Sprinkle of Ginger

A year in pictures

by Ella on February 3, 2010

Good gracious. I have been living in this mad place for an entire year. How did that happen?

In an attempt to come to terms with this swift passage of time, I am accounting for my whereabouts with a little pictorial recap. Here are some of the standout moments of the last 12 months.

Right before I left Sydney I had some Moo business cards printed up and delivered to my New York address. I remember looking at the template, fingers hovering over my keyboard, and having no idea how to label myself. “Producer” seemed too behind-the-scenesy. “Actor” seemed to promise something I wasn’t sure I could deliver. “Presenter” or “host” also felt a bit weird. I was okay with “Writer”, but it was a bit vague. In the end I went with “Writer, producer and host”. These days I would nix the Producer label, even though I produce some of my Rocketboom shoots. It’s been replaced with “actor”. Finally!

I heard recently that the things you enjoy doing when you are eight years old are the things you should be doing for the rest of your life. When I was that age I adored writing silly stories and staging impromptu plays and musicals for my family. Now that’s reflected on my business card. Awesome.

After spending a month or so sleeping on the floor of my mother’s studio apartment, I moved into a share house I found on Craigslist. It was located in Park Slope, a lovely but frequently mocked suburb of Brooklyn.

This was my bedroom. It measured about five feet by eight feet, and had two doors — in order to access the rest of the house I either had to walk through another girl’s bedroom or out into the hall and in through the front door of the apartment. I lived here for three months. My current bedroom is about three times bigger, and I don’t have to put shoes on or take keys with me when I go to the bathroom. Movin’ on up!

Though it was cramped and often smelled of stale cigarettes, the Park Slope apartment had a stellar redeeming feature: rooftop access. This was our view on a hot summer night. Gorgeous.

That’s Gillian Anderson behind me. In order to establish the significance of this moment, let me take you back to 1996. Two notable things happened to me that year: our family bought its first modem — 33.6kbps, baby — and I became obsessed with The X-Files. The first begat the second; stumbling around within the Netscape-encased pages of this new and disarming “internet”, I happened upon an email discussion list called “Smart Young X-Philes”, or SYX for short.

I don’t quite know why this list appealed to me so much — though I had watched The X-Files a few times, I was hardly a rabid devotee. But perhaps seeking a respite from the real world, riddled as it was with pubertal awkwardness, I signed up for SYX, and over the next few years developed a deep and abiding love for the show. I loved Scully in particular. She was all fire and moxie and smarts, and I wanted to be like her. I memorized her birthdate and middle name. Once, in 8th grade Design and Technology class, we had to make a sort of Chia Pet thing using dirt, seeds, a stocking and stick-on googly eyes. I named mine Eugene Victor Tooms, after the immortal, human-liver-eating mutant that was the subject of a season one episode. When we did Kris Kringle gift wish lists, I asked for an X-Files diary. I stole a gold cross necklace from my sister — Scully wore one constantly and it featured in several alien-conspiracy-related plot points — and wore it in my year 9 school photo. And then, when I was 16, I made an X-Files-influenced decision that has lingered to this day: I dyed my hair red.

As you can see, unsuspecting Ms. Anderson has played a significant role in my life. So when I had the chance to meet her at a film premiere in September, I kind of freaked out. Initially I was content to merely be in her presence, but a friend convinced me to go up to her and shake her hand. I had nothing to say and she must have thought I was a tool, but it was certainly a highlight. Here’s a vlog about the experience.

That’s Zeb and I waiting to go into the studio for a taping of The Colbert Report. I love Colbert. I dig it when he dances, his smile makes me feel tingly, and I die when he and Jon Stewart are busting out some schtick and they end up cracking each other up. So naturally, I pounced on tickets to see his show live. Twice, in the space of three months. The fact that I have published that last sentence may get me banned for life, as you are only allowed to attend once every six months. I am a bad person. But if loving Colbert is wrong, I don’t want to be right.

