It’s coming on June 1, and I can’t wait.

We’ve been talking for the past month to everybody who will listen about Nametag Day (and it’s been onCBS New York, Channel 12 News, and Gothamist.) Every time I discuss it, I remember our test run in February.

Watching the video of that test run is the best way to envision what June 1 is going to look like. A smile. Making eye contact. Saying hi to someone and their cute dog as you pass them on the street. A bus ride spent getting to know the fascinating person next to you instead of on your cell phone killing time.

What’s it going to look like?

We’ll dispatch teams of four to six volunteers to busy parks and intersections all around the city. We’ll be holding a sign and handing out nametags, saying “It’s nametag day, would you like a free nametag?” If you don’t want one, we won’t push. We’ll announce the exact locations a few days before the event — the more people who sign up, the more locations we’ll have.

Then what?

People, all over the city from all walks of life, will take nametags! Of course not everyone will. Some won’t notice us or will think the idea is stupid — we hope they still take a minute to at least think about how we interact with each other. But the scores of thousands who do will be rewarded with an incredible experience. If you take a nametag from us, you’ll walk off and have a day like you were going to otherwise, but a little bit different. Maybe you’ll get in a conversation, maybe a dozen — about someone’s awesome shoes or nice haircut, or a topic in the news. Maybe you will meet a neighbor. Or maybe you’ll just go through your day looking at our city of eight million people a little bit differently.

The after-party

We’ll be throwing a giant after-party for volunteers on Saturday night. Come by and meet tons of new friends, all wearing nametags. We’ll announce details soon.

Documenting it all

I’d like us to make a documentary about this day. Take a camera or cell phone and capture video or photographs: friends, interviews with strangers. When a connection with someone affects you, tell everyone else about it. Then post it to YouTube or Instagram and send us a tweet at @NametagDay. We’ll put it up on our site.If you’re taking high-quality video footage, your can upload it in full resolution through a link on our site. Together, we’ll crowd-edit the footage. Mostly, I’m excited to see what happens, because none of us know what will. We know it’s going to be big, we know it’s going to be fun, and we know it’s going to make a big difference in everybody’s day. But beyond that? It’s our story to tell.

Nametag Day, being a social organization, is on the Facebooks and Twitters and Instagrams.

To volunteer go to nametagday.com. It only takes 30 seconds to sign up — we promise.

A typical response for me is to run through pieces of conventional wisdom. It’s a search to define myself and my situation, and glean from the zeitgeist what my mistakes might be and where I’m headed. The problem with platitudes, though, is they’re shallow and flippant and contradict each other. Here’s a few that I’ve tried out:

1. Fail quickly, fail often. Failure is part of this industry and life, and if you’re failing it means you’re trying.
2. Fight kicking and screaming until you win. Tenacity is the only way ahead in film and it will ultimately be rewarded.
3. Icarus flew too close to the sun and his wings burned off. Don’t ask for everything and expect it. Know what is and isn’t within your reach.

The drive to accept and rationalize events is part of our struggle to wrestle a series of unassociated points into a cohesive narrative that says something about who we are. And I’m not sure what this tells me, if anything, about who I am.

For now, this particular setback has meant that we’re not shooting the film on Thursday and I get to head to my brother’s graduation in Philly early (happy graduation David!) and spend more time with my family. So I guess I’ll add just one more piece of dubious folksy wisdom:

1. It is impossible to know what will come from events, or what meaning they will come to have in your life.

Welcome Michael Morgenstern, Writer and Director of Shabbat Dinner, a short film about gay youth. You can see the film online. It is a pay-what-you-want with 10% of the profits going to the Ali Forney Center which combats LGBT youth homelessness. (See the trailer below.)

Brandon: I really liked your film. Tell us what motivated you to create it.

Michael: Well, I’d been working on a TV pilot for years about growing up gay in Los Angeles at age sixteen. In the nineties, it wasn’t what it’s like now. There wasn’t a world for us–everyone who was out was older. As I worked on it, I was continually re-motivated to work on the script by all the articles in 2011 newspapers about gay teen bullying and suicide. Every time I read one I was powerfully affected to do something to reach these kids.

Brandon: How hard was it to make?

