RebeccaCusey.com

1) Firefly, Arrested Development, and now Pushing Daisies. You came into my life, made me love you, and went away. I died a little each time one of you left. But my life is richer having known you.  I'll never forget you, canceled TV shows that were way better than anything else on TV but that only me and two of my friends actually watched.

2) No County for Old Men. The Dark Knight. Two movies that examined the very nature of evil and our role in fighting it. Profound to the core. Hold the torch, people, hold the torch.

3) Hot showers. Seriously. King Louis the XIV didn't know luxury so grand as hot water that gushes out the wall. Nor Solomon, Queen Elizabeth, or apparently Amy Winehouse. Add a loofah and you're barely this side of paradise.

4) Steak Supreme Gorditas from Taco Bell. I just don't know how to quit them.

5) WalMart. I know, I know. It's not popular to like WalMart because of their "predatory business practices" and their "kneecapping small stores", but where else can you get your eyes examined, enjoy a McFlurry, buy a two liter soda for 79 cents, and catch up with your kid's teacher's husband, all in one visit?

6) Wine. Nuff said.

7) The drive between, of all things, my house and my in-law's house. It goes up along the California coast above LA, where you look out over the ocean and see the surfers bobbing in the swells. Gazing further out, the sun breaks through the clouds to create mystic patches on the water's surface. North of Santa Barbara, which as far as I can tell is a town made entirely of bougainvillea and sunshine, the road cuts inland a little bit. It leads through golden baked valleys of grass, dotted with oak trees and vineyards. Spectacular.

8) My children and husband, and not just because I'm obligated to be thankful for them. They make it easy. And make me laugh every day. And not always at them. Sometimes with them.

9) The Four Seasons Hotel, which is so laughably ostentatious that I'm shocked they even let me walk through the door. But they do because, against all norms of the universe, I actually work there for press events. And it's very, very nice. It's fun to pretend to be a princess for an afternoon. Even more fun when I'm carrying a bag I bought at WalMart for $4.79.

10) My dear friends in DC who I miss very much. My family in CA who I am glad to see more. And new friends in LA who are too much fun. I've been so blessed.

What are you grateful for?

Posted by RebeccaQZ at 06:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

How many of you remember King Miraz's coat in the movie Prince Caspian? Yeah, I didn't either. But let me tell you, it rocks. It's all hand-dyed velvet with hand-embossing, capped with special trim. I got to see it, and talk to the costume director of Prince Caspian about her work, during an event highlighting the release of the Prince Caspian DVD December 2.

Costume designer Isis Messenden traveled all over the world to find the right fabrics and trims to create the human costumes in the Narnian world. She rummaged through fabric stores in Madrid, poked through stands in Italy, and rifled through shops in London. She bought bolts of velvet, rolls of trim, baskets of buttons. While in Spain, she visited El Greco paintings and used their colors as inspiration for her color palette for the Telemarine people. She traveled to the island of Sardinia to gather ideas for their style.

First of all, I want her job. Or maybe just tag along while she does hers.

Mussenden's vision formed everything from the leather armor of the soldiers to the Narnian dresses Lucy and Susan wear. I got to touch those dresses and they were beautiful, silk with hand embroidery, lovely to look at and soft to the touch.

The layers of the artistry of the endeavor was amazing to me. Building on El Greco, finding the very best materials, hand embossing patterns onto the fabric. All to add richness to a film, but not to be noticed in itself.

Prince Caspian, with its $200 million price tag, is perceived by some as a box office failure, in part because the costs cut into the profits. Mussenden estimated her budget at $4 million. All that artistry costs money.

Yet there's something to be said for beauty and excellence. The next time you watch the DVD, stop to notice Miraz's coat. What do you think? Was it worth it? 

Posted by RebeccaQZ at 10:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I lived in Southeast Washington DC for ten years. You don't live very long in Southeast without having your eyes opened to racial issues. My children were often the only white faces in their classes. Our metro stop was one past the stop where all the other white people got off. We weren't on some mission or anything. It was just the way things were. I gained some African-American friends that I cherish, and met some African-Americans who I could tell would never be my friend.

The memory of my friends and neighbors moved me last night when Barack Obama won the presidency. I thought of my neighbor, a man in his eighties. A man who fought for his country in in WWII, but was only allowed to serve the land he loves in a segregated unit. He moved his family into a nice home, but only when the law changed to allow "colored" folk in the neighborhood. He and his wife lived there over fifty years, raised four children who went to college, presided over grandchildren who have mostly earned advanced degrees. They are a kind, warm, and hospitable couple and I think have made their corner of the world a better place. I was consistently shocked by how little bitterness they exhibited and how warmly they welcomed our family.

I thought of my kids' preschool teacher, a better woman than perhaps I will ever be. She gives of herself tirelessly. She cares for our children, for her extended family's children, and then goes home to care for her demanding and sickly elderly father. All on a preschool teacher's salary. There are children who escaped the violence and crime of the street because she stepped into their lives.

I don't know if it affected this woman, but her generation in the DC metropolitan area suffered when schools shut down rather than desegregate. Let me say that again. The school system shut down, for two years, rather than desegregate. White children went to private school. Black children, well.... This happened about the same time as my parents were graduating high school. If my father had been denied the chance to graduate and the opportunities that entailed, I'd surely know about it and be angry about it.

And I think of the other parents in my children's' classes. Parents who perhaps did not complete their own education, but who work so hard to ensure their children's' success. I knew one mother who took two buses every morning to get her daughter to school, with a toddler in tow. And then did it all again in the afternoon. I would get crabby if the air conditioning in my car acted up.

When African-American citizens on TV last night kept saying "I didn't think it would happen in my generation," I misted up. Every time. I doubt my neighbor, growing up under Jim Crow, thought he'd live to see a black president. I doubt my kids' teacher, watching her generation be denied a future, thought it would happen in her lifetime. And I doubt my fellow parent, struggling to provide a better life for her child, thought so either.

I don't have to agree with Obama's policies to recognize that this is a beautiful thing. It makes me proud.

There is a song they used to sing at my children's' school. I would stand somewhat uncomfortable and sing along. The emotion of it always got to me. It's often called the Black National Anthem and I offer it here in tribute to all my fellow citizens who thought they would not see an African-American president in their lifetime.

Watch it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElgJfAoVm8I

Lift every voice and sing
Till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us,
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun
Let us march on till victory is won.

Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears have been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
Till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who has by Thy might
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, Our God, where we met Thee;
Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand.
True to our GOD,
True to our native land

James Weldon Johnson June 17, 1871 - June 26, 1938

Posted by RebeccaQZ at 08:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

We watched TNT's new drama Leverage last night. It premieres Dec 7. And I liked it. It had a fun jewel theft caper feel to it, which makes sense because it's about a team of high-target thieves. The characters were a little flat, but they'll perhaps round them out as the show goes along. More to come as the date draws nearer.

Posted by RebeccaQZ at 08:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)