Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 312

This little light: On fathers, sons and that little lamp in the Pixar logo

A still from "Luxo Jr." (Credit: Pixar)

Sometimes when I think about money, and not having enough of it, I daydream what it would be like to win the lottery. Then I snap out of it, because as a white, upper-middle-class able-bodied English-speaking male American citizen born in San Francisco in the late 20th century, I already won the lottery. And I should appreciate my good fortune.

There was a rule in my house that tennis balls were fair game as long as the tube had been opened. I loved the surely toxic smell of new tennis balls  that would rush out with the phwoosh of the tube’s pressure release, but my dad would invent games for us kids with the old ones , like “Step-ball.” How high could you throw the ball up the staircase and still catch it clean when it came back down? I got very good at not fumbling the ball . I was the shortstop on every Little League team I played for, and he was my coach for most of them.

When I was about a year old or so, my father took me into his office for the day. My father was a computer scientist, and he worked for a weird little startup that didn’t make any money. I remember going in there as a kid and thinking the people dressed strange.

At some point during that day, my dad played with me with a tennis ball. John Lasseter, an artist who worked with him, watched us, and suddenly the short film he had been trying to figure out was right in front of him. Using my actions, proportions and personality as a model for his main character, Lasseter created the short film “Luxo Jr.”

The name may not mean anything to you, and you may have never seen the short film,  but you’d probably recognize the title character. He’s a little lamp with a short body and a big head.

The startup that my dad worked at was Pixar. John Lasseter went on to direct many of Pixar’s greatest hits: “Toy Story,” “A Bug’s Life,” “Cars.” And today, before every Pixar movie, that little lamp hops out, jumps onto the “I” in “PIXAR,” squashes it, and looks out to the audience.

In a way, that little lamp is me.

But let’s go back to the short film my little lamp debuted in. It was late 1985. Pixar (then a part of Lucasfilm) was bleeding money, and would continue to do so for years. Steve Jobs bought the company in 1986 for $10 million, and would sink many more millions into Pixar before one movie  —  “Toy Story”  —  brought sustained profitability to the company.

For many years, Pixar was a hardware company. They made some of the finest computers for the purposes of digital imaging. But in the mid-‘80s, that meant they were selling those computers mainly to hospitals and government entities. The potential of computer graphics wasn’t well understood. Before Pixar, my father spent one election night debuting his digital paint software on national TV by turning states red or blue as the votes were confirmed. That sure as hell caught on.

But despite Pixar being a hardware/software company, they felt it was important to produce short films ,  if only to demonstrate the capabilities of their machines. So for the Siggraph Conference in 1986, a major gathering for the major nerds of major computer graphics, Pixar debuted “Luxo Jr.”

“Luxo Jr.” is a beautiful short. In the film, a large lamp watches a smaller child lamp play with a toy ball. They pass the ball back and forth, the larger lamp encouraging the smaller lamp as he figures out the physics of the new toy. Eventually, the little lamp, emboldened by the larger lamp, hops atop the ball, only to open a hole and flatten it.

The larger lamp shakes his head : C’est la vie. The smaller lamp hops off screen, dejected.

But in a third act twist, the little lamp pushes a beach ball back across the screen, and with an enthusiastic leap right in front of that big lamp, chases after his new toy. The older lamp shakes his head in bemusement, as if to say, “oh, kids.”

The premiere was a giant success. The Siggraph audience applauded throughout the entire reel, enough so that the light jazz piano score was completely drowned out.

Lasseter tells a story about how after the premiere of the short, he was approached by Jim Blinn, a computer science expert with NASA, who would go on to win a MacArthur Fellowship, or “Genius Grant.” Lasseter was nervous  —  he was not a programmer.  He didn’t think he’d have the technical answers to Blinn’s questions.

Blinn asked him if the larger lamp was a mother or a father.

As Lasseter tells it, this was a pivotal moment for the development of computer-generated movies. Up until that point, computer-generated movies were largely experimental tests of the equipment  —  “light passing through a prism” and the like. But a computer genius asking about the family relationship that exists between two lamps? That’s the moment when computers became a tool to serve a story instead of a technical novelty. Pixar would soon mostly ditch the hardware and software to focus on the development of feature films. “Luxo Jr.” was nominated for an Academy Award. And Lasseter gave Blinn the answer: father.

But I have one more answer for Jim Blinn. “Luxo Jr.” is, to me, a home movie. It’s me and my dad. Encouraging, comforting, energetic and kind, that big lamp, Luxo Sr., is as much my father as I am Luxo Jr. Every time I see my little lamp logo hop out in front of a Pixar movie, it’s not me I think about  —  it’s my dad. How he spent an afternoon hitting ground balls to me the day before my first Little League practice, and how proud I was when the other coach on my team said, “Well, I think we found our shortstop.” I must have been 7 years old, and I still remember that moment with such clarity. I can still feel the hard fabric on the bag of baseballs, the position of the sun in the sky.

When I look at the father and son lamp playing with a ball, it’s impossible for me not to feel like I won the lottery. My father’s greatest gift to me was enabling me to be myself , and I’m reminded of it by a little hopping lamp in front of every Pixar film.

Don’t worry, my dad isn’t dead. I realize I’m setting you up for that  —  building him up only to drop you off an emotional cliff. Dad still works at Pixar, and even if it’s no longer a weird startup that makes no money, the people still dress super strange.

* * *

I recently became a father.

Just seconds before my wife gave birth  —  up until then a normal delivery, the culmination of a normal, healthy pregnancy — about 15 doctors and nurses flooded into our hospital room as an alarm blared. My memory is spotty here  —  my brain has blocked a lot of it out  —  but I remember the OB/GYN thrusting our son onto my wife’s chest and thinking, “Huh, I didn’t think babies looked like that.” He looked gray. Floppy. Dead.

And before I could even move, a specialist pulled him off my wife  —  his umbilical cord must have been cut at some point, but I have no idea when  —  and someone called out, “No breath. No pulse.”

A white-haired man with a lanyard around his neck pushed his thumbs deep into my son’s chest cavity over and over and over again. He’d lift up my son’s arm, let it fall back to the table, and it would just slap the table, limp. Another specialist put a bag-valve mask over my son’s face, pumping air into his lungs.

My wife was screaming at the OB at this point, wanting information, salvation, but the OB was watching the resuscitation as closely as possible, and nobody — no nurse, no doctor — was responding to my wife.

It’s tough for me to say this, and I think this is where a lot of the sadness comes in, but there was a point there where I had this distinct thought: “I can’t control what’s going on with the baby. But if he dies, which seems like it’s going to happen, I can’t let this destroy my marriage.” I took my wife’s hand and we stared at each other, hoping for the best, and realizing that “the best” might include our son’s death.

The injected him with drugs — epinephrine, I’d later learn — and continued CPR. A nurse called out, “One minute, no breath. Two minutes, no breath.” An intubation tube threaded deep into my son’s tiny throat.

TV and movies make it seem like these situations are chaotic and noisy, but the truth is it’s quiet. So quiet that you think to yourself about how very quiet it is. The only thing piercing the stale air was the upbeat music blasting out of our laptop speakers. I think we were playing HAIM. I remember thinking that I should turn it off, but that would have required walking away from my wife.

