SONG TO SING TODAY.

What a song -- what a gathering of people who gave us this song to sing. And today, again, like last year, and the year before and now -- right this minute -- this is a song that expresses what we are feeling.

THE OBAMAS' NEW HOME

Here's where Barack and Michelle Obama, and their daughters will be living.

It's a 9-bedroom mansion with 8.5 baths, in the Kalorama section of D.C. about two miles from the White House. Barack Obama said they'll live there for at least two years while their youngest daughter, 15-year-old Sasha, finishes high school.

Photos and videos describe this mansion as "swanky, splendiferous, glamorous." There are rooms for everything -- work, research, recreation, exercise, pets, guests and guests' kids, a suite for Michelle's mother, accommodations and parking for assistants and servants, as well for U. S. Secret Service Guards who guard former presidents and their families.  

The Obamas have also acquired a California home in Rancho Mirage where there are world-class golf courses. The town has been the unofficial West Coast Camp David for other presidents. Right now, for the holidays, the Obamas are at their vacation home in Hawaii.

Yes, it's a WOW  of  home -- what they deserve after more than eight years of working for us -- a home sweet home where Michelle will continue working for us on her various projects, where Barack will continue working for us, our country, and people everywhere in the world. He's had the whole world in his hands. Undoubtedly, he'll continue to work on the many issues that are life and death important for the whole world



If you want to see more, you'll enjoy this second, longer video. 




Interesting facts:  
This 8,200 square foot brick Tudor mansion, owned by White House press secretary Joe Lockhart, is currently valued at $7 million. Though we don't know what the Obamas are paying for it, it would cost  $22,000 a month to rent, according to Lockhart's real estate agent, who lists the house as meticulously renovated with courtyard space for 8-10 vehicles. The mansion is next door to a former congressman,  down the street from the French ambassador's residence, around the corner from the oldest house in the city, and about a half mile from the D.C.home of Hillary and Bill Clinton. 

TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS

John Cullum reads the famous poem.

We made this video sometime ago. Each year we enjoy watching and hearing it again, and again -- like children, delighting in the way John tells the famous words.

CULLUM ON "CIRCLE OF IVY" A FAT LADY

John reads the opening chapter of Emily Frankel's novel, which bluntly, realistically tells the story of a fat lady jeopardizing her life by excessive dieting.

Click, get a free copy--CIRCLE OF IVY" (it's free till Dec 18th)

AUTHOR MOAN

Hey, almost nobody is buying my e-books -- my six novels are just sitting on emilyfrankel.com.

Why?                                                                                                              
 why?                     

Why?

Gee, the titles are good, book-covers are good!! The plots -- gee -- they're very good stories. My writing has been praised by critics ... Lotta friends on Facebook and Twitter read my blog ; they say they like my ideas, my humor, my honesty. Why aren't they buying a book?

The $2.99 price is too high?

I dug up facts hoping to comfort myself. According to Pew Research: One out of 10 American adults, 72 percent of adults, read some kind of book last year. That's a steep decline from 1978, when 92 percent of Americans made that same claim. But when e-books exploded into popularity -- driven by the launch of the Kindle in 2007, the Nook in 2009 -- books sales jumped from $61.3 million to $1.54 billion, and  e-books accounted for an increasingly large share of the total trade revenue. Pew and Gallup say the revenue from e-books has been "flattening" -- end of last year e-books totaled $1.37 billion and accounted for not quite 20 percent of total revenue.

Numbers dumberate me! LOUDLY I'm moaning -- I am, I am -- I don't write novels to study percentages, market shares, I don't really care about money.

Okay, audiobooks are getting popular. Researchers said they accounted for the strongest portion of adult book sales in  2015, bringing in $205.6 million, a 38.9 percent increase from 2014. My husband, John Cullum, who has a voice that thousands of fans love, wants to record my books.

Hey ho, haha -- I haven't been able to sell my e-books! Even with Cullum's name, the same thing will happen with audiobooks. Gee -- if I could just get my books in a store window, I'd post this sign.

Hey, here's a video that a critic who wrote a book published. It sums up my moan perfectly.

A PRINTED HOUSE FOR XMAS?

Yep, a 3D Printer can build a Printed House in 45 days, or 24 hours.

Here's tech talk about this 3D Printed House in China, and its thick, strong walls that can withstand a major earthquake.


In the next video, you can see more details, and watch a 3D Printer layering on cement like it's decorating a birthday cake. I'm not sure what the boss-owner of this 3D Printing Company is talking about with excited gestures, but he's obviously proud that 10 houses were built in 24 hours.



