Danielle Speaks

My Visual DNA

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My Horoscope Today

You are at the edge of a great energetic shift. You know that something new and different is very near, but you cannot yet tell how it's all going to come together. Logical analysis may be your greatest asset, but it's not going to get you through these illogical times. Trust your intuition to move gracefully through these changes.

I'd say thats exactly how I have ben feeling lately. Keyword feeling. Relying on my emotional radar vs whatever empirical analysis I would usually apply to anything. I don't know if I can pinpoint and real events that have happened because of the shift but I can tell you that I feel a little bit more guided.

I completely did not even know

An Italian journalist kidnapped by the Taleban in Afghanistan two weeks ago has been released. 

Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi said Daniele Mastrogiacomo was in good health in hospital in Afghanistan.

Mr Mastrogiacomo, who works for the La Repubblica daily, was seized with two Afghans in southern Helmand province.

He was trying to interview senior Taleban officials at the time. Reports that the Taleban killed one of the Afghans have not been confirmed.

The fate of the other is still unclear.

Uhmmmm like the the Talaban is totally two years ago, no? (Imagine a Cher from Clueless tone)

I feel a little stupid for letting Afganistan fall of my radar and for not knowing that people are being held hostage in exchange for troop rescind in the area.  I wonder how many other hostage situations are going on right now that I don't know about.

The Science of being an "Arteest"

I just watched the Science of Sleep again for the umpteenth time. I'll probably own it soon enough.  J'aime Monsieur Gondry! I was watching a trailer of a documentary of him later that evening and one of the inter-titles said that what " What his heart hears, his imagination creates."  This touched me deeply. I think the reason I love this film more than any of his others is because it has so much heart. I jokingly once said that if you can make Gael Garcia Bernal a character who can't get a girl, then you are a genius. But thinking about it, its true. Stephane is a character who is alternately comfortably embedded in his strange and dangerous idiosyncrasies and that acceptance is very alluring and warming and yet there is something so lost in this character. It resonates perfectly in this Kaleidoscopic melange of reality and dream.  Daringly, the film begins in Stephane's surreality and then shifts ever so subtly to his reality. From then on we are required ( or I guess you could chose not to but...) to follow along despite the in-cohesiveness of the moments. Despite the fact that this film is not entirely linear or logical there is this very real forward momentum where emotionally ,for me at least, everything makes sense. And just when things finally fizzle down to the reality of the whole situation- it ends. It truly fades to black and we awake wondering if our sanity and our conventional needs are anywhere near as important as the endeavor to connect to someone and to understand your own chaos. 
I am fan as much as i am a deep envier of Gondry. He is just simply too talented for me to fathom.  I have seen him riding his bike in the East Village once or twice and I swear his presence makes you think like him because as he passed  by I swore I saw Technicolor plasticine monkeys riding bicycles in his head.

On another note, I randomly wrote a poem and submitted it to a poets and writers contest. I am a finalist and as such shall be printed in their soon to be published book: "Immortal Verses."  I am one out of thousands. If one wins past this, they get a load of cash and of course the reward of winning the whole shebang.  I was going to throw away the letter when it came as I thought it was just poets and writers asking me to subscribe to their mag. But before tossing it, I thought i might open it and there was a proof form of my poem to be signed off on. Whoa! I had forgotten the whole incident. So there you have it. Perhaps I too am just a little bit of the arteest. Now I am off to bed to dream of Gael- and in this movie- he definitely does get the girl!!!!!!

 

Are you on Pandora

If so let me know and give me the email that you are subscribed as. I want to be your pandora friend. =)

You ever feel like a pair of brown shoes at a black tie event?

hey there blogosphere. long time no talk. I know I know, I'm in I'm out. I leave vague notions of myself around but never do I really put myself wholly into this relationship. Its not you. Its me. I just don't always want to get that intimate lately. No no no- there is no one else! PLease I just signed up for vox- you think I am non-commital with you- vox was a one night stand honey. Anyhow. Here I am wanting to talk. Yeah its always when I want to talk- well I pay you don't I?

