Carla Zilbersmith was my teacher.  She is an enviably talented actress, director, and writer who taught with wisdom, skill, and the unique ability to inspire you beyond your thought that you were kind of an aimless loser (not easy to do at a community college).

Now, she no longer performs (Did I mention her rich, cool jazz singing?), and she no longer teaches college, though she imparts infinite wisdom via her BLOG. READ IT. And her musical comedy on dying (yes), Leave Them Laughing.  WATCH THE TRAILER.

Dying? you ask.  YES.  DYING.  I almost forgot to tell you because even while in the throes of ALS or Lou Gehrig’s Disease, one of the most bullshit fatal illnesses (her words and I agree) in, perhaps, the history of the world, she is such a source of light, wisdom, and inspiration.  (I don’t mean that in a New Agey sense.)

As if all that weren’t enough, now Carla is taking fatal illness to the pin-up world.  Who, besides me when I find it on my husband’s workbench, doesn’t love a pin-up girl?  (Actually my husband doesn’t have a workbench or a pin-up girl, but still.)  In her ALWAYS LOOKING SEXY CALENDAR, she presents the racier side of ALS, wheelchairs and respirators included.  Why not greet each month with a full color photo of the hottest humans stricken with the disease?  Please BUY A CALENDAR and you will support ALS research and yet another brilliant endeavor of one of the most talented people that the earth will soon be robbed of.

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