Author Loraine Despres will give you short takes on love, life's little ironies, and the world as she moves through it, with detours including how to attract men and keep them happy. That's easy. Writing, that's harder. The writer's life, that one is the hardest of all.
Friday, September 21, 2007
C100 in LOS ANGELES
Last summer Northwestern's Council of 100, (which I describe as the one hundred most successful women ever to graduate from Northwestern University -- who are willing to go to those meetings) gave a party for undergraduates and young alumnae at Cafe Roma in the heart of Beverly Hills' golden triangle. Here are some pictures of the event. I invite everyone who was there to write a comment and/or a picture caption.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
More on the Dreaded British National Health
My cousin Cecile wrote: "Had an exciting experience with the British National Health Service. On our last night in
Sunday, September 09, 2007
Braving the Dreaded National Health Service UK
Braving the Dreaded British National Health
The hotel manager told me there was a doctor’s office next door, so with trepidation, (I’d heard the horror stories about long waits and grim conditions) I ventured in. A receptionist told me I’d be seen by a nurse practitioner who specialized in abrasions, asthma treatment, and other chronic conditions. Apologizing, she said she’d have to charge me fifty pounds since I wasn’t registered on National Health.
After waiting in a pleasant waiting room for all of seven to ten minutes, I was greeted by a friendly, efficient nurse who bandaged my knee with a waterproof surgical dressing and asked if I was otherwise in good health. My husband mentioned I have asthma. She gave me advice on how to manage it and a booklet (not an advertisement from a drug company) but a manual published by the National Health Service NHS with clear information on how to manage asthma along with a card to carry in your wallet, outlining a treatment plan, and phone numbers including the Asthma UK Adviceline available from 9 to 5 with interpreting service in more than 100 languages and a 24 hour nurse-led helpline for all medical inquiries along with websites and further information.
We were out of there and on our way in half an hour and I’m happy to report my knee is fine.
Monday, July 30, 2007
The Council of 100 in Los Angeles
C100 in LA--The Southern Belle Loves a Good Party
What’s the Council of 100 you might ask? I explain it as the one hundred most successful women ever to graduate from Northwestern—who are willing to go to those meetings. Our mandate is to mentor and serve as role models for women students and young alumnae. This year we met at Caffe Roma in the heart of Beverly Hill’s golden triangle. Here are a couple of photos of the event. I’ll hold these on the blog until I get some comments from participants and then I’ll post more. So come on ladies and gentlemen (there were two gentlemen in attendance) start commenting, especially those in the pictures, and I'll put up more photos.
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
The Cost Effect of Global Warming
The Cost Effect Of Global Warming Or Stupid Is As Stupid Does
When you hear the Bush Administration or other politicians talking about complying with the Kyoto Protocols as long as they are “cost effective,” they are talking about the cost to their campaign contributors not to you and me.
This week the Commerce Committee gutted Senator Feinstein’s sensible bill requiring car companies to improve over-all fuel efficiency of their fleets by 10 miles per gallon over the next twelve years. There’s nothing radical about that plan. It may even be too little, too late. But Tuesday the Commerce Committee added a little zinger to the bill: It would let the car makers off the hook if the annual goals aren’t “cost-effective.”
Cost effective to whom? If we really took global warming seriously, we would see an economic boom similar to that in
If people get the government they deserve, then as my character Sissy LeBlanc might say, “Stupid is as stupid does.”
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
PREMONITION & the Premier
The Hollywood Premier of Premonition
Last night I went to the Hollywood premier of Premonition, the new thriller starring Sandra Bullock. You've probably seen the ads. Time is out of joint. Bullock is told her husband is dead, but the next morning she wakes up and he’s alive. She tries to deal with her feelings of abandonment, betrayal, and grief, while she fights to make sense out of what's happening to her. Emotionally, the movie is thoroughly satisfying and beautifully directed. Logically, some strings are left untied. Like the best modern art you’ll be left with things unsaid, things to puzzle over, a chance to bring your own perceptions into the experience. Most films are so logical, so wrapped up, you have nothing to discuss afterwards with friends over dinner. The brilliance of Premonition is you'll have lots to discuss. The film and questions about the film will haunt you for days.
