Beyond the casinos, past the clubs, over the glittering, multi-million dollar hotels that light up the Las Vegas Strip, beat the quiet drums of innovation and progress. Change is afoot.

Las Vegas is on the verge of a renaissance, thanks, in part, to the fantastical vision and persuasive passion of Zappos CEO and Delivering Happiness author, Tony Hsieh.

Credit Marc Burckhardt

What began as a relocation project, moving the online shoe and apparel shop headquarters from its Henderson location to downtown Las Vegas, has blossomed into a revitalization project, breathing new life into an area all too often described as seedy and run-down.

By the end of 2013, Zappos will take over downtown’s old City Hall building, which will receive a major renovation to accommodate 2,000 of its employees (the Henderson office is home to approximately 1,200), and several blocks of surrounding real estate have been procured to round out the “Zappos campus,” serving as a spark plug to the surrounding area.

It’s all part of Hsieh’s vision to make downtown Las Vegas a vital community — attracting families, urban dwellers, and business owners — to not only visit, but to live and thrive, with art galleries, yoga studios, coffee shops, book stores, sporting events and charter schools.

Hsieh is investing $350 million into the Downtown Project, with $200 million in real estate development, including residential, $50 million for small business investment, $50 million for education, and $50 million for start-up investments, in companies who are already in Las Vegas or are willing to relocate to downtown.

The start-up investment is a ripe opportunity for seedling companies looking for the right environment to get off the ground. Besides providing a lower cost of living, compared to many start-up hubs, the Downtown Project offers access to mentors, space and peers.

When I asked Zach Ware, who oversees campus, urban, and start-up development, about the strategy to attract start-ups and compete against fertile start-up grounds like Palo Alto, San Francisco and Seattle, he explained:

We’re less about comparisons and more about creating something new. Most cities have their fair share of incubation programs and other formal ways to accelerate learning and happiness. We see an opportunity to create a form of an incubator in an entire city, but without the formalities. So if you consider the elements that make up an incubator (proximity to mentors, proximity to others like you, access to capital and space) we think those things can be more organically scaled if they are a part of a city. 

Taking a cue from the edicts in Triumph of the City, the project aims to make downtown Las Vegas a great place to eat, meet, work, live, learn, and play.

After witnessing first-hand the kind of company Tony Hsieh has built with Zappos — during my recent headquarters tour, one senior woman commented, “Boy, would I have loved to work here when I was young” — I have no doubt the project will be a success. In fact, it’s the only Vegas bet I’ll make.

What if I offered you a keyhole view into the seedy underbelly of the Internet, a journey into the world of cybercrime, cyber-espionage and other threats? Would you want a look?

If the answer is yes, you’re in luck, because that’s exactly what Charles Koppelman is offering with his film ZERO DAY, a documentary exploring “the dark side of the Internet.”

Embedded with Facebookʼs Security Team at its Menlo Park headquarters, given unprecedented fly-on-the-wall access to intrusions, hacks, and criminal activities, Charles and his crew deep-dive into the most high severity cases of e-crime at Facebook.

Add in the investigative journalism of former Washington Post “Security Fix” reporter, Brian Krebs, who takes the audience on the wild ride of money laundering for the Russian mafia (that sadly prey on “mules” through work-at-home job scams), and you have one compelling narrative.

Now the film is in its final push to completion, looking to Kickstarter to bring in the remaining dollars needed to make the project a theatrical reality. I’ve already kicked in $10 and in return will receive the finished film (in down-loadable format).

If any of this sounds at all interesting to you, I recommend checking out ZERO DAY’s Kickstarter page and help it cross the finish line.

Last month at The Women in the World Summit, Meryl Streep delivered a rousing tribute to U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, which seemed to make even the consummate actress and orator a little nervous and tongue-tied.

Streep struck home the point that while the world has been busy “judging [Hillary], assessing her hair, her jackets, supporting her, worrying about her – is she getting enough sleep?” our Madame Secretary has been ”busy working, doing it, making those words ‘Women’s rights are human rights’ into something every leader in every country now knows is a linchpin of American policy.”

