Month: December 2007

holiday, New Years Eve

Looking back

Christa Avampato

“I never look back, darling. It distracts from the now.
~ Edna Mode, The Incredibles

After much anticipation, the 31st of December has arrived. And the questions ensue. “What resolutions are you making?” “Do you have big plans for New Year’s?” “How did you feel about 2007?” “What do you think will happen in 2008?”

The quote from Edna Mode seems very timely and the perfect answer to just about any question you may get as we turn the page on the calendar in a matter of hours. I envy people who don’t look back. I look back obsessively, searching for patterns, regretting things I’ve done or said, or didn’t say or do that perhaps I should have. I try to imagine where I was and what I was doing exactly one year ago. Who was I with? What was I hoping for?

I know that many people say they don’t believe in resolutions, or they come up with a new name for “resolution” to make it seems less ominous. I make resolutions, and I’m glad I make them and most of the time I’ve kept them. They give me some direction, a goal, something to shoot for that requires my commitment in some measure. Resolutions are personal creations that determine how we’d like to conduct our lives in the 365 days ahead. They are cause for celebration, not despair.

This year, I’m making a few simple ones. One of them is inspired my Ms. Mode. 2007, for me, was a year of not looking back. I graduated, launched into a new career in a “new” city, and put myself out there. I gave up thinking about old boyfriends and old friends that had faded away, often for the best. I cultivated happiness in every area of my life, and went about weeding those pesky things in my life that detracted from joy. I embraced the now.

So in 2008, I am committed to continuing that train of thought. I am making every effort to look forward, head up, eyes wide, ears open because all we’ve got is the now, and I don’t want to miss a moment of it.

The above photo can be found on: http://www.allmoviezone.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/incredibles.jpg

music

Michael Feinstein

Christa Avampato

I’ve been hearing about Michael Feinstein for many years. My friend, Dan, is his publicist. Last night, Dan took my to see the “By Request” show at Feinstein’s at the Regency Hotel. Walking in, I felt as if I was stepping back in time to old world New York. No flashy lights, sets, or costumes – just an honest, warm performance by a man who is a generous, exceedingly talented artist who loves his audience.

Most of the songs were standards – Cole Porter, Gershwin, Sondheim. There were legendary musicians in the band – Bucky Pizzarelli (http://feinsteinsattheregency.com/bio.php?id=27) and Ken Ascher (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenny_Ascher). It was a celebration of times gone by, and musicians working very hard to keep the music that they love alive. Of all the requests that were done, my favorite was a simple ballad, “Old Friend” that Mr. Feinstein performed solo, sitting at the piano. I learned from Dan that this is a staple that he has performed for decades. It’s become one of his hallmark performances.

I had never heard the song before, and found myself getting more choked up as the song went on. Even after so many years, its lyrics continue to resonate with people of all ages. It’s one of the things I love best about music and art – it lets those across generations share a common expereince. I googled it and found a You Tube video of Mr. Feinstein performing the song, the same way he did last night. A beautiful performance that renewed my belief that all of the flashy elements of so many of today’s shows are unnecessary so long as the talent on stage is at the level I saw last night.

See the video of “Old Friend” at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsoJQeyyIbg.

art, creativity, museum, New York

Delightful Doodles: the art of William Steig

Christa Avampato

Yesterday I took a walk across Central Park to stop in to the Jewish Museum of Art at 92nd Street and 5th Avenue. There is a new exhibit there that celebrate the art work of William Steig, a cartoonist who achieved early fame as an illustrator of the New York and became a children’s book author at age 60. Though he is most famous for conceiving the idea for and creating the story of Shrek, that one work, as wonderful as it is, does not do justice to a career based on enchanting doodles.

Like many art exhibits, this one has multi-media components – a short film, narrated by Steig, about his life and work, models of the Shrek characters, letters he’s written to and received from monumental figures in the art world, interactive pieces such as a children’s library, and of course, his marvelous sketches. Immediately upon entering the exhibit, the greatest nugget to genius is written plainly on the wall. When asked about how he developed such a successful career, Steig said “I don’t think like other people. I never really did grow up.”

It’s his wonderful sense of honesty and childlike desire to connect with people on a very profound basis that had me smiling all throughout the exhibit. His doodling and intentional coloring outside of the lines kept me dreaming, entering his world of fair tales that had meaningful lessons to teach viewers about their real, everyday lives. Steig said his best work came from drawing with no direction, with no purpose. Drawing for the sake of drawing.

This had me wondering all the way home what works I could create if I had no agenda in my creations. How would I live my life if I just did what I wanted to do without any sense of having to do something “useful”? By letting go, we can break-through.

happiness, New York, theatre

The Apple Sisters

Christa Avampato

A few weeks agao, I wrote about meeting Bob McClure as he was selling his homemade pickles (http://www.mcclurespickles.com/) at a charity event I attended. Last night, Bob invited me to see a variety show he was in at the People’s Improv Theatre (PIT) on West 29th Street. Bob was a part of The Apple Sisters variety show. And for those of you who missed the show, I would suggest logging in to their myspace page, www.myspace.com/theapplesisters so you are sure to catch their next act. I was laughing for a full hour at the comedy act these women put together.

