The year is ending...  
a rough one, but beautiful.  
E tu?  
Come è stato l'anno?

Thanksgiving day was fun this year. Spent part of it with my pal from Cleveland, artist Jane Cantillon, and the once-transgressive performance artist Johanna Went. We volunteered at the event Gary Taglyan and Mitch O’Farrell (our Hollywood city councilmember) sponsored at the Taglyan complex in Hollywood (read about it here) with meals for 500 people. Jane (and her two helpers) organized crafts for nearly 100 kids, and what better way to spend this holiday than helping kids make things with paint and glitter? A sweet Thanksgiving, with so much to be grateful for. Then, a delicious dinner with my Trini family. Pure bliss.

Hayley as Gillie dark.

Gillie light.

My man Illya Kuryakin (David McCallum).

bella Pina

Anyone see This is 40? I've seen it three times now. Watch it whenever I need to really laugh at a great comedy, and Leslie Mann is the funniest woman on the planet. Great soundtrack too.  Graham Parker! Now that's what I call a fine plot point. 

Pina Bausch said, 
"Dance, dance, otherwise we are lost."
I plan to dance, and laugh a LOT in 2015.

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I miss snow. I’m listening to Kate Bush’s 50 Words for Snow. And to her Sensual World. Babooshka!  Some Kate for you...  and a great Fiona Apple track from the soundtrack for This is 40. 

And, it’s GOOD movie season! Birdman. Bravo Michael Keaton! Fan-f-ing-tastic. So layered and resonant, such great performances all around. Can’t wait to see A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night. The Theory of Everything.  Imitation Game… spies! I created and cracked codes too when I was 10-ish, in my Illya Kuryakin phase. Loved the invisible ink (lemon juice, remember?). 

Lorrie Moore and Alice Munro both have new story collections out! Finally started The Goldfinch. What sentences. Yikes. And Hilton Als' White Girls awaits. I get to these books so late in the game because I never have leisure time, but am committed to start taking nice big swathes of it. I have the need to feed.

Ciao to DiRobertis, my favorite Italian pasticceria and cafe in the East Village. Yet another closing of the type of beloved spots that made New York City great.  If you're in the East Village, please go there, have a macchiato and a cannoli, and say a fond goodbye for me.

I'll see you in 2015. 

On the Radio Ragazza page, check out my revealing interview with Lydia Lunch, up close and personal. She talks about New York in the ‘olden’ days, about sexuality, her own personal demons and how she exorcises them in her art. A true iconoclast. Please be aware that this particular interview is XXX RATED! Definitely not appropriate for children!!!

And speaking of the need to feed, it's the name of my pal's cook book out on Rizzoli. Damn straight she can cook! A great Xmas present for your favorite gourmands. I promise you, her vegetarian chocolate mousse is molto divino! 

Investigate: The Need to Feed by Lydia Lunch. 

Lydia last year in the NYT