Streep also reminded the audience:

“…it is not a simple job to be a role model. It is not just being endlessly compassionate, polite, and well-groomed. It’s equal parts being who you actually are and what people hope you will be. It’s representing, for all women, our very best selves. It’s an enormous burden to be placed upon any sweetly rounded shoulders. But that’s what we ask of her.”

And she thanked Hillary for “her willingness to take it all on – the hostility and the sniping and the special scrutiny and the heavy artillery.”

In light of the recent “Texts from Hillary” phenomenon, I sincerely hope “scrunchie time” makes it into the inevitable Hillary-Clinton-Played-By-Meryl-Streep-Biopic.

Several years ago, I read about a psychology course being taught at Harvard, “Positive Psychology,” which became the most popular course at the university. The Head Teaching Fellow for the class, Shawn Achor, went on to write and publish, “The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work.”

A fascinating, well-researched and convincing read, what I found most compelling about The Happiness Advantage was Principle #7: Social Investment. With it, Achor highlights the study, “Very Happy People,” in which researchers sought out the characteristics of the happiest 10 percent among us. Of all the factors considered, including wealth, warmth of climate, and physical fitness, only one characteristic distinguished the happiest 10 percent from everybody else: strength of social relationships.

Achor buoyed the argument with his own research:

My empirical study of well-being among 1,600 Harvard undergraduates found a similar result—social support was a far greater predictor of happiness than any other factor, more than GPA, family income, SAT scores, age, gender, or race. In fact, the correlation between social support and happiness was 0.7. This may not sound like a big number, but for researchers it’s huge—most psychology findings are considered significant when they hit 0.3.

He then goes to explain one of the key mistakes people make that utterly disembowels of our central happiness. During times of challenge and stress, people will retreat into themselves, producing an emotional retraction. Perhaps it’s the perceived stigma of showing fear, of feeling shame, that causes us to divest from our social network. But in doing so, we only isolate ourselves, lose perspective, and most importantly, lose the benefit of having a support network in the first place.

After all, what’s the point of having social capital if we can’t tap into it when we need it most?

I recently experienced this phenomenon while going through some major life changes and relationship issues. I kept retreating, putting on a happy face while hiding the fact that I was dealing with some pretty heady stuff, and in the process, only made the situation worse. Finally, I hit a wall. I realized I couldn’t continue repressing and be happy.

So I finally opened up to a few trusted friends and family members. I even talked to a therapist. And to my own stubborn, arrogant surprise, it worked, as if my soul let out an exasperated sigh of relief.

As Achor warns in The Happiness Advantage, even though basic instincts might compel us to turn inward, positive psychology knows better. It can prove the difference between our ultimate success and failure.

Last night, I attended the D.C. Environmental Film Festival Premiere kick-off film, You’ve Been Trumped.

As someone who has experienced Scotland’s breathtaking beauty and decadent history, the Scottish government’s decision to overturn its own environmental policy to allow Donald Trump to build a golf course on Europe’s most environmentally sensitive stretches of coast, described by one leading scientist as Scotland’s Amazon rain forest, is certainly intriguing. After all, this is a fiercely nationalistic country with a Freedom to Roam policy and a strong record for preserving its environmental landscape and natural heritage.

But tough economic times call for tough economic decisions.

Trump’s development proposal “to build the world’s greatest golf course” was initially rejected in 2007 by a local subcommittee of elected members; however, in 2008, John Swinney, the Scottish cabinet secretary for finance and sustainable growth, overturned the council’s decision by announcing permission for the development, as Trump promised to create over 6,000 jobs:

With latest official statistics showing unemployment in Scotland has risen to 7.6 percent, the move has been welcomed by the country’s government who are anxious to bring investment to the area.

A spokesman for the ruling Scottish Nationalist Party told CNN: “Ministers agreed with the public inquiry conclusion that there was significant economic and social benefit to be gained from the application by Trump International Golf Links Scotland to develop a golf resort at Balmedie.” (via CNN)

Many economists, nonetheless, have been challenging Trump on his economic estimates:

Paul Cheshire, professor emeritus of economic geography at London School of Economics and Political Science, carried out his own assessment of the economic case for the development of the Menie Estate. He was surprised to find that the Scottish government had not commissioned its own independent analysis of the likely benefits – instead, the government relied on an economic impact assessment carried out for TIGL by Strathclyde University.