I spent about 5 years working if profesisonal theatre management for Broadway shows and national tours. I left the business largely because I felt uninspired, though I have continued to attend shows whenever I can. The Apple Sisters is one of the best acts I have seen in a very long time. To be sure the show is not without its glitches, though the energy and spontaneity these gals have makes the glitches part of the fun. You won’t find polished choreography or perfect pitch in the songs – you’ll find something much better. Humor, warmth, and a very talented trio of writers. Their creativity will make you wonder why we haven’t yet heard more about these women – I have no doubt that large-scale success is on the way.

Also, if there’s an inspiring improv comic inside of you just waiting to get in on the act, The PIT offers classes, workshops, and tons of events. Most of the shows cost $5 – $8 per ticket – so much laugh for the buck that you can’t afford to pass it by. http://www.thepit-nyc.com/

New York, retail

Bringing home the goods

Christa Avampato

When you have a tiny apartment, there’s a need to make every square inch of it sparkle. I’ve been in the market for a few furniture pieces that fit perfectly in my pint-size place. I’ve had some trouble finding items that fit properly, are designed well, and are reasonably priced.

I was relating this to my friend, Diane, at work and she suggested I stop in at a store called Home Goods, a TJX company. On my lunhc break I toddled over there, expecting to not find too much and found so much that I loved that I had to make sure to not get a cart so all I could buy is what my own hands could carry.

I found the perfect powerd blue metal three tier shelf that will fold up flat should I ever need to store it away, or, heaven forbid, move. It looks so perfect in my studio apartment that you’d think it’s been there all along. The store is chock full of every item you could imagine in the home decor category. The company is very much on trend with the “Make It Yourself” look as well as new items that have a retro feel. The store is well organized, easy to navigate, and the merchandise is fairly priced. The company even has a blog that I recommend you check for the latest tips and ideas on decorating. http://openhouse.homegoods.com/

You’ll have to go to Jersey to experience a Home Goods, though I promise it is worth the effort!

celebration, holiday, New Years Eve, New York, New York Times

Wild Revelry Is So Last Year

Christa Avampato

For the past few days I have been using my drive to work to come up with some pithy and witty commentary on New Year’s and why it’s my least favorite holiday. I opened the Times this morning and decided I didn’t need to write anything – William Grimes said it best.

I’ll be spending NYE with a few friends eating delicious, home-made food, and completely avoiding any run in with crowds. I’ve decided that 2008 is going to be the best year of my life. “Why?” you may ask. Just call it a very good hunch.

William Grimes story in Today’s Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/28/arts/28stay.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

creativity, innovation, invention, work

CEOs can learn a thing or two from cows – more from “Orbiting the Giant Hairball”

Christa Avampato

My friend, Dan, and I recently went to Maine to spend a weekend doing absolutely nothing of importance. It turns out that Maine is a great place for this kind of activity. I wish there were more Maines in the world. Dan is a master maestro of a delectable mix of jazz, big band, and lounge-y cabaret type music. I am not doing it justice with that description. It’s great stuff. He’s the only guy I know who’s ever run out of space on a giant iPod.

Dan brought his iPod as well as the iPod car kit so that while I drove he could entertain me spinning his fabulous mix. Being avid Sesame Street fans, he played me a set of tunes that included “Cookie at the Disco” and my personal favorite “Proud to be a Cow”. (You can read the lyrics through this link as well as download a “Proud to be a Cow” ringtone. http://www.lyricsdownload.com/sesame-street-proud-to-be-a-cow-lyrics.html. Build it and they will buy!) We should all be proud to be cows.

Today I was reading about those dreaded corporations and how they make it their job to drive every last ounce of creativity out of their enormous legion of exceedingly boring grey cubicles. This isn’t always true – it just happens to be more the norm than the exception. So imagine if dairy farmers judged their cows the same way that executive management judges their employees. Cows spend about 10% of their lives hooked up to milking machines in a barn. That’s the only time they actually produce something tangible. However, the other 90% of their lives they are performing magic turning grass into milk in some alchemic process that I do not even pretend to understand.

What would our dairy cases look like if those dairy farmers pressured those cows to “be more productive”? Impossible. Cows can’t make milk any faster than people can churn out creative ideas. Creativity is a strange alchemy as well. It needs time and patience to percolate. Corporations that think they can speed up creativity are as destined for success as a dairy farmer who thinks he can speed up milk making. If a farmer needs more milk in a shorter period of time, then he needs more cows. And if a corporation needs more creativity, then it needs more creative people.