In just a few moments, you have a lot of time to worry.

You think to yourself — not vocalizing anything, for fear of distracting the man compressing your son’s chest — how long can a human go without oxygen? How long before brain damage? How long before death? You have a clock ticking in your head. Some rogue synapse fires a thought: Didn’t the Kennedy daughter have something like this? You shove it away and hope for something to change.

I often think about winning the lottery, but there’s no greater lottery win in my life  —  no more dire dice roll  —  than the one that ended with my son coughing after two and a half minutes of resuscitation. It may have been longer; I don’t know. But he coughed. They ripped the intubation tube out and he cried. His skin started to pink up; they placed him in a rolling bassinet and raced him to the NICU. I hadn’t even touched him.

I woke up at 2 a.m. that night shaking. I couldn’t stop for 45 minutes. I didn’t want to wake my traumatized wife and I didn’t want to leave the room for fear that she would wake up, not see me, and worry there had been some emergency in the NICU she had missed. They warned us that babies who go through that difficult of an event sometimes forget to breathe. Tests were being run, trying to ascertain just what had happened and what might happen as a result.

My father is a great father, a man universally respected. He’s brilliant, but humble. You could know him your whole life and never know he won three Academy Awards for his breakthroughs in computer graphics. He was my first coach in every sport, my editor on my college application essays, the first call when I exceeded my goal SAT score.

He was also on the first flight to Los Angeles the next morning, arriving at the hospital in time for breakfast.

I always idolized my father, and still do. And I couldn’t escape the feeling, in those early days of my baby’s life, that I had already failed to live up to his example. I hadn’t protected my son.

* * *

They’re not exactly sure why my son needed to be resuscitated after delivery, but some combination of his umbilical cord being wrapped tightly around his neck, his size, and his twisted position in the birth canal caused him to get stuck. It’s extremely rare for a full-term baby to need the level of resuscitation our son needed. Statistics are tough to come by (and I’m not a medical researcher), but babies needing this level of resuscitation happen in less than .05 percent of births. But of those who do, approximately 30 percent will die or face disabilities due to oxygen deprivation.

Thankfully, after a little more than two days in the NICU, our son was discharged. He had passed all of his tests. The head of the NICU and our obstetrician agreed that, though the delivery was rough (“He just ran 10 marathons”), he wouldn’t face any long-term consequences from it. He’d be fine.

Two big lotteries in my life ,  and I’d won both.

As we walked out of the NICU, once it became clear my son would be OK, I saw the white-haired specialist who gave CPR to our son. He was typing on a computer. I saw the mousepad. It’s such a nothing detail, and so coincidental, but it was a “Toy Story” mousepad. I pointed it out to my dad, and I can’t tell you why, but just seeing that mousepad with my father there, my son’s heart monitor beeping strongly in the background, made me feel good.

My son is 10 months old now. Not quite as old as Luxo Jr., but as he approaches my age at that pivotal moment, I’ve been comparing myself to him more and more. He’s big  —  long, heavy and with a head circumference that’s never been lower than the 98th percentile of babies his age. His favorite thing to do is jump. Whether he’s in his jumper or I’m holding him, he has such power and force to his squats that it’s easy for me to imagine him squashing a toy ball or a capital “I” on a movie screen. He has my eyes, my smile, my love. And as he becomes my Luxo Jr., I find myself identifying more and more with Luxo Sr. The film becomes less about me as a baby, and more about me as a father.

I’m trying to be a good father. I want to be a good father. I am a good father.

I just hope I can live up to my dad.

To save her daughter, this mom became a medical marijuana pioneer

(Credit: Narratively/Lianne Milton)

It happened for the first time just 35 days after Margarete de Santos Brito brought her daughter Sofia home from the hospital. Laid on the sofa in their home in Rio de Janeiro, Sofia’s little arms rose up to shoulder height and tremored, flicking between strange angles.

The next two and a half years were punctuated by innumerable doctors’ appointments, hospital visits and tests before Sofia was finally diagnosed. Her epileptic fits turned out to be a symptom of an incurable genetic disorder called CDKL5. Only one other case had ever been diagnosed in Brazil. Over the years, Brito tried every medicine that doctors prescribed for Sofia. But the myriad of anti-convulsive medications had mixed success in reducing the severity and frequency of epileptic fits. Many weren’t particularly effective at all, and came with distressing side effects like partial loss of sight. 

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Late one night, her husband Marcos woke her up. On a Facebook group of parents across the world with CDKL5 children, one mother in the U.S. described giving her daughter cannabis-based medicines to mitigate the epileptic fits. “He came to bed after me, super excited, and woke me up — ‘Guete, do you know what I’ve just seen?’” Brito chuckles. “I was half-asleep, and I said O.K., let’s talk about it tomorrow.” 

First thing the next morning, Brito contacted the parents in the group that her husband had told her about. They were using cannabidiol, which had shown promising results in reducing CDKL5 seizures. Under Brazil’s rigorous anti-drug laws, importing cannabidiol would be no different than  importing any other form of cannabis. Brito knew that if her package was intercepted, although it was only a small amount, she could be arrested for international drug trafficking and put in jail for up to 15 years. 

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Within a few hours of speaking to the CDKL5 parents in the U.S., Brito decided to try it anyway. Ten days later, the extract arrived in a small jar through the mail. “It was a really hard, black paste; it looked like mechanical grease and had a really strong smell of marijuana.” 

Following instructions from a YouTube video, Brito scooped out a tiny ball of the paste, the same size as a grain of rice, and dissolved it in a spoonful of cooking oil over a gentle flame before putting it in Sofia’s mouth. “It was as if I was an alchemist or something,” she says. “It was a really crazy experience for me, I can’t even explain it.” 

Brito and her husband gave Sofia the medication three times a day for a month. There were some improvements, but it was a prohibitively expensive solution and the effects were nothing remarkable. But their efforts were enough to convince other parents in her social networks, at first skeptical, to try it. 

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Katiele Fischer, whose daughter Anny is Brazil’s other CDKL5 case, began giving her daughter the extract. Three months later, Anny showed such an improvement that Brito decided to try again using an artisanal oil produced in Brazil. It wasn’t cheap, but this time Sofia’s seizures were drastically reduced. 

* * *

Alittle over two years later, Brito took on Brazil’s tangled legal system to become the first person in the country’s history with permission to grow cannabis for medicinal purposes. It was cheaper, she argued, than importing medicines for her daughter, who has a rare genetic disorder. In October 2016, Brito entered Rio’s civil court with her friend and lawyer Emilio Figueiredo to try to get formal permission to grow marijuana at home. A practicing lawyer herself, she felt certain that she knew exactly what she had to do. 

She brought a syringe of imported medicinal cannabis oil with her, and a photo of her homegrown foliage on her phone. In a dark room stacked floor to ceiling with books and case papers, they sat across the table from a slightly stunned judge as Brito explained exactly why she was growing an illegal substance in her house. 

The pair were informed that they needed to take their case to the criminal court. Others might have been intimidated by this order, but Brito’s 12-year career had left her well acquainted with Brazil’s byzantine bureaucracy. On October 16, she sat in the waiting room in another courtroom in downtown Rio, a stack of carefully prepared documents at her side amid disgruntled neighbors settling noise complaints. When her turn came, she presented the case herself to a different judge and a small audience. Sympathetically, the judge simply told Brito that there was no need for a formal decision on her case. 

