“Till it has loved, no man or woman can become itself.” Read more

“O Beautiful Day, may I always be aware,Of the miracles, the treasures that you bring!” Sr. Joyce Amaral, 1954-1978 Read more

….Janet Smith this weekend. No time for blogging in between great walks and talks. Eat your heart out Catholic America! “Nunc dimittis…” Read more

Greetings to all of you who are coming here because of the article in the New York Times Arts and Leisure section in this Sunday’s paper. If you really want the lowdown on all the top-secret, undercover, back theocratic rooms of Christian Hollywood, click HERE for your own top-secret copy of our clandestine plans and scary agenda. Our undercover secret publisher is Baker Books, and we are hiding the project on Amazon.com at rating #198,463. All the rest of you... Read more

So, I got a call today from my new friend, James, the NY Times reporter who has been working on the story to unmask the secret scary vast conspiracy to funnel money from rightwing political covert ops into Christian ministries in Hollywood. He was calling to say the piece he interviewed me for is running in this Sunday’s Times – the front page of the lifestyle section. It was very nice of him to call. Anyway, here’s a funny exchange... Read more

Wanna be a better person? Wanna get motivated to be kind? Wanna find the energy to reach out and touch someone? Wanna feel better about your neighbors, the future, America? Sashay over to your nearest art house theater and let the new feature documentaryMad Hot Ballroom seep into your soul. Hearkening back to the fabulous and heartwarming National Spelling Bee 2003 doc Spellbound, MHB records the people engaged in starting a ballroom dancing program in NYC grammar schools. The film... Read more

Friend and Act One faculty member sent the following message from one of his friends, about a new indie film training school… Dear Friends & Colleagues, I wanted to let you know about an all-day film class I’m teaching this summer called No Budget Film School. I’ve taken everything I’ve learned from my years in the trenches of no-budget, independent filmmaking and put it into this class–the time spent at Roger Corman’s studio; the years in production ADing $30,000 16mm... Read more

[Note from Barb: I keep getting requests to post upcoming event information. Maybe I should change my blog title to “Barb’s Bulletin Board.” Anyway, here’s another…] St. Monica Church in Santa Monica is sponsoring a summer ImprovWorkshop, to be taught by Douglas Leal. Come rediscover how muchfun it is to play! Improvisation is great fun and a valuable skill,not only for performers, but for writers, directors, artists-—anyonelooking to hone their creativity or improve their presentationskills, or anyone looking just to... Read more

Here’s one music journalist’s list of the 25 saddest songs ever written. (I think he must mean rock songs – except he has something by Billie Holiday…but, then, it has to be considered an egregious overlook not to have some WWII songs on there, like the all-time sure to make a rock weep song, “I’ll Be Seeing You.”) Going down the list, I kept shrugging, as, by the end, I have only ever heard four of the songs. It occurred... Read more

[Our friends over at the Humanitas Prize asked us to help get the word out about an upcoming event. Only too happy…] HUMANITAS MASTER WRITERS WORKSHOPS present, “Film and Social Responsibility” MONDAY JUNE 27, 7:30 p.m. Celebrating 2005 HUMANITAS Feature Film and Sundance Finalists. Moderator: John Horn, L.A. TimesFeaturing: David Magee (FINDING NEVERLAND), Keir Pearson & Terry George (HOTEL RWANDA), Frank Cottrell Boyce (MILLIONS), David L. Paterson (LOVE, LUDLOW),Michael Kang (THE MOTEL), Doug Sadler (SWIMMERS) Linwood Dunn TheaterThe Pickford Center... Read more