Category: entertainment

books, diet, dreams, entertainment, film, food, forgiveness, love, movie, relationships, religion, simplicity

Step 225: The Best Way to Eat Pray Love

Christa Avampato

“In a world of disorder and disaster and fraud, sometimes only beauty can be trusted. Pleasure cannot be bargained down.” ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat Pray Love

The long-anticipated movie of a woman traveling through the world looking for delicious food, peace of mind, and love opens in theaters nationwide today. Last week I walked by a swanky home store advertising “get your Eat Pray Love scented candles here” in its windows. Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat Pray Love, runs an importing business with her new husband. That may explain the commercialization of the film. Still, the merchandising seems like an odd play destined for a less-than-stellar market performance, no matter how high the box office ratings are.

The sad truth is that Eat Pray Love is a well-written book, with lyrical language, rich imagery, and some important insights that, if put to good use, could actually increase people’s happiness. The problem is that it’s been so hyped that most consumers are sick to death of it. And the onslaught of book-related merchandise doesn’t help matters any.

Here’s my suggestion: don’t go to the movie at all. I’m not even sure I’d suggest you read the book at this point. You know how the story goes so it sort of takes the fun out of it. Here’s how you can really live the message of finding your own path, the issue at the heart of the story:

1.) Eat well and enjoy it. Stop mindlessly munching on whatever is within arms reach, enjoy your food with good company, and rather than beating the heck out of yourself for the calories, just exercise more

2.) Pray in your own way. I’m a spiritual person, meaning that the light that is within me honors the light that is within you. Be good to your family, your friends, and your neighbors. Stop asking what the world needs you to do, and just concentrate on doing what brings you joy. That’s where the real goodness is. Recognize that there’s something beyond the here and now, and that we are all intricately and beautifully connected. Honor that connection through service, which is at its essence a divine act.

3.) Love. Forget your past failures in love. Forget the heartache and the tears and the anger and the screwed up behaviors of people who hurt you. Get it all out in the open, let it go, and move on. There’s nothing worse that ruining our next relationship by imbuing it with the problems of the last one. I know it’s hard. I’ve had my heart broken in a million pieces more times than I can count. I’ve got a good family and good friends who help me pick up the pieces and put them back together, and I’m a better person for it, even though it was hell to go through in the first place. Keep loving. The alternative is what causes this world to be such a rough place to live – we shouldn’t make it any worse by carting around our disappointments from one relationship to the next.

And if you really want to know what Elizabeth Gilbert and her journey are all about, watch her TED talk on creativity. In 18 minutes it will inspire you to do something extraordinary, and the world could use a little more of that these days.

The image above depicts Julia Roberts as Elizabeth Gilbert in the movie Eat Pray Love, opening today nationwide. I like the sunflowers.

entertainment, government, legacy, passion, time

My Year of Hopefulness – The life in your time

Christa Avampato

Today, the world said good-bye to Michael Jackson with all the fanfare, emotion, and celebration that should accompany the passing of someone who changed the world of entertainment forever. 50 short years of pushing the boundaries, taking risks, and going his own way inspired tens of millions of people across the globe.

I read an article in my alumni magazine about the book Plain, Honest Men by Dr. Richard Beeman. It describes the summer when a group of people gathered to write the Constitution of the United States. They made it up as they went along. They focused on writing a document to create a more perfect union, not a perfect union. In one summer, they formed the base laws that would govern a nation for centuries to come, a nation that would be the beacon of hope for people around the world.

Walt Disney wanted to build a place that captured creativity and inspired everyone who walked through its gates. From that park, he built an empire of innovation and entertainment that has caused the many millions of people who visit to wonder and dream. Walt Disney, and a team of believers, built the original Disneyland in 1 year.