It's amazing -- the 3D Printer, amazingly economically, can create different style houses, and the basic cost for any of these houses is about $4800.  

A Double House

A Sun Room.

Golly, maybe 3D Printers will help solve the problems of the world's expanding population, and homelessness. My husband and I could even build a house in the courtyard behind our home -- maybe a tiny house like Texan Alex Le Roux built -- an 8 x 5 x 7 foot structure. We could paint its 7 x 4 square-foot interior bright pink and orange!

I'm already wondering whom I could contact about local 3D Printers, builders, permits -- an extra space would be wowy wonderful!!! I could have it ... well, probably not for Xmas, but maybe for New Year's. 


Hey, it's the wishing time of year. What about a castle?

There's a guy in Minnesota who built himself a castle in his backyard. I must say it would be lovely to have an Andrey Rodenko castle on our premises -- bet I'd write lovelier, better blogs.

TRACKING YOUR FITNESS

IS fitness tracking helpful?

Sure! Having a tracker helps, like wearing a nice outfit helps, and taking a quick look at the tracker is a way of encouraging yourself to keep going. The most expensive one is $849; a more typical, less expensive tracker will help too. ($29.00 to $89.99).

Even so, the manufacturers of FixBit, (one of the most popular trackers), says that only 10% of the purchasers wear it for a year.

The fact is, the tracker just helps you stick to your exercise routine. No matter what you do to keep in shape, the repeated routines get boring. Based on my background as an ex-dancer who stays in shape, I think you need to find a way to make each exercise session special.

My husband, John Cullum, hates exercise. He vocalizes, when he's getting ready to perform as a singer; he rehearses the lines for a play and exercises that part of his brain, but physical exercise -- abs, stretches, jogging, biking, weight-lifting -- none of that stuff is for him.

Sometimes he shops for groceries. We live on the 4th floor. There's no elevator; the stairs tire him. Maybe he'd be less tired if he exercised his stair-climbing muscles. He could do the stairs while holding in his abs; or climb the stairs with his shoulders arched back. He might try standing extra tall, or raising each knee as high as possible as he climbs; he could try holding the banister for one step, and not holding for the next step. Any of these simple physical things might make stair-climbing easier, and become a way of exercising that's not boring.

With or without a fitness tracker, I'm suggesting that you review what you do every day that you can possibly transform into a more challenging use of your body.   

Could you transform making a phone call into an exercise, and stand or sit tall, stretch, or suck in your abs before you input the number? If you're in a hurry, you'll probably think to hell with this routine. But you could certainly transform bed-making, dishes, sweeping, laundry -- any tidying routine could become an exercise as well.  

Almost every day (for more than ten years), I exercise -- I do a dance ritual, using a recording that I fell in love with many years ago. Before turning on the sound system, I warm up with stretches, standing tall, and sucking in my abs -- the warmup isn't fun, but it enables me to move confidently, full out. Playing the music, I perform choreography which I've had to simplify somewhat over the years, but the movement fits the rhythms and crescendos of this music perfectly. 




This painting expresses how I feel when I'm dancing.

Charles Darwin once remarked, “If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week.” Albert Einstein declared, “If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician.” Jimi Hendrix called music his “religion.”

Fellow exercisers, find some music -- rap, classic, rock and roll, a song, or sounds you love -- and play it. Exercise becomes dancing.

You dance -- yes -- dance -- to wonderful music.

CULLM READS "SOMEBODY, WOMAN OF THE CENTURY"

5

(VIDEO) WHAT'S ON CULLUM'S SCHEDULE

John Cullum is, in fact, already working with a team--a writer, arranger, and director--on a one man show.

Will it happen? There's no biz like show biz--plans, dreams commitments change with the wind and weather.

Will the wind blow him into the theater --THE JOHN CULLUM THEATER, on 54th street? 

YAY FOR A SHOE LACES GUY

When I put on my sneakers, yank the laces and tug extra hard on them -- I think of Joe Busby. My latest new pair of sneakers arrived with  laces that were too long.

Click.  
Visit what I found on the Internet.


I bought two pairs of strong, correct length laces for $1.26 + $3.00 for shipping. I emailed my thanks to the company, asking, "Who's the owner? How do you guys break even?"

