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June 28, 2002:

THE VERY SPECIAL FRIDAY

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, it is Friday. But not just any Friday. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, this particular Friday is not just any particular Friday, this is a special Friday. Why is this a special Friday you might ask and I might tell you because if I kept such a thing from you you would walk around all day scratching your collective heads with a puzzled look on your collective faces. Well, well, well (that is three wells), that would be unseemly in extremis, so I will, in fact, tell you why this is a special Friday. Actually, there are several reasons this is a special Friday. For example, tonight we are doing our special Nudie Musical signing at Laserblazer in Westwood, California. I do hope our West Coast dear readers will be stopping by, even just to say hello. That is one reason this particular Friday is special. However, it is also special because today is someone’s birthday. Isn’t that exciting? Isn’t that just too too? Yes, Virginia, today is someone’s birthday and I am here to tell you whose birthday it is right this very minute. It is the birthday of our very own Mr. Mark Bakalor. Can you believe it? So, let us all put on our pointy party hats, our colored tights and pantaloons, and let us celebrate until the cows come home. Let us partake of our favorite party foodstuffs, cheese slices and ham chunks, not necessarily in that order. Let us dance the Hora and do a Square Dance. After that, let us do a Round Dance and then a Triangle Dance. Let us do si do and ala man left and/or right, let us swing our partners back and forth and also forth and back. Oh, what fun we shall have celebrating Mr. Mark Bakalor’s very own birthday. For his sparkling haineshisway.com gift, let us all collectively bitch-slap him from here to eternity and back again.

I am exhausted from that paragraph, it was so chockfull of merriment and gaiety. Certainly it got these here notes off on the right foot. I feel these here notes have been getting off on the left foot for far too long, so it is nice for these here notes to get off on the right foot. Last night I had the best Orange Chicken I’ve ever eaten, when I attended the birthday dinner of my friend, Mr. David Wechter. It was served at a restaurant called Yang Chow in Woodland Hills, and oh my was that Orange Chicken excellent. In fact, it was addictive and I could not stop eating it until it was all gone.

On that note (G#), let us all click on the Unseemly Button, because to not do so at this particular time would be heinous (heinous, do you hear me?).

Yesterday, I had occasion to hear a recording of the entire show called Smile, with the Original Broadway Cast. As most of you know, the score of Smile is one of my guiltiest pleasures, and over the years I’ve recorded quite a few songs from it. It’s one of those things, when you hear the score you just can’t figure out why on earth such a show would fail. And the fact is, I don’t think it would fail in quite the same way if it were done today. However, that said, its problems become apparent from the opening curtain – its tone is wrong from the first line (voice-over narration) and it gets the show off on a totally non-energetic and peculiar path. I do like the opening number which ensues, Typical High School Senior, which does have the energy and fun needed. In fact, the score does the right things almost throughout – the book is the problem – it wants to have it all ways and it never has it in any way that really works. It wants to be satirical (like the film it’s based on), it wants to be touching, it wants to be serious, but it just can’t make up its mind. It’s a shame really, and I’m sure the fact that Mr. Ashman was also directing the show was not such a good thing for Mr. Ashman the book writer. But that score – a real Broadway score, with great Hamlisch tunes and clever Ashman lyrics, is just delectable. You can tell on the recording that the audience wants to love it and that they’re not being given the opportunity to. Somebody should take a look at the show, and do some book revisions and try it again.

What am I, Ken Mandelbaum all of a sudden? I also got several other similar mysterious recordings to listen to, and I’ll be reporting on those in the coming week.

Mrs. Grant Geissman, who also goes by the name Lydia, gave me quite a nice haircut yesterday, so I am quite kempt right now, hair-wise. Benjamin Kritzer is now listed at both barnesandnoble.com and amazon.com, and the cover images will follow. If you like the book, be sure to go to amazon and “review” it. We need to spread the word like butter on a biscuit.

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must prepare for the busy day ahead because there is so much afoot. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, there is much afoot ahead. I shall have a complete report for you about our signing tonight, tomorrow. I should have thought that yesterday’s topic would have gotten much more discussion – the casting of a modern film of Follies, but there were only two actual cast lists. Today’s topic of discussion: What is your favorite film adaptation of a book (I do hope we haven’t done that before – I no longer remember what we’ve done and haven’t done)? I’ll start – I think the best adaptation of book to film ever done is Rosemary’s Baby, from the novel by Ira Levin. The film literally is the novel – every line is from the book, and the way Mr. Polanski captures the imagery of the book is perfection. Mr. Levin told me that the reason this is so is because it was Mr. Polanski’s first American film and he thought he couldn’t change anything – he thought he had to use all the dialogue from the book, he thought that was a rule. Whatever the reason, it’s brilliant. Things that I’d always thought very Polanskian (in the opening, when Rosemary and Guy are looking at the Bramford, there’s a weird person drilling a peep-hole in a door that is so Polanski) but it’s all in the book, including much of the wardrobe description. The other adaptation I’m very fond of is To Kill a Mockingbird, which stays very true to the spirit of the book. Your turn.

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