We were invited to the premier by the director, Mennan Yapo. His is a real rags- to-riches story. A successful movie executive in Europe, Mennan put everything he had into writing and directing his and first feature, the German film, Soundless. It was accepted at the Los Angeles Film Festival, but by that time Mennan had no money to stay here for meetings with production companies, so he stayed with us. It was an exciting time, that magical moment when a star is born. Every day messengers dropped off dozens of scripts, most of them he turned down. A true artist and totally focused, he went back to Germany without finding a project he could put his heart into. Then the script for Premonition arrived and the rest is history.
What's a real Hollywood premiere like? The sidewalk on fabled Sunset Boulevard is cordoned off. Fans press against the ropes. The paparazzi are there en masse. The director and his entourage step out of a limo. Cameras flash. Guards are stationed everywhere to make sure that only the favored few get into the theater. So what goes on inside the lobby of the theater? Not much. Friends greet one another. A few, very few, scantily-clad, aspiring actresses parade around hoping to be seen, but for the most part it looks like the crowd at your Saturday night Cineplex. The after party was down the block in a beautiful old Hollywood building with period chandeliers and winding staircases. Four bars served free drinks on three floors. Loud music was piped through all the rooms. But like big parties from Shreveport to Sacramento it can be intimidating or fun. It's all about who you know.
Last night I went to the Hollywood premier of Premonition, the new thriller starring Sandra Bullock. You've probably seen the ads. Time is out of joint. Bullock is told her husband is dead, but the next morning she wakes up and he’s alive. She tries to deal with her feelings of abandonment, betrayal, and grief, while she fights to make sense out of what's happening to her. Emotionally, the movie is thoroughly satisfying and beautifully directed. Logically, some strings are left untied. Like the best modern art you’ll be left with things unsaid, things to puzzle over, a chance to bring your own perceptions into the experience. Most films are so logical, so wrapped up, you have nothing to discuss afterwards with friends over dinner. The brilliance of Premonition is you'll have lots to discuss. The film and questions about the film will haunt you for days.
We were invited to the premier by the director, Mennan Yapo. His is a real rags- to-riches story. A successful movie executive in Europe, Mennan put everything he had into writing and directing his and first feature, the German film, Soundless. It was accepted at the Los Angeles Film Festival, but by that time Mennan had no money to stay here for meetings with production companies, so he stayed with us. It was an exciting time, that magical moment when a star is born. Every day messengers dropped off dozens of scripts, most of them he turned down. A true artist and totally focused, he went back to Germany without finding a project he could put his heart into. Then the script for Premonition arrived and the rest is history.
What's a real Hollywood premiere like? The sidewalk on fabled Sunset Boulevard is cordoned off. Fans press against the ropes. The paparazzi are there en masse. The director and his entourage step out of a limo. Cameras flash. Guards are stationed everywhere to make sure that only the favored few get into the theater. So what goes on inside the lobby of the theater? Not much. Friends greet one another. A few, very few, scantily-clad, aspiring actresses parade around hoping to be seen, but for the most part it looks like the crowd at your Saturday night Cineplex. The after party was down the block in a beautiful old Hollywood building with period chandeliers and winding staircases. Four bars served free drinks on three floors. Loud music was piped through all the rooms. But like big parties from Shreveport to Sacramento it can be intimidating or fun. It's all about who you know.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
A Literary Feast
WORDS AND MUSIC
My husband and I went to New Orleans to take part in The Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society’s annual Words and Music—A Literary Feast—and feast it was with great food and even better conversation with authors from all around the United States.
But first, the day after Halloween, I had a signing at the charming Octavia Books, which not only survived Hurricane Katrina; it was the first bookstore to reopen. They had so little damage that even the goldfish in their fountain were alive and anxiously waiting for Tom Lowenburg and his wife’s return. (That’s because the hurricane didn’t hit New Orleans full on. The damage was man made. The levees broke and flooded the city. The flood waters from those particular levees didn’t reach that part of Octavia Street so those houses and businesses suffered only a little wind damage.) Rather than post my pictures of the event, I’ll send you to their website http://www.octaviabooks.com/
The next day Words and Music began with parties and discussions of the impact of Hispanic Cultures on U.S. Life and Literature. On Friday, I led a panel on Late Bloomers, women who’d had successful careers in other fields and then after forty published best-selling and prize winning novels. Maria Arana, was and is the editor of The Washington Post Book World. Her memoir American Chica was a finalist for the National Book Award and her new novel, Cellophane has received rave reviews. Julia Glass was an accomplished painter before winning the National Book Award for her novel, Three Junes. Her new novel The Whole World Over, has also received rave review. Pamela Binnings Ewen—which sounded much too much like Pam Ewing to an old DALLAS writer—was a successful international lawyer before penning Faith on Trial and Walk the Black Cat. We all agreed that our life experiences gave us insights we never had when we were younger and made our writing so much richer. I wrote perfectly terrible novel earlier in my career which I threw away after becoming a screenwriter. Before forty my literary efforts were not ready for prime time. All my indoor photos all took on a sepia sheen giving them an antique aura.