Somebody replied immediately in an email, and said:
      "Joe Busby was a manager for Honeywell. for ten years in Dayton and moved to Cincinnati. He started the shoe lace business for various reasons -- two reasons being he wanted to be able to raise a family and work at the same time and also his wife had a full time job and was traveling a lot as well.  (Honeywell International Inc. headquartered in Morristown, New Jersey, produces commercial and consumer products, including home thermostats, electronic security systems, and turbo-chargers for vehicles.)
      "He selected shoe laces because it allowed him to buy and sell. Thus, when he quit his corporate job he switched from buying and selling to making and selling at the same time and created a niche market for himself."

Hey, Joe Busby -- I am a blogger, writing short essays -- creating them and promoting them on Twitter and Facebook so that they'll be read. Having written six novels that are selling, (not very well) on Amazon, observing that people are reading less and "blogging" with their photos, expressing their ideas with  "likes" -- I feel it doesn't make sense to devote myself to writing a new novel.  (It takes a year or so, to write a novel -- you can create a post for a blog in five to eight hours.)

So I strain my brain every day, figuring out what to blog about. I wonder if Joe Busby felt what I feel -- sort of frustrated, purposeless -- when he was working at Honeywell?

Oh boy, I could write a book about all the things nobody told me about growing older -- like white socks. Years ago, I laughed because my mother, even in the summer wore white socks when she retired for the night. Mom didn't tell me, nobody ever mentioned the leg cramps that we get (my husband gets them too) if we don't wear socks.

Hey -- right now -- wow now -- today, I could start a non-fiction seventh book -- a big-fat-ever-expanding narration about stuff  that nobody warned me about. What fun to research it -- get folks to share what's bugging them, and sell it -- like Busby --  2 cents, + postage. Hey-yay yay -- that oughta keep me creatively percolating, for a year or two or ten.

CELEBRATING AMERICA

Time Magazine devoted it's July 4th issue to listing the 240 favorite things that Americans love about our country.

Well-known Americans -- movie stars, TV stars, editors -- shared their favorite things and the "coolest" places to visit - -- the food, the sights, the fun parks and festivals.

Golly, I remember touring as a dancer  -- traveling and performing in more than 1000 American towns, staying in hotels, motels, tourist homes, guest bedrooms -- dining in lunch-counters, snack bars, eateries, restaurants -- moseying down thousands of main streets. Everyday we were on a different road moving toward a different horizon.

ME., TEX., UT., N.MEX.

CA., NEV., WA., MO.

... trees, wheat, or corn, or emptiness ...  every day a different sky hovering over people, cows, communities, fences, bridges, birds flying hither and yon as we headed ahead on a road that was going somewhere ...

GA.,NEB., COLO., Ill., ORE.

Time Magazine's 240 Reasons to Celebrate Our Country" reminds me -- how I loved heading down Pacific Coast Highway to the Cheesecake Factory,  favorite restaurant where we met with our son  every weekend for a sumptuous dinner -- loved our log cabin at the top of Las Flores Canyon Road in Malibu -- Las Fores -- wow, what a spectacular winding road, so many, many wonderful roads.

KY., KANS., SC.

There are approximately 4,071,000 miles of roads in the United States, 2,678,000 miles paved and 1,394,000 miles unpaved ... golly, I have visions in my mind of more than 240 favorite roads ...

Yes, it's time for Thanksgiving, giving thanks for what I know, and feel, and have in my mind and heart.

Golly, America The Beautiful is beautiful.

(VIDEO) SIDE-OF-THE-BED WARS

Like most couples who share a bed, as the seasons change, AIR and the COVERLET become major issues.

 John Cullum and wife, Emily Frankel, joke about their tussles in the bedroom over window open or closed, about more or less blanket.

YAY FOR MARTHA STEWART?

On Twitter, Martha Stewart says about herself, "Curious, inquisitive, experimental entrepreneur who cares about the world we live in."

Back in our "Shenandoah" days when my husband, John Cullum, and I began to have money for renovations, I started decorating our home. I was very aware of Martha Stewart's thoughtful, practical, always neat, gracious taste.

Nevertheless, I went with what appealed to me, and ignored the Martha Stewart recommendations for furniture, floor coverings, curtains, silverware, dinnerware, as well as glasses, wine goblets. The ultra fancy stuff that lyricist Alan Lerner bestowed upon us (8 huge, Baccarat crystal beer mugs), and other expensive treasures from other famous pals, sit on the high shelves above our uniquely orange and black kitchen. (Not colors that M.S recommends.)