This time I asked him a question during his pre-show audience Q&A sesh. (It was a stupid question about Twitter — I just wanted an excuse to talk to him. He smiled and made fun of my accent and I pretty much died of glee.)

The trip to Sesame Street was, without doubt, my favourite day of the year. Whenever I watch the show now I always think of wandering through Hooper’s Store, sitting on the stoop and climbing into Oscar’s trash can to shoot the intro to our Rocketboom interview with Elmo.

Back in September I went to Chicago to interview 2,946 winter Olympic athletes for Rocketboom. (Okay, it was actually 11, but it was in the span of 24 hours!) An hour after landing in the city, I was crossing a main street with about twenty other people at a pedestrian crossing. A car slowly turned into the intersection, heading towards us. A man walking in front of me held up his hand to indicate that the driver should stop. The car sped up. The driver intentionally ran the man over and kept going. It was the most bizarre thing I have ever seen. Everyone was in shock.

The man was physically okay, as the car was travelling at a low speed, but the deliberateness of the driver is something that will stick with me for a long time. It was incredibly unnerving — as though everything I knew about humanity was suddenly rendered invalid.

So, yeah. That was my welcome to Chicago. After that I did my interviews, drank champagne with the US Olympic bobsled team and saw a hilarious improv show at Second City.

In December I launched The Elegant Guide. Putting the series online was scary — when you write by yourself, you never quite know if other people will find it funny. It’s a gamble. But if you try to play it too safe, you just end up with something that’s boring and cliche. I addressed this issue by writing scenes where I threaten a child with a hammer, whine drunkenly from the bottom of a stairwell and use a sexy voice to tell someone they have prostate cancer. To my great relief, my inbox hasn’t been deluged with missives telling me how much I suck.

Lesson: do what you want to do. Make the stuff you want to make. Some people will like it, some won’t. But you’ll feel mega accomplished and energised for another project. Then another. And then, the world!

My good friend Eric Brown of Kornhaber Brown called me up one day and asked if I had any ideas for a short film. He needed to shoot something for a Masters project, and it had to be done within the next week. I suggested a few vague concepts and images. We met up a few days later and threw a rough script together. He refined it, we shot it the next day, and three days after that, The Only Living Boy in New York appeared on YouTube. A short film written, shot and edited in under a week. Not too damn bad! Of course, the talent and easygoing nature of Bob Geile and Anthony Carboni was a significant factor. But it goes to show that you don’t have to slave over something for months. Just git ‘er done.

(That pic is a screengrab from the film, by the way. So credit Bob for the composition.)

————–

The last year has been amazing. Getting to know my family again after being apart for eight years; having the opportunity to meet amazing people in my correspondent job at Rocketboom; doing improv classes and acting classes and running around this mad city in the middle of the night…it’s been grander than I ever expected.

If you are contemplating something big and scary — a move across the world, say, or launching your own website or starting your own business — I think you should do it. Really. Don’t wait for anyone to grant you permission. Make the decision and don’t look back. Choose to be positive, surround yourself with creative, intelligent, encouraging people, and go for broke. There will be times when you wonder what you’ve gotten yourself into, but the satisfaction that comes with charting your own course makes it all worth it.

Finally, in the words of the delightful Conan O’Brien: “Please don’t be cynical. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.”

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Fans and followers: The internet and self-obsession

by Ella on January 24, 2010

LiveJournal-era camwhoring, circa 2002

The internet and I have a very complex relationship. Look, I adore the ol’ World Wide Web. It’s been a part of my life since I was 13, with innumerable positive effects. But at the same time, I resent it for the social and psychological shifts that it’s provoked, both in myself and in the other People Of Earth. Chiefly, I feel weird about the the fact that it’s turning us into such self-involved, attention-craving, minutiae-chronicling screen-slaves.

In the real world, I feel uncomfortable engaging in self-promotional activity. I read stories about how actors and singers and writers made their way to the top by busting down doors and getting in people’s faces and asserting themselves and think, no way. There’s absolutely no way I’d have the moxie to do that.

