horizontal with lila

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horizontal with lila horizontal with lila is the podcast of intimate conversations about s*x, love, and relationships of
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"So for me, the final step in this, the transmutation, is making it a practice. I am not without jealous voices in my br...
08/02/2024

"So for me, the final step in this, the transmutation, is making it a practice. I am not without jealous voices in my brain, about all sorts of things. I get jealous all the time of people who I think have better bodies than me or sing better than me, or have better style or more friends or higher in their career. Or in, in romantic and s*xual relationships, you know, like more experienced or hotter or whatever. More desirable. I still have all of the thoughts, but when I have those thoughts, my practice is that I see the thought and I think. Oh, that's not how I wanna show up in the world. And I replace the thought. And actively, I go, mmm, okay. I'm feeling jealous of that person 'cause they're singing this song that I know that I can't sing that well, as well as them. And instead of indulging in that, that thought of like, let me be jealous of them. Let me be mad at them. Let me feel bad about myself now.

I'm gonna go, wow, that person has a beautiful voice. They sing the s**t outta that song. I bet if I worked at it, I could get somewhere with that song that I'd be happy with. This person did it. Why can't I?

And so I'll actively replace the thoughts and I will throw my heart behind the new thought that I wanna cultivate. The more you do that, the more the new thought becomes the thing that your mind goes to, uh, faster. Sometimes right away. The less you have to do the constant, like, identify the thought that doesn't align with my values, replace it with the thought that does. Because it starts to become habit, it starts to become automatic. So like I use the example of looking at people singing because singing, my singing voice has become just like this massive insecurity for me since the pandemic and not singing all the time. And my chops are not as refined as they've always been.

So that's like the thing that I've been struggling with recently, but it's the same process with anything. I want other people to have pleasure. I want other people to have joy. I want other people to have s*x and, and success and, and things that they want in their lives, whether they're my partners or my friends or just strangers. So I'm gonna choose to be happy for them when they get that. Even if my automatic emotional reaction isn't aligned with that choice, I can choose my actions in the world. I can't choose my thoughts and feelings that come up automatically. I can change my thoughts and I can choose my actions. So that's how I do it.

And if you keep this practice up over time, it's, it starts to get real easy. Like I don't, I, it's been years since I really felt jealous in a, in a romantic or s*xual relationship. Because it's just an automatic thought now to be like, Ooh, of course you want that hot little thing, why not? You know? Like if I was in your position, I would too! Enjoy my love. You know, that's, that's my automatic response now."

- Samia Mounts, who serves up a whole lotta wisdom in this jealousy episode

A podcast with Samia Mounts, one of my favorite humans and a complete sentence. In this case: Samia mounts jealousy.

I have had treatment-resistant depression since 2011, with episodes pretty much every year. Each year, my ‘depression er...
30/01/2024

I have had treatment-resistant depression since 2011, with episodes pretty much every year. Each year, my ‘depression era’ got worse and lasted longer. It didn’t really matter if I was on SSRI’s or not, was in New York or on a tropical island, was happy with my home life or not, was exercising or not, was making art or not, etc. etc.

In 2022, I got a psychiatry appointment with David Carreon at Acacia, and he prescribed TMS, to be administered at Fermata’s office in Brooklyn. Dr. Owen Muir even administered treatments himself, on a few days when his TMS technician was unavailable. Dr. Carreon and Dr. Muir are true physicians. They are deeply-caring and compassionate people. They genuinely want people to get better, as quickly as possible — not for riches or prestige, but because they actually want to help alleviate as much suffering as possible. It is really hard to be a human, and they know that.

Halfway through my course of TMS, I stopped thinking that it would be better if I didn’t exist. A week after the end of the treatment, I had more energy. A month after treatment, I felt happy and creative and full of a life I wanted to live. Dr. Carreon said that I was in a cohort of late responders, for whom it can take about a month to go into full remission. I’ve now been in remission for 6 1/2 months.