Michael: Every part of making a film, even a short one, is a challenge, and we set out diligently to find actors, locations, and a crew. I looked for theater actors, reasoning it would be easier to find an established and talented actor who was successful on stage and looking to get into film than it would to find an already established film actor. I sat down with my friend Matt, who listened to the character descriptions I gave him and came up with ten actors for each character. Then I looked up all their agents and called them. About sixty to 100 calls later…no joke…we had most of our actors.

Brandon: How did you go about finding the young actors, especially two who were going to play gay teens?

Michael: For the teens’ roles, I went to a few acting teachers I knew and posted a bunch of times on Facebook, and eventually found my way to Dan Shaked and Chris London, who were absolutely wonderful. The whole cast was wonderful.

Brandon: The reaction to the film on the circuit has been very positive. Did it start out like that?

Michael: Our first few festival submissions received rejections — late submissions of an unfinished rough cut to the bigger fests, which are hard to get into even with a finished film and applying at the right time. Then I got into the Hong Kong International Film Festival, and after that, acceptances began to trickle in. When we were announced as part of Frameline, the trickle became a stream and I began receiving invitations left and right. I got so many that I made a shortcut on my computer so with six keystrokes I can email out the screener video.

Brandon: Is this film geared toward LGBT teens or adults? I know one of the scenes in it has caused some controversy.

Michael: As far as I’m concerned, this film is for teens. I made it to reach kids who are struggling with issues around coming out and being accepted for who they are (and not just with regards to their sexuality.) I was approached very early on by some educators and people who run organizations that deal with Gay-Straight-Alliances and schools, and I reached out to a few others. People who watched the film were very excited to see it, but inevitably when it came time to present the film to a committee, it was deemed too racy or sexually explicit. I offered to remove the controversial scene — I wasn’t thrilled to do so, but in the end I’d rather the film get seen. It wasn’t enough, and I think that even without that scene the film opens up too many doors about religion and identity, and the safer decision for an educator is not to show it.

I know that it will impact teens, though, and that the images that educators might consider objectionable or questionable will not be so to the majority of teens…but until the film wasavailable online the only way to high-schoolers has traditionally been through educators. I’m sure there are many educators out there who would be interested in the film, but I haven’t met them yet.

Brandon: Can you give us a hint about what you have coming up next?

Michael: Oh, man…lots. I directed two music videos that were a lot of fun, which were released a few months ago. I’m directing an abstract short film that I wrote about death and temporality. The talent involved, between the cinematographer Judy Phu, the composer Jonathan Russ, and the cast, who we’re not ready to announce yet, is so strong and I’m really thrilled to see this shoot happen. I’m also writing two features and planning a few other music video projects. If readers are interested, they can sign up for my mailing list (I don’t send too much, I promise!)

You can contact Michael on Facebook or Twitter, and connect with the page for his new film on Facebook.

Watch the film at shabbatdinnerfilm.com!

And we’re live! We decided to put out the site right away without the capability to register, but you can sign up with your email list and when we get the registration stuff rolled out (within the week, I hope) we’ll send everyone an email letting them know.

Yesterday I received the amazing news that the Awesome Foundation, a NYC-based organization that gives $1000 each month to something awesome, decided to make Nametag Day its project for April. I’m giddy about this — it is so cool to be recognized by a group dedicated to awesomeness, and this will help us a lot with our website launch!

We’re launching an awesome website, which my friends Matt, Julia, and Tim have worked incredibly hard to get up and running. It will let people register to volunteer and give money through Crowdtilt. Once we get our initial $2500, every $10 given will get nametags to 60 people!

So a lot of really great news on the Nametag Day front!

Subject: a girl called Emily

Three summers ago, I am a fourteen year old boy on a summer camp, trying to avoid accepting that I am gay. On that camp is a girl I’d never met before, with big brown eyes and great music taste. Her name is Emily and as fourteen year olds on summer camps do, we become friends. On the last night of the camp, Emily goes to the disco ’with’ a girl, and tells me later that she thinks she might be bisexual.

After that conversation, I am inspired by seeing for the first time someone who could be open and proud about not being straight. On the spot I resolve to have come out by the last night of the next summer’s camp. I’d never before even considered telling people I was gay.