On the internet, though, self-promotion is less confrontational. You’re not engaging with anyone face-to-face. No-one can see you, so it doesn’t feel as uncomfortable or intrusive. Gradually, you become more at ease with talking about yourself. Everyone else is doing it, so why can’t you? Why shouldn’t you tell people where you are and who you’re with? Why not post a photo of yourself that you just took five seconds ago? And if that’s okay, surely the next logical step is to sign up for Daily Booth, where you can sit in front of your laptop every day, pose for pics, then upload the cutest one so that your followers can tell you that they’re sooo jealous of your prettiness. Oh, sweet, crowdsourced validation. That’s what we all want in the end, innit?

Here’s why I’ve been thinking about this lately. A few months back I interviewed Cookie Monster for Rocketboom. In a fortuitous combination of luck, timing and pop-cultural relevance, the resulting video became very popular on YouTube, garnering over a million views in a matter of weeks. In the wake of this, a nice young man created a group on Facebook called “Fans of Ella Morton“.

Surprised and rather delighted by the emergence of the group, I posted a link to it on my Facebook profile, appending a mildly self-deprecating comment. Not five minutes later, my phone rang. It was my mother. The conversation went something like this:

“Hi mum!”
“Ella, take that down.”
“What?”
“That thing on your Facebook. You need to take it down right now.”
“The fan group thing? Why?”
“Because it makes you look really bad. You look like you’re full of yourself. People won’t like it at all.”
“Really? But I didn’t create that group –”
“It doesn’t matter, it still makes you look like you’re showing off. Trust me, you need to take it down, NOW.”
“But my friends will know I’m being ironic.”
“No — in America it’s normal to be pushy and self-promotional, but people in Australia will hate it.”
“Oh. Okay. I guess I’ll take it down.”
“Good. I have to go, I’ll talk to you later.”
“Bye.”

(I hung up the phone and died of embarrassment, only to be mysteriously reanimated for the express purpose of suffering further indignities.)

It’s a tough call, this self-promotion thing. When does it become obnoxious? For many people, self-promotion is a professional necessity. I am a freelance writer, actor and host, which means I need to display and promote my work in order to keep getting hired. The easiest way to do this is online. And if I have a lot of fans and followers — I don’t really like those terms, but whatevs — that increases my value to potential employers and collaborators. I certainly have to prove that people want to watch me if I’m to stand a chance at succeeding in ultra-competitive New York. And, hell, I want people to watch The Elegant Guide, because I worked hard on it and I’m happy with how it turned out.

Here’s my big question: have we always been self-obsessed, show-offy types, or is the internet normalising and exacerbating such behaviour? We’ve become so accustomed to broadcasting our lives — assuming that everyone is hanging on our every Tweet and nonchalantly posed, self-taken photo — that it suddenly seems normal to think of people as “fans” and “followers”. Everyone can be a microcelebrity.

Man. There are so many issues at work here. Part of it might be cultural, too. In Australia we have a little something called Tall Poppy Syndrome. It’s the culturally enshrined conviction that it’s embarrassing for someone to be vocal about their accomplishments. Any time someone gets a bit boasty or displays unchecked pride, a bunch of their friends will swiftly tell them to get back in their box, mate. Oz-grown celebrities frequently experience backlashes if they start looking too happy with their successes.

What are your thoughts on this stuff? I’d love to hear ‘em. It’s a complicated issue, and I still don’t know how I feel about it all. In fact, part of the reason I don’t update this blog more frequently is that I am reluctant to post about my life and what I do from day to day. It would just feel a bit silly and self-indulgent. But I guess that’s what blogs are for. Oh internet, you make fools of us all.

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Five videos that’ll put a smile on your dial

by Ella on January 15, 2010

Lately I’ve been amassing a collection of online videos that are guaranteed to make a bad day better. Here are a few for your viewing pleasure. Feel free to share your own favourites in the comments!