Before TMS it took a Herculean effort to leave the apartment, and most days I didn’t manage it. After TMS I had the strength to move myself cross-country for the winter, re-enroll in acting classes, and host events. I made an audio diary of my treatment, with one entry recorded the day before, one entry recorded on each full treatment day, one a week later, and one a month later. I can actually hear myself get better in the recordings. I do not say this lightly: TMS saved my life. I did not know what else to do. I did not really believe anything would work, but I was willing to try, and Dr. Muir made that possible. I am profoundly, enormously grateful.

It felt — and still feels — like an absolute fu***ng miracle to me.

P.S. Learn more about the good Dr.'s work on The Frontier Psychiatrists Substack: https://thefrontierpsychiatrists.substack.com/

Soft White Underbelly interview and portrait of Carlene MacMillan, M.D. and Owen Muir, M.D., NYC psychiatrists who specialize in alternative treatments for m...

I've been shooting self-portraits in bathrooms for 10+ years! And now I'm sharing them...
25/01/2024

I've been shooting self-portraits in bathrooms for 10+ years! And now I'm sharing them...

est. 2013

This isn't just for young women. Or just for women. I wrote about failing, my first serious depressive episode, and how ...
24/01/2024

This isn't just for young women. Or just for women. I wrote about failing, my first serious depressive episode, and how much better and more interesting life is now than I feared my future would be, when I was in my 20s.

from a woman who was once a young woman afraid / her life was over

I wrote about choosing to open when you want to shut but you know it would really be better if you opened, aka, vulnerab...
22/01/2024

I wrote about choosing to open when you want to shut but you know it would really be better if you opened, aka, vulnerability.

This is how it starts:

When I was 15, and the only place for me to hang out in suburban Florida was my local Barnes & Noble, I found a book called "spilling open."

Sabrina Ward Harrison, at the age of 21, published these excerpts from her sketchbook, a compressed collage full of self-portraits and painted photographs and tender wonderings and frank doubts.

I carried this book with me through (I counted them on my fingers at some point) twelve moves. From high school to dorm room to second dorm room to weird Jersey high rise to first Brooklyn apartment … across the country to Portland house to apartment to house, back across the country to storage in Dad’s upstate garage to Bushwick loft to apartment to intentional community, where it enjoyed a place of honor in my teensy room for five years, and then there was Covid and I was in Bali and Mirelle & Margherita packed up my things and the men from storage picked them up and put them away.

It wasn’t until my 30s I discovered her second book.

I’m 41 now.

It’s called "brave on the rocks."

The narrative begins after the success of her first book, which surprises and overwhelms, more than delights her. The unexpected attention filled her with increasing self-doubt and the pressure to live up to her own image … to the point that it all compressed itself into an ulcer.

At the top of the book she reprints a letter from her father. He reminisces about their barefoot walks together along secret trails when Sabrina was six.

“The thing about bare feet,” he writes, “is that they move easily and quickly over mud and dirt and sand and grass but tend to hesitate before a barrier of pointy, sharp-edged gravel.”

That summer, her grandfather re-paved his driveway. The first time they approached the edge of it, barefoot, Sabrina held her arms up for a “special carry.”

“But in this situation something told me not to pick you up.” […] “In my mind’s eye I see myself hunker down in front of you and explain the rules of barefoot travel. I told you paths are not always smooth and familiar like the Indian Trail or the good ones out on Pine Ridge. Sometimes there are rocks on the trail and the only way to cross them is to be brave. As I sit here so many years later, I smile when I remember how proudly you walked over the gravel that summer. Whenever we came back to the cottage by way of the Frog Bridge, you would get breathless and boldly announce how you were going to be ‘brave on the rocks.’ Love, Dad.”

I’ve had so many opportunities to open when I wanted to shut. So many opportunities to practice. To paraphrase Ursula: And did I take them? Yes indeed.

And did I take them?

Sometimes.

or, choosing to open when you want to shut but you know it would really be better if you opened

Now that I've moved twice in three weeks and nested a bit and set up my desk and gotten Covid over Christmas, I am final...
27/12/2023

Now that I've moved twice in three weeks and nested a bit and set up my desk and gotten Covid over Christmas, I am finally digging into my project. Well. More like my 7 projects. (7 is a magic number, I hear.)