The picture above can be found at http://www.blog.thesietch.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/zoom-cow.thumbnail.jpg

experience, proust, questionnaire, writing

If I were Proust

Christa Avampato

I am a devote Vanity Fair reader. My favorite feature in the magazine is the Proust Questionnaire put to a variety of celebrities. http://pagesperso-orange.fr/chabrieres/proustquestionnaire.html is a link to an on-line version. Give it a go! Below are my answers:

Your most marked characteristic?
The fact that I am so tiny in stature and yet so large in personality

The quality you most like in a man?
Courage, the ability to laugh at himself, intelligence, and concern for others – people and animals

The quality you most like in a woman?
The ability to carve her own path and not allow others to put her into a box she does not want to be in

What do you most value in your friends?
honesty, loyalty, and humor

What is your principle defect?
I am incapable of hiding my feelings regardless of situation

What is your favorite occupation?
Writing

What is your dream of happiness?
Life-long love

What to your mind would be the greatest of misfortunes?
To die with the music still in you

What would you like to be?
A world adventurer

In what country would you like to live?
Any one with a government that has respect for life as its guiding principle

What is your favorite color?
Green

What is your favorite flower?
Lillies, sunflowers, and lilacs

What is your favorite bird?
Hummingbird

Who are your favorite prose writers?
Those brave enough to tell their stories with honesty and grace, without ego or self-pity

Who are your favorite poets?
Frost, Emily Dickinson, Maya Angelou

Who is your favorite hero of fiction?
Harry Potter

Who are your favorite heroines of fiction?
Alice from Alice in Wonderland and through the Looking Glass

Who are your favorite composers?
Nino Rota and Vivaldi

Who are your favorite painters?
The French Impressionists, Brian Andreas, Georges-Pierre Seurat, Johannes Vermeer, Alexander Calder, Joan Miró, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Picasso

Who are your heroes in real life?
Those who meet life with an exuberance that benefits humanity

What is it you most dislike?
dishonesty, irresponsibility, laziness, and those who take advantage of the kindness of others

What natural gift would you most like to possess?
To freeze time so I can enjoy happy moments for just a bit longer

How would you like to die?
Happy

What is your present state of mind?
Forward-looking

To what faults do you feel most indulgent?
inability to resist chocolate-covered donuts

What is your motto?
There is no time like the present

The picture above can be found at http://www.mercantilelibrary.org/groups/images/Marcel-Proust-1.jpg

Life

Loans like hairballs

Christa Avampato

I’m all for freedom in any form, though responsibility is good for us, too. If we always had a safety net, always had a trap door or an eject button to get us out of a difficult situation, then we’d never be thoughtful about decisions. We wouldn’t have to be because even if we got in trouble, there would always be something or someone to bail us out. Enablers think they’re being nice people, thoughtful people, supportive people. What they’re really doing is stripping away the basic instinct of survival from those they enable.

Orbiting the Giant Hairball makes this same argument is a less psychological way. Though hairballs are frustrating, they are also necessary. My current biggest hairball: my student loans. I have some left from undergrad and now those from my MBA program have entered repayment. It’s a big number, second only to my rent. I was anxious about repayment, calculating and recalculating my budget. And my anxiety was only driven higher by some friends of mine from graduate school who are frantically paying down the loans and making me feel guilty for not doing the same.

The truth is as much as the large payment is painful to make now, it’s keeping me focused. If I had no financial obligations I could quit my job at the first sign of difficulty. I could spend any amount of money on anything I wanted. The Paris Hilton problem – she has no responsibilities so she doesn’t have to be responsible. The truth is without hairballs, we’d have nothing to orbit around. We would be adrift…

So while I wish the cost of education and life in general was not so high, I’m trying to look on the bright side. Things could be worse – I could feel that there really is no reason to get up in the morning. I know I have to get up and do my best because I need to survive and all I’ve got to help me do that is me.

experience, movie

Learning from Charlie Wilson

Christa Avampato

Christmas night I went to see Charlie Wilson’s War with my mom. We both loved the movie. All of the Golden Globe nominations are quite well-deserved. The most poignant point in the film came at the very end with a quote that helped me to apply the lessons of Charlie Wilson to my own life.

After all is said and done, Charlie Wilson is credited with saying, “These things happened. They were glorious and they changed the world. Then we f***ed up the endgame.” He’s right. The United States spent about $500,000,000, and then matched by the Saudis for a combined totally of $1 billion to aid the mujaheddin and defeat the Soviets. Once the Soviets were defeated, the country of Afghanistan was in shambles. We could scrape together half a billion dollars for ammunition and weapons though we couldn’t come up with $1 million dollars to build schools. As a result, the young population of Afghanistan grew poorer and angrier. The result was what we see today, and try as we might to deny it, we are at the very least partially to blame. We cared about winning the battle though not about winning the war, and as a result, we’re still fighting. The seeds of our problems today in that area of the world were planted by our own actions in the 1980’s.

This quote at the end of the movie made me consider how I look at situations in my own life when I put up so much energy and effort at the start and then question whether or not to put forward another small amount to complete a job in the best way possible. I am in no way suggesting that any aspect of my life is even remotely close in gravity to what the U.S. faced in the situation that the movie captures. That would be absurd.

What’s worth considering is whether or not we consciously acknowledge that we are in the game for the long haul. Are we willing to see a project through to completion to make sure that it is done as well as possible? Are willing to do what it takes to protect our investment of time, effort, and heart? If yes, then proceed. And if not, then maybe it’s best to not even begin and place our energies elsewhere.

The photo above can be found at http://www.worstpreviews.com/images/photos/charliewilsonswar/charliewilsonswar3.jpg