WISDOM

April 05, 2018 by Constanza Castro

I was going through my notes and I found a couple of quotes, short poems, and wise words that have resonated with me at different times of my life.

I am a hopeful human. I believe in romance and love. I believe in the good and kindness of people. I trust that things will get better if we try a little harder, therefore, when you find words that make you think, take a moment to write them down, so that you can look back and celebrate who you were and how you continue to evolve through this rollercoaster of life.

Several of these I found while searching for words to help friends through rough times, only to realize those words healed or awakened something inside myself.

"Everything you can imagine is real". - Pablo Picasso

"Genius is the ability to renew one's emotions in daily experience", Paul Cezanne

“A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle”, Gloria Steinem

"Take your broken heart, and turn it into art", Carrie Fisher

"Take it personal. If it's not personal, it's impersonal and if it's impersonal, no one cares", Aaron Sorkin to Martin Sheen.

"I am a fish. You are the moon. You cannot touch me, but your light fills the ocean where I live", Rumi

"Being loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage", Lao Tzu

"It's never too late to be what you might have been", George Eliot

"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you", Maya Angelou

"I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees", Pablo Neruda

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle", Albert Einstein

"We’ll chase the sunrise, over mountains and rivers, through cities and seas", Tyler Knott Gerson (I have followed him on Tmblr since about 2007ish and once in a while I go back and his romantic poetry always makes my heart skip a beat).

"Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans", Allen Saunders (I really think this one is an awakening to be in the moment. To enjoy the now).

"I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride. I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close", Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets

"It's enough for me to be sure that you and I exist at this moment", Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

"On some far off shore, on some foggy afternoon, you will walk to me", Tyler Knott Gerson

List from FEB + MARCH 2018

April 04, 2018 by Constanza Castro

Watched:
Wedding Crashers
Playing it Cool
Cinderella
Hidden Figures
Going in Style
Something’s Gotta Give
Waitress (Broadway Musical)
The Parisian Woman (Broadway)
Meet the Parents
Newness
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri
Call Me By Your Name (x2)
The Office (Season 1)
The Host (Boon Joon-ho)
The Overnight
Black Mirror - Hang the DJ
Goodfellas
Phantom Thread (Live Score @ the Ace)
Jackie Brown
Girls Trip
Thou Wast Mild and Lovely
Beach Rats
A Fantastic Woman
Tree of Life
The Strangers
Darkest Hour
Thoroughbread
Music videos (101 w/ BH: Cathedrals - Try to Fly / Cary - Lotus / KCPK - Who Wants It / The Blaze - Territory)
Blazing Saddles
Afternoon Delight

Listened to:
This American Life
The New Yorker

Read:
Sudden Flash Youth ( Tamazunchale by Robert Shapard / Chalk by Meg Kearney / Twins by Pamela Painter / First Virtual by Kathleen O'Donnell

Men Explain Things To Me (Rebecca Solnit)

Learned:
"Fix it in prep" - Catherine Hardwicke

To get outside my comfort zone and try things I haven't tried before ( making first moves )

List from JAN 2018

February 01, 2018 by Constanza Castro

Watched:
Shape of Water
Black Mirror Season 4
The Departed
World of Tomorrow (short 1 and 2)
The Insult
Killing of a Sacred Deer
500 Days of Summer
Austin powers : The Spy Who Shagged Me
The Orphanage
Wedding Crashers
Tord and Tord
L’avventura (criterion look into)
It
The Post
The Truman Show
Stepford Wives
A Ghost Story
Bad Moms 2
Pinocchio
I, Tonya
Love (Netflix)
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
3 Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri
An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn
Sleeping With Other People
Florida Project
Mandy

Listened to:
Shirley Scott
Caribou
Feist
Carol (Soundtrack)
Her (Soundtrack)
A Deriva (Soundtrack)

Read:
The Mothers ( Brit Bennett )
Directing Actors ( Judith Weston )

Learned:
That I still need to find courage to say things I need to say. Find your fearlessness. (still searching for it).

take a look back

January 12, 2018 by Constanza Castro

I'm listening to the ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND soundtrack while going through old photos in my computer, try it sometime. Thank you, Mark Duplass, for tweeting, daring your followers to try such a thing. I looped it and then moved to A DERIVA's (ADRIFT) soundtrack.