Substack is one of them. This is the newsletter (with pretty pictures & read-alouds) of "horizontal with lila."

To be honest, most of this stuff was written while lying down, too.

I really like lying down.

Are you familiar with the concept of the second brain?

The first brain is your biological brain. You can only keep a certain amount stuff at the forefront of your biological brain at any given time. Less if you are memory-impaired, like me. (Did you know I have hardly any memories before the age of 12 and that sometimes I’ll put my phone down somewhere and have no visceral memory of having had it in my hand at all? The memory of someone twice my age who has done far more drugs, I’d say. But I digress.)

The second brain is your external knowledge database... everything you've written, notated, translated, saved, distilled. All those journals and notebooks and quotes and marginalia.

I started studying Tiago Forte's Building a Second Brain: because of my work with Kenneth Play (the s&x hacker and possibly your favorite podcast guest of mine) and as I began to build a second brain for him, I simultaneously started to organize my own.

And when I did, I realized that I had all this work. Hundreds and hundreds of poems and essays and screenplays and articles and pitches, entire photo projects cultivated over a decade's time, a couple of books that never got past a rough edit, a play that won something a long time ago, interview answers that were never blurbed, and so on and so forth. Some of these have never been seen by anybody else; others were sent one time to the tiny mailing list I had circa 2008 -2016.

In his book, The Courage to Write, Ralph Keyes calls this "trunk writing."

"My ancestors were trunk writers. They wrote for their eyes only. Trunk writing has a certain intellectual integrity. [...] But it's seldom an alternative chosen with enthusiasm. Any writer wants her work to be read, by lots of readers. Trunk writers would like to be published too, if only this didn't mean risking rejection and feeling so exposed. Many, perhaps most, writers—including some of the most gifted—never dare to find out what will happen if they let their literary children leave home to make their way in the world."

It's a profound thing to write for oneself.

But that's not what I do. (Not anymore.)

And yet. I've hardly shared my work.

My friend, the great-writer-of-our-time (for real) Helena Fitzgerald, hosts a good deal of her glorious body of work on Substack, in a collection called griefbacon, and she got me thinking that this, here, might be a good place for me, too.

So. I will try this. I will make horizontal with lila THE SUBSTACK a home for all of my things. A destination for this second brain I've amassed over the past 15 years or so. All the Bathroom Portraits. All the essays. All the poetry. Some of the other stuff.

Link in the comments because I have this funny idea that it will work better that way...

Dear Ones,I made a card game for connection. And now I will bring it to print!I’m doing a crowdfunding campaign, but wit...
04/12/2023

Dear Ones,

I made a card game for connection.

And now I will bring it to print!

I’m doing a crowdfunding campaign, but without the platform that takes a cut of your funds, or refuses to give them to you if you don’t raise the amount you intend.

This game is the product of 20 years of work in intimacy. It is based on my intimacy framework, which I was a finalist with in 2021!

I’ve pulled questions & exercises from thousands of hours of intimate podcast interviews, and hundreds of authentic relating workshops.

THE GAME gives you a way to quickly, deeply ✨ CONNECT WITH ANYONE ✨ … from a stranger on the plane to your life partner of 50 years.

With over 200 cards in the deck, each time you play The Game it will be a completely different experience!

And these aren’t just questions! Some of the categories are activities - games within the game. You’ll connect with people not just by sharing & telling, but also by doing!

While most of the companies making question games try to maximize profits by selling you one game for couples and one for family and one for friends, and one for first dates, and one for colleagues, and so on and so forth, my game is completely customizable to any relationship.

Any relationship!
Truly!

The idea is that you’ll take it along in your bag every day, knowing you can adjust it to any social situation & anyone you want to play with. Without it being weird!

Just like a Kickstarter campaign, I have several Reward Tiers! I’d love to share them with you.

Like, comment, or DM and I’ll tell you more, darling!

