Alberto Fujimori (who he ran against in 1990). Suspicious of ideology, he was lauded by the Nobel committee for:
“his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual’s resistance, revolt, and defeat”.
Vargas Llosa demonstrates that writers can do more than just tell stories – they can influence their times by actively participating in society.
A Confederacy of Dunces is one of my favorite books. In this picaresque novel, John Kennedy Toole creates a vivid and hilarious world, the French Quarter of the 1960s, and populates it with unforgettable characters and fantastic scenes. His protagonist is Ignatius J. Reilly, perhaps the first slacker in American literature. He disdains work and the modern world, longing for the Middle Ages when his genius would be appreciated.
I read A Confederacy of Dunces in college and loved it from the very first pages. It’s a broad comedy, expertly told by someone who clearly knows every inch of his beloved New Orleans. Moreover, Toole was familiar with the slang and patois of the city’s residents. He portrays them as corrupt, flawed, confused – but always well-meaning, in their own way. Continue reading “Would Self-Publishing Have Saved John Kennedy Toole?”
Last night, I attended the Elements of Publicity Workshop put on by Amanda Miller Littlejohn and Jacqueline Lara of Mopwater PR. These two charming and knowledgeable ladies covered a lot of ground in just a two-hour session:
How to develop your message
How to create a “news hook” for your story
How to pitch to local, national and social media.
What I liked about the workshop was that Amanda and Jacqueline have a lot of practical experience in real-world PR. Their talk was spiced with useful examples and anecdotes from their work. They didn’t just tell you how to pitch a story to a reporter, they shared what should be in the email subject line and the best time to make a follow-up phone call.
This is a good workshop for people who don’t want theory but want to know tactics – the practical steps they can take to get media coverage for their product or cause. Want to know what should be in a press kit? Should a backgrounder be in print or electronic format? Should you do a social media release? How do you deal with a TV producer? All of this was covered in the workshop.
Workshop attendees consisted of small business owners, entrepreneurs and managers of small nonprofits – exactly the type of people who will do PR themselves, lacking the budget to hire a firm. The workshop was a really good fit for their needs and Amanda and Jacqueline tailored the class toward them. It was a very interactive session, with lots of Q&A and idea-sharing.
As someone who’s promoting his own book (Murder in Ocean Hall), I left with a lot of useful ideas to pursue, including things I had never thought of before (people still listen to radio?).
Elements of Publicity is just one of a series of low-cost workshops that Mopwater PR is teaching on blogging, social media and publicity.
For anyone who lives in the sprawling metropolis of Washington, Corner Plot is a fascinating documentary. Would you believe that someone owns a one-acre farm in the middle of Silver Spring? Charlie Koiner does. He’s 89-years-old and produces a cornucopia of produce from his tiny plot of land, just blocks from the Metro.
Corner Plot is a really effective short work because the filmmakers paid attention to the story of Koiner, showing how farming has kept him young and engaged with the community. More strident documentarians would’ve taken the occasion to lecture the audience on environmental themes but Ian Cook and Andrew Dahlman are smart enough to let their subject do most of the talking. They allow they audience to come to the conclusion that local farms are critical to community life, vital to people like Koiner and the people of Silver Spring.
Corner Plot won for Outstanding Local Film at the DC Shorts Film Festival. You can see it for free on September 23 at Little Miss Whiskey’s. Look for more screenings throughout the year.
I was at the DC premiere for this hilarious short film. From the opening scene, the audience was howling. The movie begins with a conference of imaginary friends, all of whom have been rejected by the children that once loved them. One man – Captain Kiloton – has managed to remain the imaginary friend of man for more than twenty years. He explains how he’s been successful to a motley assemblage of rejectees, a motivational speaker for the imaginary friend set.
Back in the real world, 27-year-old Fernando is being pulled away from Captain Kiloton by a new love interest. Can he grow up and keep Kiloton? This dilemma is neatly (and sweetly) wrapped up in this very funny mockumentary.
