Katie Weekley
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katieweekley.bsky.social
Katie Weekley
@katieweekley.bsky.social
490 followers 230 following 190 posts
Writer, Producer, Cats and Dogs Living Together. I thought of that. Turns out it already existed but I arrived at it independently. 🇨🇦
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katieweekley.bsky.social
This speech!
I guess what I've come here to say is that imagination is intrinsically an act of service, and that imagination is nothing without empathy and kindness. Every vision of the future is really a theory of human nature and the one I choose is the one that says we can create larger than life flights of fancy when we really see each other, and that's how we lift everyone into the light.
November 26, 2025 at 3:32 PM
katieweekley.bsky.social
Here's a rule I have developed for myself: never talk about a culture-war topic with anyone who only wants to talk to you about that topic. These conversations can only be helpful if they happen as part of a relationship. If you're going in cold on a very hard topic, you will not be able to experience each other as people, only as opinions or symbols.
November 18, 2025 at 3:50 PM
katieweekley.bsky.social
Likewise, in an ideal world, social media apps would make it extremely easy not to see content that you didn't want to see. It would be simple to "whitelist" accounts, topics, video channels, types of content. That is to say, if social media apps were designed with public service in mind, it would be straightforward to tell them, for example, "I only want to see my friends' pictures of their family, their pets, their recipes, their updates about their career" or whatever it is that you want to see, without having to confront their political opinions. We are living through a time when we are going to be winding each other up a lot. It is all right to want to preserve relationships with family members and friends by only seeing their politics when you choose to engage with it.
November 18, 2025 at 3:50 PM
katieweekley.bsky.social
I just ran for the last metro and a rat ran alongside me to go back in his hole and it was a moment of symbiosis, of harmony, sharing a solidarity representing the beauty of the Parisian experience. je viens de courir pour avoir le dernier métro et un rat a couru à côté de moi pour rejoindre son trou c'était un moment de symbiose, d'harmonie, de partage de solidarité représentant la beauté de l'expérience parisienne
November 6, 2025 at 3:45 PM
katieweekley.bsky.social
"Something that's true of all the narcissists I've known and witnessed is that they're unhappy and they can't recognize that this is an entrenched condition."
Something that's true of all the narcissists I've known and witnessed is that they're unhappy and they can't recognize that this is an entrenched condition. They think it's due to something someone just did, and if they punish, intimidate, coerce that person to change their ways then they'll be happy: they're one lashing-out away from the world they want and deserve.
September 19, 2025 at 6:09 PM
katieweekley.bsky.social
Steinbeck:
A man who writes a story is forced to put into it the best of his knowledge and the best of his feeling. The discipline of the written word punishes both stupidity and dishonesty. A writer lives in awe of words for they can be cruel or kind, and they can change their meanings right in front of you. They pick up flavors and odors like butter in a refrigerator. Of course, there are dishonest writers who go on for a little while, but not for long-not for long. A writer out of loneliness is trying to communicate like a distant star sending signals. He isn't telling or teaching or ordering. Rather he seeks to establish a relationship of meaning, of feeling, of observing. We are lonesome animals. We spend all life trying to be less lonesome. One of our ancient methods is to tell a story begging the listener to say—and to feel - "Yes, that's the way it is, or at least that's the way I feel it. You're not as alone as you thought." Of course a writer rearranges life, shortens time intervals, sharpens events, and devises beginnings, middles and ends. We do have curtains-in a day, morning, noon and night, in a man, birth, growth and death. These are curtain rise and curtain fall, but the story goes on and nothing finishes. To finish is sadness to a writer—a little death. He puts the last word down and it is done. But it isn't really done. The story goes on and leaves the writer behind, for no story is ever done.
August 14, 2025 at 3:30 AM
katieweekley.bsky.social
Fanastic interview on billionaire bullshit.
They have so much power and so much money that the choices that they make about how to exercise that power and spend that money unavoidably affect the rest of us. This is a real danger that we are seeing and experiencing right now. Musk thinks that his mission to go to Mars and beyond is the salvation of humanity - he has said as much in as many words — and he believes that, therefore, nothing should be allowed to stand in his way, not even law. So, therefore, he supported a lawless candidate for President of the United States, a literal felon, and said that it was important for the future of humanity that that felon win. This is a billionaire interfering with the democratic process and trying to erode the democratic fabric of this country - and succeeding — in order to pursue his own personal vision of utopia that will never happen. That's a fucking problem. And that makes it everybody's business.
July 14, 2025 at 10:23 PM
katieweekley.bsky.social
Mr. Show, bar guys get in each other's faces, get married, spend a life together, all the milestones, until David Cross dies, then when he's done crying, Bob Odenkirk turns to order a drink at the bar, is shocked his whole life has passed. I often say, "My life?" when something is taking too long.
Mr. Show, Spite Marriage.
July 12, 2025 at 5:36 PM
katieweekley.bsky.social
post an unusual sign if you feel like it:
June 30, 2025 at 7:08 PM
katieweekley.bsky.social
Fantastic essay. I'm misquoting Don Draper, but reminds me of "People don't know what they want until I tell them what they want."
The notion that a story has a message assumes that it can be reduced to a few abstract words, neatly summarized in a school or college examination paper or a brisk critical review. If that were true, why would writers go to the trouble of making up characters and relationships and plots and scenery and all that? Why not just deliver the message? Is the story a box to hide an idea in, a fancy dress to make a naked idea look pretty, a candy coating to make a bitter idea easier to swallow? (Open your mouth, dear, it's good for you.) Is fiction decorative wordage concealing a rational thought, a message, which is its ultimate reality and reason for being?
June 24, 2025 at 3:16 PM
katieweekley.bsky.social
Show us your writing process in a gif
May 18, 2025 at 1:19 AM
katieweekley.bsky.social
Now they have to record some folk rock to go with their album cover.
Two very handsome cats.
May 16, 2025 at 6:27 PM
katieweekley.bsky.social
Lovely piece about the blackout in Spain.