The camp ends, Emily and I speak online a few times, and somehow manage to always go to the reunion that the other one misses. Eventually, the conversations fizzle out, but I always have in mind the prospect of thanking Emily after I’d come out, of telling her that she’d changed my life without even realising.

Easter Sunday 2011. Sitting in a tree, I come out to my best friend.  By the end of May, I am coming out to my sister, who whilst being supportive, asks me to postpone coming out to our parents and everyone else until her exams are over. I understand, and comply, putting off that conversation with Emily another few weeks.

In June, I find out Emily has killed herself. I never get to say thank you, never get to let her know what she did for me. I try to stop myself thinking about what could have been if I’d come out sooner, because there’s no point.  I’ll never know whether being aware what she had done for me would have saved her. It’s too late now.

I don’t suppose that my story has a moral. But I know that I can never again allow myself to let friends slip away, thanks go unsaid or anything be left until tomorrow.

**However, I want to use this opportunity to do more than tell a sad story. I’m asking you to donate some money to charity, however small or large a sum, in memory of Emily. What would then be amazing would be you emailing me the name of the charity you donated to and (if you want) the amount you gave. I could then email you all back, telling you how much money was donated by all of you in total, so you could see the difference the Listserve can make collectively.**

My friend deserves to be more than a sad story or a teen suicide statistic. Please, allow her to be your inspiration as well. I can’t change the past but you can all help to create a better future.

Thank you all so much,

Ethan
ethanfromlistserve@gmail.com
London

Personally I think there is a moral in there. Don’t wait. Be who you are now. Say what you want to say now. Tell the
people you love that you love them now. “Later” is just another word for “no.”

I’m excited to begin volunteering with the Trevor Project and potentially working with kids who are contemplating suicide. It doesn’t take much thinking to remember why that’s important.

I’m so excited about this that I’m pre-empting my official announcement, forthcoming attempts to design a pretty webpage and think through how I want to get the word out, to tell you about it here on my blog.

Shabbat Dinner is available on Seed & Spark, a wonderful video platform run by some friends of mine that they call fair-trade filmmaking. You can support films getting made, put projects on there, and watch films by yourself or with others.

So what are you waiting for?

It’s also available through a hidden link on my site with a pay-what-you-want model, if you would prefer to pay by Paypal (or what you want.) Expect a more thought-out announcement in the future!

So watch it! Send it to your friends! And let me know what you think of the film.

(In other news I’m filming another short in May! More later.)

Sitting on the subway and wallowing in my pocket of angst, I turned on Billy Porter (yeah, so sue me.) It took me back to Beginning Modern Dance in college with Carol Abizaid, and I remembered the warm-up routine we did to that song. And I remembered what she said, which got me through that difficult routine: “when it gets hard, don’t give up, get pissed.”

And I got pissed. Fuck you world. These ventures will be successful.

And they will. Expect emails from me.

Many times I’ve looked down, hours after a conference or first-day meet-and-greet, and noticed that I was still wearing a nametag. I’ve always looked up right away, pretending that I forgot to take it off.

I love nametags, and not only because I’m really bad at remembering names and faces. I love that they invite everyone around to initiate conversation, acting as a green flag saying “come over, I want to talk to you!” They say “you don’t even need to ask for my name. Here it is. We are, in some sense, already friends.”

A few times I sat on the subway, wondering what the scene would look like if everyone were wearing a nametag. Nicer. Friendlier. “This is something I should propose to the mayor”, I thought…or maybe some large bank or other group. Someone ought to do it, that’s for sure.

And nobody did. And I didn’t meet the mayor.

So (and you’ve probably guessed this part) I realized that we didn’t need the mayor. We didn’t need permission. We can start a grassroots movement to put nametags on any New Yorker who wants one. A few months ago I mentioned the idea to five of my closest friends: Alejandro, Pete, Dina, Tim, and Julia, who all got really excited.

In our first meeting, a few principles were established. We’re not nametag day, we’re just organizing one part of it. It doesn’t start and end with our little group; it’s an idea that we are letting out into the world. We are radically participatory and welcome anyone and everyone to join in. Our mission is just handing out nametags, not selling anything or throwing other events (but we welcome others to do so!) And we want to see New Yorkers talk to each other more, engage, and share ideas and experiences — not just for one day, but every day.