You can be part of happening it (& maybe even a part of The Game itself)!!!

Big Love,
Lila

📸 by
💄 by
👗 by
💗 by , who sewed me into this dress when the zipper didn’t work!

Yoohoo! L.A.  …..Let’s play, shall we?📸 by  💄 by  Moral support & sewing me into the dress when the zipper didn’t work! ...
18/11/2023

Yoohoo! L.A. …..

Let’s play, shall we?

📸 by
💄 by

Moral support & sewing me into the dress when the zipper didn’t work!

(Don’t fret. Have since fixed zip.)

Caption this?📸 by  ⚜️ by
10/11/2023

Caption this?

📸 by
⚜️ by

Care about mental health?
09/11/2023

Care about mental health?

Owen Scott Muir, M.D. writes things about health and its care. Click to read The Frontier Psychiatrists, a Substack publication with thousands of subscribers.

Our  STRIKE IS OVERRRR!!!!If I weren’t strapped into a chair in the sky, I would leap with joy!Celebrate with me by shar...
09/11/2023

Our STRIKE IS OVERRRR!!!!

If I weren’t strapped into a chair in the sky, I would leap with joy!

Celebrate with me by sharing the-TV-show-you-cannot-wait-to-return in the comments!

📸 by
⚜️ by

So I’ve been to a bunch of states. Not all. (Guess I’m not a completionist!?)But thus far, I have only lived in 3: 1. Ne...
06/11/2023

So I’ve been to a bunch of states.
Not all. (Guess I’m not a completionist!?)

But thus far, I have only lived in 3:

1. New York ‘You can take the girl outta New York…’
2. Florida, the 6th borough, &
3. Oregon, home of Keeping Portland Weird.

Soon I will add California to the list.
I’m going to love in California, as my autocorrect insists.

For the winter?
For the longer?

My past two winters in New York were …genuinely dangerous to me.

I have seasonal depression anyway, plus a genetic predisposition from the tributaries of mental illness that run along both sides of my lineage, and also also my fingers and toes gets so, SO cold.

But the last two years it was far worse, worse than it has ever been, because I woke up every morning for 6 months and did not want to be awake. Did not want to alive.

I slept a lot. Binged a lot of TV. Worked for Kenneth when I could.

I did not want to alive.

But I held on. For reasons.

And I made it. For reasons.

Most of those reasons are people.

Kenneth
Samia .mounts
Fiona

My therapist, Rachel.

And Dr. Owen Muir, who saved my life via TMS, Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, also known as The Brain Magnet.

One of the things I will do in California is pitch a new podcast about depression recovery & treatments (not just the one, the many, the new, the cutting-edge, the various things that have worked for people).

Medicine is what works. What works is medicine.

For me it is the ikigai of podcasts:

🎙️something the world needs
🎙️ something I have felt experience with
🎙️ something I can be compensated for, &
🎙️something I care fervently much about.

For updates & stories & intel, you can join my mailing list through the link in my bio, or by navigating to www.horizontalwithlila.com

If you are struggling with being alived, I feel you.

You are not the only one.

You are loved even if you cannot take it in right now.

It can get better.

HOLD ON.
HOLD ON.

📸 by

In my heart I am wildand gladto have reached an epoch in whichI no longerfeel compelled to apologizefor being soextravag...
02/11/2023

In my heart I am wild
and glad
to have reached an epoch in which
I no longer
feel compelled to
apologize
for being so

extravagantly

human.

📸 by
💋 by
🖤 by
⚜️ by

Moral support & emotional inspiration by .mounts

Hello darling. I’m moving to L.A. for the winter.Any questions?📸 by  💄 by  ⚜️ by  Bustier by  Jacket by MewithEmotional ...
30/10/2023

Hello darling.
I’m moving to L.A. for the winter.

Any questions?

📸 by
💄 by
⚜️ by
Bustier by
Jacket by Me

with

Emotional Support from .mounts

This sentiment is a response to the UNREASONABLE-ness of the OTHER SIDE of the  bargaining table. I’m not on the negotia...
25/10/2023

This sentiment is a response to the UNREASONABLE-ness
of the OTHER SIDE
of the
bargaining
table.