www.nytimes.com/2025/05/03/o...
Perhaps that is the great difference between the forces of the far right — in America, in parts of Europe, now insisting the only true path is one of individualism, each man for himself — and the trust that the European welfare state that I was raised with builds in the minds of a community. Here we found we had trust in others and in our country, in the sense of community. Is there a more powerful weapon than that? Is there a greater shield than that? Knowing that others are there to help you, not to harm you, that we each need one another. That is the key.
May 3, 2025 at 1:11 PM
katieweekley.bsky.social
I doorknocked to re-elect my Liberal MP. I tend more left, but the NDP in my riding didn't stand a chance. On weekend before the election, I was paired with this guy who told me straight off he never gets involved like his, tends to vote more right but.... "you want Canada to stay Canada" I filled in. Yup. He was such a man of the people, talkin' hockey at our doors, twice my height so I was running to keep up. By the end of the shift, I really liked him. Our last door, the lady launched into a tirade how much she didn't like our MP. What has he done for us, anyway? She kept us at the door for ten minutes, complaining. The best part? "Well of course I voted for him. You gotta." This moment will always stick with me, three people, differing in the details of our opinions, working together on the bigger picture because we want Canada to stay Canada.
April 30, 2025 at 2:20 PM
katieweekley.bsky.social
This story!!
Polley remembers it not working upwards of twenty times over two nights. “I would say it's my favorite moment I've ever seen on a set of a filmmaker dealing with stress,” the Women Talking director says. “I remember, around the fifth take, watching him. He got the iced coffee in his face, he got to the door handle, the camera didn't land right, and I saw him take a deep breath. And I thought, ‘Oh, he's gonna lose it now.’ And I literally saw him make the decision to laugh. Like he revved himself with that Seth Rogen laugh, and then he got hysterical, and he started laughing hysterically.” Amazed and baffled, Polley asked him how he could be so good humored about it. “He was like, ‘Who am I gonna be mad at? This was my idea!’ He was like, ‘I fought very hard to get that coffee thrown in my face, who the fuck am I gonna be mad at? Like, It's only funny,’” Polley recalls. “He never, ever got frustrated. He only found it funny, which is, of course, the appropriate, Buddha-like response we'd all like to have. But he actually has it.”
March 27, 2025 at 3:12 PM
katieweekley.bsky.social
Another fantastic Scriptnotes Episode. I really needed to hear this right now.
Dennis: Yes, my feeling is why give the world more impact on you than it needs to have? If you don’t create because you’re battered by what’s going on in the world, you’ve allowed the world to take away your skill set, which is the thing that is so important to your self-concept. It really is.
February 22, 2025 at 4:08 PM
katieweekley.bsky.social
Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something – anything – down on paper. A friend of mine says the first draft is the down draft – you just get it down. The second draft is the up draft – you fix it up. You try to say what you have to say more accurately. And the third draft is the dental draft, where you check every tooth, to see if it’s loose or decayed, or even, God help us, healthy. Anne Lamott on Rewriting
February 20, 2025 at 4:03 PM
katieweekley.bsky.social
I just wrote Elections Canada about the safety of our Canadian Election. My letter is in the alt text if anyone finds it helpful.

