to oddball characters—all the while doing battle with her nephew’s ultra-conservative trustee, who is equally determined that the boy’s life remain free of “certain influences.”
5. Faye Dunaway in
This movie is my number one guilty pleasure when it comes to movies. Yes, it is camp, but like they say, they don’t make ’em like this anymore. A virtual facial contortionist, Dunaway plays up every scene and mood change. She’s also able to act the part of the Hollywood diva very well. And this movie is full of diva behavior. Take, for example, the scene in which she chops up the rose garden, dressed in haute couture, the side of her face bruised and cut. She mutters “box office poison,” and makes her unfortunate small children haul away the wreckage. Plus, she wields an axe like nobody’s business.
FIVE MOVIES I JUST LOVE 
1.
“So you come crawling back to Broadway …” That’s just one of a myriad of oh-so-quotable lines from the cult classic. The acting is pure cheese, and the songs are god-awful, but I could easily watch it every day.
2.
I think about Edward Albee’s vituperative play about marital warfare every time I go to a really tense dinner party.
3.
This brimming goblet of religious tension, political conspiracy, sex, violence, and war is heaven, thanks to Cate Blanchett’s performance as the naive and vibrant princess who becomes the stubborn and knowing queen. The cold, dark sets paired with the lush costuming show the golden age of England’s monarchy emerging from the Middle Ages.
4.
Yes, I have a crush on Helen Mirren. She does an amazing job in this film, making Queen Elizabeth II (as I mentioned, a dead ringer for my mother!) seem downright human.
5.
Katharine Hepburn plays a national hero’s widow. She has a great big secret that’s brought out by interviews with a biographer (Spencer Tracy). This is one of my favorite wartime movies.
While we’re at it, here are a few more movies that I find inspiring:
Any one of these films could inspire a dozen collections.
I also love the worlds created by the writers Thomas Mann, James Agee, Herman Melville, T. S. Eliot, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, E. F. Benson, Carson McCullers, and Gertrude Stein, to name a tiny fraction of the authors on my bookshelf.
You can see why I was mad at my students who told me they couldn’t find inspiration! I don’t care if your list leans away from campy cult classics and period dramas and toward, say, zombie movies or bromances or video games. Any genre, any film, any book can be the jumping-off point for amazing creative work. As long as we have Netflix, Turner Classic Movies, Amazon, YouTube, and bookstores, there is no excuse ever to lack inspiration.
Never Underestimate Karma
BEING NICE TO WAITERS may well be the most important etiquette rule there is. I know a high-ranking executive who is sure to take every potential hire out for a meal, simply because you learn so much about people by how they behave in a restaurant. It’s a really good idea whether you’re interviewing job candidates or getting to know someone on a first date. So much is revealed.
Case in point: Recently I went out for lunch with some colleagues I’d known for years and thought were lovely people. Suddenly, we’re sitting at a restaurant table and they turn into high-maintenance princes and princesses who every five seconds all but snapped their fingers and rolled their eyes in the direction of our perfectly capable servers. I was shocked by how rude they were to the waitstaff. I had to reevaluate them totally. And goodness knows that’s the last time I’ll invite them out.
One woman I knew would avoid eye contact with the waitress, then mutter and mumble her order. It seemed so hostile. What is that about? Is it a power trip? I feel that whenever people are rude to those whom they feel are beneath them, it is so indicative of character. It’s also such hubris. When you see someone who is doing a job you wouldn’t want to do, you should simply think:
Another coworker was particularly horrid on the first and last occasion I ate out with him. He saw waiters as his prey. When they came over to take his order in the middle of a conversation (which, let’s face it, is typically most of the time unless you’re giving your companion the silent treatment), he had this habit of hissing at them, “I’m speaking.”
