Video Killed the Radio Star
I love "The Moth." For those who think I've become an entomologist, "The Moth" is a podcast based on a live show in which people- famous, unknown and in-between- get up and tell a story from their life (I heartily dislike real moths, though. That powder on their wings is nothing but wrong). On the show, there's a theme for the evening which the story must address in some way; other than that, the only requirements are the story must be live and without notes. It's fun to hear people tell good stories off-the-cuff, even stories you know they've told a thousand times around a dining-room table or over a bar-counter. Keeps things fresh.
Fresh is good. I need fresh these days. It's rained intermittently in Los Angeles for the last month and while that's nothing like THE SNOW WHICH ATE THE EASTERN SEABOARD 2010, and while I adore rain after a while, it starts to make me plod. Life is precious and I don't want to plod. I'm timid and neophobic and it was time to shake things up a bit.
Here's the newest leg of my journey. Occasionally when the kid is in afternoon classes, I'm going to tell a story into a Flip-phone. It will be without notes. It's not live, but it will be in a single take, no re-dos. You will know this is true because the first one was done during the heavy-mist phase of the most recent rainstorm; I appear to have six head-hairs, at most. But I made my promise and I didn't redo it. Please note that when I do this again, I'll make my friend Veronica run the Flip-phone, because while Consort loves me and is a wonderful cameraman she's a girl and would have noticed.
The name of my newest endeavor? Q-tea. Not because I think I'm cute, because a Flip-phone has a slightly fish-eye lens and my nose alarmed me and the six head-hairs and when did I get so old and all that. No, Q-tea is because, hopefully, these stories will be kind of like meeting me for tea for a few minutes before we go rushing off again to our complicated lives. I hope you like it.
I had a ball.
Fresh is good. I need fresh these days. It's rained intermittently in Los Angeles for the last month and while that's nothing like THE SNOW WHICH ATE THE EASTERN SEABOARD 2010, and while I adore rain after a while, it starts to make me plod. Life is precious and I don't want to plod. I'm timid and neophobic and it was time to shake things up a bit.
Here's the newest leg of my journey. Occasionally when the kid is in afternoon classes, I'm going to tell a story into a Flip-phone. It will be without notes. It's not live, but it will be in a single take, no re-dos. You will know this is true because the first one was done during the heavy-mist phase of the most recent rainstorm; I appear to have six head-hairs, at most. But I made my promise and I didn't redo it. Please note that when I do this again, I'll make my friend Veronica run the Flip-phone, because while Consort loves me and is a wonderful cameraman she's a girl and would have noticed.
The name of my newest endeavor? Q-tea. Not because I think I'm cute, because a Flip-phone has a slightly fish-eye lens and my nose alarmed me and the six head-hairs and when did I get so old and all that. No, Q-tea is because, hopefully, these stories will be kind of like meeting me for tea for a few minutes before we go rushing off again to our complicated lives. I hope you like it.
I had a ball.
posted by Unknown at 8:23 AM
34 Comments:
What a great idea! Love it!
What a hoot...I'm really going to enjoy these! Thanks so much for thinking of this.
i love that idea - that is some my fondest memories is sitting down around the table with family and listening to the family 'lore'
Holy hell I love this video so much I want to take it out behind the middle school and get it pregnant.
Wait, would that spawn a litter of superpower smoke detectors?
Watched this at my desk at work. Giggled out loud at least three times. I'd call it a success. Seriously, what a great idea. Though you are no longer in the acting biz, your wonderfully droll comic timing was no fluke, I think it is just a natural npart of you (watched The Goodbye Girl on TMC the other night - still one of my favorites). I read your blog faithfully and look forward to more Tea dates! And giggles.
This is fun. Please continue!!!
LOVE it.
Hate tea, but LOVE it.
Loved it. Love you. Love the peach colored turtleneck. Loved everything. But you know what? This is so weird, but I haven't seen you speak since "Family" and yet you look totally familiar to me. You use your mouth and roll your eyes the same way you did in your Pasadena showplace way back when. Funny, because I'd have bet I would not have recognized you, but there you go!
Loved the Q-tea - please post more! Were you referencing the inaugural video for MTV in the title of the blog?? Just a bit of 80's trivia that I try to impress my kids with. You are a fabulous writer and I loved your book.
That was very funny. We have an overly vigilant smoke detector, too, and that's not so good when you never clean your oven. My house is very clean, but I draw the line at the oven. I'm not putting my head in there. So when I bake, the smoke detector always goes off within minutes.
Very funny. What a great idea. :) As someone with an overzealous smoke detector as well, I especially appreciated it. Clever name, too!
Ugh, yeah. Those suckers are hard to kill. Someone vacated an apartment near me and for some reason thought it would be a great idea to leave the smoke detector on the porch, in a drizzling rain, so that it would start BEEP BEEP BEEPing right at bedtime. I hunted it down and tried to kill it by removing the battery but it was hermetically sealed or something and every second I continued to look for the battery I was losing a little bit more of my hearing. I tossed it on the ground and stomped on it seven or eight times before it finally stopped.