Here are some pictures I found that I dig and dig deep into my soul, bringing back the smell of the day, the feelings, the carelessness of youth.

"That’s when I realized that certain moments go on forever. Even after they’re over they still go on, even after you're dead and buried, those moments are lasting still, backward and forward, on into infinity. They are everything and everywhere all at once". - Lauren Oliver, Before I Fall

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List from OCT + NOV + DEC 2017

January 04, 2018 by Constanza Castro

Watched:
Franca
Gaga Five Foot Two
Victoria
The VVitch
Transparent (Season 4)
Battle of the Sexes
Before Midnight
50 Shades Darker
Do the Right Thing
Amores Perros
Third Industrial Revolution (Vice Doc)
The Sopranos (Season 1)
While We’re Young
Swiss Army Man
Scenes From a Marriage
Spielberg (HBO Doc)
The Invitation
Stranger Things (2 episodes, Season 2)
The Lovers
Come and See
Summer of '93
The Disaster Artist
Los Caifanes
April’s Daughter
Dead Poets Society
Love Me If You Dare
The Square
Ladybird
Oldboy
Caddyshack
Coco
Easy (season 1)
Friends (season 2-3)
The Holiday
Best of Enemies
Song to Song
Magnolia
Downsizing
Maid in Manhattan
Space Jam
Elf

Listened to:
The hi-lo’s
Tal Farlow
The Four Freshmen
Yusef lateef
Tops
Bobby oroza
Crash
Trex
Lalaland soundtrack
Stevie wonder
79.5
A lot of Christmas 🎄 music 🎼

Read:
Cortázar
La la Land (Screenplay)
El Jefe (Biografía Arturo Castro)
Already Dead (Ryland McIntyre)
Casey Gates script
Her Body and Other Parties 🎉
To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before

Learned:
So much about my family. Where I come from. It all makes so much sense. I’m overwhelmed by emotion and excitement and sorrow and knowledge

About radical Latin American women at the Hammer. So inspiring to review 25 years (60-85) of their work, struggles, desire and fervor

Patience... (seems like I keep learning this).

Radical Women: Latin America 1960-1985

October 30, 2017 by Constanza Castro

I went to the Hammer museum exhibit or Radical Women, below are some of my favorites. Check it out. It's empowering.

Sylvia Salazar Simpson (1970's) - She is a Chicana artist who used fresh and decaying foods on her hair aimed at challenging beauty canons and the concept of adornments as a way to beautify women.

Lourdes Grobet (1975) - Mexican artist - Hora y Media - With this work, she proposed a radical transgression of the photographic ethos (preservation of the moment captured through the light imprinted on paper) as an eloquent metaphor of the invisibility of the woman artist. Her gestures recall Botticelli's Venus, but she chooses to be clothed, a deliberate nonobjectified version of it.

Judith F. Baca (1976) - American Chicana Artist. Las Tres Marías.

Ana Mendieta (1975) - Cuban - Corazón de roca con sangre

Pattsi Valdes - East LA artist - Limitations Beyond My Control. - Valdes embraced urban hispanic culture. She was bothered by the way women were represented in the media. She also alludes to way men considered women as sexual objects.

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List from JULY + AUG + SEPT 2017

October 04, 2017 by Constanza Castro

Things I Watched:
Mean Girls
Girlboss
Something's Gotta Give
Moana
It Follows
Spiderman
What Women Want
The Beguiled
Dunkirk
Young Frankenstein
Rogue One
Terms of Endearment
Mud
Certain Women
Jackie
Allied
Analyze This
Friends with Benefits
Que culpa tiene El Niño
Moonlight
The Baxter
Something Wild
Glow
Friends
Girls Just Wanna Have Fun
Ghost World @ Cinespia
Colossal
Royal Tenenbaums
Sex and the City (season 4-6)
Rough Night
Ingrid Goes West
Coming to America @ Cinespia
Bridget Jones Diary
Lion Heart
Leap Year
Back to the Future
The Emmys
The Invisible Guest
The Big Sick
Mother!
Beatriz at Dinner
Indecent Proposal
Vanilla Sky
First Wives Club

Things I Listened to:

We are never meeting in real life - Samantha Irby
Earth Wind and Fire
Rosa Passos
Madeleine Peyroux
Lee Moses
The Babe Rainbow
Film scores radio
Khruangbin

Things I Read:
Belleville - Amy Herzog

Things I Learned:

That I'm actually a pretty good driver across the US.

