How We Read

An excerpt from an email I wrote to a friend about my reading habits, and partially a review of Fight Club:

I started reading Fight Club. It reminded me of a conversation we used to have frequently—when can you let something go? I'm about a third into it, maybe a bit more, but not quite half. And I am just not into it. I'm not excited at the prospect of reading it. I do not care what the outcome of any of the characters are and I don't care for the style. I should apologize if you love this book. I know a lot of people do. The person who loaned it to me did so under the guise that it was his favorite book and was responsible for him being literate or something. But I'm not into it and it's a chore to read and often while reading it I think of the other things I could be doing that I would enjoy more—napping on the train, napping on the couch, napping at my desk. And of course it doesn't take me long to think there might be something wrong with me if I'm so incredibly bored by this book that a whole bunch of people love and that was revered enough to be made into a movie that a lot of people also love. I'm bored by a fight club. Am I dead inside? Isn't that actually the theme of the book? Shouldn't it speak to me more? Am I more dead inside than the guy who started a fight club to try to feel something? DOWNWARD SPIRAL!

If I recall, you were usually on the side of sticking with it. It was some sort of blend of tenacity, hope, and giving the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it would pull through in the end. I was wondering if this was right and if so if you've ever reconsidered? I lean towards giving up because there's so much more out there. At the same time, giving up makes me feel like a quitter. But if carrying this book around with me for months and reading like 2 pages at a time and in turn denying myself the joy of books I do enjoy is what tenacity looks like, then call me quitter!!

I Am Not A Stupid Woman Webseries

My webseries is done! Check it out here. Turn on "couch mode" and watch the whole thing!

I Am Not A Stupid Woman Vimeo Album

Or if you were caught up, here's the most recent ep:

I Am Not A Stupid Woman Episode 6: Experiment Lazy Susan from Nancy Melchert on Vimeo.

Bed Forget It Goodbye

This is the video I directed for Brooklyn-based punk band Forget It. Goodbye.



Enjoy.

"I Am Not A Stupid Woman" Episode 3 -- The Perfect Taco

I Am Not A Stupid Woman Episode 3 The Perfect Taco from Nancy Melchert on Vimeo.

Check out the third episode of "I Am Not A Stupid Woman."

Forget It. Goodbye. The Band.

The Passage of Time is Hard to Deal With

     It's been almost 4 months! What? I don't even understand what I was doing for almost 4 months. Cool stuff, I'm sure. Stuff that was so cool I didn't think the internet could handle it.
     Truth is, it's the same as it ever was. Well, it's the same and it's always changing and it's the same because it's always changing and there's that parable / adage about never stepping in the same river twice. I've been busy and happy and lazy and sad and all of the emotions people have. But I was scrolling through Oliver and I thought "man, 2011 was a busy year." 2011 was the year with over 200 posts. I posted almost every day. In fact, I remember making a point of it. I would pick a topic every day and I would write something about it--a movie I just saw, a book I read, a guy on the subway, or a word Mary said. I used anything for inspiration and I spun a tale. How fun. And for a brief moment I was nostalgic for it. There are some gems in there. I re-laughed-out-loud at some of them. And I started feeling guilty for not keeping up with it.
     Of course, things were different then. I was in a different city with a different job and a different every thing. It's so easy to come back to this and say "oh, I loved this. I'm going to commit to it again." But let's be honest with ourselves--we're not recommitting to anything. Commitment is tough.
     So I'm not going to lie to you or to myself and say I'm going to start making an effort to write more in Oliver. I'm not. I might wander over sometimes, but I'm not making an effort. I have other new things to put effort into without bringing the past into it.
     Also, the title of this post is a throw back to my admittance that I have real cognitive difficulty with understanding what present moment we're in. If I see an advertisement for an event that takes place in September I have to really hunker down and think about what month it is now and if September is in the future or in the past. It sounds like I'm a moron, but actually, I really super advanced. It's because I'm a time traveler.

Dividing My Attention

     It's possible to love two things, right? It has to be, because I'm doing my darnedest to make this work. I rededicate myself to work and comedy every day. And it occurred to me recently that I'm actually pretty damn lucky. There are way worse problems than having too many things to care about in your life.
     In an amazing and weird way, work and comedy are connected. In an ideal, perfect, dream world, comedy would be my work and they would be connected because they would literally be the same thing. That hasn't happened yet. And it may not and I have to be ok with that. I'm going to keep trying though. In the meantime, I have these two amazing things I enjoy and am passionate about and that's effing lucky.
    I was talking about invocation with a teammate of mine the other day. If you don't know, invocation is an opening for a Harold used to generate ideas for the scenes that will follow. I love doing an invocation. Sometimes, doing the invocation is the most fun bit of it for me. I separate myself and watch the team doing it from the outside and am in awe of how in 3 minutes we went from "flower" to "I Am the Cure for Childhood Cancer." (That's funny in context, really.) We got there as a team because we all worked together and built on one another's ideas and didn't deny or judge anything. And then when we look back at how we got there, we see the thread; we can find our roots from "childhood cancer cure" to "flowers." And we do all of this in about 45-seconds. It's amazing. I love it.
    I'm also reading "Onward" by Howard Schultz. He's an inspiring person; he must be, really, to get to where he is today. He talks a lot about connecting to our roots at the same time as looking forward. "Onward" talks about the struggles Starbucks went through in 2007 and the subsequent economic downturn. He didn't use the same words, but so much of what he described reminded me of an invocation. He had a vision to move the company forward while maintaining the thread that led him back to his roots.
     During the Harold, we rarely go back to just the suggestion. This isn't a hard and fast rule; we do do it. But in general, we build on all of those other things we created in 3 minutes. We don't just live in the past (the past here is 3 minutes ago at the initial suggestion), we move forward. We build using a few guiding principles  we've been taught in our improv courses. And that's what Howard Schultz was doing too. He didn't want to live in the past. He wanted to stay connected to the past (Pike Place Market and the whole lot) while building something using a few guiding principles that he put forth as a Mission Statement.
     Nurture the Human Spirit. The common thread through Starbucks' mission and through performing improv is that it nurtures the human spirit. It happens one cup and one game move at a time.