But Brito wasn’t about to accept being told to remain in a grey area. “I knew that we needed this decision, as a political act to share, to say, ‘look, it’s allowed.’ The judges were all in favor, everyone saying the same thing — that if it was their daughter, they would do the same thing.” Brito persuaded the judge that she needed the decision: what if someone reported her to the police and her daughter’s medicine was confiscated? She received the formal legal decision granting her permission the very next day. 

Today, Brito is still one of just three Brazilians with the right to grow medicinal cannabis at home — but she wants to see this change, and fast. Other Brazilians, mostly parents of children with degenerative diseases, are forced to seek out expensive medical marijuana in clandestine fashion, risking punitive jail sentences if they are caught.  

* * *

Angela Silva is one such mother. Her daughter Janaína, who is now 28 years old, showed no signs of any condition until she was a little over two years old. Today Janaína’s condition remains a nameless mystery, but manifests as severe epileptic convulsions combined with elements of autism. She can understand what’s going on, but struggles to express herself. Her growth and development has been stunted; she looks far younger than her 28 years. 

Silva and her husband tried every solution suggested by the legions of doctors they visited, many of which did little to improve Janaína’s health. One year ago, Silva’s family finally found they were no longer able to afford the multitude of constantly changing prescriptions. Janaína’s state only deteriorated after she was internalized in a hospital for several months last year, a court mandate designed to release Silva from the round-the-clock job of caring for her. Silva now takes care of Janaína at home once again. As always, her day begins with a bump and a wail. 

“Good morning! Did you fall again?” Silva asks, in measured, sing-song tones. Janaína is lying on the floor, curled on top of her blanket. Green-purple splotches form a continual cluster from her ankles to her hips, a result of her many falls. On good days, Silva and Janaína sing together. On bad days, Janaína beats her head against the wall until she draws blood, reducing Silva to tears. But today, Silva notices something. Beaming, she asks, “Did you take off your pants all by yourself?” 

Silva has been giving Janaína cannabidiol, a purified cannabis extract in oil form, since October of last year. Before, she says, Janaína could never have managed to undress herself. Since using cannabidiol, Janaína has regained enough motor control to fill a water bottle and fix the lid in place herself — something which was unthinkable a year ago. 

“My daughter was on her way out. She didn’t walk anymore, didn’t speak, didn’t smile,” Silva says, frowning. “I started giving her cannabidiol myself, breaking all the doctors’ rules. If it wasn’t for cannabidiol, my daughter wouldn’t be here today.” 

Silva was ambivalent about the idea of cannabis oil at first, and her husband was entirely opposed to trying it. Cultural associations between marijuana, trafficking and criminal drug gangs still hold strong in Brazil. The illegal drug trade is the main contributor to urban violence in Brazil’s biggest cities like Rio de Janeiro, where Silva and her family live. As a result, 58 percent of Brazilians still believe that marijuana should not be legalized in any form. But as medication after medication failed to bring about any change, Silva and her husband decided to try cannabidiol. 

“I was very prejudiced,” Silva says curtly. “Janaína taught me not to be anymore. It’s prejudice that stops legalization.” 

Brito, Silva and parents like them aren’t just struggling with cultural stigma. Brazil’s National Health Surveillance Agency, ANVISA, authorized the first cannabidiol imports in late 2014. While this set sufficient legal precedent for ANVISA to authorize similar applications, no laws have been changed or introduced. Instead, ANVISA doles out legal permission on a case-by-case basis, giving 2,053 such permissions since 2014. 

Silva is one of many who’s asked for permission to import cannabis extract. She’s still waiting for it. Meanwhile Brazilian-made oils are also expensive, and producing cannabidiol for distribution purposes within Brazil itself, whether for commercial or non-profit ends, remains a legally grey area. 

* * *

Brito spends her days arranging activities with Support for Patients and Research for Medicinal Marijuana (APEPI), the NGO she founded in 2013, which supports parents like Silva. Although CDKL5 is incredibly rare, a whole host of other conditions — some genetic, some not, but all inexplicable for doctors – benefit from medical marijuana. She sees her position as special, able to fight for changes to medical marijuana laws that would help other Brazilians. As well as organizing events, talks and activities across Latin America, she is also constantly replying to messages in Facebook and WhatsApp groups founded for parents of children like Sofia.  

Bureaucratic hurdles don’t just get in the way for patients. Medical cannabis’s legal ambiguity is also stifling research on the topic, with only a handful of Brazilian universities obtaining the right to conduct studies using marijuana. Without a concrete scientific basis, as well as cultural biases and legal uncertainty, doctors in Brazil are unlikely to prescribe medical marijuana regardless of the patient’s condition. As well as serving as a point of support and information for parents throughout Brazil, APEPI plays a crucial role in pushing for advances in legalization and research permissions. 

“I was always a very political person, in the sense of mobilization,” says Brito, the corners of her mouth poking briefly skywards. Although APEPI had succeeded to an extent with importation, Brito realized that it was only a solution for the financial elite. The medicine itself was costly, at around $149 for 1500mg in late 2014. But with the addition of Brazil’s notoriously high import costs, even fewer families could afford it as a solution. APEPI had fought for the government to cover the import costs, and won. But even then the medicine ended up stuck with authorities, because the government didn’t have the money. 

“We started to notice in 2014 and 2015 that the question of legalization for importation wasn’t so much the problem. The problem was that no one could pay,” says Brito. “We started to see that the question of importation was no longer a fight that made sense.” 

By early 2016, Brito and other mothers in her social networks had been using Brazilian-made extracts for a while. Brito had been shown how to grow cannabis by another group she knew that grew for recreational purposes. A new idea began brewing in Brito’s head: that she could grow, produce and distribute it herself to her networks, for almost no cost. 

* * *

Because of Brito’s personal efforts, two more families have been given permission to grow at home since November 2016. Thanks to APEPI’s pressure, ANVISA is trying to implement new laws allowing people to grow their own medical marijuana at home before the end of 2017. 

Brito, as always, is looking ahead: she wants ANVISA to provide licenses for collective growers. Very few mothers have the time or the means to grow and produce the oil themselves. She is only able to do so, she says, because she has help from a domestic employee and her mother-in-law. Meanwhile, she thinks it’s important that as many people as possible are growing medical marijuana at home, regardless of whether they have permission. The number of people telling her that they would do the same thing in her situation makes her certain that no one would be arrested. 

Recent changes to other Latin American laws add to Brito’s certainty about medical marijuana’s fate in Brazil. Businesses in Colombia found a legal loophole in 2015 that allowed commercial sales of medical marijuana. A similar, mother-led movement pushed Peru’s government to propose medical legalization in February this year, while Argentina and Chile legalized medical marijuana in March 2017 and May 2017, respectively. Most recently, in July, Uruguay introduced widespread legalization of marijuana for personal and recreational uses, allowing citizens to purchase at pharmacies without need for a prescription. Brito, it seems, is part of a continent-wide movement. 