I've managed to perfect yawning without opening my mouth nor making weird faces.

When I'm walking by people's houses, I love to look into their homes to see how it's decorated. Related, I enjoy seeing what others have in their grocery carts when shopping! I get ideas!

Action action.

Babies look good with me according to some people and I'm good with them!

Too much analysis causes paralysis.

List from MAY and JUNE 2017

June 30, 2017 by Constanza Castro

MAY and JUNE 2017:

Things I watched:

Handmaid's Tale

Indiana Jones : Raiders of the Lost Ark

Monsoon Wedding

I Love Dick

13 Reasons Why

The Prestige

Hidden Figures

Boogie Nights

The Out of Towners

Mindy Project (season 5)

Something's Gotta Give

Ivan's Childhood

Girlfriends (1978)

Beauty and the Beast

Wonder Woman

Neruda

Babel

The Party

Shorts at Palm Springs Shorts Film Fest

A Fish Called Wanda

Listened to:

You'll Grow Out of It - Jessi Klein

60's on SIX, 90's on 9, 70's on 7. (A lot of Backstreet Boys, Celine Dion, and TLC)

Learned:

Stop trying to please people, just be yourself.

Still working on my patience : )

List from APRIL 2017

May 04, 2017 by Constanza Castro

Watched:

Big Little Lies

Bobs Burgers

Get Out

Girls Season 6

Shanghai Express

13 Reasons Why

Bridget Jones

Flower

New York Group Therapy (JOY JOY NAILS @ TRIBECA, WEEE!)

The Accountant

Bad Moms (bad movie!)

Louie (FINALLY AHH!)

Girl Boss (2 episodes only)

The Thin Blue Line

Tropic thunder

Listened to:

S-town

You'll Grow Out of It - Jessi Klein

Learned:

That I can't draw perfect stars. I just can't. Will I ever learn?

Vitamins should be taken at night. Thanks, Ry!

Turning 30 is not as bad as I thought. I AM BLESSED!!

Draw boundaries. Don't wait till it's too late. (Still think this one will take time to put in action consistently).

I don't like veggies in my burger.

To speak up and stand your ground.

Lists from JANUARY-MARCH 2017

April 03, 2017 by Constanza Castro

JANUARY 2017

Watched:

The skin I live In

Lalaland

Cafe Society

Priceless

Eastbound & Down

Sparrows

Los Abrazos Rotos

The Young Pope

Being there

Hannah and Her Sisters

Krisha

Obvios Child

American History X

Diary of a Teenage Girl

Spectre

Captain Fantastic

Catch Me If You Can

New Girl

Heard:

The shacks

Buffalo Daughter

Badbadnotgood

Belanova

Luis Miguel

Read:

Handmaid's Tale

Hombres Sin Mujeres

Learned:

I absolutely hate shipping things.

FEBRUARY 2017

Watched:

Young Pope

Santa Clarita Diet

People vs OJ Simpson

Jackie Brown

Entonces Nosotros

My Life as a Zucchini

The Commune

Breathless

The White Helmets

Zootopia

Aquí Entre Nos

Living in Oblivion

The Maid

Heard:

Bobby Womback (across 110th street)

Dorothy Ashby

Alice Coltrane

Care Tacuba

Molly burch

Velvet Underground

Blood Orange

Thelonious Monk

Tennis

Read:

Molier's TARTUFFE

MY BRILLIANT FRIEND (Elena Ferrante)

MARCH 2017

Sausage Party

Girls (mega binged season 1-5)

500 Days of Summer

The Big Lebowski

Lion

Big Little Lies

Midnight in Paris

Blow

Collateral Beauty ( @ Cinefamily - Doug Benson Interruption...ONLY way to watch this movie)

Heard:

90's tracks

Jose Jose

Yeah Yeah Yeah's

Started S-Town (OH, SOOOO GOOOD)

Learned:

To make picadillo (and it turned out spectacular : P)

That sometimes the right thing to do, is the most difficult thing to do.