Here's the good news: even though I'm all about reusing and recycling and stuff, it was IMMENSELY satisfying to crush that thing underfoot (even though, yes, I did look like a crazy woman out in the rain in my jammies.) I highly recommend it.
Heehee! I loved your smoke detector story! And I loved getting to see you and feel like we really were sitting down for tea together. (I have a confession to make. I don't know who you are/were as an actor. I've never even heard of the Goodbye Girl or anything else you may have been in. I'm sorry. Please don't take it personally. It's not you, it's me-I'm just not much of a tv/movie/Hollywood-in-general person). I do, however, consider you a fabulous author and blogger, and as such, I really enjoyed your story. I enjoyed your expressions and gestures. And I can't wait until we can have tea again!
Love it! In my last house, the smoke detector was way too close to the oven, as in "SCREEEEEECH - Kids, dinner!"
But seriously, you are lucky you could remove the battery. When my older daughter was 7 months old, she had a very enthusiastic run-in with a cheap baby doll with an inaccessable imbedded voicebox.
Daughter's flailing pounding on the doll one night led to the end of the doll's voice, after about 14 days of what could only be described as satanic noises as the battery died. And did I mention that Daughter LOVED the doll? Absolutely heartbreaking. We still have the doll. Daughter #2 loves it, too.
Loved it!! Thanks so much for being willing to be so entertaining for us.
You made my day.
Chris
Yay!! Love the idea, loved the video, can't wait for more Q-teas! :)
Oh. My. Sweet. Heaven.
I held it together pretty well until you told the smoke detector to "just go to the light." Snort, swallow, ::::choke::::
You were almost talking to me there for a minute.
Too funny! Now that I have recovered, I can't wait for more videos! Next time I will have my own cup of tea handy, though...
Darn Girl is there ANYTHING you can't do??? That standup was AWESOME!!! Can't wait for the next one!
*Enjoy* your soggy Saturday - it's pouring here in the I.E.!
That was cute and it will be an enjoyable addition to your blog! Thanks
Love it, love your haircut!! So adorable! We had a faulty smoke detector that was attached to the house and we had to cut the wires to get it to shut up! I think I lack the empathy gene; no remorse whatsoever!!
I had a distracting thought while viewing; I know it is cold in LA right now but is it cold enough to sport a turtleneck and blazer combo? I melt in that ensemble if it is above 35 degrees. It looks cute on you but somehow I always imagine you in a navy blue tshirt and khakis, regardless of LA weather :)
Awesome video - love it! Thanks!
It was great fun to see you at Q-tea. I love the idea, and I love tea! Thanks!
Lydia
Ok, I love Q-tea! Even with the still-dying smoke detector. Looking forward to the next episode (hopefully, with a dead smoke detector)
That was hilarious! And timely, since I just prepped the Swedish pancakes that caused (they did it, not me, you understand) the smoke detector in the hall of our apartment building to go crazy last time I made them. Really embarrassing when everyone comes out of their apartments expecting some kind of emergency to be told by my boyfriend: we're just making pancakes. Over-zealous things!
And I'm just going to go ahead and say now how much I love The Goodbye Girl and you in it. When it came out and soon after when we recorded it off ON-TV (remember that?) and watched it over and over, I wanted to be you, be a kid with that much sass. So much so that maybe a couple years after TGG came out when I saw you taking ballet (I think it was ballet but I can't really remember -- but it was a dance class) at a dance studio I attended, I was awe- and dumbstruck. Okay, I just had to get that off my chest.
My smoke detector loves it when I take a shower... I wonder just what that means?
Can you go on book tour with me next year? We can have two-for-one sales. Consort can come take videos - or not.
Love it and I love tea! more please!
Lyd
Your hair looks fine - but I totally get where you're coming from... Husband takes pictures of me and i look like Prince Valliant with the bangs of iron. A friend will tell me to run my hand through my hair first.
And, soy hotdogs? Not in a million. Q-tea is a fun idea!
It's lovely to have a cup of tea with you... please will you also go to the Moth, got the feeling you'll have some tasty words on : fears distance and what about rules ?
Rose
Quinn dearest, I did not spot any tea in your french pedicure video! It was unnerving to me. If we are to have these tea dates, you and I, I must know that I am not sipping alone. Also, I must know the color of your tea, because I always wonder what teas are worth trying at Starbucks.
Wow that was really fun thank you!
Love the video blog! But, Quinn, if we're having tea together I would like to know what kind of tea you have each time. Is it herbal? is it sweetened? As a fellow tea enthusiast (because who can stomach coffee?) I like to know.
Found Q-Tea today. Laughed out loud. Love it.
One question...will we be seeing an interview with a jar egg? I'm sorry. It was a question that NEEDED to be asked.
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