Her fighting spirit is clearly infectious, rubbing off on those in her Brazilian networks. On the terrace of Silva’s house, the blistering midday heat reveals a small change. Perched unobtrusively in a corner, a first, hopeful sprig glistens bright green in the sunlight, its tiny ten centimeters swaying in the breeze.

Fake news is nothing new: This photo hoax went viral a century ago

Cottingley Fairies Photo (Credit: Wikimedia)

Fake news is big news right now. According to certain people, you can’t believe anything you read in the newspapers. However, this certainly isn’t the first time in history the media has been accused of sharing a story that may (or may not) be true.

Take, for example, the extraordinary story of the Cottingley Fairies, which hit the headlines of British newspapers a century ago. “Real fairies photographed,” claimed the reports, and who could doubt it when there was actual photographic evidence. The camera doesn’t lie, right? Or at least it didn’t in the early 1900s when photography was still relatively new. So if the camera doesn’t lie, the images of the little girls with the fairies had to be true. Didn’t it?

Not necessarily.

In the latter years of the First World War, two young cousins, Frances Griffiths and Elsie Wright, from a quiet Yorkshire village of Cottingley in England, told their parents they had taken photographs of real fairies at the stream at the bottom of the garden where they played. In truth, these “fairies” were illustrations drawn by the eldest cousin, Elsie, and stuck into the ground with hatpins to give the illusion that the fairies were “alive.” Nine-year-old Frances had been repeatedly scolded by her mother for falling into the stream. The claim that she was playing with fairies was an attempt to get her out of trouble. However, what started as a practical joke between cousins, quickly escalated into a national and international sensation that would last a lifetime, and still fascinates us one hundred years after the first “fairy” photographs were taken.

The photographs — only ever intended to be shown to the girls’ parents — soon came to the attention of novelist and occultist Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Conan Doyle was a leading figure in the Theosophical Society in London. He called on experts to examine the photographs, who declared them to be entirely authentic (much to the girls’ astonishment). In November 1921, when Conan Doyle’s Strand magazine article — featuring Frances and Elsie’s photographs — hit newsstands, the story of the “Cottingley Fairies” grew wings, and soon the girls, and their remarkable photographs, were known around the world. Some always suspected the girls of fakery, but nobody could quite work out how they had done it, and the vast majority believed the fairies to be real. This real life fairy tale endured for decades until a confession finally came in the 1980s.

Growing up in Yorkshire in the 1970s and 1980s, I was aware of the photographs of the famous “Yorkshire fairies,” and as an adult I’ve often wondered how a nation could have been so easily swayed by images, which now look so clearly faked. Perhaps one of the most compelling reasons for the fake fairies being so readily accepted is the fact that the images came to light during a time of great national turmoil, shortly after the end of WWI. At a time when so many had lost so much, it isn’t that hard to understand why something as wonderful as fairies would enchant the public and provide something uplifting for people to cling to after the devastation of war. Many people at the time also found something quite magical and mystical about the process of capturing an image on film. Perhaps it was harder to accept that cameras could lie than it was to accept that fairies were real.

However, unlike the “fake news” claims of today, there was no malice at all in Frances and Elsie’s photographs. There was no intent to trick a nation, or the world. This was simply a joke between family members that got out of hand. No wonder the girls didn’t confess for over 60 years. How could they, when so many kept reasserting that the images were genuine? What a responsibility it would be to shatter all those hopes and admit the photographs were fake. And yet, not all the photographs were.

The fifth photograph is still a source of much speculation. To her dying day, Frances claimed that this photograph wasn’t staged like the others, and that it really did show actual fairies. Frances maintained that she often saw real fairies as a young girl in Cottingley, and throughout the rest of her life. Family members still hope the fifth photograph will be examined with modern technology to settle the matter once and for all. Perhaps there is an element of truth to every bit of “fake” news. Sometimes we have to look a little closer, look behind the picture, to discover the real story.

Not all news stories can be believed, but perhaps the real magic of this particular piece of fake news is in the power of wonder and imagination. Without intending to be anything other than a prank to get a young girl out of trouble with her mother, the Cottingley Fairy photographs became a symbol of hope to so many, and although we know how that particular story ends, there is still an inherent fascination with fairies within many of us. As I suggest in my novel “The Cottingley Secret,” the possibility and childlike hope that fairies might be real is perhaps more important than discovering the truth.

In such politically troubled times as those we are living through now, many of us are turning away from reality and seeking escape in fiction and art. When the world is so full of bad and “fake” news, it is little wonder that we seek out things that offer something far gentler, and more magical. To quote a newspaper report from 1920 when the Cottingley Fairy photographs first became public: “The soul of the fairy is its evanescence. Its charm is the eternal doubt, rose-tinted with the shadow of hope. But the thrill is all in ourselves.”

Niecy Nash dishes her advice for young actors and all dreamers with wild ambitions

“To be fabulous and on television” was an ambition Niecy Nash discovered early and by all accounts succeeded in immensely, she said recently on “Salon Talks” with Salon’s Alli Joseph.

Nash’s on-screen roles have been expansive, and she now stars in TNT’s drama series “Claws,” which will return for season 2 in 2018. But the journey to stardom wasn’t a seamless one, as Nash navigated her Hollywood dreams with three kids by her side.

Nash appeared on “Salon Talks” and spoke about her vigorous work ethic over the years, as well as gave advice for up and coming actors. Here are some highlights from the conversation.

On her words to live by:

The three words that I’ve lived by in my career are ‘no matter what'; those are the words, because there’s always going to be an obstacle. There’s always going to be a challenge. I’ve had to go to casting directors’ offices with three babies in tow, because they call you for a callback, but the kids already got out of school. That’s the no-matter-what of it.k.

On advice to upcoming actors:

Aside from the no-matter-what of it all, the one thing that I think that I’d say is that you have to know the difference between a hobby and the call on your life, because those are two totally different things and you will approach it in a different way.

‘Yeah, I think being an actor would be kind of cool,’ is very different from ‘I know that this is part of my destiny,’ which means that I have to be in a prepared place, which means I have to study my craft, which means I have to be vigilant about how I go about bringing this thing to fruition. It’s a different way you move in it. Know what it is first, and then, once you know which side of the lane you’re on, you’ll better know how to navigate the space.

Also too, don’t be selfish. If you find out about a casting, or you find out about an audition, share that information with other people who you know are out there trying to do the same thing. Because I find, for me, the more I give in this business, the more I get. It comes back; there’s a reciprocity in it that just can’t be explained. It just is.

Watch the video above to hear Niecy Nash reveal the moment she knew she wanted to be an actor.

Making college matter

(AP Photo/Elise Amendola) (Credit: AP)

Over the next several weeks 18.4 million students will be headed to colleges and universities in the United States. They, their families and taxpayers are making a monumental investment in the futures of these students, believing, correctly, that an undergraduate education is foundational to success in a global and knowledge-based economy.

Many students arrive in college without a clear sense of purpose or direction. That is to be expected. A significant part of the undergraduate experience, after all, involves grappling with big questions about professional, personal and civic identity. Who am I? What do I want to do with my life? How can I contribute to my community and the world? The best students pursue these questions with vigor.

But many others come to college with too little appreciation for the vast opportunities before them, gloss over foundational curricular requirements as merely hurdles to be cleared, show far too little drive in developing a plan to make the most of their educations and focus too heavily on the party scene.