No doubt about it, Martha Stewart is a towering authority, a living encyclopedia on ways to handle one's life style. Before writing this, I browsed Wikipedia. Under "career" you'll see her domain -- Living Omnimedia Inc. You name it, and she is planning to do it, or has already done it, and written a book about it. She's 74. She started writing at age 41 in 1982. She has published 141 books.

Okay, I am not a fan. I have never bought a Martha Stewart book, though I admire her queenly, confident, courageous dealing with the good and bad things that came her way, especially the way she handled being in jail, back in 2004 and 2005. For lying to federal investigators about a stock sale that the IRS deemed, "inside information," Stewart received the minimum sentence: 5 months in prison, 5 months of home confinement, 19 months probation,  a $30,000 fine and all court fees.

Since then, aided by guesting on television shows, and the press coverage of her many, many appearances at openings, celebrity gatherings, and award ceremonies, Stewart's been expanding her name and her domain.

Her latest venture is Martha and Marley Spoon. She is now offering and promoting what quite a few companies have been offering since 2014 -- meals in a box. Dinner arrives in a box filled with all the raw material (ingredients and seasoning), and a beautifully printed, easy-to-follow routine. Follow it and in about a half hour you can be a gourmet cook.

My opinion: Meals in a box is not what the younger generation -- generation that's younger than Martha, or younger than me (whatever age you think I am) -- wants or needs. I think that youngers want to be IN with other people -- they want to go out, be out, do things their own way, try different things, even exhaust themselves doing whatever they feel like doing.

Hey, I bow respectfully to Martha Stewart, but now seems to be a time for fun -- pleasuring, amusing oneself, and being bravely outrageous.

How do I know?

I see it, feel it, sense it, have been  studying, researching, talk-writing about it, while functioning creatively in the real world. I am in the real, real world, much more than Martha Stewart. 


The look of Martha in this photo could be her reply.

Me?

This is me.

BIGIFY YOUR BRAIN!!!

 Can you increase your IQ?  Yes!

Back in 2012, a nine page Newsweek cover story confirmed this, and gave us information on the research that proves that you can.

Recovering from more than a year of politics, today is good day to Bigify Yourself.

Remember when everyone was taking Ginko Bilova, and Ginseng?  I tried it, but didn't  feel any different. So of course, I read every word on the nine pages and learned about exercises for the brain,  and "tricks" that help you learn faster.

I got information on neurobiology, plasticity, cognitive science, and the proof -- details on studies and tests that showed how "gray matter"(neurons) increase with use, and decrease when they're not used. I learned about stimulants, pills, and "aerobic" exercise for the brain that will improve your short term and long term memory, enhance your ability to retain information, and increase your attention span.

The piece de resistance of the article was  31 WAYS TO GET SMARTER IN 2012 -- an illustrated list with comments, oddly facetious  comments. I Googled, and found an explosion of Websites, bloggers, and radio stations, who were sharing the Newsweek article with their readers. Clicking next, and next until my thumb got tired, I saw 89 versions of the 31 WAYS, that added their own sort of ha-ha (not funny) comments.

Anyhow, 31 ways to better your brain became a hot topic. After I re-read the nine pages, I boiled it down to the 14 things that sort of made sense to me:

 (1) Play Word Games with Friends; (2) Eat Turmeric [Indian spice that can reduce dementia]; (3) Taekwondo [Martial arts]; (4) Toss Your Smartphone; (5) Get a lot of Sleep [Harvard researchers proved it helps]; Build A ‘Memory Palace [associate things with vivid images]; (7) Learn A Language; (8) Eat Dark Chocolate; (9) Play Violent Video Games [it quicken reactions]; (10) Eat Yogurt; (11) See A Shakespeare Play; (12) Play A Musical Instrument; (13) Write By Hand; (14) Drink Coffee. (You can read about the 17 other things at the end of this blog.)   

In my opinion, Newsweek was saying  if you want to be smarter and there's something, anything that you like to do, love to do, and aren't doing -- DO IT.

In the meantime, I say EAT BLUEBERRIES -- they stimulate brain activity, according to researchers at the University of Cincinnati. (They are especially tasty when you eat them with cottage cheese and a small sprinkle of Sweet'N Lo to add sweetness.)

It's even smarter to eat pomegranates. Aside from their sweet and tart taste, their juice contains Punicalagins -- they do more for you than red wine, grape juice, cranberry juice, green tea or Acai juice. As a super-antioxidant, they provide protection against heart disease, cancer and cognitive impairment. Tests show individuals drinking pomegranate juice daily performed better on a memory task than non drinkers.