We did a test run a few weeks ago, shot the video you see above, and are now looking for a sponsor. And just like that, an idea is on track to being a real thing!

What has been so much fun about the idea is that it gets people excited. People get it, and if they don’t, they get it after watching the video. It’s easy, at least in concept. It makes people receiving and giving the nametags happy. It’s fun. It changes the world around us for the better. The offers for help have been mindblowing for something that only had its kickoff event two weeks ago.

I don’t know where this is going or how big or small it will be. Whether we are sponsored or not, on June 1 the six of us are going to hand out nametags. If we have enough of your help, we’ll set up 50 (or more) distribution stations and give away 300,000 (or more) nametags to anyone who wants them. Maybe people will throw nametag parties that night. Maybe those in other cities will follow suit. Or maybe it will just be the six of us, handing out nametags and having the time of our lives.

How can you help? Sign up at nametagday.com and volunteer – that’s the biggest thing. Then, make some sweet sweet social media love to our Facebook and Twitter pages!

Email us at hello@nametagday.com if you want to get involved on our core team or have other ideas for us.

And if you want to find me it won’t be too hard. I’ll be the guy wearing the nametag on June 2.

After traveling extensively to film festivals with my film this year, I’ve gotten good at the airport game. A few weeks ago, I arrived at LAX one hour before takeoff, boarding pass already in hand and laden only with the backpack on my back. I faced a nearly empty security line, but felt trepidation.

I handed my ID and boarding pass to a TSA agent. I pulled out my bag of 3 oz or less toiletries and my laptop. I removed my shoes, sweatshirt, wallet, keys, cell phone, belt. When I’m nervous at an airport, I begin to get nervous about being nervous. Whether or not the TSA employees were watching to guess at my psychology, I felt scrutinized.

At the front of the line came the moment of truth. I looked ahead. There were two machines — a classic metal detector and a millimeter wave body scanner. The TSA employee was directing people semi-randomly into one machine or the other. I watched the two people ahead of me go into the metal detector and I swallowed. The TSA agent motioned to the body scanner.

“I opt out,” I said, cursing in my head.

“Male opt out!” she yelled, loud enough to be heard several terminals over. Once I opt out, I witness what seems to be a carefully scripted piece of theater. In most cases I am walked through the metal detector, (which doesn’t go off, making me want to yell “look! see! according to your other screening technology I am clean!”), and asked to identify my bags. This time, a nice man gave a particularly detailed description of what he was going to do.

I decided that I didn’t want to do this any more. The thought of the body scanner virtual strip search was abhorrent, but this time I just didn’t want to be groped in public. I asked to go back through the scanner and he told me that once I opted out, returning was not an option.

The search commenced. He ran his fingers inside my waistband and up the inseam of my pants on both sides until he could distinctly feel my genitals. He touched all parts of my chest and back to be sure I wasn’t hiding anything there.

It may have just been this man’s procedure and mannerisms, but this felt different than the cursory exams I’d gotten several years ago when the TSA introduced the body scanners. It felt more invasive. The explicit narration of a stranger’s fingers, followed by an almost chiding reminder that the millimeter technology is totally safe, ratcheted the whole thing to a new notch of offensiveness.

And I remembered why I opt out.

The TSA inspires a culture of fear. The indignities we are made to suffer at airports are a manifestation of a government that does not trust its people, and believes that the way to security is to encourage us not to trust each other. Traveling through a country owned by us, the people, we are asked to present identification at numerous checkpoints as if we have something to prove; we are asked to strip down and be observed as if we are suspects.

I don’t say the word “bomb” at an airport. There are no jokes about bombs at an airport. I don’t laugh when I’m at the police checkpoints dotting our country. We fear our policemen for what they might do to us. We’re afraid to film them. When I send texts that might sound like terrorist threats, I add a joking disclaimer afterwards because I think — no, I am certain — that my communications are being monitored by a computer for signs of suspicious activity. If I must be frank, I’m a bit nervous about publishing this article.

That this elaborate stageplay of airport security has been shown to be ineffective adds further offense.

