One Sentence, Two Prisoners: Movie Review of Orange Is the New Black

One Sentence, Two Prisoners

Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling) has nothing but time on her hands. She is serving fifteen months for laundering money for her estranged lover, Alex Vause (Laura Prepon), who dealt heroin for a West African kingpin in the blockbuster Netflix hit, Orange Is the New Black. Orange Is the New Black, based on the true story and book by Piper Kerman, was created by Jenji Kohan and produced by Jodie Foster.

When we first meet upper-middle-class and ever so cultured Piper, she is preparing to leave her business, her best friend, and her adorable fiancé, Larry Bloom, played by Jason Biggs. It is hard to imagine how she will survive the chaos that awaits her – kind of like sending Chelsea Clinton off to contend with a Russian mafia cafeteria manager, who takes offense at one measly comment about her unpalatable food and decides to starve Piper until she is good and sorry for her faux pas. Meanwhile, cliques, gangs, lewd male prison officials and every other conceivable kind of terror abounds.

Unlike Oz, a series about men in prison, Orange Is the New Black focuses on the female experience. It is a riveting dramedy made all the more entertaining by the fact that it's real.

It also poses the question, who else is affected by our adverse experiences even when we feel entirely alone? Larry is an aspiring writer and one day he has a column published in The New York Times about his experience being engaged to an inmate. Neither Larry nor Piper can truly celebrate his good journalistic fortune because Larry feels guilty that Piper is still in prison and he is living a normal life where no one will suddenly attack him with a wrench or throw him into a moving dryer in the Laundromat, and Piper feels that Larry doesn't know her; he has written about the old Piper, the person she was before IT happened. Larry doesn't know the new Piper, who struggles in the estrogen jungle and she takes issue with the title of his column: "One Sentence, Two Prisoners." Is Larry really a prisoner, too? He thinks so.

Recently I watched Foreverland, a Canadian HBO show about William, a young guy with cystic fibrosis (Max Thieriot from Bates Motel), who spent nearly three hours every day doing physical therapy on his lungs just so he was able to breathe. He hooked up with a girl who encouraged him to go all the way to Mexico to scatter the ashes of one of their mutual friends who had just died of CF. Most people with cystic fibrosis don't live past 21. William made the long trek at great physical cost. At one point he argued with the girl, who was trying to connect with him. She said to him, "Do you think it's easier being the healthy one?" And he shouted an emphatic yes.

Yes, it is easier being the one who is not going to die of cystic fibrosis just as it is easier being the one who can visit the penal system and get in the newly-washed BMW after a stressful hour together and go home. But that's not to say that the people who love us and are involved with us are not deeply affected by our experiences, be that incarceration or terminal illness. They are profoundly influenced and they have the right to their own feelings – but they may not get much sympathy by telling them to the person who is actually imprisoned in a compound or by their body.

Orange Is the New Black is a radically different kind of TV series. First, it's only available on Netflix and not on TV or DVD. Second, it focuses on women, and third, it lets us know what most sane people already realize: the penal institute is failing us. Inmates are disproportionately people of color, they are not treated humanely or with respect (the new blacks), there is little protection from violence within the walls, and the concept of rehabilitation is a joke. These women are just doing their time and desperately counting the days until they get out. Will they have changed? Perhaps, but not necessarily for the better.

Thanks to the criminalization of marijuana, the reduction in rehab centers for addictions, which is where sick people belong, and the large number of illegal immigrants in the US, the country has one of the highest incarceration rates in the industrialized world. Not exactly something to be proud of. With 1 out of every 18 men and 1 in 89 women behind bars, according to CNN, Orange Is the New Black is educational and eye opening.

Sigrid Macdonald is a manuscript editor and the author of five books. You can find her at http://sigridmacdonald.blogspot.com/  

 

 

 

 

 

 

An Interview with Carol Hollenbeck, the Author of True Blondes

 SM:  Carol, what interested you in writing? 