Analyzing data from a study of more than two dozen institutions, sociologists Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa conclude that many students “enter college with attitudes, norms, values, and behaviors that are often at odds with academic commitment.” And many universities reinforce these beliefs by building lavish amenities and marketing themselves as something akin to a resort with a curriculum.

An undergraduate education is simply too precious an opportunity to squander or to approach halfheartedly. And while college should ultimately prepare graduates to make a living, it can be — it must be — far more than that.

The good news is that there are simple yet powerful things students can do to ensure that they have a transformative undergraduate experience, no matter where they go to college.

In our book “The Undergraduate Experience,” drawing on decades of work and scholarship in higher education and also interviews with leaders and students from many institutions, we identified what matters most for students.

Two factors are most important.

Take responsibility for learning

Too often students (and others) think learning is a simple process of taking knowledge from the professor during class and then returning it, unharmed, on the test.

When sociologist Mary Grigsby interviewed scores of undergraduates at a large midwestern university, many students echoed the words of one who told her:

“I hate classes with a lot of reading that is tested on. Any class where a teacher is just gonna give us notes and a worksheet or something like that is better. Something that I can study and just learn from in five [minutes] I’ll usually do pretty good in.”

Real learning — that is, learning that makes a significant and lasting change in what a person knows or can do — emerges from what the student, not the professor, does. Of course, professors are critical actors in the process, but students are the ones doing the learning.

To take responsibility for their own learning, students need to move past what psychologist David Perkins has called possessive and performative understandings of knowledge, where learning is about acquiring new facts or demonstrating expertise in classroom settings.

Instead, meaningful learning emerges from a proactive conception of knowledge, where the student’s goal is to experiment with new and unexpected ways of using what he or she is learning in different settings. This requires students to see themselves as the central actors in the drama of learning.

Whether students choose to take the stage or sit in the balcony matters immensely.

When students jump into learning, challenging themselves to stretch and grow, college is most powerful.

Reflections from an Ohio University engineering student show what this looks like:

“[My goal for my senior] year was to try to do things that maybe I’m not good at already so that I can learn to do these things. I will have to do this once I have a job so avoiding projects that are uncomfortable for me now won’t help me NOT avoid them when I’m a part of the work force.”

Develop meaningful relationships

The relationships students form in college also have a profound influence on their experiences, shaping not only who they spend time with but how they will spend their time.

When scholars asked graduates at Hamilton College to think back on their undergraduate years, these alumni pointed to specific individuals (often professors, coaches or classmates) who shaped their paths.

Students typically think first about relationships with peers. These are essential, of course. Finding friends and cohort groups can be reassuring, but scholars have found that students who interact frequently with peers who are different in significant ways (racially, ethnically, religiously, socioeconomically and so on) show more intellectual and social growth in college than those who don’t.

Again, as with learning, students need to move beyond the familiar to find meaning.

And peer relationships are not only about fun. Decades of research have demonstrated that students who study together learn more and more deeply. As the mathematician Uri Treisman reported in a classic study of undergraduate calculus courses that has been replicated in other disciplines, students from many different backgrounds are more academically successful when they

“work with their peers to create for themselves a community based on shared intellectual interests and common professional aims.”

Relationships with faculty also are highly significant.

A large 2014 survey by Gallup and Purdue University revealed that college graduates who believed they had a professor who (1) cared about them as individuals, (2) made them excited about learning and (3) encouraged them to pursue their dreams reported being far happier and more successful than their peers years after graduation.

A recent graduate of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte’s Levine Scholars Program, a prestigious scholarship for academically talented students interested in civic engagement, told us how the mentoring of sociologist Diane Zablotsky transformed her view of herself:

“I arrived at UNC-C shy and uncertain. But Dr. Zablotsky taught me how to go and get what I wanted. She made me do all the work, but coached along the way and helped me develop great confidence in myself.”

What matters for all students

Critically, what we’re describing here doesn’t apply only to privileged, 18-22-year-olds at elite institutions.

In fact, Ashley Finley and Tia Brown McNair, scholars at the Association of American Colleges and Universities, have shown that high-impact educational experiences like internships, undergraduate research, capstone courses and study abroad have particularly positive outcomes for students who traditionally have been underserved in American higher education.

A study at the University of California, Davis reinforces this finding by demonstrating that engaging in mentored undergraduate research beyond the typical requirements for biology courses is particularly significant in preparing African-American undergraduates to successfully pursue graduate study and careers in the sciences.

Results from the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) also show that institutional prestige and financial resources do not determine the quality of student opportunities:

“Institutions with lower selectivity profiles can and often do offer experiences with faculty that are at least comparable to those at more selective institutions.”

As the NSSE director notes: “Doing those things may not cost any more than not doing them.”

Powerful education, in other words, is available to all students at all institutions, if they intentionally choose experiences that are challenging and relationship-rich.

Acting on what matters most

Douglas Spencer, a 2016 Elon University graduate and now young alumnus trustee, captured what’s at stake in recent remarks to fellow students.

Doug described coming to campus without a strong sense of who he was as a black man or of what he might do with his life. Then, challenged by friends and professors to think more deeply about his own identity, “I unlocked some sort of hidden energy I did not know I possessed.” He began to read not just for class, but (even more) in his free time. Inspired by this reading and his other studies, and echoing W.E.B. Du Bois,

“It became clear to me that the only way I would find real success was if I learned to thrive in times of uncertainty.”

Colleges and universities play an outsized role in shaping the lives of individual students like Doug.

Indeed, we, as educators, cannot recall a time when it mattered more for higher education to cultivate students capable of acting entrepreneurially, ethically, cooperatively and creatively to address complex problems in local, national and global contexts.

That starts with students beginning the academic year ready to act on what matters most for their own learning.

Leo M. Lambert, President, Elon University and Peter Felten, Assistant Provost for Teaching and Learning and Executive Director, Center for Engaged Learning, Elon University

6 research-backed sites and apps that can boost your kid’s report card

(Credit: iStockphoto/RonTech2000)

For many parents and kids grading season isn’t the slam-dunk, high-five, fist-bumping celebration you were hoping for. But you don’t need to hire an expensive tutor or run off to the after-school learning center when straight As prove elusive. Plenty of free and low-cost tools can help give your kid high-quality practice in the foundational reading and math skills that are key to students’ overall performance. And research proves it. The recommendations below are either aligned with current research about learning or have been the focus of independent research that demonstrates their effectiveness. And that’s cause for celebration!

Bedtime Math, Grades K-3, Free

Practicing something every day is the way to make progress, but not all digital practice is created equally. This website offers math problems in the form of a story, usually based on a situation or fact from the real world. Each problem is available at three skill levels. The idea is that families can use the site or app together to build math into each day. Check out the study that demonstrates its effectiveness.

Learn With Homer, Grades K-2, Free with in-app purchases

Created with best practices and reading research in mind, this app can get kids pumped about reading with skill-building exercises and supportive materials. Unlike many other reading apps, Learn With Homer not only includes phonics, but it also provides stories, songs, creative play, and a safe social element called “Pigeon Post.” Though its intent is very serious, it’s kid-friendly, accessible, and fun.