And so the government official touching me to be sure that yes, that is indeed my penis and not a weapon, keeps me grounded in awareness that I am not happy with this current state. Rather than standing in the body scanner and lifting up my hands (in a literal posture of submission), it is a government-provided opportunity to experience the indignity in its fullest and most complete form. And it keeps me open to future opportunities to ameliorate these conditions.

This is, in its own way, non-violent resistance (though I wouldn’t actually compare the issue to civil rights.) In the words of Martin Luther King, “The goal is not to defeat or humiliate the opponent but rather to win him or her over to understanding new ways to create cooperation and community.” Only when we acknowledge what is not working and commit to finding new solutions will those solutions appear.

We work like crazy to get this to you at no charge, so please — if you like the video, the only payment we ask is that you share them on Facebook or Twitter and tell your friends about them. It makes a world of difference to us and the success of the video.

For our other music video, check out We Were Out Again Too Late.

Wanting to share a recent poetical stream of consciousness with you all:

Welcome to the Absurd. A place of space and time where Nothing is unheard. And everything weeps with joy.

My new habitat transcends and includes all previous worlds. Engaging this space, there is freedom to fly in Love’s preternatural playground.

I’m done with the corpse of the conventional, tethered no more to its suffocating consumption. The new me – which is equally influenced by external environment and internal uniqueness – surprises in all participation, and supersedes identities with i-dent-if-i-ing. Trouble is simply challenge in disguise. Goddesses are everywhere, even in Your eyes. The life lived in this way is a microcosm of the whole, belonging as it does to a well-defined fractal. Spirit, and math, and love, and art, are simply expressions of poetry. Life is a Poem, each moment a verse that adds meaning to the whole and whose whole purpose is to morph meaning of the whole into more and more whole-ness.

Not merely for the sake of acknowledgement, but for the profound and possibly risky declaration of dedication to Insanity I say: I commit my being-force to the Absurd. This might be crazier than crazy, because in its depths of meaning, moving through this threshold means complete willingness to utter unpredictability, devotion to chaos.

It is a risk worth taking. In fact, to get to this here decision point requires one to live the maxim “the unexamined life is not worth living” long enough for this linguistic wisdom to become bone in the spiritual body. And to take such a next step, beyond the shoulders of giants, is an evolutionary moment that requires nothing less than 100% of the organism. My organism orgasms to this new height, with its flesh and blood and brains with might.

What this landscape looks like is of now known skin thin. The ensuing journey will illumine its contours and crevices. It’s time to Adventure! To delight in discovery of exalting heights and equally delight in the sheer terror it in-sights. Equally the Lover and Beloved, I am married to a new Vision. A pact whose impact can only be felt through time’s devices.

I weep as I walk Home. Absurdly loving that I love the Absurd. And finding my heartbeat once again in a place of quiet, stillness, Silence. Tomorrow’s revelation is but today’s imagination, and so I cry for eternity for the ever-unfolding revelation of the Mystery. Time talks to me. And I weep.

Venturing into the Absurd infuses impulse with wisdom, and renders remorse impossible. Sitting at the edge of Silence, I must now allocate all energy to the invigorating impulse of the creative. One misstep invites death. And so I walk with care (albeit a carefree care) deeper and further into the Abyss of the Absurd, knowing nothing other than that I have vowed to fall into Absurdity for the sake of my own sanity.

-Michael Field, 12-19-12

I think the problems of the world aren’t caused by people coming together and saying “let’s make problems.” They’re caused by people coming together and saying “let’s make solutions” without having solved the problem of their own suffering. — Shinzen Young

Shinzen’s words inspire me, because they remind me that, while we all desire to improve ourselves and the world, our clouded minds are generally unable to parse the world enough to do so. I believe that in this endeavor, meditation is the key. In the written word, it’s easier to be convincing than emphatic, so I’ll try to be as convincing as I know how to be.

Meditation will change your life — drastically, and there’s a very good chance it is the answer you are looking for. In the short term, it provides more focused attention, ability to deal with emotions, and fulfilling relationships. In the long term, it will drastically transform you into a person in control of your own mind, mindful of the world around you, and liberated from mental chaos.

The bowl is rung at the start and end of a group meditation sit.