Professor Cheshire describes that assessment as “wildly optimistic” because of its assumptions about the creation of new jobs for local people. He points out that constructing a golf course is not like building houses because very few specialist companies are capable of doing it. As it turns out, an Irish company is managing the construction of the resort, using mainly its own labour. (via The Guardian)

Trump also promised to leave the dunes in better shape and condition than they were before. Evidence, thus far, however, has proven otherwise as documented by local residents and You’ve Been Trumped filmmaker, Anthony Baxter:

In an interesting twist, Trump is now embroiled in a fight to prevent the building of an offshore windfarm near his luxury golf resort which he deems will be “an eyesore.”

Whatever the outcome, You’ve Been Trumped (funded via @IndieGoGo) was a tremendous start to the festival. I’m looking forward to checking out more films in the coming two weeks (March 13-25): http://www.dcenvironmentalfilmfest.org/

If living in Southern California and becoming entrenched in the world of surfing has taught me one thing, it’s that surfers are a beautiful lot. Here are some of my favorites…

Owen Wright

Australian. 21. 6’3”. Laid-back, sweet demeanor. Killer smile. And an Australian accent to boot. What more can a girl ask for?

Dane Ward

The epitome of the Southern California surfer boy, how can you not adore a guy who chooses Acai over coffee?

Kelly Slater

The #1 surfer in the world, I thought I was looking at a 1950s movie star when I saw this photo of him.

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If you’re not familiar with Pinterest, the visual bookmarking site/service that allows users to “pin” interesting images found online, along with notes and links back to the original source, take note.

TechCrunch recently attained exclusive data from comScore showing the site just hit 11.7 million unique monthly U.S. visitors, crossing the 10 million mark faster than any other standalone site in history.

The majority of Pinterest users are women (97 percent) with its largest growing demographic being women ages 18-34, located in middle America. And apparently this is a lucrative demographic, as Pinterest drives more traffic to retailers than Google+.

I’ve had an account for about 4 months, but haven’t really started using it until recently. The reason I like it is the same reason I enjoy screenwriting: it’s a visual art form. I may not fit the “scrapbooking” middle American female stereotype, but I do like being able to see information I save and organize from the web, in an aesthetically pleasing way (check out my Screenwriting Board, as an example).

Not only does Pinterest provides a practical service, but it does so in a manner that matches the way I like to process information. Which just goes to show, women are visual.

A new study in Clinical Infectious Diseases shows that Google Flu Trends can predict surges in hospital flu visits more than a week before the Center for Disease Control (CDC).

For the study, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine researchers compared Baltimore-specific data from the Google Flu Trends website, which estimates influenza outbreaks based on online searches for flu information, to ED crowding and laboratory statistics from Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Using Google Flu Trends, researchers found that the number of online searches for flu information increased at the same time that the hospital’s pediatric ED experienced a rise in cases of children with flu-like symptoms. The Google Flu Trends data had a moderate correlation with patient volume in the adult ED. Moreover, Google Flu Trends signaled an uptick in flu cases seven to 10 days earlier than CDC‘s U.S. Influenza Sentinel Provider Surveillance Network. (via Advisory.com Daily Briefing)

Yesterday, The New York Times posted Questions To Ask Before You Marry, which I then re-shared  in Facebook, setting off an interesting debate. Several of my happily married friends laughed, saying it’s overly pedantic. Me, I like to be thorough about any type of investment or venture I pursue, especially when there’s a contract involved.

What do you think? Does it scream “Written by an MBA” or should couples approach marriage more like a business investment/venture?

Here are the 10 questions:

1. What is our “mission statement” as a couple?
2. To what extent are you willing to go to have a family, medically?
3. What will we do if we find out our child has severe disabilities?
4. Who should I have on speed dial for the days when I just can’t figure you out?
5. Can you name two couples that you admire and would hope to emulate?
6. How do we stay sexually engaged with each other?
7. Will we share our credit reports with each other?
8. Should we have an exit strategy for the marriage, and if so, what would it be?
9. If married previously, why did it end and what did you learn from that relationship?
10. What are our conflict management styles, and are they compatible?

And in response to the “absurdity” of these questions, my friend, John Bordeaux, wrote this response, ”Breaking Down Loves Checklist” – which is worth reading and reflection.