Benedick and Beatrice getting tricked in Much Ado About Nothing
This wondrous film was released in 1993. It’s the sunniest, liveliest, most gorgeous Shakespeare adaptation I’ve seen. Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branagh — who were married at the time — are the perfect Beatrice and Benedick, and this is the best scene in the movie. Even if you’re not into Shakespeare (Why? Why are you not into Shakespeare?!) you should watch this.

Lea Salonga auditioning for Miss Saigon
It’s 1989, and the producers of Les Miserables, best musical everrrr, are looking for an actress for their new musical, Miss Saigon. 17-year-old Lea Salonga walks into the room. They teach her the audition song. She opens her mouth and sings. Angel wings and unicorns and tiny delicate wisps of gold leaf flutter into the air and everyone dies from the beauty of it all. Or something very close to that, anyhow.

Conan O’Brien on Inside the Actor’s Studio
Poor Coco is having a rough time at the moment. His show is being taken away from him after only seven months, due to circumstances beyond his control. This interview with seasoned thesp interrogator James Lipton shows just how naturally funny he is. Sigh.

Between Two Ferns: Jon Hamm
Zach Galiafanakis. Whatta guy. His wilfully awkward web series, Between Two Ferns, is a brilliant antidote to the celebrity butt-kissing that goes on during your standard TV talk show. Zach is unimpressed by his guests’ accomplishments, occasionally antagonising them to the point of physical combat. This installment, featuring Jon “Don Draper and the guy Liz Lemon called a cartoon pilot” Hamm, is my favourite.

Josh Lawson on Thank God You’re Here
Thank God You’re Here is Australia’s contribution to the improv-on-TV landscape. People who appear on the show walk through a door into a particular situation — say, a picnic in the 1920s or a police raid — and have to convincingly bluff their way through the scene alongside professional improvisers. It’s consistently giggleworthy, and the shining star is Josh Lawson. Here he is making stuff up with admirable ease in a submarine scene.

That’s five, but as a sneaky plug I’m going to append the latest Elegant Guide, just because it was so fun to shoot, and the young actress whose mouth I taped shut with gaffa tape was such a trooper.

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How to survive a New York winter

by Ella on January 5, 2010

Pic by Chris

Growing up in Australia, you think you know winter. Then you go somewhere like New York and realise that your life has been a balmy, sunny sham.

One of my biggest worries when moving here was not how difficult it would be to find a job during a recession or how tricky it might prove to secure an apartment. It was whether I could make it through four-odd months of snow, sleet and subzero temperatures. I hate being cold. It’s such a miserable, helpless feeling, and when bitter winds are whipping at your face, you can’t help but take it personally. Well, I do, anyway. In the words of Garth Algar from Wayne’s World, “I’m having a good time. NOT.”

I arrived in the city at the tail end of winter 2009. Having sold or given away most of my possessions — and coming from summer in Australia — I had little in the way of warm clothing. My initial strategy for dealing with wind-chill temperatures of -15 degrees C was to wear all my clothes at once. This made me look rather ridiculous, and also ensured that every time I entered a building or got on the subway, I would start to sweat and feel faint under the weight of 35 cardigans. Rookie mistake.

When dressing for the cold, it’s actually better to wear fewer layers. You just have to make sure that each one traps the heat most effectively. For the benefit of those who grew up sunning themselves on various idyllic beaches, here are the essential items for a winter wardrobe:

A snuggly hat that covers your ears. A few weeks ago I purchased the Best Hat Ever. (See evidence at right.)

I can’t even deal with the perfection of this hat. For starters, it was cheap: $7.50 from Pearl River, a SoHo store known for its Asian delights like fluoro perspex chopsticks, paper parasols and cheapskate kung fu shoes. (You could also nab a similar style from one of the souvenir shops on Canal Street in Chinatown.) It’s wool, but lined with fleece, so you don’t get an itchy scalp. It covers your ears, preventing Frigid Pinna Syndrome. And it has those braided tie thingies that you can grasp to pull the whole thing tighter around your head when the wind picks up.