Our minds are out of control. If you’re anything like me, a quick look into your thoughts will reveal that while a few are productive or new, the majority are ruminations and critical statements borne of a mind constantly spinning its wheels. Any attempt to stop or control these thoughts will quickly reveal that willpower alone is not enough; it takes careful training.

Consider, then, a reality where your mind has even 20 percent less clutter… or 40 percent, or almost none. Where thoughts, observations, and intentions are felt clearly. This is the promise of meditation.

My first attempts at meditation were half-hearted. A friend convinced me to sit for about 15 minutes several times per month, which was just enough to notice how badly I needed meditation and nowhere near enough to do much about it. It was unbearable sitting still and being in my own mind. Practicing more seriously was a way to directly address this aversion, and doing so has been so helpful to so many parts of my life. Practice in sitting still has already helped me in all elements of life — a writing project that used to take several days can now (on a good day) be done in a few hours, because I’m able to sit still and focus.

The black box of machinery that is my mind has become a touch more transparent, and I’m a touch more able to see what is going on inside. Our minds are composed of disparate pieces, many of which want different things, and understanding these processes better has helped me accept when some of these parts are unhappy. By extension, I’ve been better able to deal with unpleasant situations and conflicting emotions without fear.

There is plenty further for me to go. I have not reached a point where I can spend 45 minutes focusing solely on my breath; most of the time, to even sit down involves a mental battle, with half of my mind dragging the other kicking and screaming onto the meditation cushion. But these same sits end with a feeling of clarity and an uptick in joy that can last the entire day.

You can start right here, right now. In fact, before you read on to the next sentence, give yourself a full minute. Close your eyes, breathe, and observe your mind in the present moment. Are you joyful? Tired? (You’re probably tired.) Do you see thoughts in your mind, or is it fuzzy and obscure? Are you able to be present in the moment, or are your thoughts racing?

Now, before you begin to meditate, it’s important to understand what meditation is and isn’t. It’s not thinking or contemplating — it is an exercise in focus. It’s not intrinsically religious, though the wisdom traditions of Buddhism and many other religions provide insightful guidance. It is usually one part of a spiritual path that includes study and moral living, but it doesn’t have to be.

The first step, and what will at first feel like a gargantuan effort, is to establish a consistent sitting practice. This step in itself can be life changing as your realize that many of your reasons to not meditate are spurious, an outgrowth of an overactive and panicky mind. Set a timer (I recommend starting with about 15 minutes per day and working your way up to 45) and don’t move until it rings. One of the first observations of the Buddha was that the human body is constantly shifting to avoid discomfort — learn to stay still, and the discomfort or pain will teach you a lot (and it does go away over time).

Most meditation is a variation on a theme: Pick an object of meditation and focus on it — I recommend the sensations of my natural breath on the tip of the nose (I use my mouth whenever I’m congested). When you realize that you can’t follow it, practice redirecting your attention back to the breath without judgment. In fact, this moment of realization is the muscle you are trying to strengthen, so encouraging it will further your practice. Training your mind is like training a pack of animals — consistency and positive reinforcement, not will or frustration, will make a change over time.

And over time it will change. I am inspired by the examples of people who have clarified their lives and discovered a new level of empathy and understanding.

If you are interested, there are plenty of places online to learn more! My teacher Upasaka Culadasa (a former neuroscience professor) explains the technique and the spiritual path with a clarity like no other (most of my wording here has been directly borrowed from his teachings, though I make no claim to represent them fully), and I highly recommend his website Dharma Treasure. The front page provides instructions for beginners, an overview of the steps of meditation, and an extensive archive of fascinating talks on topics ranging from the self to the nature of consciousness and reality.

If you’re not interested, if you’re not convinced, try it just twice. And then try it twice more. Consistency is difficult, but that’s how to turn the practice into something that will change your life. I guarantee that you are standing at the precipice of the solution you’ve been looking for.

For more, I recommend the aforementioned Dharma Treasure website and Daniel Ingram’s “Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha,” which is available for free online.

Check out my photo album of the beautiful landscapes at Roslyn Center in Richmond, Va.

Human consciousness is beautiful – it can swallow a piece of paper and see itself.

For more White Stripes joy, check out the quotes Jack White puts on his home page. Embracing rejection is part of being a happy artist.