Starfall.com, Grades K-2, Free with fee-based additional content

This site is a great starting place when kids are gearing up to read. It introduces the basics by teaching letter recognition, skill repetition, and beginner-level ebooks. Based on research and with proven efficacy, it also has some math activities and expanded options via membership.

IXL, Grades K-12, Free to try; membership-based

IXL offers a wide area of practice material, and there’s an app for when you’re on the go. Researchshows that IXL can improve performance and even kids’ attitude about math. Two things that set it apart are its distraction-free interface and step-by-step explanations for incorrect answers.

Wuzzit Trouble, Grades 2-8, $1.99

Disguised as a fun math game with cute creatures, this app has some research backing, too. Going beyond simple addition and subtraction, it requires kids to use problem-solving skills to get the maximum points available. The gears mechanism to help free the Wuzzits feels fresh, which is great for kids who might be wary of yet another math drill game.

Get the Math, Grades 7-10, Free

Remember going to school and wondering whether you’d ever use algebra in the real world? This site aims to prove that algebraic thinking pays off in real-world tasks. And it, too, was the subject of a study that showed its value. With a combination of videos and real-life problems, Get the Math helps kids practice mathematical concepts while solving real-life problems.

The most targeted ways to help support Hurricane Harvey victims — and more key activism events this week

Rescue boats fill a flooded street as flood victims are evacuated. (Credit: AP/David J. Phillip)

The nation watched in horror as, for the second time, torrential rains drowned an American city. Since our president could do little more than marvel at the power of Hurricane Harvey from Camp David, and wish Texans a dismissive, “Good luck,” it’s up to everyday Americans to pick up the slack. Read on for how you can help hurricane victims, protect DACA recipients and march against white supremacy.

Protect DACA (Again)

Donald Trump has wavered on whether to abolish the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, almost since he announced his candidacy. While blunt about his disdain for immigrants in general, and Mexican immigrants in particular, he was less consistent regarding children born in America to undocumented parents. In April he told the Associated Press that DACA recipients should “rest easy,” and that he is “not after the Dreamers [recipients of DACA],” but “after the criminals.”

Then, 10 attorneys general, led by Ken Paxton of Texas, wrote to Attorney General Jeff Sessions demanding that the Trump administration dismantle DACA by September 5, or they’ll sue. Jeff Sessions is no fan of the program, and with the deadline looming, many advocates are afraid Trump will abandon his “rest easy” rhetoric, and eliminate the program in order to score points with his base.

This means a renewed push to call your senators and ask them to co-sponsor the bipartisan Durbin-Graham DREAM Act (S. 1615). You should also call your House reps and ask them to co-sponsor Rep. Luis Gutierrez’s American Hope Act (H.R. 3591), which would also provide a path to citizenship.

Hurricane Harvey help

Texas governor Greg Abbott called Hurricane Harvey “one of the largest disasters America has ever faced.” It’s already left the Houston area deluged with 40 inches of rain, and forecasters are predicting at least 10 more inches of rain by week’s end. At least 10 people are dead, with many more missing, and thousands displaced from their homes.

As the hurricane continues to batter Texas, organizations on the ground are focusing on basic needs and immediate recovery. Unless you have a boat and can get to people in need of rescue, the best action you can take is donating cash to organizations, especially local organizations, engaged in the rescue and recovery efforts.

New Yorker writer Jia Tolentino, a Houston native, has compiled a guide to local organizations on her Twitter feed. So has Texas Monthly, NPR and the New York Times (which also includes advice on how to avoid scams). The Red Cross may have the easiest and most recognizable text-to-donate system, but we’d recommend you read ProPublica’s series on how the Red Cross mismanaged its donations following Hurricane Katrina, the 2010 earthquake in Haiti and Hurricane Sandy, before making a donation.

The recovery effort, Gov. Abbott admitted, will be a long one. Compounding the problem is the Trump administration’s rollback of the 2015 executive order establishing federal flood regulations. That order established a federal flood risk management standard, which developers seeking federal funds for their construction projects were required to meet. Repealing the order was an opportunity to do what Trump loves best: eliminate regulations for big businesses and undo President Obama’s legacy. Then there’s the National Flood Insurance Program, which with 5 million policyholders and $24.6 billion in debt, is set to expire September 30. Several proposals from both sides of the aisle were floated around the Senate Banking Committee, but as Paul McCleod and Zahra Hirji report in Buzzfeed, “dealing with the fallout from Harvey is pushing back those discussions.” It’s “been put on the backburner,” a Senate staffer told them.

Even without a clear bill to push, you can still call your reps and demand that they send aid to Texas, and that some of that funding goes toward preventing future disasters. You can also support organizations dedicated to disaster prevention and rebuilding, like BakerRipley.

Charlottesville to Washington, D.C., March Against White Supremacy

The Women’s March organizers, along with Color of Change, Indivisible, Repairers of the Breach and the Movement for Black Lives, Working Families Party, and others, kicked off a 10-day March against White Supremacy on Monday, August 28.

They’re doing so to protest Donald Trump’s weak response to Charlottesville, and a rise in hate crimes and emboldened white supremacists. Marchers will cover anywhere from 3 to 18 miles a day, stopping at Confederate monuments and picking up new marchers along the way. If you want to participate, but your legs and lungs aren’t up to it, you can choose the section that works best for you. The website has all of the logistical details.

The march ends in Washington, D.C., with a series of actions on September 6. Organizers are keeping the specifics of that action underwraps as of this writing, but those interested should keep an eye on the website.

This “cool black girl” is gone

(Credit: Getty/Salon)

“I have a tattoo of a Confederate flag,” my date tells me. I look up from my coffee in disbelief.

In his defense, he says it sheepishly, like he’s confessing something he knows he should be ashamed of.

In my defense, he says it at all like he’s asking for an absolution I should never grant.

I stutter, and he rushes on, assuring me he was from Texas and got it out of Texan pride, not any other association. I don’t ask why he didn’t just get a Texas flag tattoo.

He promises me that he has only used the “n-word” once in his life, when he was young, and his mother slapped him so hard he never used it again. I don’t ask if the fear of being slapped is still the only reason he doesn’t use it.

He prefers dating black women; he says this like it’s a compliment. I don’t ask if they prefer dating him, or if when they see his tattoo under his shirt they recoil.

He looks at me and levies the accusation that I fear most in moments like this: “I feel like you’re treating me like I’m racist.”

A few years ago, Gillian Flynn popularized the concept of the “cool girl” in her novel “Gone Girl,” where she explained the unrealistic social expectations that women were supposed to fit into in order to be desirable to men — one that required they embrace sports, unhealthy food and casual sex, abhor commitment and above all else conform to conventional standards of beauty.

Black girls have our own version of the cool girl. The cool black girl is urban but not hood. She’s down enough to use slang her white friends will want to poach, but won’t embarrass them by sounding too black. She’s willing to date white men, but is unbothered when they don’t want to date her. She’s unflinchingly patient and endlessly supportive of the white women around her. And above all else, she never — ever — makes a white person feel uncomfortable about race.

I used to be the coolest black girl.

Accusing someone of racism — particularly when that person is saying things that make them sound racist — is the cardinal sin for a cool black girl. So I dig deep into my cool black bag of tricks and bond with him over an obscure TV show. We laugh. It’s no longer awkward, at least not for him. It had already become incurably awkward for me, but that’s OK. Cool black girls are, after all, still black girls, which means we’re stronger than everyone else. We can take it.