Question in Quora: http://www.quora.com/Should-couples-approach-marriage-more-like-a-business-venture-investment

Craig Stecyk, Tony Hawk, Stacy Peralta

Hear the name Stacy Peralta and you instantly think either: A) I love Stacy Peralta! or B) Who the heck is she?

He is the highest-ranked skateboarder of his time, turned multi-million dollar businessman, turned filmmaker. He is also the creator of, and father-figure to, the Bones Brigade, a skate team that featured the era’s top competitors, including Tony Hawk.

While heading up the Bones Brigade, Stacy went on to produce almost a dozen videos, which became some of the most influential skateboarding flicks of their time and set him on a path to film-making. His film Riding Giants, which traces the origins of surfing, specifically focusing on the art of big wave riding, became the first documentary film to open the Sundance Film Festival in 2004 and established him as a powerful filmmaker and storyteller.

His latest documentary, Bones Brigade: An Autobiography is not only a look-back at his life, but more importantly, an insider’s view on the evolution of skateboarding and how its pioneers and legends (like Tony Hawk, Rodney Mullen, Steve Caballero, Lance Mountain, Tommy Guerrero, and Mike McGill) were driven by sheer passion to create an art form. They were true innovators.

This was hands-down my favorite film from Sundance 2012 and in this intimate interview at the Sundance Cinema Cafe, Stacy shares his secret to success:

The secret is I had to learn how to fail. That’s the secret to success…is that you’ve got to learn how to fail. Because you fail more than you succeed.  You’ve got to get up off the ground and that’s the thing about success. You have to learn how to take those punches. When we skateboarded, we banged ourselves up all the time. But if you didn’t learn how to fall, if you didn’t learn how to bang yourself up, you couldn’t continue.

The film, expected to get a distribution deal for a theatrical release, is not a movie about skateboarding, but an emotional journey about passion, self-expression and the drive to create something meaningful and beyond the realm of possible.

In one week, the Sundance Film Festival will commence. As a three-year returning attendee, I find my enthusiasm and downright giddiness growing each year. It’s not about the parties, it’s not about the celebrities — it’s about the movies, which together present an eclectic mix of passion, wisdom and delight.

By far one of my favorite cinematic viewing pleasures comes in the form of the documentary, which for me, does the job of what many of my history teachers failed to do, tell a good story. Below are my favorites from over the years, that are available either on Netflix, iTunes or even YouTube.

The Oath: This was one of my favorite films from 2010 Sundance, hands-down. Following two brothers-in-law who served as Osama bin Laden’s former bodyguard and driver, it captures and contextualize issues that have befuddled Western media in the post-9/11 world, questioning notions of jihad, Guantanamo Bay and Al-Qaeda.

• Available on Netflix Instant
• Rent on iTunes for $3.99

Riding Giants: You don’t have to be a surfer or even a fan of surfing to appreciate the riveting phenomenon of big wave surfing. Stacy Peralta does a tremendous job capturing the history of the sport while providing a sense of intimacy, humility and childlike wonder for these magnificent forces of nature and the surfers who seek them out.

Maybe you heard about The Great Adderall Shortage of 2011 that impacted “millions of children and adults” who rely on the pills to help stay focused and calm? Maybe you haven’t.

In terms of national crises, like joblessness and obesity, I wouldn’t rank it at the top of the list (although a country producing drug-addicted college graduates should be a concern), and yet it’s become very much a crisis for people dependent, or more accurately, addicted to the drug.

At the heart of the shortage is an ever-growing struggle between the F.D.A., who recently included several attention-deficit disorder drugs on its official shortages list, and the D.E.A. who is trying to minimize abuse by people, many of them college students who use the medication as a study aid.

It’s become so much of a problem in academia that colleges like Duke University have issued new policies to address misuse, qualifying it as cheating:

The unauthorized use of prescription medication to enhance academic performance has been added to the definition of Cheating.

The D.E.A., who authorizes a certain amount the core ingredient of Adderall — mixed amphetamine salts — to be released to drugmakers each year based on what the agency considers to be the country’s legitimate medical need, finds itself embroiled in a growing epidemic.