We are steeped in inauthenticity and live in an environment that promotes disconnection. Modern technology keeps us in a bubble of ego-reflection, but it’s more than that. Political discourse focuses on farcical distortions of real issues. The news media provides a histrionic and ungrounded lens onto the world around us. Our school system is fragmented and incoherent.

And how do we deal with the issues facing us today? We overlook issues of national infrastructure. We medicate problem children and problem selves. And those who can’t deal with this environment? They usually end up in jail.

Prison in this country is its perverted unconscious. It is the flipside of a razor-thin coin whose reverse is a distracted, unbalanced culture of celebrity and fear.

This post, I am Adam Lanza’s mother, struck a chord with me:

On the intake form, under the question, “What are your expectations for treatment?” I wrote, “I need help.”

And I do. This problem is too big for me to handle on my own. Sometimes there are no good options. So you just pray for grace and trust that in hindsight, it will all make sense.

I am sharing this story because I am Adam Lanza’s mother. I am Dylan Klebold’s and Eric Harris’s mother. I am James Holmes’s mother. I am Jared Loughner’s mother. I am Seung-Hui Cho’s mother. And these boys—and their mothers—need help. In the wake of another horrific national tragedy, it’s easy to talk about guns. But it’s time to talk about mental illness.

According to Mother Jones, since 1982, 61 mass murders involving firearms have occurred throughout the country. Of these, 43 of the killers were white males, and only one was a woman. Mother Jones focused on whether the killers obtained their guns legally (most did). But this highly visible sign of mental illness should lead us to consider how many people in the U.S. live in fear, like I do.

When I asked my son’s social worker about my options, he said that the only thing I could do was to get Michael charged with a crime. “If he’s back in the system, they’ll create a paper trail,” he said. “That’s the only way you’re ever going to get anything done. No one will pay attention to you unless you’ve got charges.”

I don’t believe my son belongs in jail. The chaotic environment exacerbates Michael’s sensitivity to sensory stimuli and doesn’t deal with the underlying pathology. But it seems like the United States is using prison as the solution of choice for mentally ill people. According to Human Rights Watch, the number of mentally ill inmates in U.S. prisons quadrupled from 2000 to 2006, and it continues to rise—in fact, the rate of inmate mental illness is five times greater (56 percent) than in the non-incarcerated population.

With state-run treatment centers and hospitals shuttered, prison is now the last resort for the mentally ill—Rikers Island, the LA County Jail and Cook County Jail in Illinois housed the nation’s largest treatment centers in 2011.

I just finished watching this movie, and it is impeccable. It is brilliant and beautiful and wow. Ang Lee said (or at least, the promotional materials said that he said) “I don’t direct a movie, I let it direct me.” Watching this masterpiece I could see how one man cannot create such a thing, he can only say yes to it as it unfolds.

I worked on the film as an office PA, and now, looking back at that time and realizing that this was what Ang had in his head, I now relate very differently to the struggles and trials in making the film.

The film neatly caps a two-day discourse I’ve been having with several friends about the ineffable nature of reality and self. Words are by nature categorical and simplifying, but because film circumscribes an experience rather than a concept, it can come in some ways come closer. And a film like this one, I felt, hovered around a deep and inexpressible truth. And perhaps that is what makes the beauty of Ang’s films so sublime — there is a sense that the filmmaker knows this truth, expresses it in every inch of bifurcated celluloid, and would give it voice if only it had a name.

Names…

Watch the movie.

Thanks to the monk whose name I forgot who led the dharma talk today.