 CH:   I began writing poetry when I was much younger; I had the romantic idea of becoming a poet.  That dream soon changed.  When I was in my early 20s, I fantacized about going to Hollywood. I decided that I was going to become a movie star, not an actress. I soon learned that it was not easy to separate the two.

SM:  Tell me a little bit about the book.

CH:  The book is about two blondes trying to make it big in the wild, wacky world of show business.  It takes place in the 1960s and the '70s.  True Blondes takes  the reader on a journey from New York City to Las Vegas, and Hollywood.  The book tells the tale of the trials and tribulations that these two women encounter on their  journey to stardom. The  question remains, which one will survive: Mandy or Diane? Read the book to find out!

True Blondes is available on Amazon.com.

D'Amour Road Has Been Replaced by Straight and Narrow

I have rewritten my novel D'Amour Road and changed a number of subplots in the book. There were two main reasons for this. First, no one could spell, pronounce, or remember the title! Second, because I dedicated the book to Louise Ellis, people assumed that they knew how it would end.

So, Straight and Narrow is the same story of the disappearance of 39-year-old Lisa Campana and how this affects her best friend, Tara Richards. But it has a different twist and is more of a mystery. It is available on Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/7pzqvla

Buy your copy and don't forget to write a few words on Amazon afterwards.

Thanks and happy reading. Sigrid Mac

Al Zimbler: Author, Comedian, and Extraordinary Man

SM: I'd like to welcome Al Zimbler, author of The Love Life of Howard Handsome and Other Short Stories. Al, thanks for joining me today.

AZ: My pleasure.

SM: This is your first book of short stories. What inspired you to write them?

AZ: I have been writing poems and limericks for about 20 years. Then I began writing short stories around 2006 when I started online classes from the Writers’ Village and New Trier Extension.

In 2006 I signed up for a writing class taught by Linda Baker Fradin. In one of the class exercises we had to fill out our writing goals. I then wrote that I hoped to write 10 short stories a month. I did that for quite a few years and I have written over 750 short stories.

Some are pretty bad, and some are personal memoirs from my youth and of the Zimbler uncles and aunts. Some are a little risqué, but none have swear or filthy words. I have tailed off the last year or so, and I now only average about seven short stories a month.

SM: Writing 750 stories is remarkable. You're very prolific. No wonder you've slowed down a little bit.

The title of your book talks about Howard Handsome. Who is he and what does he mean to you?

AZ: The stories are inspired by someone I know who got divorced, but what I wrote is not exactly what he told me. I created a sequence based on my own ideas of what could have happened or might have happened, but didn't really happen. Then I added everything together, including some sexual references, to spice up my stories. Once I started on the original story of dating again after divorce, I thought why not keep adding? So I did, using a wide selection of my crazy ideas.

SM: Interesting.

Many of your stories are very funny. Tell us about your background in comedy improv.

AZ: Eleven years ago, when I was renting an apartment in Marina Del Rey in Los Angeles, I saw an ad in the local newspaper stating there was a free senior improvisation group on Sundays in Santa Monica. Free is free. So I went down there and watched. They asked if I would like to get on stage and take part, and I did.

Wow, what fun. No experience necessary! Just be a good listener so that you can respond and always keep the story going by listening to each line spoken to you. I then took free lessons at UCLA. In Chicago I have taken classes at Second City, Piven Theatre, and IO, which was formerly called Improv Olympic.

I have led senior improv classes here in Chicagoland at Sedgebrook Retirement Home and The Friend Center for Alzheimer Patients. I have led a class at Lifelong Learning Institute at National Louis University in Skokie, Illinois, and also for my men's club, MEL (Men Enjoying Leisure).

SM: You sound very busy, and it's beautiful that you give back to the community in the retirement homes and the Alzheimer's Center.

I understand that you’ve also performed on cruise ships. What was your experience like there?

AZ: My wife and I took a cruise on the QE2 to Australia and I persuaded the entertainment director to let me be on the daily program to run a class in improv. It was not very successful as most of the cruise people were older and from England and did not fancy themselves going up on a stage and performing, but I was on the program for two days.

