sirena

While an entirely unimaginative name for a mermaid, it is a great name for an agency: like the one I just signed with this week!

Points for segue!

You can check em out right here: Sirena Models

mermaids!

Just saw POTC 4. Came away with one definite conclusion: my 5 year old self was entirely right...mermaids are the awesomest!

What isn't great about mermaids? They are beautiful, and magical and part fish, and they can breathe everywhere, and they are beautiful and magical.

Maggie Age 5 is invigorated and alive within Adult Maggie! Now, to make myself a tail.

I know that mermaids have long hair because
1. They don't have scissors under the ocean
2. They need something to cover their ta-tas when they are being filmed/painted/photographed/animated
...but I think I'd make a pretty awesome mermaid. And think of all the time I'd save, not having to sit on rocks and comb my hair. Much more room in my schedule to swim around and eat sailors.

Also, POTC writers, I won't get into other issues I had with the film but re: mermaid's name...SIRENA? REALLY? That's the MOST CREATIVE NAME you could come up with? C'mon dudes. I think the only less-inventive option would've been Ariel.


In other arts-consumption news: I saw Friendly Fires on Friday (whee!) at the Music Box, and they were brilliant, and Rusty & I danced our booties off. Highly recommend checking out Pala, their new record.

with love
Maggie Moon

on girls (running the world)

Beyonce is the best at her job.

I love me some Gaga (not so much the current album, but the woman breaks ground with a sledgehammer on the regular, so I'm not gonna kvetch too hard about this 90s Ultimate Dance Party thing she's doing), and Katy Perry is my roommate's boss...and she's pretty damn cool too. The thing I admire most about the women of Pop nowadays is how HARD these chicks WORK. They are round the clock circle the globe hustlers. Respect.

Watch Beyonce do ANYTHING pertaining to being a lady pop star, and you are watching the true master. I will default to Gaga or Rihanna when I'm pop-rockin in my car, but once in awhile, when I get on a youtube binge for inspiration, it is Beyonce all the way...



The mark of mastery is that effortless grace she's got. You can still see the blood & sweat in other pop work. You KNOW B is workin, she has been for years. But lights camera action and she is smoother than smooth.

THAT is what I aspire to. To be a woman who conquers the entertainment industry, and doesn't let the effort show. It's not a weakness thing, and it's beautiful when certain celebrities show vulnerability, or cry in regards to their passions. I simply desire to be so comfortable and so deeply satisfied by what I'm doing that when I'm elbow-deep in the weeds of creation, or juggling 20 projects at once...the look on my face is one of serenity and joy.

I'm putting together this music video for Hell&Lula, and I'm really excited by the diversity of our creative team. We have a beautiful, multi-ethnic mix of girls & guys pooling their talents together to make this little film a knockout.

And what I love most about it is the way this whole project treats women.

This all-guy band is letting me, a woman, direct & exec produce. I am calling the shots (with their input, of course!), and our star is a woman. This star is going to dance on a pole...

But there will not be a moment where this comes across as degrading, or exploitative. She will have ALL of the power.

I briefly participated in meetings for an organization called 50/50 in 2020. I should catch up with them again. Their goal was to achieve parity in playwriting by 2020 - the ratio of produced plays written by men vs. by women right now is truly disgusting. It feels like the right time for this to change.

The comedy world - by the hands of Tina Fey, Amy Pohler and Kristin Wiig - is transforming. The pop world is FINALLY full of female artists who call their own shots.
It's time for the rest of the arts world to join the party.

More on this later.

structure

In this era of actual problems - i.e. tornadoes & earthquakes & bloody revolutions - I have a hard time blogging about The Struggle of my day-to-day. It feels more than a little trivial, compared to "What's Really Going On." That said, this is my own little piece of internet, and I feel an expression coming on that is greater than 140 characters...

I have not had a lot of formal structure in my life, but I was blessed somehow with an ability to fumble my way into a method that controls the madness. Before college/Nei-Play, I was an unschooler, or a "self-directed learner" as my pal Blake calls it. (Actually, I highly recommend checking out his latest initiative for the cause of self-educating: Zero Tuition College) Years of unschooling were good prep for freelance artistry, because it was up to me to figure out my education, pursue a high school diploma, get into college, etc. My parents helped, naturally, but I'm a bit of a bossy, so once I figured out I could do it myself, they were cool enough to let me take the reins.

Then, I did the college thing, and I got soft. Someone dictated where I needed to be, and what I needed to do, for the most part. The NP conservatory program was incredibly demanding, and I poured every ounce of my being into my work there. It was so nice.

Thusly once out of structured school, I had to re-teach myself how to...well...exist.

When you're a freelancer, especially in the arts, long periods of unemployment (or semi-employment) can drive you absolutely looney tunes. I know there are people out there who can appreciate a day off, or even more simply, not feel guilty for a day spent watching 30 Rock on Netflix.

I am not one of those people.

A day where I am not required to get out of my pajamas can be more stressful to me than any job, because I will inevitably spend all of said day mentally berating myself for not Being a Success. I have actually had some very Successful days in pajamas, but I have a very short memory when I'm engrossed in a particularly juicy career-based guilt-spiral.

Nowadays, I have a very helpful support structure (i.e. Rusty & Daisy) that I can call upon when in the midst of a mental beat down. Daisy is great at reassuring me that although I only went to yoga and wrote emails today, "you have, until now, just worked for 15 days straight without a break."

I don't think I'll ever be as good as Daisy is at creating Invented Schedules. She's a genius at creating activities to get her out into the world, and make a day that would otherwise be a big yawning nothing into potential networking. My skills are little more internet-y. My favorite thing to do on a particularly useless afternoon is to dig deep into the caverns of Craigslist, Model Mayhem, and the cobwebby nooks in my Gmail inbox for as-yet undiscovered (or forgotten) opportunities. Never underestimate your ancient facebook messages! That early 2009 "what's up" from that guy you knew in the eighth grade could turn out to be just the meeting you needed this week...

It's exciting to me that although I can never stick to a rigid routine, my weird roundabout methods are starting to pay off in career advancement and even American dollars! My refusal to incorporate a Plan B, even in the midst of the economic plague, is not necessarily leaving me a shoeless beggarwoman. I have a savings account now. And a CAR!

So, to other likeminded artsy worrywarts, I say: if you are in your pajamas and you cannot color-code your schedule, stop kicking your own arse. There is plenty of Mean Ol' World to take you down a notch; getting in your own way just adds to the pile of bad vibes. You can follow the path that is in your gut, and it will work out. Keep the faith, yo.

And putting on pants to walk to the store will probably make you feel like less of a Super Lazy, so, there's always that.