 Red Room Writer Profile
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Jean Schiffman's Blog
July 29, 2009
- OK, here's my publishing screw-up story. At the last minute I decided I hated my introduction. So I talked to my editor (at Heinemann), rewrote it, sent it in, made sure she got it... And when the book was published, it was published with my original introduction! I'm still at a loss as to how that could have happened. Nor do I know how I could prevent something like that from happening again.
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April 7, 2009
- I found myself in the midst of a butterfly migration the other day--more like moths, actually. They were all heading north, loose clouds and clouds of them. I got in my car and started driving south--and I was driving directly into their path, for blocks and blocks. . . . Have you ever been to a butterfly conservancy? You must go. The butterflies will stand perfectly still on your head. There are ...
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January 25, 2009
- So far, I know of four people who've walked out within the first 10 to 45 minutes of Slumdog Millionaire. So, just like I wondered how I'd have handled things if I'd been the passenger seated next to the emergency exit on that now-famous flight (note to self: never sit next to emergency exit), I wondered if I'd want to walk out, too. How inured to screen violence am I, anyway?Apparently very. I ...
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January 12, 2009
- The vet says my new cat has to go on a diet! It seems darling Ziggy has gotten obese. How can this be? I've had cats all my life and they've always been self-regulating--downright finicky, in fact. Safeway brand? Thanks but no thanks. Fancy Feast? Maybe tomorrow. I've even had a finicky dog--top of the line only products for him, if you please. The problem is, I seem to be overidentifying with ...
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January 5, 2009
- The good news: I saw four deer and a rainbow the other day. Bad news: Gophers tearing up my backyard (did I say backyard? I meant the weed-ridden vacant lot behind my house that I've totally given up on.). Also raccoons likely to enter my house at any moment through the basement cat door, walk upstairs, sniff around the cat's dish, wash their little paws in the cat's water bowl, splashing water ...
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November 7, 2008
- Are all we writers and artists absolutely thrilled with the results of the presidential election, or what? And how prescient was it of Berkeley Repertory Theatre to open its beautiful production of August Wilson's Joe Turner's Come and Gone, directed by Delroy Lindo, on the day after? The magic of live theatre is that audiences can feel a visceral connection to the live performers on stage, and I ...
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October 31, 2008
- Lately I've been noticing that the actors, direction, and production values in plays and movies are so often far superior to the material. For example, Changeling: exquisite attention to period detail on the part of director Clint Eastwood; terrific sense of rhythm and build; finely calibrated performances by Angelina Jolie as a distraught mother, brilliant stage actor Jason Butler Harner as a ...
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September 24, 2008
- When I stayed for the Q &A with Humboldt County filmmakers Darren Grodsky and Danny Jacobs after a recent screening, I liked them so much--they were so smart and funny--that I was wishing I'd liked the film more. But Humboldt County is disappointingly predictable: Uptight Los Angeles med student ends up sleeping with gorgeous, free-spirited girl who whisks him off to her home, in the remote ...
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September 23, 2008
- It's hard to know what British filmmaker Mike Leigh had in mind with his latest, Happy-Go-Lucky. I saw it a week ago and I still haven't made up my mind whether I liked it or not. The central character, Poppy, is a preternaturally perky, thirtysomething kindergarten teacher in London. As played with ingratiating charm (which nonetheless wears thin after awhile) by Sally Hawkins, Poppy is utterly ...
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September 9, 2008
- The reviews have been divided, but especially for theatre folks, Hamlet 2 is gut-bustingly funny. To see Steve Coogan, so earnest and straight-faced, awkwardly roller skating his way through his falling-apart life as a high school drama teacher--well, I was hysterical. Lots of the yuks in this film come from physical comedy, and I'm not a particular fan of slapstick, but Coogan makes it work by ...
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September 2, 2008
- Why do older male stage actors (older = say, over 50) persist in playing their age-appropriate roles as though their characters were downright decrepit? They hobble, purse up their lips in funny ways, squinch their eyes and peer near-sightedly, act all stiff, talk all quavery-like, bend over like the Hunchback of Notre Dame-use any number of cliché physical and vocal effects--when all they have ...
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September 1, 2008
- If you're willing to burrow into the mind of a middle-aged, homely, neurotically introspective, commitment-phobic sexaholic college professor who falls in love with a beautiful Latina student 30 years his junior (and I am, totally, if that professor is played by Ben Kingsley), then check out Elegy. Kingsley is so good in this role, so rich with inner life and a sort of lugubrious charm, that I ...
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August 24, 2008
- Maxine Hong Kingston’s 2003 book The Fifth Book of Peace is full of wondrous things—a partial re-creation of the book she famously lost, in its entirety, in the Oakland hills fire of 1991; her experiences of the devastating fire itself, in which she lost everything; and more. Here’s just one little passing thing in the book that I especially liked: Two of the characters decide to name ...
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August 19, 2008
- Tell No One is a nail-bitingly suspenseful mystery with an absolutely unnerving chase scene (on foot). It's a French film, very gratifying for francophiles like moi. (It's interesting to note that lately the French film industry seems to be evolving out of the sexy romance genre and into the suspense genre--or at least those are the movies they're shipping out to us Americans). Other positives: ...
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August 18, 2008
- 1. Yesterday, when no one was watching, Mom ate part of a letter my sister wrote to her. Alzheimer’s is sad—but also funny. So: ha ha. Mom was cranky and had hollowed-out eyes—she hadn’t slept at all the previous night. She asked me for a drink and when I brought her a glass of juice, she lay in bed and opened her mouth wide, like a little bird in a nest. 2. # of times Dad called me ...
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