Book Pick: Desperately Seeking Something

It's almost a damn shame how much I love ragging S&TC nowadays. But I think that was my favorite part of Susan Seidelman's memoir.....her discussion of her involvement in the HBO mega-hit. She directed the pilot and also two of my favorite first season episodes: The Power of the Female Sex and The Baby Shower. That was when that show was fun and unique. Later even Susan recognized it as becoming tone-deaf and out of touch.

I also liked hearing her stories about Lower East Side Manhattan in the late 70's and early 80's. It's one of my fave historical times of NYC for its creativity and grit. When I was a kid I didn't understand how the different neighborhoods and boroughs of NYC worked.....I just thought it was funny how different the places looked in films. Her effort to keep the Lower East Side and the "dirtier" life of New York was so much more real and entertaining than the glossier films of the city.

Probably her biggest claim to fame is directing Madonna in Desperately Seeking Susan, a movie I grew up watching on repeat and cementing my love of Aidan Quinn (swoon). But like most women in Hollywood, she has accomplished a lot more beyond that film and that probably why you should give this memoir a read (or a listen)!

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Becky's Greatest Hits Vol. II

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