He texts me after that date, and maybe it’s the expectation in that text that we would hang out again or the three texts that followed the first, showing he didn’t even suspect maybe I was ignoring him. As though there were no reason that I may reject him. Maybe it was just me.

I lose my cool.

“I don’t think I was clear enough — the tattoo for me was a dealbreaker. I take you at your word that the flag doesn’t mean anything racist to you. But that’s all it means to me,” I text back.

He is offended and shoots back that he can’t “believe [he] is being judged for something he did 20 years ago.”

“Well, then I’m sure it’s my loss,” I respond. I’m not sure he gets that I’m being sarcastic, and that makes me laugh.

It’s freeing to commit a cardinal sin and realize the punishment feels better than years of virtue ever had. For being the cool black girl, I had been rewarded with the Sisyphean task of making insecure white people feel better about race and the hollow satisfaction of investing in the comfort of people who clearly weren’t invested in my own. The penalty for failing to be the cool black girl was not having to be one.

It gets easier after that. I stop trying so hard to avoid offending people with suggestions they have offended me. I stop using racial self-deprecation to indulge “ironic” senses of humor. I stop laughing when it’s not funny or nodding when it doesn’t make sense. I stop playing the defendant when they want to play the devil’s advocate — allowing them to intellectually experiment on me with their worst arguments, leaving themselves unscathed and richer for the exercise and me, diminished. I stop making them feel better for making me feel worse.

I don’t become unrecognizable. I continue to forgive good faith missteps and let intentions count for a lot, even when they’re accompanied by inelegant wording. But the cool black girl is gone. She doesn’t leave all of a sudden, in a fit of rage. I don’t cut her out of pictures. We outgrow each other, and we both know it, too. It’s a conscious uncoupling. She takes the toaster, and I wish her well. She calls sometimes, but I don’t answer. I don’t miss her.

After Charlottesville, a friend asks if I believe everyone who marched to protect Confederate statues is racist. I think of my date and his tattoo and his indignation and my coffee. Had he been racist? Do I care?

My friend wonders if maybe it’s possible to bring some of those people to our side if they don’t feel so attacked.

I tell him I can’t bring myself to care about their feelings, and he is surprised by my reaction. He’s an old friend. I used to be cooler when he knew me well.

I believe in grace for people who are imperfect allies and generosity for those interested in learning but haven’t yet. But I no longer believe the comfort of white men is more precious than my own. They brought weapons. They clearly don’t mind if we feel attacked.

It’s not that I think allegiance to a Confederate flag or monument automatically makes someone racist. It’s that I don’t care whether they are or not. It’s a dealbreaker for me. Maybe that makes me cavalier — or cool. Maybe my friend is right, and some of them could be brought to our side if people like me invested energy in making them feel less judged and more welcome. But since I don’t, they stay on their side.

I’m sure it’s my loss.

Trump hides behind the storm

People evacuate a neighborhood inundated by floodwaters from Tropical Storm Harvey on Monday, Aug. 28, 2017, in Houston, Texas (Credit: AP/Charlie Riedel)

On 9/11, as the World Trade Center collapsed and the Pentagon was in flames, Jo Moore, an adviser to one of British prime minister Tony Blair’s Cabinet members, sent a short email to her boss’ press office: “It is now a very good day to get out anything we want to bury. Councillors expenses?”

This stunningly crass and cynical move — she was suggesting the use of a global tragedy to divert media attention from a minor story about pensions for local officials — ultimately forced Moore’s resignation.

But it comes from a long tradition of politicians and public officials trying to hide news behind other events or releasing it at inconvenient times when you hope few people will notice.

(In the days before he became president, John F. Kennedy, aware that many would object to the naming of his brother as attorney general, joked, “I think I’ll open the door of the Georgetown house some morning about 2 a.m., look up and down the street, and if there’s no one there, I’ll whisper, ‘It’s Bobby.’”)

Friday nights at the start of the weekend have become Washington’s golden hour for dumping bad news. Donald Trump’s White House already was using this timeless trick barely days after the Bible on which he was sworn in had a chance to cool off.

You’ll recall that he tried to rush his immigration ban executive order over the goal line on Friday, Jan. 27, hoping the crowd and the refs would have their collective backs turned away from the line of scrimmage. No such luck — on Saturday night, angry demonstrators thronged the airports and a federal judge quickly blocked Trump’s decree.

Even though the constant bombardment of the 24/7 news cycle may have diminished its effectiveness, the ploy has been hauled out several times since, including the Friday night they released the financial disclosure forms of some 180 presidential staffers, which revealed that in combination they were worth billions. So much for The People’s President.

But the latest news dump was the most brazen, a triple whammy, for not only did it fall on a Friday night, it happened in the face of a Category 4 hurricane that was just about to hit the Texas coast with a still-to-be-determined, massive loss of property and life. And we got not just one but two stories released as the storm’s destruction loomed — the signing of a ban on the transgendered serving in the military and the pardon of former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the scourge of Arizona law enforcement.

(There also was the resignation of failed Bond-villain-wannabe Sebastian Gorka, but he released the news, not the president. Then the White House said he was fired. Hilarity ensued.)

In any case, full points for callous opportunism, Mr. Trump.

Arpaio, whose conviction for contempt of court is the least of his multitude of sins (which include racial profiling, prisoner abuse, bogus prosecutions, failure to investigate sex crimes, misuse of funds, promoting “birtherism” and believe it or not, a fake assassination plot), had not even been sentenced yet. But Trump loves his buddy “Sheriff Joe” and will do anything, even trample the rule of law, to help a pal and slake the bloodthirst of the Trump base.

In the face of criticism, on Monday afternoon, at a White House press session with Finland’s President Sauli Niinistö, Trump once again pulled his patented, childlike “I meant to do that” routine and declared that he made the Arpaio pardon while the public was focused on Hurricane Harvey not to hide it but because, “Actually, in the middle of the hurricane, even though it was a Friday evening, I assumed the ratings would be far higher than they would be normally.”

Ratings? No matter what he says about why he did what he did, in the face of a major natural disaster and lost lives, it’s a statement of monumental, breathtaking insensitivity.

Trump then proceeded to rattle off from a prepared page a list of pardons made by Bill Clinton and Barack Obama that he deemed more reprehensible, justifying his own bad pardon by citing the arguably bad pardons of predecessors, and Democrats at that. Historian and former GOP presidential adviser Bruce Bartlett described it as “The Trump doctrine — if any other president has done something wrong, he is permitted to do it too.” Yet somehow Trump failed to mention the pardons granted by Republicans Reagan, Bushes 41 and 43 and, most notoriously, Gerald Ford’s pardon of Nixon.

What’s awful is that Trump actually may have pulled it off — this storm is so overwhelming and terrifying that it’s hard to think of anything else and maybe his moves against the transgendered and in support of Arpaio will fade into that brand-new Oval Office wallpaper.