In 2010, more than 18 million prescriptions were written for Adderall, up 13.4 percent from 2009, according to IMS Health, which tracks prescription data.

As someone who has been on, and gotten off Adderall, I’m steadfastly in the D.E.A.’s corner. It is a highly addictive drug with serious side effects, especially after continued use, and can create more problems than it solves. Go to any ADHD forum/message board and read the testimonials of folks dealing with its impacts.

For all the folks wondering if Foursquare has jumped the shark, and more specifically, what’s the point? – the point is Foursquare is about to become the shark, at least in the blue ocean of mobile, location-based social networking.

Since launching in March 2009 at SXSW, I’ve been waiting for the Silicon Alley start-up to create some real value for its users. How many mayorships can one person accumulate before wondering, “I checked in ninety-eight times to become Mayor and all I get is this stupid badge?”

The answer seemed to come earlier this year with the rollout of Foursquare 3.0 and its partnership with American Express.

It’s axiomatic to say that in the world of social media, if you’re not paying for the meal, you are the meal. I’m okay with that, as long as I get fed too, which the service has started to do thanks in part to the American Express ‘Sync and Save’ program — sync your Foursquare account to your Amex account, check-in to your favorite spot offering a deal, and see the credit on your Amex account. I’ve already unlocked two specials.

The initiative is part of the company’s philosophy to “make every check-in count” — so regardless of whether you’re checking into the same ol’ coffee shop or some far-away beach, Foursquare is aiming to add value, every time, for every user. A great example of this is near-by Specials, which are growing more attractive, more relative, and more robust every day.

And in making every check-in count for users, Foursquare is making every check-in count for companies looking to market their services to users. In the case of American Express, the credit card company is aiming to appeal to a more hip, technologically-savvy, a.k.a younger crowd.

“We don’t tend to skew under 35,” said Amex Vice Chairman Edward P. Gilligan. “We hope this will help us stay relevant to younger customers.”

I don’t know how relevant Foursquare will make Amex to the ‘under 35′ demographic, especially as other credit card companies jump in. What I can actually see happening is the specials and savings attracting an older demographic, with someone like my  mom using the app, thus making the service more mainstream.

Regardless of age demographics, the real marrow of the platform comes in the form of its user data. I can only imagine how savory it must look to companies aiming to market their products and services. American Express admitted the partnership has already brought a higher response rate than anything else they’ve done.

“We’ve always done marketing with merchants to make offers to our card members, like send offers through direct mail, put information about sales on the Internet,” said Gilligan. “But those response rates tend to be low.”

With over 15 million users worldwide and 80+ employees, Foursquare is en route to become the Amazon of the online, on-location user experience. As they continue to develop their suggestion-based algorithms, strengthen loyalty programs and add more value in the forms of discounts and specials, I think they can maintain their postion over imitators like Facebook, who just acquired Gowalla, and Yelp, who rolled out their check-in offers program last month, by making every check-in count.

After six months of living in Southern California, I’ve observed a noticeably high distribution of attractive males living here. I’m not quite sure how to attribute this hot guy clustering (if someone has an explanation for this, please share) but the phenomenon became strikingly obvious to me when I recently donated some items at Goodwill.

I walked up to the drop-off truck with my computer monitor, consumed by thoughts of things I needed to accomplish that day, when I encountered an Adonis-like buck. He smiled at me, quickly took the monitor from my grasp and I thought to myself, “Even the Goodwill volunteers are hot in Southern California.”

(Note: this infographic is based on the empirical evidence of my personal observations)

I like my bands like I like my men – genius, on the brink of lunatic, with a romantic edge. That’s how I feel about LA-born band, Shiny Toy Guns. You get the sense that at any moment the ensemble will implode, and given its tumultuous path to success, it’s all but a likely conclusion.

Formed in 2002 by bassist/keyboardist, Jeremy Dawson, and vocalist/guitarist, Chad Petree, the band didn’t gain in popularity until the addition of female vocalist, Carah Faye Charnow, who gives the group its distinctive siren sound.

In January 2005, they released their first album We Are Pilots, then re-recorded and re-released it in November 2005, then signed with Universal Records in June 2006 and released a third, final version on October 2006, which received a 2007 Grammy Award nomination in the category of Best Electronic/Dance Album.