Legacies are built one moment, one decision, one vision at a time. They require heart and passion and commitment. Time is the asset, not the constraint, that builds lasting impact. Michael Jackson, the fathers of our country, and Walt Disney are proof that there is a whole lot of living that can be done in a very short span of time.

business, career, entertainment, technology

Examiner.com: An interview about entrepreneurship with David Priemer of Rypple

Christa Avampato

A few months ago I came across an article on Rypple, a company that builds on-line collaboration tools. I was very impressed with the simplicity and elegance of their mission and interface. They identified that there was a hole in the market for a tool that could help people identify where and how they can improve their job performance. For those who are pro-active, believe in the process of continuous improvement, and dread performance review time, this tool is a godsend! For the full interview, click here.

comedy, entertainment, humor, writer, writing

My Year of Hopefulness – Empty Your Pockets

Christa Avampato

Last night I was flipping through the channels and landed on PBS which was airing a biography of Carol Burnett – one of my all-time favorite entertainers. I have fond memories of watching the show with my family, and my mother would laugh so hard she could barely breathe. I never knew much about her childhood before this biography. Her story of endurance and love and what her family termed her “pipe dream” is inspiring. 

After Carol Burnett’s biography, PBS aired a shorter biography of Erma Bombeck, one of my mom’s favorite authors. I would read her column in my mom’s magazine’s as a kid and found her so funny, engaging, and honest. I wanted to write that way. The biography ended with Erma’s untimely death from kidney disease and they captured how she viewed life with one of her most famous pieces:

I always had a dream that when I am asked to give an accounting of my life to a high court, it will be like this:  ‘So, empty your pockets. What have you got left of your life?  Any dreams that were unfilled?  Any unused talent that we gave you when you were born that you still have left?  Any unsaid compliments or bits of love that you haven’t spread around?’

And I will answer, “I have nothing to return.  I spent everything you gave me.  I’m as naked as the day I was born.”

Isn’t that how all of us should answer? Why return any bit of energy, any dream or wish or hope? We don’t ever get it back. Once we make our graceful exit to the other side, anything we hoped to start, try, or finish will have to fall to someone else. That’s no way to go out, and frankly it’s not fair to the rest of us for you to be selfish and keep you dreams and talents to yourself. This world needs you; it needs all of us and everything we’ve got. 

child, children, entertainment, Kidscreen Summit, media, New York, Sesame Street, technology

"D" is for Digital

Christa Avampato

“This instrument [TV] can teach, it can illuminate, yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends,” he said. “Otherwise, it is merely wires and lights in a box.” ~ Edward R. Murrow

Some marvelous learnings from the Kidscreen Summit. I just finished a morning session entitled “D is for Digital”, put together by the fine folks at Sesame Street Workshop. The panel featured representation from the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, Sesame Street Workshop, Commonsense Media (a parent advocacy group centered around media), PBS Kids, and Media Kidz (a research organization).

Some cool and interesting properties that are worth viewing:
Panwapa.com – an on-line community for kids tat features characters who live on an island that floats around. Kids can navigate between five different languages on the fly, can create an avatar in a number of global settings, and encourages acceptance and exploration of different cultures around the world. One of those things that will make you say “I wish I had that when I was a kid.”

Okami – a Japanese video game property that interests boys and girls of a variety of ages.
Word Girl – my boss and I read about this property during the mid-summer when the New York Times ran an article on it. Word Girl is one of the newer properties for PBS, and on the web platform, kids can submit their favorite words as well as play a variety of games to build vocabulary.
Sesame Street Video Player – currently in Beta at videos.sesameworkshop.org – parents and kids can find Sesame Street video clips tagged with character names, text, and, best of all, education concepts such as “sharing” or “friendship”.

And some facts:
The average age of on-set for digital media use is 6.5 years old, down from 8 years of age just two years ago.
96% of tweens and teens use some sort of social networking
71% of parents have had some on-line issues arising with their children
81% of parents say that the internet has helped their child’s learning
The difficulty of “rating up” – a Bain sudy has found increasingly that what used to be considered PG-13 or even R-rated material, now largely is rated as PG or even G content.
Kids are their own programmers – they choose when, where, and what to watch
Kids spend 45 hours per week interacting with media, 30 hours per week in school, and 17 hours per week with their parents.