The storm also may succeed in taking the bite out of other news Trump may not have been expecting — the latest developments around his suspicious relationship with Russia. The Washington Post, The New York Times and Bloomberg News all have just reported on aspects of a business negotiation that took place while Trump’s presidential campaign was in full swing — a proposed deal to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. (Keep in mind that Trump has often said that he has no holdings or interests in Russia — but apparently not for lack of trying.)

Emails show Felix Sater, Trump’s shady Russian-American business associate, boasting to Trump lawyer Michael Cohen about the Trump Tower plan: “Our boy can become president of the USA and we can engineer it. I will get all of Putin’s team to buy in on this, I will manage this process.”

As delusional as Sater sounds (among other things, he hoped to be named ambassador to the Bahamas), Trump signed a nonbinding letter of intent for the project and Cohen says he and Trump spoke about the deal on three occasions. Eventually it fell through. “Nevertheless,” The Post reports:

[T]he details of the deal, which have not previously been disclosed, provide evidence that Trump’s business was actively pursuing significant commercial interests in Russia at the same time he was campaigning to be president — and in a position to determine US-Russia relations.

The emails “also point to the likelihood of additional contacts between Russia-connected individuals and Trump associates during his presidential bid.”

Meanwhile, on Monday, more than a quarter of the members of the Department of Homeland Security’s National Infrastructure Advisory Council resigned, citing the president’s behavior around the fatal violence in Charlottesville and his withdrawal from the Paris climate accords, but also noting, “You have given insufficient attention to the growing threats to the cybersecurity of the critical systems upon which all Americans depend, including those impacting the systems supporting our democratic election process.”

The president’s attempts to obfuscate and to divert from the truth are why the Mueller and congressional probes of Trump and Russian interference with the 2016 election remain so important (and why an independent nonpartisan commission investigating Russia is still a good idea). Like the old Post Office motto, neither the hurricane’s winds nor rains will stay the investigators from their appointed rounds.

There’s no doubt that Trump is still scheming how he will stop them. The Arpaio pardon may foreshadow what he intends to do, providing get-out-of-jail-free cards to all involved.

I wonder: What unknown, upcoming news event will he try to hide behind to snuff out the work of his accusers?

“Room 104” is both incubator and stage for filmmakers you should know

Dendrie Taylor and Sarah Hay in "Room 104" (Credit: HBO/Jordin Althaus)

But for a few time-shifts, the Duplass brothers’ anthology series “Room 104” has one set. It is a bland — neither dingy nor ritzy — 400 sq. ft. motel room: Stock motel table. Two stock motel beds. A stock motel dresser with a stock motel television on top. A stock motel desk. A stock motel bathroom.

“When I first looked at it, my first thought was, ‘Wow, it’s really beige,’” said Megan Griffiths, who directed “The Missionaries” and “The Fight,” two episodes that have yet to air.  

The room’s ordinariness was intentional on the part of Mark and Jay Duplass. It could easily recede into the background, and it forced filmmakers to be inventive. Griffiths described having to “work a lot harder to keep your blocking interesting because your backgrounds are changing so minimally.”

Her first episode, “The Missionaries,” is about a night when two young missionaries’ doubts lead them to explore. Her other episode, “The Fight,” is about two female MMA fighters’ scheme to buck an unfair system. The two episodes manage to feel like entirely separate worlds — in one case, developing male minds; in the other, an octagon.

“I think Mark and [the cinematographer] Doug Emmett had conversations about specifically wanting every episode to bring out something different in the room and to make it feel like it has its own personality,” Griffiths said. “Somehow that room was this great blank canvas that I didn’t really expect it to be.”

This weekend’s episode, “The Voyeurs,” marks the midpoint of “Room 104”’s first season. And that aspect — the same blank canvas being reimagined in a fresh way each week — is a big part of what’s made the show consistently thrilling to behold. Each week showcases a different talented, often young, often not widely known, director.

The Duplass brothers approached the series with two rules for choosing directors: They would not direct any of the episodes, and at least half of the episodes would be directed by women. (Six of the nine episodes wound up being directed by women.) From there, the way Mark Duplass tells it, it was a bit like putting together a fantasy indie filmmaker team.

“There are all these directors that I’ve loved and have been fans of but who haven’t necessarily been right to direct some of our scripts because the scripts have been very much inside the Duplass lane,” he said, referring to a tone that mixes comedy and drama and features naturalistic interpersonal relationship dynamics. “But when I write an episode like ‘Ralphie’ and I really take off my skin, I can say, ‘I’m going to try something really creepy with horror. Let me go hire a director who does that really, really well who I haven’t had the previous chance to collaborate with.’”

For “Ralphie,” the series opener about a babysitting gig gone wrong, that director was Sarah Adina Smith. Smith, 34, was coming off “Buster’s Mal Heart,” a thriller starring Rami Malek — equal parts absurd and haunting — about Y2K, an event referred to as “The Inversion,” a character with psychological issues, murder and . . . well, it’s not really important. Suffice to say, there were parallels between Smith’s past work and the tone the Duplass brothers were after for “Ralphie.”

“Sarah has this wonderful, dreamy, surrealist quality to her writing. I was like, ‘Great. Let’s match her up with these weird episodes,’” Duplass said.

The other “weird” episode Smith wound up directing was “The Knockadoo.” It is about a predatory cult, and it features a lot of penises[1] and what Smith referred to as “brain rape.”

Smith’s work on “Room 104” was the first time she had directed something she hadn’t also written. (She also hadn’t worked in television before.) But because the material aligned with her sensibility and because of the directorial freedom she was given, viewers could come away from her two episodes with a strong taste for her work. “I tend to make psycho-spiritual films I guess,” Smith said. “But my sense of humor and my skew towards weird and unsettling and dark, I think all of that comes across in these two episodes.”

The same is true of other filmmakers in other episodes. “The Voyeurs” is a wordless, ethereal dance between a maid and a former occupant of Room 104. It was written and directed by the choreographer Dayna Hanson. She said of the episode: “It shows the fact that I think of dance on a really expanded scale. So a facial expression or a tiny gesture is dance in my book, as much as I’m going to play across the room.”

And though “The Fight” is an episode in which physical combat features prominently, it’s the two MMA fighters’ pathos that shines through. That is because, instead of opting for an action director, Duplass, remembering that real female MMA fighters who had never acted would be cast, instead hired “the most sensitive, performance-oriented director I could find [in] Megan Griffiths.”

In the episode, Griffiths takes the action past where the viewer is comfortable, without losing sight of why the characters are fighting against their own interests. “As a filmmaker, what I think I bring to the table more than anything is empathy for characters and a willingness to not judge them and to allow them to make their own mistakes and explorations,” Griffiths said.

These and other filmmakers’ skills and sensibilities shine for the attentive audience in a way that isn’t standard on television. But more importantly for the filmmakers, the work would be noticed by the industry. “It’s because I directed these two episodes of television that all of a sudden I have a career as a television director. It’s been life-changing in a way that I could never describe having come from indie films, where the business model is so messed up and where it’s incredibly hard to make a living,” Sarah Adina Smith said, as she drove to the set of “Legion.”

 

[1] An aside: According to Smith, her father saw the episode for the first time while channel surfing and caught it at the wrong time. “He was like, ‘It’s just penis, penis, penis, and then ‘Directed by Sarah Adina Smith.’ What is this? What is this? Are you directing porn now like you need money? What’s happening?”