My husband and I went to New Orleans to take part in The Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society’s annual Words and Music—A Literary Feast—and feast it was with great food and even better conversation with authors from all around the United States.
But first, the day after Halloween, I had a signing at the charming Octavia Books, which not only survived Hurricane Katrina; it was the first bookstore to reopen. They had so little damage that even the goldfish in their fountain were alive and anxiously waiting for Tom Lowenburg and his wife’s return. (That’s because the hurricane didn’t hit New Orleans full on. The damage was man made. The levees broke and flooded the city. The flood waters from those particular levees didn’t reach that part of Octavia Street so those houses and businesses suffered only a little wind damage.) Rather than post my pictures of the event, I’ll send you to their website http://www.octaviabooks.com/
The next day Words and Music began with parties and discussions of the impact of Hispanic Cultures on U.S. Life and Literature. On Friday, I led a panel on Late Bloomers, women who’d had successful careers in other fields and then after forty published best-selling and prize winning novels. Maria Arana, was and is the editor of The Washington Post Book World. Her memoir American Chica was a finalist for the National Book Award and her new novel, Cellophane has received rave reviews. Julia Glass was an accomplished painter before winning the National Book Award for her novel, Three Junes. Her new novel The Whole World Over, has also received rave review. Pamela Binnings Ewen—which sounded much too much like Pam Ewing to an old DALLAS writer—was a successful international lawyer before penning Faith on Trial and Walk the Black Cat. We all agreed that our life experiences gave us insights we never had when we were younger and made our writing so much richer. I wrote perfectly terrible novel earlier in my career which I threw away after becoming a screenwriter. Before forty my literary efforts were not ready for prime time. All my indoor photos all took on a sepia sheen giving them an antique aura.
Monday, November 13, 2006
new Halloween in New Orleans 2006
THE CITY THAT CARE AND A LOT OF OTHERS FORGOT
Ok, it’s obvious to me that I’m not cut out for blogging. I just can’t get the hang of publishing pictures in the right order. Here’s a second try at describing Halloween in a devastated New Orleans. The last photo with the bent cross is punch line. Why is it smaller than the rest? Another mystery wrapped up in the skeins of the web.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Talk about living fearlessly, that’s what everyone who lives in New Orleans is doing right now. The food is wonderful. The drinks are amazing. The French Quarter never looked so good. Everything’s been spruced up and renovated. Well not everything, but you get the idea.
We arrived in time for the Halloween parade in the French Quarter. Anyone could put on a costume and join in. The parade was supposed to start at 5:30, but it actually started a little after 6:30pm. That’s New Orleans time. Around midnight masked revelers were still going strong in the Faubourg Marigny, and even at the courtyard restaurant the following weekend.
But drive out a little way and you’ll see block after block, mile after mile of empty houses. The schools are trying to come back. As you can see from the sign, Holy Cross is accepting applications, but the cross on the top of the school is emblematic.
Ok, it’s obvious to me that I’m not cut out for blogging. I just can’t get the hang of publishing pictures in the right order. Here’s a second try at describing Halloween in a devastated New Orleans. The last photo with the bent cross is punch line. Why is it smaller than the rest? Another mystery wrapped up in the skeins of the web.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Talk about living fearlessly, that’s what everyone who lives in New Orleans is doing right now. The food is wonderful. The drinks are amazing. The French Quarter never looked so good. Everything’s been spruced up and renovated. Well not everything, but you get the idea.
We arrived in time for the Halloween parade in the French Quarter. Anyone could put on a costume and join in. The parade was supposed to start at 5:30, but it actually started a little after 6:30pm. That’s New Orleans time. Around midnight masked revelers were still going strong in the Faubourg Marigny, and even at the courtyard restaurant the following weekend.
But drive out a little way and you’ll see block after block, mile after mile of empty houses. The schools are trying to come back. As you can see from the sign, Holy Cross is accepting applications, but the cross on the top of the school is emblematic.