So, lets see- lets just a give a bulleted report at first of things Danielle has been up to:

• Saw The Namesake with my dad. What a perfect movie for us to see together. I loved it- I mean really really loved it. I don't just think Mira Nair is an incredible film maker, I think she is an incredible icon for all young women. She pursues her craft with finite precision while making the movies SHE wants to make about HER culture. Even when the main character is a man, the female roles are so strong and solid and so dynamic. She gives us an insight to indian culture that really is not present in other films. Sure there are other Indian film makers- but none that really provide a view so well crafted for the American eye.  I felt very akin to the family in this film. I took away from it that there is a universal element to all good loving families that crosses cultures. At the same time- your culture marks you indelibly- this does not mean you can't marry other cultures or live in others cultures- it just means that you cannot deny yourself- only then are you free when you fully inhabit that which you came from. I love that.  I loved this film- have i said that. Also big huge shout out to Jhumpa Lahiri- I think she might be one of my most favorite writers.
• I will be working in commerical production office for two weeks- its good money.
• I am off to Mexico for a friend's wedding.  All the people I love will be there, and all the people I stopped loving a long time ago will not be there- thank you goddesses above!
• I am seeing my old roomate from college. Last time she saw me I weighed 220 lbs at 5'4".  I keep forgetting this. I keep forgetting that there is a lifetime lived in the  7 yrs that have passed and I don't know how to reconsile that in my brain but I am happy to see her and I know that no-matter what I weighed she would be utterly excited to see me! I will also see my friend Juli and her baby MAX- who has so much cheek that they could not fit in the whole photo- AWESOME!
• I saw The Secret I laughed at it the whole time but I could not avoid its lessons and the reality of it all. I've been thinking I need to figure everything out NOW. I don't. I don't need to know whats going to happen to me next.  I DO need to stop feeding my bruised ego. I have begun to really stop allowing the negetive speak and talk. Like a small child who needs to stop cursing I literally stop myself mid sentence or mid thought. I banish it. I have been really trying to remember what f felt like when I thought I was actually a film maker.  I no longer want to think of that as a lie. I am trying to turn into a truth.  I guess after thinking it through I decided that i had nothing to lose by trying to believe my own hype. Since then I have been writing a new short. its amazing how the brain realigns itself. I have to believe that all the people I know that I have ever helped make their visions come to life will help me out. In essence: the universe will provide for me all that I need.  I believe that the shiney Ivy league pedigree that has left me in jaw dropping debt has prepared me for such and I will admit that the fact that I have collegues making features with superstars iis motivating me a bit. I don't just want to make something- I want to make some thing better than I ever thought I could. So I am not going to force myself to think small anymore. This is really new to me- honest. Or maybe not new - just out of practice.
• Finally, somehow I stumbled upon a person who directed me to my first love's flikr page! There i glanced upon his face- which I have not really seen in years!!!! And his wedding photos. I...was...shocked. You just forget when you need to that life progresses and moves on.  So much was learned- I did not want to learn it. I did not want to know about all the wonderful intricacies of his beautiful life but there it was documented and catagorized on this beta site.  It was humbling. Good for you ____. No regrets.

Thats about for now. Do go see The Namesake. Its viscerally pleasurable as are her films usually while heart wrenchingly poetic.

Balance

“He who experiences the unity of life sees his own Self in all beings, and all beings in his own Self, and looks on everything with an impartial eye.”

(Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta, the founder of Buddhism, 563-483 B.C.)