The Labyrinth
by W.H. Auden

Anthropos apteros for days
Walked whistling round and round the Maze,
Relying happily upon
His temperament for getting on.
The hundredth time he sighted, though,
A bush he left an hour ago,
He halted where four alleys crossed,
And recognized that he was lost.
“Where am I? Metaphysics says
No question can be asked unless
It has an answer, so I can
Assume this maze has got a plan.
If theologians are correct,
A Plan implies an Architect:
A God-built maze would be, I’m sure,
The Universe in miniature.
Are data from the world of Sense,
In that case, valid evidence?
What in the universe I know
Can give directions how to go?
All Mathematics would suggest
A steady straight line as the best,
But left and right alternately
Is consonant with History.
Aesthetics, though, believes all Art
Intends to gratify the Heart:
Rejecting disciplines like these,
Must I, then, go which way I please?
Such reasoning is only true
If we accept the classic view,
Which we have no right to assert,
According to the Introvert.
His absolute pre-supposition
Is–Man creates his own condition:
This maze was not divinely built,
But is secreted by my guilt.
The centre that I cannot find
Is known to my Unconscious Mind;
I have no reason to despair
Because I am already there.
My problem is how not to will;
They move most quickly who stand still;
I’m only lost until I see
I’m lost because I want to be.
If this should fail, perhaps I should,
As certain educators would,
Content myself with the conclusion;
In theory there is no solution.
All statements about what I feel,
Like I-am-lost, are quite unreal:
My knowledge ends where it began;
A hedge is taller than a man.”
Anthropos apteros, perplexed
To know which turning to take next,
Looked up and wished he were the bird
To whom such doubts must seem absurd.

Here I am, looking at a gorgeous music video, with probably a few dozen more hours before it’s something I can share with the world. And I know that once I do, we will spend the next two years, maybe more, showing it to people. Obsession over detail might be the only thing I have capable of conquering my impatience.

So I’m just watching it by myself for now. It’s pretty good but it’s not great, and I guess you guys will have to wait..:-(

If you like this, you can see it premiere-in-the-real-world tonight at The Muse. And if you like Blue Kid (and everyone does) you should come to Lydia’s show on Monday! Starting then you’ll be able to get their new album.

And the next video comes out on Mondayat some point soon..god guys, be patient!

How does this bode for any attempt to allow scientific fact to lead a discussion on climate change, diet, nuclear safety? For facts to lead us into and out of war? George W. Bush allowed for an expanded executive branch ripe for (and in the process of) exploitation. And Mitt Romney has proven definitively, in a way nobody really had before, the primacy of appearance and class/party warfare over truth, even when the truth is easy to find.

Not that I’m saying anything golden about the Democratic Party. Not that this is the GOP’s fault. It’s systemic. It’s advertising, which has so thorougly confused our ability to discern truth. It’s the 24/7 news media. It’s the enmeshment between private corporations and our government and the news.

And I wasn’t able to truly contemplate that this man, this campaign, this party that has descended into a spin factory, was about to be chosen as our leader.

Check out what’s going on, and where you’ll be able to find me – it’s a lot, but come say hi to one of these things!

• On Wednesday at 6:30 my film is playing at the TBGALA dinner, an Ivy League Gay and Lesbian dinner (info). I love showing and discussing the film in a smaller setting, so it will be nice.
• After that, I’ll be videoing the Rouge Royale at Santos Party House at 9pm – come by and I’ll put you in the video!
• Thursday night at 8pm (doors at 7:30) at The Muse we’ll be premiering the music video to We Were Out Again Too Late. This is going to be really cool. Afterwards Lydia Benecke will perform the song live while Nicole Greenbaum dances her silks routine to it.
• Saturday at 8pm Eastern we will be livestreaming Shabbat Dinner and a sneak preview of Next To You, the next music video to come from our collaboration. Go here to get tickets, show up on the webpage at 8, and you’ll see a Q&A with some of the actors and myself.
• Monday at 6:30 at Rockwood Music Hall, Lydia and her band Blue Kid will release her new album, Upright Love! We’ll also be releasing the music video. This one is going to be really great.

• Last Thursday we screened Shabbat Dinner to a great group at the Crown Heights Film Festival. It was followed by Klappe Cowboy, a narcissistic orgy of self-referential video which was quite funny and enjoyable. (It was about a crazy and hopeless film director trying to make art. One of my favorite scenes involved an untrained cameraman holding a camera in front of the director and an artist friend as they painted each other “FOR ART!” and then began to fuck. The other was the director’s attempt at filming a commercial, where he told the same cameraman “I want you to move in a figure eight to represent the infinity of taste!”
• Saturday night we screened at at won the audience choice award at the Zero Film Festival in Williamsburg. It was great having all our guests over to my apartment for a pre-afterparty and then attending the afterparty, as true Brooklynites would do. Thanks to Richard Hooban and everyone else at the festival!

Not sure how I am going to survive, but it’s going to be fun.