You Are The One, a single off of We Are Pilots, is featured on the soundtrack for the FIFA 2007 videogame, further catapulting the band into the spotlight. (SIDENOTE: I can listen to this song on repeat for at least six iterations when I’m on a treadmill):

So what happens next? If you guessed the two founding members kick out the band’s star, Carah Faye, you guessed right. Dawson and Petree claim it was Charnow’s decision to break off (due to “artistic differences”), but this interview tells a different story:

In August 2008, the band announces Carah Faye is no longer part of the band and Sisely Treasure, whose vocals are featured on the band’s second album, Season of Poison, is her replacement. Charnow goes on to pursue a new band, Versant, in Sweden, and Treasure, while giving the band a more metallic feel, fails to satisfy Charnow fans, who beg for her return.

Fast forward to 2011. On February 7, Shiny Toy Guns announces via Facebook that Treasure is no longer part of the band, and on February 11, a video is posted on the band’s website announcing that former member, Carah Faye, is rejoining the band along with her husband, Daniel Johansson, for their upcoming album III. On March 3, The Sun, the first single from III, is released, with the expectation of an early to mid-summer album release. But it seems The Sun was simply a tease, with fans still waiting for the promised III and 2012 tour dates TBA.

Whatever happens to @ShinyToyGuns, I’m hoping they can keep their egos in check long enough to complete a 2012 tour so I can see them play live in person. Without Carah Faye, they sound like a water-downed version of The Killers. The founders should take their cue from No Doubt and realize she’s their ticket to platinum success.

In the mean time, I’m relegated to enjoying my favorite tunes on Spotify.

Last night, I had the pleasure of seeing a screening of Something Ventured, a documentary that traces the genesis of some of the world’s most revolutionary companies, from Atari to Apple to Genentech, and the impact of venture capital on entrepreneurship. The film premiered at the 2011 SXSW Film Festival and features some legendary VCs who helped foster America’s start-up culture, encouraging an environment of risk that yields unprecedented rewards.

The documentary is well worth the watch (it comes out on Netflix next year), giving insight into and a history of venture capitalism, but the highlight for me was the entrepreneurs, who had the vision and passion to create entirely new industries. A hidden gem of the movie is an exclusive interview with Cisco Co-Founder, Sandy Lerner, who is touted as the first female philanthropist to emerge from the Silicon Valley boom era.

Lerner was ousted from Cisco (in very much the same style of Steve Jobs from Apple) at the age of 35, worth $170 million in stock options that she immediately sold. The most compelling component of the one-on-one is the utter acerbity she still harbors about the ousting. Cisco was not a company she built and co-founded; it was a child she conceived, that was brutally ripped from her arms. The interview is a telling confessional of how little money factored into her passion and ambition, which is an overriding theme for the entrepreneurs featured in the film.

After the screening during the Q&A, the film’s producer acknowledged how much effort it took to persuade Lerner to do the interview and speak about her firing, then directed the audience to a recent and rare interview she did with FoxNews about sustainable farming. Two highlights of the interview come in this admission from Lerner, “I got fired by the same guy who fired Steve Jobs” and her response when asked if she thinks she’s a bit eccentric:

I am now that I’m rich. I used to just be weird.

Disclaimer: I don’t subscribe to creationism. I’m an ardent believer of evolution and a long-time student of biology. 

Much like DNA, I believe happiness is embedded in each us. I don’t believe it’s some mystical, mercurial, ephemeral phenomenon. I believe it’s the product of an alignment with our true self and the more we try to appease and conform to standards dictated by others, the more happiness will evade us.

Yesterday I had a fairly explosive fight with my mom. I’m not living my life the way she would like. I’m writing and surfing and living in sin with my boyfriend in California. But the truth is, I’ve tried to make her happy. I tried to make a lot of people happy and inevitably the one person that’s never happy in this equation is me. So I took everyone else out of the equation and found that my happiness was there all along. It’s that simple.

There’s a great quote by Christopher Morley: There is only one success – to spend your life in your own way. 

This is the DNA of happiness.

There are some pieces of art that just hit you in all the right places. That’s how I felt when I saw “Another Happy Day” at Sundance last year.