this is the dancing Shivashakti. Shakti- meaning force, power or energy is the personification of god's female aspects. Shakti is referred to as The Divine Mother.  But it is not that simple. Its not just that Shakti is female power or the embodiment of dynamic energy. Shakti is the active energy and power of male deities such as Vishnu and Shiva. Shiva is the top dog in this religion. Creator and destroyer.  It is only when these two entities become one that life is realized. I always loved this about Hindi tradition. All deities had female and male counterparts.  I think what I loved most though about the ancient religions is that most humans practiced faiths that opened themselves up.  They viewed their sexuality and their unconscious as the keys to the gods. They danced into frenzies, fucked into unconsciousness and prayed to the skies- undetermined.  Ancient religions are the practices of the human entity before it became repressed and before it created modern society. I had always wished that Judaism had teachings about the balance of the universe and the critical importance of developing a practice of searching inside of ourselves and finding whatever god is within. For me it was yoga. But Judaism was always so solid, formed, all about "the lord" and how we as a people must remain in permanent remembrance of who tried to do what to us! The chosen people.. but chosen for what? And so I remain Jewish in ethnicity only and its a hard phenomena to explain.  I don't pursue these thoughts just to obtain some form of enlightenment. Rather I wanted to weigh down my real life pursuits with more meaning. A person who performs with razer sharp acumen in life is one that understands their selves to the core.  Mantras. Really successful vapid vacuous human beings who praise the dollar, or power, or fame or notoriety- believe it or not know more about faith than most. They religiously pursue that which they believe will make them whole. It's harder, I think, to achieve success in the conventional mode when those things noted above are not your goals.  That was always my problem. Sure I have a load of ego and I want people to think I am pretty, brilliant and essential to this world but my curiosity to understand things and my bad habit of perfectionism in my own work had always gotten in my way.  Truthfully we should just call that perfectionism insecurity. Lets not nobelize it. 

In any case what sprung all this is that I was thinking that I am amazed at how many ultra-stuck beings there are on the earth. So much is difficult for them, touch, openness, self awareness, change...freedom. I know it's hard if that's not the ingredients from whence you came from but it would seem that at some point the levee would need to break inwardly and one's true self would want to dance on the outside for a while or even just breath freely. But instead comfort zones are formed to buffer such escapes. Patterns are formed to stop change from looming in and about our lives. Even worse, the more repressed these beings become the more judgmental they are. So free is the poisonous verse from their mouths that it sounds like pleasant observations to them. And yet any critique of their ways are met with the solitary conclusion that you are simply not seeing things properly.  I know because once when I was younger, and locked inside I use to see the world through a funnel and I was sure that all other's perceptions of reality were inferior to my finely honed radar. It was only when I broke entirely away from my comfort zones and did everything that I was formerly too repressed to even think about that I realized there is so much joy to be had.

I guess I have been moving through time so slowly lately. Like cotton. Its so easy to see. Everyday is about very small simple things. Most of the time its just watching and developing. I am incubating. I am finding that it is easier to love and yet harder to accept those around me that have the inability to ride the coaster with me. Its much like politics - you're either for the people or against them.

Anyhow I just have to admit that I always wished that I had the balls to get a tattoo of a dancing shivashakti on my body but Parvati's (Shiva's female shakti) bare breasts always seemed too much to me.  But they are so beautiful together. If you did a search you would find thousands of beautiful paintings. Something about the balance of the universe. Isn't that why we get tattoos? We want to remember the most important things. Body art is mantra.  Perhaps I can figure out a way to create some primitive drawing that will embody Shivashakti.  Funny as I write this paragraph I realize that there I am a long way from embodying my own shivashakti. 

What the eff is wrong with this country????

Today Senator McCain had to apologize for using the word "wasted" instead of "sacrificed" regarding the estimated 3100 lives lost in Iraq.  Barrack Obama had to do exactly the same just days before. They obviously feel it was a waste! Washington demanded these apologies claiming that to say these lives were wasted is to demean the hard work and efforts of our courageous men and women oversees! You know what? Screw that! if you value human life so much and it is becoming almost utterly agreed upon that this war is not a good war then YES these lives were wasted for some barely went to the coast guard inept politician and his careless presidential legacy effort. This was about oil lobbyists and pissing off the other side! That means that indeed these lives were wasted. To say it was a sacrifice is an arrogant cop out. Why were these sacrifices made? To what gods and goddessess did this human flesh get bartered with? And you know what else- this is the United States of America where I thought everyone was at least entitled to their own opinion in the dearth of health insurance, pensions and up to par educations. When did politicians have to apologize so frequently for word usage. When was it not OK to protest the war???

This goes along with Hilary Clinton demanding that Barrack Obama give back the money that went to his campaign from David Geffin because Geffin made comments about Hilary as a candidate to the NY post that were disparaging. not rude or mean, simply oppositional. The man has a difference of opinion. Obama has to give back the $$$$$ because the $$$ came from someone who is totally for him????? WHAT THE EFF IS WRONG WITH THIS COUNTRY. Why are people quibbling over other people's business and falling short on the business at hand?????