Trends:
Proliferation of virtual worlds
Casual gaming
Video content and user-generated content on the web
On-line curriculum building separate from educators – PBS is exploring ways to build series of games to lead kids, particularly pre-schoolers, along a path in skills such as literacy by batching and sequencing the games.

The big opportunities:
Focus on literacy
Creative problem sovling
Other skills that kids will need a global economy
Few video games of educational promise really exist today. This is an area of tremendous opportunity for developers and producers of video games.
The bridge between research, industry, and the nonprofit world – the most exciting possibility for me since I have experience and passion in all three areas.
The use of media devices such as cell phones to distribute batches of content in snippets – playing into the trend of our “snack culture”. PBS has done some work around literacy for pre-schoolers in which everyday their parents received a text message from Elmo encouraging them to look for things like foods in the grocery store that begin with the “letter of the day.” After the study, kids who participated were fond to know their alphabet song better and have an increased awareness of the learning opportunities that are all around them.

In conclusion, Sholly Fisch of Media Kidz, made an excellent point that is the underlying driver for the expanded research currently being done on kids and media: kids today are faced with constant change and the increasing need for comfort with ambiguity, though kids are still kids. They still need to be encouraged, loved and cared for. The challenge and opportunity for all of us in the youth space lies in how can we use media as a tool to deliver a rich p-to-date experience to kids that nurtures them in this world of uncertainty and change.

business, career, creativity, entertainment, happiness, innovation, money, New York, society, technology, trend, writing

No one needs to pay you

Christa Avampato

From my earliest memories about what profession I’d like to have, I wanted to write. And the troublesome thing to me was always that I may never get anyone to pay me for doing what I love. I’m 31 so when I was growing up, blogs and the like didn’t exist. We were still living in the days of big blue chip companies dominating the globe. “New media” as it’s known today was just a dream inside the imaginations of a handful of people.

Today, I can confidently say that I am a writer. I don’t have a magazine gig. I don’t write for television of film. You can’t see my work in a theatre. I never signed a contract and I don’t have an agent. No one gives me assignments. And it’s no longer just tucked away in some old journal that even I’ll never go back and review, much less have anyone else read. It’s out in the world, in this wonderful thing called the blogosphere and I write whatever I’d like to write about. I do what I want, when I want, which is really the only way I am capable of living my life. I have a disdain for authority or anything that hampers personal freedom and creativity and I am largely a contrarian at the mere mention of phrases like “well, you HAVE to do it this way.” I actually don’t HAVE to do anything, and I won’t.

I used to be weird for feeling this way. Now, it’s become the way of the world. With user-generated content growing by leaps and bounds by the minute, the limits that have been placed on our lives are being ripped down in the blink of an eye. Agents, creative unions, casting directors, TV networks, producers, and film studios used to rule the roost. And while they still wield some power, it is largely dwindling to a modicum of what it used to be. We are very quickly becoming the “take charge of our lives” generation. Contrarians rejoice, we have worked our own way out of the job of being contrarians. (And not a moment too soon. Being a contrarian is exhausting work and I have other things I’d like to be doing!)

Last night I attended the Mustaches for Kids event at the Montauck Club in Park Slope. A hilarious and worthwhile event. The only nosh available was pickles by Bob from McClure’s pickles. (http://www.mcclurespickles.com/) When not in the kitchen whipping up his grandmother’s recipes, he’s acting and writing. He was telling my friend, Monika, and I about a new webtv show he’s on – http://www.theburg.tv/. It’s entirely created by his friends from college who live in Williamsburg. They didn’t create it to make money, they did it for the love of creating. And here’s the good news: they have 4 million people who have watched the show on-line, the audience is global, SAG is contacting, and Michael Eisner’s company is interested in investing in the project. The paradigm of entertainment is being torn down and built up by the talent rather than being dictated to them.

These kinds of success stories by the underdog brighten my day. It is indeed a brand new world. Focus on being great and creating your life, and the money will follow.