To let go of my beautiful family dog Orejas for 17 years...she was the best doggy, but was sick and we had to be selfless and put her out of her pain on March 26th. TE AMO, PRINCESA!

To speak up!

SQUADRON "Bi-Weekly Survival Kit for the Modern Woman"

March 24, 2017 by Constanza Castro

I was honored to write this month's bi-weekly newsletter for our feminist group The Squadron - a diverse group of individuals who have come together with the common goal of enhancing dialogue, increasing education, and creating positive change in our immediate communities by reinstating the practice of thoughtful exploration and respectful discussion across partisan lines.

Check out the issue HERE.

-thoughts from today-

February 23, 2017 by Constanza Castro

It is a surreal experience to revisit your thoughts and to remember how important it is to document your feelings and impressions. To delve and to reveal. For years later you will remember a passion that was inside you , and the fire will be ignited all over again.

Lists from NOVEMBER / DECEMBER 2016

January 09, 2017 by Constanza Castro

NOVEMBER:

Things I Watched:

Black Mirror (season 3)

Good Girls Revolt

The Beach

Transparent

Fleabag

The graduate

Interview with a vampire

Mozart in the jungle (season 1 and 2)

Westworld

Love (Netflix)

Tiny furniture

The Intern

Alan Partridge

Steve Jobs

Clueless

Music I Listened To:

Lijadu Sisters

Caribou

Max Richter's - Leftovers soundtrack

Things I Read:

JUST KIDS (1/2)

DECEMBER:

Things I Watched:

When Harry Met Sally

Desperately Seeking Susan

Bridget Jones Diary

Midnight in Paris

Arrival

La Ciénaga

Youth

Home Alone

Say Anything

Wild Tales

20th Century 2omen

Divorced

Everest

La La Land

Freaks and Geeks

Minority Report

Leolo

Just Friends

The OA

Love Actually

Easy

Two Days, One Night

Nocturnal Animals (X2)

Because I Said So

The Holiday

Manchester By The Sea

Why Him

New Girl

Blind Date

Edge of Seventeen

Music I Listened to:

Christmas Music

La La Land Soundtrack

Arrival Soundtrack

Things I Read:

Scripts (some good, some bad)

Cortazar short stories

Lists from OCTOBER 2016

November 01, 2016 by Constanza Castro

Things I Watched:

The Road

This Must Be The Place

Quiz Show (again...)

Hunt For The Wilderpeople

Mother's Day

Money Monster

Good Girls Revolt

Breakfast at Tiffany's

Music I Listened To:

Her Soundtrack

Painted Veil soundtrack

Bodyguard soundtrack

Digable Planets

Sinkane

Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band

Vinicius

Things I Read:

READY PLAYER ONE (Ernest Cline)

JUST KIDS (Patti Smith)

THE MEN WITHOUT THE WOMEN (just started...Haruki Marakami)

Things I learned:

Confidence is everything. Be confident.

Be humble, be kind. Always. Never question this.

Unless you do, people don't know.

If something you're working on frustrates you, let it go. Then go back to it and try again.

Perspective and time go hand in hand.

Words of Wisdom:

“ I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,

in secret, between the shadow and the soul.”

-Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets

Lists from SEPTEMBER 2016

October 17, 2016 by Constanza Castro

Things I Watched:

Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates

La Delagada Linea Amarilla

El Clan

The Night Of

The Danish Girl

Sisters

Masters Of Sex

New Girl

Clueless

Music I Listened To:

Gino Vanelli

Carpenters

Carol King

Belanova

Dorothy Ashby

Dean Martin

Rolling Stones

Connie Conway

Things I Read:

Started READY PLAYER ONE (Ernest Cline)

Started JUST KIDS (Patty Smith)

Words of Wisdom:

"The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free." - Baruch Spinoza

"When the child was a child
It was the time of the following questions
Why am I me and why not you
Why am I here and why not there
Why did time begin and where does space end
Isn't what I see and hear and smell
Just the appearance of the world in front of the world
Isn't life under the sun just a dream?"