I’m not on the negotiating committee.
So I get to EXPRESS.

Here’s a little poem I wrote for them, though, when they went back to the table yesterday:

To Our Dear Negotiating Committee,

You have our gratitudes for your
service
your verve
your metaphorical fists in the air as you
sit
at the
(sometimes virtual) table
the reason you hold
fast to
reason
Reason!
For reasonable reasons!
held slow to
ever
for
all
of us.

You have
our collective gratitudes
delivered on the might of our powers of projection
projecting
as we all learned at some point
to the back
of all
of the rooms

At your back
we are
now.

May you be met in reason.
Met with, dare I say it, compassion and even (!) respect
(Can you imagine?)
as you use
words and pens and reason again
to Protect
the rest
of us.

I hear Maya Angelou’s favorite prayer is “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

Our intrepid
resilient
power
full
negotiating
committee:

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Big Love,
Lila

📸 by the Dream Team

💄& 👩🏻‍🦰 by

👸 earrings by

Moral support, ✨, & emotional direction by .mounts






100 Days on Strike.Not giving up now.We picket, then we go to Acting class.This is how we do it.
21/10/2023

100 Days on Strike.
Not giving up now.

We picket, then we go to Acting class.

This is how we do it.




When you run into old friends from other lives on the picket line and you, y’know, fight for Justice together and stuff....
21/10/2023

When you run into old friends from other lives on the picket line and you, y’know, fight for Justice together and stuff.




AND ON DAY 98, SHEWe are still on strike. It is nearing 100 days.98 to be precise.We are still on strike and it is still...
20/10/2023

AND ON DAY 98, SHE

We are still on strike.

It is nearing 100 days.
98 to be precise.

We are still on strike
and it is still preposterous to me that
those with third houses
and a 16-car garage
would try to keep the people from—
the people whose voices and flesh
their very margins and dollar signs
their exact behemoth jackpots
are built on
that they would try to keep the people
whose very bodies
make their Magic
from being able to
make their mortgage
is
well it’s more than preposterous
it’s
unconscionable

If I knew a stronger word
I would use it.

Shame
is an awful thing.
You know.

So much misery
from shame invisible
insidious
I’ve dedicated
most of my career
to
taming it.
I wouldn’t wish it on…

Well I would.
When appropriate.
I would wish it on.
And it is
appropriate
now.

Shame on you, AMPTP.
for being unwilling
to share.

How could you have so missed
that day
in
kindergarten?




2k down, 23k to go!I will bring THE GAME to print.You can have it in your living room. On the plane. At the campsite.You...
18/10/2023

2k down, 23k to go!

I will bring THE GAME to print.

You can have it in your living room. On the plane. At the campsite.

You will have a way to quickly, deeply CONNECT WITH ANYONE, from the stranger seated next to you on that economy flight to Doha… all the way to your life partner of 50 years.

Each time you play THE GAME it will be an entirely novel experience.

And it’s not just a game for Strangers & Lovers, it can be just as delightful and profound when you play with:

🎨 family members, or
🎨 colleagues or
🎨 your pickleball league ( that one’s for you, ).

You can play it on a first date (I have!)

You can play it on a 297th date (I haven’t! But you cannnn!)

To make this game the way I want to, to make it an Object of Joy that you would want to keep on your coffee table for its aesthetic beauty, as well as an Object of Intimacy that you want to carry around in your bag all the time, just in case, I require 25k.

I have 2k already!

DO YOU WANT TO BE A PART OF IT?

Bringing this to fruition? Making the world a more intimate place?

Please comment if YES YES YES!!! Comment with some fun emoji to say:

YES I am an Intimacy Warrior,
YES I care about connection,
YES I WANT TO BE PART OF THIS…

… and I will reach out and tell you of the various donation circles & Rewards bundles. BUNDLES OF REWARDS! Bundlessss!!!

LET’S DO ITTTTT!!!

I mean, we’re already 2/25ths of the way there.