An insulated jacket or coat. If you live somewhere where “winter” means anything below 20 degrees celcius, don’t even bother going coat shopping. The lightweight wool specimens on offer will let you down when you venture into the real chill. I guess you could hit up a ski shop, but the prices tend to be steep, and, in Australia at least, the selection’s not great. Wait ’til you get here, then hit up The North Face and nab a waterproof, fleece-lined, let’s-not-mess-around-here jacket or coat.

Thermal singlets, tights and long underwear. Now we’re talking! This is real hot-chocolate-and-marshmallows-by-a-roaring-fire type stuff. Head to Uniqlo — conveniently located on Broadway, right near Pearl River — and pick up some of their Heat Tech singlets and shirts. They come from Japan, cost less than $20 each, and are magical. Would you expect anything less from the industrious Japanese? Apparently the fabric is a mixture of rayon and milk protein. Bad news for vegans, but good news if you don’t mind warming your derriere with dairy.

As for your legs, girls can go for woollen tights under jeans, and dudes can pick up some long underwear. Unless you’re all “long underwear’s for girls, I’m hardcore”. In which case, please suffer in silence when you freeze your ass off.

Waterproof boots. You’ll need them when it snows! And, more importantly, the day after it snows, when the gutters are a mix of grey slush and giant camouflaged puddles. For cheapo wellies, head to K-Mart at Astor Place or good ol’ Pearl River.

Everything else is pretty self-evident: add a scarf, gloves, a cuddly jumper — that’s “sweater” to you American folk — and thick socks. You are now ready to face winter in New York. Which is actually pretty neat, once you’ve got the dressing part down. Here are just a few highlights:

Ice skating. There are rinks everywhere. The most famous, natch, is the one at Rockefeller Center, but it’s super pricey and chocka-block full of tourists. The only advantage of going there is that you might get to see some nervous guy from Iowa propose to his girlfriend on the ice. (This happens multiple times a day, as a result of the rink’s $250 “Engagement On Ice” package — see this PDF for details. Commodify my love, baby!)

I say get your schmaltz fix by watching proposal videos on YouTube, and for cheaper, less-crowded ice skating, try The Pond at Bryant Park, Lasker Rink at the top of Central Park, or Wollman Rink in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park.

Snow. It really is gorgeous, the way that it coats the trees and houses and roads in icing. Especially in a frenetic city like New York. Everything becomes quiet and slow and peaceful. And everyone is a kid again! A few weeks ago there was a snowstorm, and a snowball fight broke out in Times Square. Stuff like that reminds you that you don’t have to be glued to your PS3 to have a glorious time playing around.

Central heating. In a way, winter is almost worse in Sydney, because everyone pretends it doesn’t exist. Unless you’re a fancy rich person, it’s unlikely that you’ll have central heating. So when the mercury dips to 10 degrees C overnight, you’re stuck with your crappy little fan heater that you don’t want to turn on because your energy bill will skyrocket.

Most apartments in New York are equipped with beefy radiators. When winter hits, the super will flick a magical warmth switch, and all of a sudden your house is toasty. And there’s no heating bill — it’s included in your rent. The only downside is that some radiators make a really loud hissing noise. Lately I’ve been having these crazy dreams about snakes coming to kill me, and I realised that it must be result of radiator sounds filtering through to my unconscious brain.

All that said, I still consider myself a n00b to this whole winter thing, so if you have some good tips for staying warm and happy, please share them in the comments!

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Introducing The Elegant Guide

by Ella on December 17, 2009

Many months ago I had an idea for an online comedy series. I scribbled various influences — Amy Sedaris, Shaun Micallef — and fragmentary ideas — etiquette instruction; a fallible, deranged host — into various notebooks and wondered how on earth I was going to shoot it when I had no money, no camera, no sound equipment, no lighting and no location. You might say the odds were against me. But practicalities should never defeat creativity, dammit.