I wrote:

[email protected]

and lodged a complaint at

www.cef-cce.ca/content.asp?...

I urge other Canadian voters to do the same.
I am writing because I am deeply concerned about Elon Musk using X and Starlink Technology to interfere with our Canadian Elections. He has proven time and time again that he is deeply compromised and cannot be trusted. It is highly probably that his technology influenced or even helped cheat on the recent US election. Especially now with the horror show of the US government, we need more than ever to ensure that our Canadian Election is safe. I am asking Elections Canada take whatever steps required to protect us from this dangerous and corrupt man.
January 29, 2025 at 2:25 PM
katieweekley.bsky.social
My dear old boy Soho Nosferatuing.
Tabby cat plays with a string and looks like sleeping Nosferatu.
January 24, 2025 at 4:57 PM
katieweekley.bsky.social
And finally, my favourite, the origin story "Mad at myself for returning a Blockbuster tape late, I started Netflix" is not only a lie but a lie Blockbuster went into their database to call out!
December 29, 2024 at 6:59 PM
katieweekley.bsky.social
And this one about documentaries. I loooooove a good documentary, but so many offerings on Netflix seem like PR pablum.
December 29, 2024 at 6:59 PM
katieweekley.bsky.social
No critical success metrics!
December 29, 2024 at 6:59 PM
katieweekley.bsky.social
No taste brakes!
In the past, whenever the movies in Hollywood went stale and executives exerted too much control over artists, the industry had an important hand brake: the audience. If a movie bombed with audiences and box office numbers plummeted, then studios would have to change course. After all, the box office has always been viewed as the gold standard of metrics in Hollywood for a reason: it's the most distilled and straightforward measurement of audience interest. Moviegoers must choose to buy tickets. They cannot skip around, fast-forward, or order groceries through the Prime app on their phone. No moviegoer enters a theater expecting to leave after two minutes. Until Netflix, one of cinemas essential qualities, the thing that distinguished it from television, was the way it commanded an audience's attention. Whether a movie grossed big numbers or bombed, a box office report carried an inadmissible truth: the vast majority of the audience experienced the movie in full, and its taste couldn't be ignored
December 29, 2024 at 6:59 PM
katieweekley.bsky.social
Grenoble, France.
December 29, 2024 at 5:52 PM
katieweekley.bsky.social
chicago.suntimes.com/other-views/...
So, when you notice a new administration cutting funding for the arts, or one political party or faction expressing disdain for art and artists, pay attention. This is a political tactic to shut down dissenting voices. This is a signal to squash those powerful voices expressed through song, poetry, theatre, dance, writing, painting, symphonies, operas, pop songs, folk songs, podcasts, movies and more.
December 27, 2024 at 8:36 PM