-Wings of Desire (Wim Wenders) // Song of Child (Peter Handke) // Song of Being a Child (Van Morrison)

Lists from AUGUST 2016

September 14, 2016 by Constanza Castro

Things I watched:

What Women Want

Mr robot

The Martian

Wedding Crashers

Music I listened to:

Cassie

*Margo Guryan - Sunday Morning

*The Delfonica - Ready or Not Here I Come

*Gil Scott-Heron

Olivia Newton John - magic

The Delfonics

Luther Vandross

Best Coast

Janet Jackson

Muddy Waters

Ottis Redding

Badbadnotgood -

Margo Guryan - Sunday morning

The Whitest Boy alive

The Meters - Cissy Strut

The Staples Singers

The Story of the Soul Bros Inc - 1964-1974

John Coltrane

Stan Getz

Bob Dylan - Bring it all back home again

The Drifters

Toulouse

Fugees - Zealots

Toro Y Moi

Small Black

Bill Withers

Little Jimmy Scott- Be My Sunshine

Bonson Berner

Slow Meadow

Things I Read:

Revenant (screenplay)

The Girl on a Train (for character analysis)

This I Learned:

That no matter what, I am blessed to have my family, healthy, alive, together.

Lists from JULY 2016

August 09, 2016 by Constanza Castro

Things I watched: Greenberg ShampooMargot at the Wedding Roman Holiday Jurassic Park Coming to America Heaven Knows What About Elly An Affair to Remember Vanya on 42nd Street Working Girl Frank… — **Things I watched:**
Greenberg
Shampoo
Margot at the Wedding
Roman Holiday
Jurassic Park
Coming to America
Heaven Knows What
About Elly
An Affair to Remember
Vanya on 42nd Street
Working Girl
Frankie and Grace
Stranger Things

**Things I Listened To:**
Start Up Pod Cast
Jimmy Scott- Be my Sunshine
Tom Jobim
Marissa Nadler (Echo)
Joni Mitchell
Astrud Gilberto
Dreezy
Little Dragon
Paul Anka
Real Estate
The Tornados
CAN
El Michels Affair- CREAM
Ri-Ri
Beyoncé - lemonade

Lists from JUNE 2016

July 03, 2016 by Constanza Castro

Things I watched:

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Adrift (A Deriva)

Everest

Shorts programs LVFF (Sumo Road - The Musical, So Good to See You, Monday, The Aquarium, Night of the Slasher, In Pursuit, FLEX, Thunder Road, The Bloop, Hit & Run, The Babysitter Murders, Youth, Wally's Will, Mobilize.

BAFTA student Shorts (El Adios, Where We Stand, An Object at Rest, 219, Seide, Unremarkable, None of That, Spark)

Magnolia

I Am Love

Girlhood

Shark Week

Finding Dory

Broad City (Season 3)

L'enfance Nue

Greenberg

Interiors

The Lobster

The Hairy Ape (starring Ben Hethcoat at Odyssey Theater)

Things I read:

The Girl on the Train (Paula Hawkins)

Things I listened to:

K-Pop

Jaakko eino kalevu (double talk)

Things I learned:

To accept and embrace uncertainty

That I can still sing like Shakira

Lists from MAY 21016

June 03, 2016 by Constanza Castro

THINGS I WATCHED IN MAY:

The Eye In The Sky

Love (Gaspar Noe)

Wetlands

In The House

Closer

The Holiday

New Girl (Season 5)

Anomalisa

Three Kings

The Sitter

Transparent (seasons 1 and 2)

Man and Chicken

In The Mood For Love

Sundance Shorts (Partners, Thunde Road, Procedure)

Pitter Patter Goes My Heart

Las Elegidas

Mr. Pig

The Overnight

THINGS I LISTENED TO: (Check out my Spotify Playlist J’ai 2.9. to listen to this playlist)

The Hics

The Horrors

Honey Honey

Nina Simone

Lee Hazelwood

Washed Out

Sun Rai

The School of Greatness podcast

SONGS OF THE MONTH:

Mr. Bojangles - Nina Simone

My Autumn's Done Come- Lee Hazelwood

THINGS I LEARNED:

That change is good

(Learning) to play the guitar

Do what you're afraid to do

That a good leader listens and always continues to learn and grow

Don't compromise your power

Be a consummate professional

That I hate taxes and DMV with all my might, but- you have to deal with it, so be happy and don't waste time getting mad because no matter, what, you gotta deal with it

Keep your hand up

FLEX VIMEO STAFF PICKED!

June 03, 2016 by Constanza Castro