The film, set in Annapolis, MD and loaded with an A-list cast including Ellen Burstyn, Ellen Barkin, Demi Moore, Kate Bosworth and Thomas Haden Church, tackles one family’s terrain of emotional landmines that have given rise to a “primal web of resentments and recriminations.”  

The tone of the film is anything but happy, and yet there are so many moments of indelible humor, I couldn’t help but find myself smiling and laughing throughout it. Like the scene when the mother (played by Ellen Barkin) is duking it out with her son (played by the mesmerizing Ezra Miller):

Mother: “Get out, you son of a bitch!”
Son: “You just insulted yourself, Mom.”

The film serves a painfully honest example of what happens to a family unit when conflicts, feelings and memories are repressed and buried, and judgment is couched in every smile. The result is anything but resolved and healthy.

During the holidays, if you find your family driving you a little bit nuts, I highly recommend checking it out:)

If you live in Southern California, one fruit that’s no stranger to farmer’s markets and CSA-boxes is the pomegranate.

I only recently discovered how much I enjoy this fruit, after years of watching it be bastardized and exploited by food companies. The fruit has long been celebrated for its health benefits (it’s a good source of vitamin C and B₅, potassium and polyphenols) as well as for its externel beauty (it makes a great decorative fruit, especially around the holidays) and has a deliciously rich history:

The pomegranate tree is native from Iran to the Himalayas in northern India and has been cultivated since ancient times throughout the Mediterranean region of Asia, Africa and Europe. The fruit was used in many ways as it is today and was featured in Egyptian mythology and art, praised in the Old Testament of the Bible and in the Babylonian Talmud, and it was carried by desert caravans for the sake of its thirst-quenching juice. It traveled to central and southern India from Iran about the first century A.D. and was reported growing in Indonesia in 1416. It has been widely cultivated throughout India and drier parts of southeast Asia, Malaya, the East Indies and tropical Africa. The most important growing regions are Egypt, China, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran, Iraq, India, Burma and Saudi Arabia. There are some commercial orchards in Israel on the coastal plain and in the Jordan Valley.

Ripe and in season, typically from September/October to January/February in the Northern Hemisphere, it’s like eating sweet cranberry-flavored corn of the cob (I’ll admit this not the most elegant description but you get the point). The juicy red seed casings (what I refer to as ”kernels”) are called arils and can be eaten on their own (I hear they’re great with a little salt and pepper).

Getting the arils out of the skin and inner pulp can be tricky (I’ve stained a couple white shirts with the red juice) but if you score the shell correctly and use a bowl of water (as shown below), you can save your countertops and clothing from a speckled red motif.

Happy pomegranate eating!

Twilight Screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg with Amy Senger

When screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg, previously known for her work on the television series Dexter and The O.C., was offered the chance to adapt the vampire series, Twilight, she was promptly informed she’d have only five weeks to write it. “Five weeks? You can’t write a screenplay in five weeks!“ she replied, to which the studio asked her, ”Well, you want to get it made?” She did, and as a consequence, all she did for five weeks was write: “You don’t shower, you don’t pet the dog, you don’t eat.”

At the recent Future of Film Summit, where she participated in a panel discussion on why women matter in Hollywood, I sat down with Melissa and asked what her biggest challenge was in adapting the Twilight series. Her answer? Meeting the expectations of the fans. In order to have the experience of the viewer, she refused to read ahead, wanting each installment to stand on its own.

With the fourth movie Breaking Dawn Part 1 opening to a $139.5 million domestic gross this weekend and touting a wedding, a honeymoon and a birthing scene, Rosenberg says Part 2 still leaves lots to anticipate: ”The thing I’m looking forward to is seeing Bella as a vampire. It’s a very different character. The fidgeting, the stuttering, the insecurity, the awkwardness- it’s gone. I’m looking forward to that. I’m also looking forward to seeing vampire sex versus human sex [laughing].”

When asked what advice she had for women looking to succeed in Tinseltown, Rosenberg had this to say: ”Be prepared to compete. Be prepared to take a hit. Pick yourself back up, and get in there. It’s not an easy field to get into but we need you…we need some fighters.”

Here’s my talk with Melissa and, yes, Robert Pattinson is just as lovely and charming in person as he is on screen.