Three years ago my wife and I took a Holland American cruise to Spain, and this time I was on the program for two days and was successful. On the first day we had six people performing and laughing. On the second day we were down to four people, but again we had lots of laughs.

SM: That does sound like fun.

Are you planning to write another book? Tell us a bit about it.

AZ: I am planning to write another book. In fact, my editor has over 100 new stories that she is reviewing in order to get the second book together with about the same number of stories (78) that the first book contained. It might be 2012 before the second book gets published. I am waiting to see if the first book sells 100 books or more before I decide to go ahead with the second book.

SM: I'm sure that your first book will sell many more than 100 copies. Meanwhile, I want to let everyone know that they can purchase your book on Amazon Kindle at http://tinyurl.com/63dvfgn  or in print on Amazon at http://tinyurl.com/6dpfhq5

Good luck with your stories and thanks so much for joining me.

AZ: You're welcome.

Interview with Adrianne Sainte Eve , Author of Horizontal Collaborator

SM: Hi, Adrianne. Thanks so much for joining me today.

AS: My pleasure. Happy to be here.

SM: Tell us a bit about your heroine, Violette, in Horizontal Collaborator. Was she based on someone who you know in real life?

AS: The idea for Violette was very loosely based on Marthe Richard, an espionage agent who worked for France during WW1. I borrowed from some of her adventures as a spy, from a book called The Skylark, published in 1932 and written by Major Georges Ladoux. He was the chief of the French Counter-Espionage Service and appears as Major Georges St. Denis in my book. The German Chief of Naval Intelligence, with whom Marthe Richard had an affair, appears as Leo von Beringer in Horizontal Collaborator, but his character is purely my own. Her story was a great starting point, but most of my book is pure fiction.

SM: Your book takes place in the late 1800s and moves on into World War I. What interested you about that time period?

AS: To be honest, it was mostly the fashion. There was so much imagination and novelty in women’s fashions of that period. The industrial revolution and the coming of the war created phenomenal changes in the way women were dressing, and fashion was a reflection of that changing society.

SM: Interesting. Then we can expect some unique descriptions of women's fashions in the book.

Violette was a poor peasant with aspirations. What was the class system in Hungary, and Europe in general, like at that time?

AS: During that time the class system throughout Europe was changing dramatically with new discoveries and technologies. Those in the privileged classes were rapidly losing their money and power as the lower classes were becoming less dependent on them. More opportunities for the working classes in general were created and women were slowly becoming more independent. It was no longer unthinkable to rise above the circumstances of one’s birth.

Hungary was still based on the ancient feudal system, and that system collapsed spectacularly as the war went on. Titles were revoked and land confiscated. The upper classes were wiped out in everything but their own opinion.

SM: That was a very auspicious time for a young woman like Violette to come of age. How many women acted as horizontal collaborators and was it a dangerous job? Were they ever killed when they were discovered?

AS: No one knows how many women were horizontal collaborators. It was a derogatory term used to describe women who slept with the enemy for profit, or even just to survive. I was able to discover a handful of women who were allegedly spies during WW1. Edith Cavell, a heroic Red Cross nurse, was caught and executed by the Germans. The infamous Mata Hari had offered her services to the Germans, but it is believed that she had not proven very useful to them. They cast her aside and through her own clumsiness she was caught by the French, used as a scapegoat during the espionitis epidemic and executed.

There were some very successful German women who were legendary spies: Anna Lesser, “the schoolgirl,” was one. “Fraulein doktor,” and “the tiger-lady” were believed by some to be the same person, but their (her) true identities were never discovered. Most of them had less fantastic but still interesting stories, carrying messages and working as cipher decoders. Women were considered to have a natural ability at this. The British even used the Girl Guides in a small capacity.

SM: I've heard of Mata Hari, of course, but not the others and certainly would never have expected the Girl Guides!