Big Love,
Lila





📸 by (who has a new experience you can be part of in November!) ✨

I commit to my own best partner.Being her.I commit to being her.In this way, I will show my future partner how to love m...
18/10/2023

I commit to my own best partner.
Being her.
I commit to being her.

In this way, I will show my future partner how to love me.

By loving me.

In all the love languages.

This future partner (TM) must treat me *at least as wonderfully* my friends do.

My friends, as you will surely know, are the loves of my life.

The absolute loves of my life.

I barely have family I care to family with, in the traditional sense of the word.

Chosen family, though.

This is why chosen family is so important to me.

This is why I try to cultivate community everywhere I hang my hat.

I have room for many loves, of my life.

He can be another.

And he will gladly share my heart with every human I hold dear, every relationship of consequence, as my beloved Matthew Stillman calls them.

Here are some ways I’ve been my best partner, this 41st birthday week:

I’ve…

… indulged myself with theatre, from the high kicks off Moulin Rouge ( featuring my acting classmate ) to the fervor of epic that is , ‘s Love Letter to the Artist, which has essentially restored my faith in the magic of the American Theatre.

… bought myself treats of the edible & sensory & aesthetic varieties, gifts to delight my senses, like a dairy-free white chocolate skull full of bonbons that must be liberated by way of a small hammer, a production in itself… and the finest tingle-inducing sensation play tools in all the land, Claws crafted by … & the game Codenames. Which just delights me.

… kept my commitments, even when I didn’t feel well, even when it was difficult.

… learned, tried, experimented, & grew.

… chauffeured myself in style on my scooter, my sweetheart, a called Loralei.

… took great care with my daily costume and delighted in it.

… wrote handwritten cards, gave thoughtful gifts.

… remembered how grateful I am to be alive & full of muses, & undepressed.

How have you partnered yourself this week, darling?

📸 by
✨ by
🩲 by
🎩 by Me

Moral support & sparkles by .rex

It’s my 41st birthday today.I’m having a party.You can come!https://partiful.com/e/RuY0yyxZNb9SVqFhxYkBTonight, please j...
16/10/2023

It’s my 41st birthday today.
I’m having a party.
You can come!

https://partiful.com/e/RuY0yyxZNb9SVqFhxYkB

Tonight, please join me, a bunch of my closest friends, a bunch of their closest friends, & several lovers (I didn’t say *whose* lovers) for the funnest raiser that ever there was.

Performances! Hot Tub! Meeee! (What more could you want on a Monday night!)

It will take place at Hacienda, my old stomping grounds (and home!) and we’ll have the studio, plus the backyard for hot tubbing, canoodling, & witnessing gorgeous feats of beauty.

The Dress Code is ***HOLLYWOOD GLAM***

Come to:

* celebrate my 41st!

* be among the 1st to experience THE GAME!

* contribute $ and good juju to the actualization of the Finest Connection Card Game In All The Land!

* get steamed in the hot tub!

* witness stunning brilliant people do stunning brilliant things! 

& 

* send me off to my L.A. winter in STYLE!

Please note:

- You must be dressed properly Hollywood for entry!

- Sliding scale if you need it, and if you don’t, I invite your generosity, DAHLING.

- This is an alcohol-free event.

- And, Just to to über-clear: This is not a play party!

I am so delighted to celebrate with you tonight on my actual birthday!

With pleasure,
Lila

P.S. What IS Intimacy: THE GAME? It’s a card game! Like “We’re Not Really Strangers.” (But better 🤓😇🥳.)

THE GAME draws on 20 years of expertise leading icebreakers and connection exercises, as well as the hundreds of interviews I’ve conducted (all those questions!) to curate an experience no other intimacy card game can offer - intimate, platonic, *customizable, interactive, introspective, & active!

*When customized to the players, you can play THE GAME with anyone, from lovers to friends to family to co-workers — without it being super weird!

Yay! Be part of it!

This is my mother. I turn 41 today. The age she was when she had me.Everything crucial about who I am is from her: my en...
16/10/2023

This is my mother. I turn 41 today.