Halloween in New Orleans 2006 redo
THE CITY THAT CARE AND A LOT OF OTHERS FORGOT
Ok, it’s obvious to me that I’m not cut out for blogging. I just can’t get the hang of publishing pictures in the right order. Here’s a second try at describing Halloween in a devastated New Orleans. The last photo with the bent cross is punch line. Why is it smaller than the rest? Another mystery wrapped up in the skeins of the web.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Talk about living fearlessly, that’s what everyone who lives in New Orleans is doing right now. The food is wonderful. The drinks are amazing. The French Quarter never looked so good. Everything’s been spruced up and renovated. Well not everything, but you get the idea.
We arrived in time for the Halloween parade in the French Quarter. Anyone could put on a costume and join in. The parade was supposed to start at 5:30, but it actually started a little after 6:30pm. That’s New Orleans time. Around midnight masked revelers were still going strong in the Faubourg Marigny, and even at the courtyard restaurant the following weekend.
But drive out a little way and you’ll see block after block, mile after mile of empty houses. The schools are trying to come back. As you can see from the sign, Holy Cross is accepting applications, but the cross on the top of the school is emblematic.
Ok, it’s obvious to me that I’m not cut out for blogging. I just can’t get the hang of publishing pictures in the right order. Here’s a second try at describing Halloween in a devastated New Orleans. The last photo with the bent cross is punch line. Why is it smaller than the rest? Another mystery wrapped up in the skeins of the web.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Talk about living fearlessly, that’s what everyone who lives in New Orleans is doing right now. The food is wonderful. The drinks are amazing. The French Quarter never looked so good. Everything’s been spruced up and renovated. Well not everything, but you get the idea.
We arrived in time for the Halloween parade in the French Quarter. Anyone could put on a costume and join in. The parade was supposed to start at 5:30, but it actually started a little after 6:30pm. That’s New Orleans time. Around midnight masked revelers were still going strong in the Faubourg Marigny, and even at the courtyard restaurant the following weekend.
But drive out a little way and you’ll see block after block, mile after mile of empty houses. The schools are trying to come back. As you can see from the sign, Holy Cross is accepting applications, but the cross on the top of the school is emblematic.
Friday, November 10, 2006
Correction
CORRECTION
I don’t pretend to be a computer genius. I stayed up until after midnight trying to figure out how to post photos. Now I get it, the last post goes on top of the page and sometimes photos you think haven’t loaded are and when you try again you sometimes post them twice. My bad.
So my latest posting Halloween in New Orleans 2006: THE CITY THAT CARE AND A LOT OF OTHERS FORGOT is backwards. I meant for you to read the text first, see the photos of all the revelers, and finally view the school sign and see the broken cross. What can I say, except I’ll know better next time.
I don’t pretend to be a computer genius. I stayed up until after midnight trying to figure out how to post photos. Now I get it, the last post goes on top of the page and sometimes photos you think haven’t loaded are and when you try again you sometimes post them twice. My bad.
So my latest posting Halloween in New Orleans 2006: THE CITY THAT CARE AND A LOT OF OTHERS FORGOT is backwards. I meant for you to read the text first, see the photos of all the revelers, and finally view the school sign and see the broken cross. What can I say, except I’ll know better next time.
Monday, September 18, 2006
The Huffington Post
BECOMING FEARLESS
Check it out. My article on “The Courage to Live Your Life” is featured today on the Huffington Post on her Becoming Fearless page along with Arianna’s blog, an amusing note from Nora Ephron, If I Could TiVo My Life and much more.
But if you decide to check it out, beware.
The articles on the First Female Space Tourist and the effect she’s having on women in Iran, Madrid enforcing the skinny model ban, articles by Harry Shearer (the postings change minute to minute) are highly addictive. You are likely to find yourself addicted, blurry-eyed, surfing the web for hours on end instead of getting on with your life.
Check it out. My article on “The Courage to Live Your Life” is featured today on the Huffington Post on her Becoming Fearless page along with Arianna’s blog, an amusing note from Nora Ephron, If I Could TiVo My Life and much more.
But if you decide to check it out, beware.
