VALENCIA CHAPTER 21 – Jill Soloway
Listen, I’ve gone on at length in this blog about how much I love Jill Soloway, and I’m going to do it again. And you know what? I might decide, a few months from now or whatever, to do it again. Because she’s amazing. Did you happen to enjoy the Emmys this year, for the first time in your life? That’s because she wrote it with her lezzed out sister Faith, who is a famous funny lesbian. Jill’s eye on the world is super female, feminist, hilarious, and really heartfelt, and you might have seen it on Six Feet Under, United States of Tara and How to Make it in America, as well as in the pages of her audacious book Tiny Ladies in Shiny Pants. I am hugeky thrilled that she is not only shooting a VALENCIA chapter, she’s shooting the final chapter. Grand finale! I talked to her about her chapter. Look!
Michelle Tea: Hi! What happens in your chapter?
Jill Soloway: It’s the last chapter. An empty apartment. Tarot cards. The meeting of Michelle and Magdalena Squalor. Melancholy.
MT: How did you find your Michelle? And the rest of your cast?
JS: My cast is only Michelle and Magdalena and they sort of came to me.
Terra as Michelle. I have a crush on myself.
MT: Are you interpreting your chapter literally or are you mashing it up?
JS: I am not interpreting it literally at all, it’s not going to feel like a regular movie scene. I don’t want to give too much away but I am interpreting it sort of obliquely and in an unexpected way, in a way that felt like it would be more fitting for the last chapter.
MT: What do you like better about LA and what do you like better about San Francisco?
JS: LA is home. I can get things done all day long, move mountains and write and make phone calls, wheel, deal, wheedle, and cajole. San Francisco is a place where my husband and I go to play artist and reinvent ourselves and our lives. We go eat at that awesome fish place and take busses and pretend we are other people. San Francisco feels like a tiny NY we can get to in an hour. I love San Francisco.
MT: Your chapter ends with a sort of meditation on the fleetingness of romance and the more eternal girl-friendships, as experienced by Michelle’s unexpected friendship with her ex’s ex. Are you friends with any of your ex’s ex’s? Who is your best female friend?
JS: I’m not really friends with my ex’s ex’s.. I have noticed that sometimes a relationship can be a testament to another person. I have two friends who got together and at times their relationship was a tribute to me, at times a defense against me. Triangulation is often more comfortable than just plain two person relationships, and sometimes an emotional three-way can last for years and years.
Talia as Magdalena. So right on it's eerie.
MT: You have said there will be a SURPRISE at the end of your chapter – which is extra exciting seeing as it is the last one. Can you give a hint of it?
JS: My secret end is that the last chapter will be a music video!
MT: Even though the Radar LAB writers’ retreat is super gay, it’s actually open to everyone. As one of the straights at the 2011 LAB, can you tell your hetero brethren why they should apply?
JS: It was just awesome in every single way. It reminded me of how to be an artist. I learned so much about myself and my process. I had so much focus and made these great salads every day with avocado and tuna which was called tonno over there. I fell in love over and over again and met people I hope I’ll know forever. And the dirty secret about being straight was pretty unspoken.
MT: What have you worked on recently and what will you work on next?
JS: I’m working on two TV pilots right now. One is a 1/2 hour comedy for FOX about about three sisters. I was working on it at the lab. It would sort of be what it would be like if Faith and I found out Lorelei Lee was our sister. It’s secretly about the relationship between 2nd and 3rd wave feminism, but on paper, it’s about two intellectual Jewish girls, one straight and one gay, who find out their dad had an affair and the product of that affair is a blondey boobey Christian pornstar. I know Lorelei’s not Christian but all the other stuff. In fact when I turned in my outline after Radar she was named Lorelei but it made everyone think too much of Gilmore Girls. So now she’s named Montana. I’m also writing a 1 hour drama based on Pamela des Barres book I’M WITH THE BAND for the CW network. I’m also working on my chapter and putting on interesting/weird/reinventy Jewish events on the East Side of LA.
J
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