Hey, People!
How’s it going? I’m doing okay. Busy as fuck.
Tonight in Chicago, I'll be at two screenings of ‘Sword of Trust’ at the Music Box theater, doing a Q&A with Joe Swanberg after the movie.
This Friday, July 19th, the movie opens at the Nuart theater in Los Angeles, Opera Plaza Cinemas in San Francisco, Shattuck Cinemas in Berkeley, E Street Cinema in Washington DC, TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto, Kendall Square Cinema in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville, New York.
Go to SwordofTrust.com for details and theaters.
I’m sitting at LaGuardia airport right now. I feel like I haven’t been here in years. I think I have. A couple of times. When I was a kid I remember flying into LaGuardia all the time when I visited my grandparents in New Jersey. I remember my Grandpa Jack picking us up and driving us across Manhattan to Jersey. It felt like a long drive. It was. I always remember the massive graveyard you drive past. Same with JFK. They’re like a reminder. Have a good trip! You’re going to die at some point. Welcome back and, oh yeah, you’re going to end up here at the end of the trip of your life.
They seem to be completely rebuilding LaGuardia. Another monument of my early life erased by architects and progress.
It’s been a whirlwind here in NYC. Lynn Shelton and I did 6 screenings and Q&A sessions for the movie. We did a bunch of radio and print interviews as well. The movie is getting great reviews pretty much across the board. It’s kind of surprising. I didn’t even think she would be able to pull a movie together out of what we shot in two weeks a year or so ago in Birmingham, AL. She’s an editing wizard. You just don’t know what going to happen with small budget indie films. It seems to be striking a chord with people. It’s really connecting with audiences and getting deep laughs. I know what they sound like. I’m a professional.
I went to the Whitney Biennial and put some new art in my head.
I had dinner with my friend Sam Lipsyte and his wife.
We hung out with Ira Glass who moderated two of the Q&A sessions and had a passionate discussion about personal things. Yes, Ira can do that.
I met Ben Sinclair who was also a moderator as was Josh Radnor and Brendan McDonald.
Tom Scharpling did one too. Me, Lynn, Tom and the mighty Patrick Stickles went to a diner so I could eat rice pudding afterward. Party.
Lynn’s friend Heidi Schreck is doing a show on Broadway called ‘What the Constitution Means to Me.’ She’s been pestering me to see it for a while and I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I mean, that title, right? I finally relented and we saw it. I’m an idiot. I’m an idiot for not going to see it sooner and I’m an idiot for really not knowing much about the constitution and what it really means. I know what it means and I have a general sense of why it’s important but maybe I’m not so clear on how it all effects our daily lives and the future of freedom, especially for women. Heid frames the show around personal experience as a teenage debater and she moves through the historic injustices perpetrated on women by interpreted constitutional permissiveness and what needs to change. It’s a moving, educational, personal show beautifully balanced by some real funny moments. Everyone should see it. Seriously.
My dad and his wife and my aunt came in to see the movie and we all went to Russ and Daughters Café for some deep Jew food. Smoked fish and pickled tomatoes. Bialys and Bagels. Rye bread. Chopped liver. An unspoken historical struggle of the Jewish people is how to get the smell of raw onion off your hands. It was great seeing my family.
Today on the show I talk to Sean Lennon about his music, his mother, his father, his brother, the world and loss. On Thursday I talk to director Alex Ross Perry about his movies and movies in general and tea. Great talks.
Enjoy!
Boomer lives!
Love,
Maron