The articles on the First Female Space Tourist and the effect she’s having on women in Iran, Madrid enforcing the skinny model ban, articles by Harry Shearer (the postings change minute to minute) are highly addictive. You are likely to find yourself addicted, blurry-eyed, surfing the web for hours on end instead of getting on with your life.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
THE COURAGE TO LIVE YOUR LIFE
THE COURAGE TO LIVE YOUR LIFE
“It’s Okay for a woman to know her place. She just shouldn’t stay there.” That’s Rule Number 48 Sissy LeBlanc’s SOUTHERN BELLE’S HANDBOOK. I started every chapter in both my novels with a rule. Some of them were satirical, some ironic, but this is the one I live by.
I was a single mom in New Orleans scraping along in a cheap apartment when I decided to pack up my son in my old car and go out to Hollywood to break into show business. Within two years I was writing for network television. Within four years I’d written the most watched show in the history of TV (at that time) and had saved up enough to make a down payment on my own house in Malibu.
Was it scary? You bet. I knew a couple of people in the business from New Orleans and I thought they’d help me. They didn’t. Was it hard? Did I sometimes think of giving up? Of course. But it was exciting, too.
I didn’t know how to break in, so I did everything. I’d worked in educational film, and I was able to hustle some free-lance educational film assignments, which allowed me to join an organization called Women In Film as an associate member.
I made myself useful. If there was an envelope to stuff, I stuffed it. If there was a conference or a panel where I could learn, I was there. I took classes at night and kept on writing. I wrote three un-produced screenplays. So when I finally got a break, (and I think that anyone who really puts themselves out there will eventually get a break) I was ready.
My son cried he was so happy. I took him skiing to celebrate. It was our first real vacation since moving to Los Angeles. Years later, I decided to stop writing TV to follow my new dream of writing novels about women, who think they’re stuck, but manage to take their lives into their own hands. The heroine of my first novel, THE SCANDALOUS SUMMER OF SISSY LEBLANC is stuck in a bad marriage in a town too small for her. In the end she learns as I did Rule Number 2: A smart girl can’t just sit on the porch and wait for her life to start.
The heroine of my new novel, THE BAD BEHAVIOR OF BELLE CANTRELL, comes from an earlier, more repressive era, when women were fettered by the rules of propriety. It was 1920 when Belle decides: The most important thing about virtue is to talk as if you’re in favor of it. (A rule some people in Washington unfortunately follow even today.) But when she has to overcome her fear and rescue her friends, she screws up her courage and declares: Sometimes a girl just has got to stop thinking and get going.
“It’s Okay for a woman to know her place. She just shouldn’t stay there.” That’s Rule Number 48 Sissy LeBlanc’s SOUTHERN BELLE’S HANDBOOK. I started every chapter in both my novels with a rule. Some of them were satirical, some ironic, but this is the one I live by.
I was a single mom in New Orleans scraping along in a cheap apartment when I decided to pack up my son in my old car and go out to Hollywood to break into show business. Within two years I was writing for network television. Within four years I’d written the most watched show in the history of TV (at that time) and had saved up enough to make a down payment on my own house in Malibu.
Was it scary? You bet. I knew a couple of people in the business from New Orleans and I thought they’d help me. They didn’t. Was it hard? Did I sometimes think of giving up? Of course. But it was exciting, too.
I didn’t know how to break in, so I did everything. I’d worked in educational film, and I was able to hustle some free-lance educational film assignments, which allowed me to join an organization called Women In Film as an associate member.
I made myself useful. If there was an envelope to stuff, I stuffed it. If there was a conference or a panel where I could learn, I was there. I took classes at night and kept on writing. I wrote three un-produced screenplays. So when I finally got a break, (and I think that anyone who really puts themselves out there will eventually get a break) I was ready.
My son cried he was so happy. I took him skiing to celebrate. It was our first real vacation since moving to Los Angeles. Years later, I decided to stop writing TV to follow my new dream of writing novels about women, who think they’re stuck, but manage to take their lives into their own hands. The heroine of my first novel, THE SCANDALOUS SUMMER OF SISSY LEBLANC is stuck in a bad marriage in a town too small for her. In the end she learns as I did Rule Number 2: A smart girl can’t just sit on the porch and wait for her life to start.
The heroine of my new novel, THE BAD BEHAVIOR OF BELLE CANTRELL, comes from an earlier, more repressive era, when women were fettered by the rules of propriety. It was 1920 when Belle decides: The most important thing about virtue is to talk as if you’re in favor of it. (A rule some people in Washington unfortunately follow even today.) But when she has to overcome her fear and rescue her friends, she screws up her courage and declares: Sometimes a girl just has got to stop thinking and get going.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)