As fortune would have it, I managed by pure serendipity to meet two terribly interesting guys — Dusty Wright and Ed Bennett — who became instrumental in bringing these scribbled thoughts to life. They heard my episode ideas and were all “Sure, let’s shoot those”. And I was all “Really? That seemed too easy. What if they suck?” And they were all “Meh, let’s just try it”.

And so we did.

The show came to be known as The Elegant Guide. There are six episodes in total, and the overall concept is “deranged advice on modern life”. For the titles and release schedule, have a squiz at TheElegantGuide.com.

Here’s the first episode, The Elegant Guide to Poise:

I hope you like it!

And now, a humble request: I want to know what you want to see on Sprinkle of Ginger. More “how to” articles? More silly anecdotes? More New York experiences? Or something else entirely? Please let me know in the comments, because I’d love to write about the things you want to read about.

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Tips for surviving a long-haul flight

by Ella on November 23, 2009

Pic by Lin Pernille Photography

Let’s not mince words: long-haul flights SUCK. And no-one knows this better than Australians. Any time we want to journey from our hallowed homeland to London or New York, we endure 20-plus hours of air travel. That’s two long flights and a lot of shlepping and waiting around in between. Then there are the special events that make the experience all the more memorable: kids who kick the back of your seat, broken entertainment systems on 13-hour flights, being penned in by the world’s most obstinate sleeper…it’s enough to make one want to have a staycation.

I am typing this from a seat next to gate 38 at Los Angeles airport, where I will shortly board that infernal 13-hour flight to Sydney. Instead of summoning dread over what awaits me, I’m going to serve up a bunch of advice and anecdotes that will hopefully make your next long-haul trip a little less painful.

Tips and strategies for staying sane

Bring your pyjamas. For real. I always bring my trackies — sweatpants to you Americans — and change into them as soon as I’ve checked in. I also wear a fleecy hoodie and thick socks. It always gets cold on the plane, and you don’t want to spend half a day shivering as you gaze at the ice patterns forming on the window. Sometimes I bring a small fleecy blanket, too. I can roll it up and use it as a pillow or wrap it around me to create a comforting cocoon. The blankets provided by the airlines tend to be small, scratchy and not very effective at warming you up.

Bring your own snacks. When you board a long-haul flight you relinquish a lot of control. At least if you smuggle some snackage you can choose when and what to eat. And man cannot live on airplane food alone.

Load up your iPod with videos, music that makes you happy and new episodes of your favourite podcasts. Pretty self-explanatory, but the key is to save up a few new installments of tried-and-true podcasts. That way you’ll be looking forward to hearing the latest from people you like. I even chuck a few of my favourite meditation podcasts in the mix just in case I need to calm down during a bout of turbulence.

Go for light reading material. There’s a reason there’s a genre known as the airport novel. If you’re bringing fiction on-board, you want to go for something with short chapters and probably a lot of chase scenes, explosions or ludicrously improbable chance meetings between former lovers with unresolved issues. This is not the time to finally have a crack at Les Miserables. (Though I do recommend adding the musical’s soundtrack to your iPod. One Day More!)

I always buy three magazines: one vaguely artsy and creatively inspiring, one focused on fitness and healthy lifestyles — so that I can pretend I am fit and healthy — and one complete trashrag featuring fabricated stories about reality TV stars. The latter is for when my attention span is so destroyed by exhaustion that I can barely handle complete sentences.

Don’t fly United. It may be unfair of me to malign this particular airline and exclude other, perhaps more deserving brands, but I have had so many bad experiences with UA that I feel it is my duty to warn you off them. First off, their planes are really old. Unlike most long-haul carriers, which offer individual TV screens and a vast array of entertainment options, United makes do with single CRT screens mounted above the aisles every twenty rows or so They’ll screen a few movies, which invariably get interrupted by fuzz, wiggly lines and poor sound. Obviously this does not happen “on-demand”.