What inspired you to be a writer?

AS: I read constantly and read everything. The idea of women spies during WW1 intrigued me. When I read The Skylark it struck me that for Ladoux the topic of interest was the war. I was more interested in the character’s individual personalities and their lives. I wanted to know what they thought, these people who were on opposite sides of the war. I wanted their perspectives. This woman had an entire life besides being a spy for a while. What happened before and after? One day I suddenly thought I could absolutely do this and just started. I kept at it because I really enjoyed it. No one was more surprised than I was when it was finished.

SM: Having read the book, I think that you did an excellent job of portraying the different emotions of the characters over the years. And like you, that is what would have interested me most about their lives, too.

Tell me, Adrianne, are you planning to write another novel?

AS: I am planning on writing another novel. It will not be a sequel, but I will reference some of the characters from the first one. Only because I have grown attached to them and want to know what happens to them.

SM: Glad to hear it. I’d love to know what happens to them.

Before we wind down, what do you do in your spare time when you're not reading or writing?

AS: I always have some project going on. Right now I volunteer two days a week at the Chicago Park District Conservatories. I'm taking classes in horticulture at the Chicago Botanical Gardens.

I'm also taking singing lessons, something I've always wanted to do. My voice is so bad I'm embarrassed to go, but I'm forcing myself. I used to sing to my kids when they were babies and they would beg me stop. My son would scream and clap his hand over my mouth, but I like to sing and I know the lessons will be fun.

SM: Ha ha! Kids are so funny. We can trust them to tell us when the Empress has no clothes.

Horizontal Collaborator is a wonderful book, rife with information, suspense, colorful characters and humor. It's available on Amazon (http://tinyurl.com/3qwmsxu) and as an e-book on the Total Recall website (http://tinyurl.com/3kum6j9).

Polanski, the Victim? Review of Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired

This 2009 documentary by Steven Soderbergh and Marina Zenovich was fascinating and I learned quite a bit about Roman Polanski that I never knew because I hadn't followed his case that closely. I didn't know he was a Holocaust survivor and had lost his parents to the camps. I did know that his wife Sharon Tate was brutally murdered by the freakish Manson clan. And I imagine that all those hideous and traumatic incidents left a terrible and indelible mark on his psyche. But does this somehow justify drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl?


The production is far too sympathetic toward Polanski. Yes, it appears he had a judge who was obsessed with celebrities and his own fame and publicity. Yes, it looks as though his sentence was unfair, but even the original proposal to incarcerate Polanski for 90 days for a diagnostic was absurd. 90 days for taking a pubescent girl and giving her Quaaludes and sodomizing her? Please? What century are we living in?

Although the girl who was molested appeared on the show and spoke as an adult, I got the distinct impression that the message was "poor Roman", not "poor 13-year-old girl." At one point her prior sexual history was even mentioned -- disgraceful -- yet she clearly said that she had said *no* to him. Even if she had said *yes* and begged him to have sex with her, at 13, she didn't have the mental or legal ability to give consent.

The whole situation is very sad. If only Polanski had served out his time properly in the US, some of this would be behind him and perhaps he could have continued to be a wonderful director. People are complicated. Just because he committed a heinous act doesn't mean that he doesn't have redeeming qualities. He is brilliant and the French realize this. But one problem I had with the documentary is that it's not either or -- it's not that he is wanted in America and desired in Europe where he has won awards, so the Americans are wrong and prudish. It's that he has complex human traits that make him phenomenal in some respects and ugly in others.

D'Amour Road Featured on Klaudia's Cocktail

Recently, Iris Blobel discussed my novel D'Amour Road on her German radio show, Klaudia's Cocktail.

Iris does the show with Klaudia Hochhuth, and did a great job. I invite you to check it out!

http://www.voicefm.com.au/shows/ethnic-shows/german-klaudias-cocktail/

or http://iris-b.blogspot.com/2010/10/sigrid-macdonald-damour-road-interview.html