Guys, you can get Pomegranates from October through February, and you can always get some frozen blueberries -- be smart, not dumb, and yum your way back from our exhausting election into a deliciously bigified brain.

If you're brave with plenty of time on your hands, here's the link to my blog in 2012 that lists and briefly explains the 31 ways.

(VIDEO) JOHN CULLUM & EM'S SONG

Election 2016 inspires John Cullum and wife Emily Frankel to sing.

Here's they are, singing away, inviting you to join in.

RIGGED ELECTION ???

I subscribe to Time Magazine. It's a reliable source of what's going on in the world that often inspires me to write about it. Speculating on on whether the election could be rigged, the magazine detailed six ways it could be done. Using small ballot-box pictures (like temperature gauges), Time indicated how concerned we should be.

1. HACKING VOTING MACHINES.
"They’re ridiculously easy to get into,” says "White Scope" a leading provider of cybersecurity. "Forty-two states have old voting machines with out-of-date software, and have virtually no security protections." The top guy of "Center for Election Systems" (at Kennesaw, Georgia University), said the likelihood of someone changing the outcome of the national election is "very, very low," because voting machines are not connected to the Internet. A hacker would need a huge team to make physical contact with every machine. Also, electronic voting machines print out a paper copy of each vote cast, so if a machine was re-programmed to count more votes for one candidate, discrepancies could be identified by an audit of the paper receipts.
       Time listed nine states with old machines that do not produce paper receipts, and said, "30% of voters go to polling places that use paper ballots -- it's a modern age irony -- the best defense against high-tech election cheating is paper."
 (Yay -- thanks for the "ha ha," dear magazine.)

2. STEALING FROM CAMPAIGNS AND CANDIDATES

Hackers hacked several Democratic organizations this year. It probably affected the 2016 electoral process. Leaked emails suggested that Democratic Party officials favored Hillary. Bernie and his supporters staged protests, and caused the ouster of the DNC's chairwoman. Trump used this to attack Hillary, who claimed that Trump, with hacker pals linked to Russian intelligence, hacked the DNC's files. Time said, "It's hard to know if this scandal will affect the outcome of the election. " (...yii...the magazine's very worried, worries me...)

3. CHANGING VOTER REGISTRATION DATA
Federal officials confirmed that Russian hackers broke into voter-registration databases in Arizona and Illinois. The "Election Assistance Commission" met with the "Department of Homeland Security," the Justice Department, and the FBI. They concluded that even though a state’s voter-registration database could be changed, current laws allow voters to cast provisional ballots that can be checked against the state’s voter rolls -- therefore, a registered voter's ballot would be counted, therefore, this illegal stuff would not change the outcome of the election.  (...it wouldn't? hmmm...)

4. LIMITING POLLING PLACES

When Arizona, in a primary, reduced the number of polling places from 200 to 60, thousands of Latino voters stood in line for five hours; many gave up without casting a ballot. Lawyers for Democrats called foul, arguing that Arizona had disenfranchised minority voters. Arizona agreed to have more polling places available, but access to them -- location and hours -- are still  problems. Democrats are lobbying to add polling places and early voting days.
(...that's not a big worry...?)


5. NEW VOTER RESTRICTIONS

New requirements in 14 states restrict early voting, limit when you can register, and require proof of citizenship. Lawyers from the non-partisan "Brennan Center for Justice" are challenging these laws. A state court overturned North Carolina's voter-ID law on the grounds that it discriminated against African Americans. Lawyers are using this precedent to challenge related measures in Virginia, Texas, Alabama, South Carolina and Indiana.   
(.... another "not big" worry? ....hmmmmm....) 

6. PLAYING DIRTY

Some Virginia voters received letters warning that they were not properly registered, though they were. Last January, Iowa voters received citations saying they would commit a “voting violation” if they failed to show up to caucus. The FBI is currently investigating the various nefarious ways to keep certain populations from the polls --  including calling in a bomb threat, hacking into news sites, posting fake election results.

Hey guys, these six ways to rig the election, these not precise gauges -- they seem like a nice way for guesstimating, and reassuring us that illegal doings won't change the outcome of this election. I hmmed and Googled. The Boston Globe, in a much shorter article, also said, "A rigged election won't affect the outcome."

Does this put to rest our concerns -- our fears -- about a rigged election?