The age she was when she had me.

Everything crucial about who I am is from her: my endless curiosity, my obsession with relationships of all kinds, my love of color & costume, my manic depression, my talent for acting & public speaking, my love of theatre & partner dancing, my sadness, my thirst for love, & the loneliness that prompted me to craft my entire multifaceted career around human connection.

Thank you for my life, Mom.

My mom isn’t doing so well.

It is time for serious adulting and I am scared.

She will be 82 next month.
I am an only child.
My father is not around.

It’s me. And it’s time to learn to do a whole lot of things that I do not know how to do.

How very life.
Here we go.

Hiya, darlin’! (What kind of character is she, do you think?)💄 by  📸 by 💖 by .mounts 👗 by
05/09/2023

Hiya, darlin’!

(What kind of character is she, do you think?)

💄 by
📸 by
💖 by .mounts
👗 by

In my early 20s, I really really wanted to dye my hair red. But even when I could afford it, I just couldn’t bring mysel...
03/09/2023

In my early 20s, I really really wanted to dye my hair red. But even when I could afford it, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it it… Because then I wouldn’t match my headshots. And People get rather grumpy when you don’t look like your headshots!

I saw Samia’s .mounts new headshots and was completely gobsmacked by the way they captured her — her quirkiness, her q***r pan-ness, her beauty, her ambiguously ethnic ness, her ferocity and s&x appeal.
I immediately thought, I want to shoot with that person! That person, , turns out to be two people — Cameron, and his partner Sivan. And they work REMARKABLY together. 
He directs the poses and is so precise and meticulous about your positions that you can totally relax and simply follow his instructions. Yessssss. Direct meeeeee. It removes so much of the anxiety I’ve experienced during photo shoots in the past, when you feel like you have to direct yourself, but can’t see yourself from the outside, and the photographer doesn’t show you anything, so you really have no idea how you’re coming across, and then you get in your head, and your smile gets weird and your shoulders get stiff and everything’s just not as good. He completely eliminates that by being such a stellar technician. 
And then Sivan coordinates the whole thing! She decides on the order of your outfits and the looks to match, discusses the progression with Hair & Make-up, then chooses the perfect color backdrops for each outfit, and when you’re in it, she gives emotional direction! Cues about what to think and when to smile and how to smile and when to smolder and the attitude and the vibe. This is both, as Samia once wonderfully called me, “the salt of the earth and the icing on the cake.”
Cameron & Sivan are both so incredibly talented and also deeply kind. Which is rarer than I’d like. And needed. Because this profession is based on your ability to be very very tender. To be impressionable. And to show how you are affected, to anyone who will witness. I will never understand why people in the industry can be so cruel to actors. But I digress. TBC in the next post.

Excerpt from “the dissatisfied pages,” Dated April 22nd, 2022I’m pretty enoughto be ugly in the moviesthe second-best, t...
30/08/2023

Excerpt from “the dissatisfied pages,”
Dated April 22nd, 2022

I’m pretty enough
to be ugly
in the movies
the second-best, the passed-over, the never-good-enough

I’ll play
the bitch
the witch
the tramp
the vamp
the stuck-up
& the fu**up

women with a grudge or a hex
the brunt
of the 10,000 ways
we hate ourselves
the dissatisfied
ones

Oh, that’s my niche right there!

hand-wringing and eyeglasses
prickly pears and acid
and always always jealousy

You know
I wanted to be an ingenue
but by the time I was 16
it was
already
too
late.

*****

Sparkling new headshots by Cameron Radicé Photography, who showed me my main character energy

💄 by
📸 by
💖 by .mounts
👗 by

I think maybe I’m finally starting to sort of figure a little something out about posing!Scroll to the end for a Treat, ...
27/08/2023

I think maybe I’m finally starting to sort of figure a little something out about posing!

Scroll to the end for a Treat, lovingly crafted for the most beautiful giraffe 🦒 I know, 🤓🥰

Thanks for the practice,

ALGO
26/08/2023

ALGO

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