(VIDEO) CULLUM'S DAILY REWARD

It's a ritual--every night after dinner, John Cullum beautifully cleans, tidies, and polishes up the kitchen.

And Emily Frankel, always, every morning, before breakfast, draws a picture that and sets up a loving mood for the day.

HEY JAMIE LEE CURTIS

Jamie Lee Curtis inspires me. There's lots of talk about her in the new version of "Halloween." I dug into various magazines, media, and film websites so I could talk about her today.     

Though she grew up in Hollywood as the daughter of legendary actors Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, the original "Halloween," made her a star back in 1978. I certainly remember the Oscar-nominated comedy "A Fish Called Wanda," and the unforgettable strip tease she did in "True Lies," and the way she body-swapped with Lindsay Lohan in Disney's "Freaky Friday." But what I fell in love with was her dancing--the sensual aerobics she did as she taught exercise classes in "Perfect," the film she did with Travolta in his dancing days, back in 1985.

Along the way to today's "Halloween," she wrote 13 children’s books and many articles, became an accomplished photographer, stopped drinking, talked and wrote about it, and started a family with her husband, writer-director Christopher Guest, ("Waiting for Guffman") with whom she has two children.

In a recent interview, explaining she's not a fan of horror movies, Jamie Lee declared, “The new "Halloween" tells a story about trauma, especially the many kinds that women endure. The #MeToo and #TimesUp movements are the result of generational, systematic abuse of women, and the trauma that abuse generates in a person. Working on this film again kicked me into a creative space." Apparently shooting the film energized her so much that she wrote a screenplay for an eco-horror movie that she plans to direct.

Her recovery from an addiction to painkillers became an article she published as “The single greatest thing I’ll ever did in my life.” Her last children’s book, "Me, Myself & I" is about a mom who is  documenting her family’s life on social media. Jamie Lee told a reporter, “I cop to it too! How quickly you can hit the a little booster button that brightens you up."

She doesn't need to be brightened up. "Halloween" got rave reviews, and a monster take at the box office, earning over $77.5 million. It marks several milestones, including the biggest horror-movie opening with a female lead and the highest-grossing film opening with a female lead over 55.

When Curtis posted a tweet about these record-breaking stats, her tweet went viral: "Here I am kissing 60. It's beyond my wildest dreams. I’m the luckiest girl in the world.”

I really mean it when I say yay Jamie Lee Curtis today.

OUR 3RD FLOOR THEATER #revised

It's just below our living quarters on the 4th floor. The photos show you where my husband, John Cullum, is working on his one man show, reviewing the script he's written about his career and singing songs from shows he's starred in. Before he starts working, I'm at the barre, warming up before I start dancing.

Here's how the room looks when the black curtains that are on both walls are closed, the theater lights are on, and the 65 seats are arranged.

We use the space for staging shows, play readings, and raising funds to produce our theater projects. Over the years, a lot of very well-known people have been here for previews.

The floor space is 40 x 25. The sound equipment, designed by Bela Bartok's son, Peter, is powerful professional equipment which we've used in Broadway and Off-Broadway theaters. Our lighting equipment is homemade--we scrounged large tomato cans from neighborhood restaurants, converted them, and made tinfoil frames to hold the gels for each light. Our homemade dimmer board sits in the dressing rooms that are next to our two offices. Above my office is storage space for the costumes and props I used when I performed as soloist with symphony orchestras, and toured the world with my dance company.

In the center of the floor are the chairs and barre I use when I dance to "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis," by Ralph Vaughan Williams. Every day, I perform a four-minute section of this music.

HERE'S eUGENE ORMANY CONDUCTING ... AS YOU LISTEN you con't eee leaps, and pirouettes ...you'll just see dance Rmily  cu=isiting the room, rlatng to each proo--elating the chair with curiosity and tenderness recalling how it was use.d   
When I'm dancing to this music, you don't see typical dance steps such as leaps, pirouettes, and intricate footwork. Instead, dancer Em visits the room and discovers each prop--relating to each, with curiosity and tenderness, recalling how it was used.

You'[ll hear the As the music crescendos before the end of  "Fantasia," standing tall on the double set of chairs, dancer Em surveys the room. Then, swiftly, recapitulating the memories, triumphantly, I leave the room.

Dancing has been the major part of my life since I was ten-years-old. I dance like people who go to church--I just go into my studio, warm up at the barre, turn on the sound equipment, and the Vaughan Williams music begins.

The great Eugene Ormandy is conducting the music. As you listen, perhaps you'll understand how the music inspires me, gets me remembering, reliving, and dancing. 


It's marvelous to hear John. As I'm typing this I've been hearing songs from "Clear Day" and "Camelot," chuckling as John describes the day a stage manger called out, "You're next Mr. Cooolum," when he was auditioning for a show he didn't get.

NEED A GOOD NIGHT'S SLEEP?

As a poor sleeper, having gone off caffeine, tried over-the-counter remedies and doctors' prescriptions, melatonin, homeopathic remedies, warm milk, liquor, and counted sheep, l still have a hard time falling asleep. 

I mostly "fall" awake.  If you do, here's what I do!

My current routine: Tuck pillows under neck and knees, mutter Shakespeare words--"Sleep that knits up the raveled sleeve of care," and repeat the words, concentrating on the left leg, sensing the flow of blood in 10 toes, ankle, calf, knee, thigh, hip joint before concentrating on the right leg. I repeat this 15 to 30 times till my mind rebels, and a loud awareness that I am wide awake drives me out of bed.

If you try this, and are still wide awake, get a snack. Watch TV, and try again later.

Other possibilities: There's Modafinil, a stimulant that Wall street-investors use. There's a relatively new process called transcranial direct stimulation (tDCS) that zaps the brain with electricity, and keeps people up for as much as 30 hours, but tDCS currently lasts six.

Dammit, I don't want to spend my work time, trying new things that might or not work. 

Doctors say the Internet, email, and social networking are giving us shots of dopamine, a chemical the brain releases to simulate pleasure. We get this from caffeine, and nowadays we're sold caffeine in toothbrushes, stockings, soap, bath bubbles, beer, marshmallows, lollipops, coke, red bull, and bottled water. So, don't drink coffee? Do drink it? Drink it less?

Golly, we're flashed a lot of facts--about coffee, saccharin, eggs, cholesterol, omega 3, belly fat, dental hygiene, bacteria, calories, carbs, exercise--most of this is in my BB pile (bullshit baloney), where many of the latest life and death important facts fade like smoke rings.

FACT: After a not-enough-sleep night, I do my work--how well I do it depends, not on sleep, but on whether or not the topic excites me.

Therefore, I do my "raveled sleeve" routine, and sing this to myself. If you sing this a few times and are still wide awake, get a snack. Then, if you sing it again, and again, and again, you'll pleasantly tire yourself/bore yourself to sleep.