Technological inadequacies aside, my main beef with United is that they just don’t like to tell you what’s going on. Once I was flying from New York to Sydney, via San Francisco. The departure time had been delayed by an hour, but everyone had been loaded onto the plane and we were buckled up and ready to go. An announcement came over the PA:

“Uh…ladies and gentlemen, you may have noticed that the departure time has passed….uh…unfortunately, during our routine maintenance check, we discovered a fault, and as a result, this flight may be delayed, re-routed or cancelled. My co-pilot is on the phone now trying to work something out, so just sit tight while we figure out what to do.”

Well, okay, fair enough. Stuff happens. Safety first and all that. But then, ten minutes later, the captain came back on.

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome about United flight 863 to San Francisco. We will be taking off in just a few moments.”

So…did they fix the plane, or would we be flying in faulty aircraft to an unspecified location? Throughout the flight I played a little game in my head. It was called “Will I Still Be Alive In Six Hours?” It alternated between that and another newly invented game, “Where Will I Be In Six Hours?” Obviously I survived, but the turbulence — both emotional and physical — that ensued was far from fun.

Be mindful of the need for sleep and relaxation. Travel is stressful, and can create weird and unexpected responses in you. A few months ago I was flying from Chicago to New York. I had just had an intense three days of doing 11 back-to-back on-camera interviews, and was totally wiped. The tiredness combined with my ol’ friend anxiety, and when I got to the airport I suddenly became utterly convinced that my plane was going to crash and I was going to die. This thinking was completely irrational, but it felt very, very real. I did not want to get on that flight.

I tried to talk myself down from it, but I was way too wound up. So I opened my laptop and wrote an “Oh by the way, in case I should, like, die or something, I just want you to know that I think you’re amazing” email to someone dear. Then I stood up, boarded the plane, sat down in my window seat and cried at the unfairness of it all. A few minutes later, a man came and sat next to me. He couldn’t tell that I was upset, but he just happened to start a conversation with me about pharmaceuticals and being a sales rep and wonderful, mundane things that I could cling to to help pull me out of the Swamp of Crazy. I felt like he had saved my life, and he didn’t even know it. Thank you, lovely guy whose name I don’t remember.

All of that happened because I was tired and rushed and needed to just chill out. So if you’re feeling weird and unsettled, remember that tiredness plays a big role.

Bonus: Vomit bag anecdotes!

On yet another flight from New York to Sydney a few years ago, a guy sitting a few rows up from me wrote me a letter on a vomit bag and instructed one of the flight attendants to give it to me. His name was Vince, he was an accountant, and he felt certain we were destined to spend our lives together. Note that he sent me this regurgitatey missive at the beginning of a 13-hour flight, meaning that every time he or I got up to use the bathroom, awkward eye contact ensued.

My dad told me this great story once about a guy on his flight who became airsick, pressed his attendant call button, and attempted to hand the flight attendant money as he was vomiting into the bag found in his seat pocket. It seems that he saw an advertisement for $9.95 photo processing on the bag and, not being able to read English, assumed it was the fee charged to spewers for sullying the stationery.

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Sesame Street!

by Ella on November 9, 2009

Sesame Street celebrates its 40th anniversary this year, and a few weeks ago I was lucky enough to visit the set of the show to the shoot an episode of Rocketboom.

Here are the interviews with Elmo and Cookie Monster. I think you can tell from my permasmile that it was pure joy to meet these furry stalwarts of my youth. Thank you to Philip Toscano at Sesame Workshop and rockin’ Rocketboom producer Leah D’Emilio for facilitating the fulfillment of a childhood dream!

By the way, if you fancy taking a nostalgic trip back to the rhymes and songs you learned when you were four, the Sesame Street website has a heap of classic videos. (Remember Teeny Little Super Guy? And the emotionally resonant If The Moon Were A Cookie? I get all verklempt looking at this stuff.)