YIII!!! In my opinion the big deal about rigged elections is another one of the Trump-trumped up attacks, like undermining the legitimacy of a sitting president with birther conspiracies and wild-eyed claims about founding Isis. Meanwhile, Trump's treading water to keep from drowning in a mucky puddle of words he taped about how to get babes, but he'll trumpet himself out of that with repeated apologies. 

YIII!!! Bloomberg poll says 34 percent of likely voters from both parties think the election will be rigged; among Trump supporters, that number soars to 56 percent. I am very VERY concerned that the morning after the election, we'll have what we had when Al Gore actually won the election that put George W Bush in the Oval Office. Once burned, twice shy!!

I'm skeptical.

I'm scared.

TRUMPILLARY NERVOUS BREAKDOWN

I can't talk about the election, it’s too upsetting...

...gotta talk about it....

With election in the very final stretch, the prospect of a Trump victory is a nightmare. Hillary's crooked -- she lies -- she ought to be jailed is a nightmare. Percentages and polls keep changing -- can they be believed? Are the poll guys, (like TV channels), shaping them because their money-making potential keeps increasing if they keep us tuning in? Up and down we go, watching, hoping, praying, sometimes scared, sometimes relieved, sad, happy, exhilarated that Trump's insulted, shocked, alienated more people.

Logic sets in -- an inner chant -- HE CAN'T WIN, HE WON'T WIN echoing strong opinions of trustworthy guys. Even so, insomnia, stomach-ache, depression sets in.

Dumb-dumb flashes of bad thoughts invade: If he's elected would he, will he, won't he and re-elected Republicans proceed to destroy social security, and government support of many, many essential things? Cause civil war, cause World War III? Create utter chaos?

Yes!

Oh no!!!

Oh YES!!!!!

Trump voters inhabit a reality where my BAD is their GOOD. Even if Clinton wins, they'll respond with violence...
NO!! YES!!
...parts of the country exploding into street protests, guns,  killings -- she didn't win, she bought the election, the election was stolen and President-almost-President Trump will prove he's the best-wisest-most successful-powerful guy in the world because he SAYS HE IS THE PRESIDENT.

...Golly gee Moses-Allah-Jesus, thinking about the election and trying not to think about the election seriously affects my health....  

(VIDEO) LOVELY FOR RENT SIGNS

For years, strolling around New York city, John cullum and emily frankel peer in various empty store windows.

It's fun, even exciting--to picture each empty space as a possible off-Broadway theater for one of our projects.

SARAH JESSICA PARKER

What a girl-woman she is....

Here she is as "Frances" in her new Home Box Office series, "Divorce."

She looks pensive, as if she's remembering other times, happier times in her life. The reviews for this series have been fairly good -- not great. Critics and audience wonder where "Frances" is heading -- for reconciliation with her husband, or mending her marriage, or love affairs? Since Sarah Jessica is the star and the producer, she will undoubtedly find actions and events that will be poignant, riveting, occasionally even shocking, as well as humorous -- S.J.P has, I think, a  very strong instinct for real drama. 

As "Carrie" in "Sex in the City," she changed the vision and dreams of millions of women as well as men -- brought laughter, reality, and down-to-earth honesty. She amazed us with her truthfulness.

Over the years, I have wondered how playing Carrie affected the real Sarah Jessica in her own life. I sense, from knowing my husband, actor John Cullum, that she was doing  her job -- creating, shaping, finding truth by digging into what was written in the script,  and making it real -- not playing herself, just working.

Just working?  Yes, revealing passions, anger, tenderness, fear, curiosity, as well as lusts of an invented woman -- not Sarah Jessica Parker or Mrs. Matthew Broderick -- just finding how the invented Carrie felt.

What is the difference between Sarah Jessica Parker and the always fascinating Jennifer Aniston?  I think we get a "there's the Star" feeling with Aniston. We feel that what Jennifer conveys is very real, but also, it's always Aniston. (With Meryl Streep, I forget it's Meryl, and am in the moment that's happening happening before my eyes.)

Yes, when Sarah Jessica Parker is playing a role, her name fades and we are focused on the person she's playing. She's a very special, unique, superb actress. With her in the driver's seat, I'm sure that "Divorce" will evolve into a fascinating show.

I still remember the first time I saw Sarah Jessica. I fell in love with her as "SanDeE" in Steve Martin's "La Story" -- at age twenty-five, she was utterly charming, fun, and unpredictably inventive. Searching for a video, and came across these photos.

Here's the only clip I could locate and embed here, so that you can see why I love actress Sarah Jessica Parker.