Well, dear readers, I must hurry and write these here notes because I’ve arrived home quite late and must post them shortly. So, today you will get the Reader’s Digest version of the notes, the abridged version of the notes, the tab version of the notes. Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must… Only kidding. That’s just too tab even for me. Yesterday, I had quite an interesting day of writing, and also managed to get in some doing of errands and driving about in my motor car. I also managed to get in some playing through more music in quest of the Guy Haines song selection. I will be getting more sheet music this weekend. I’ll also be meeting with our very own Mr. Grant Geissman this weekend to hopefully work out some kind of schedule. I’ll also be giving him the music for two or three songs to get him started. Isn’t that exciting? Isn’t that just too too?
Early yesterday morning (or late the night before), I watched a motion picture on DVD entitled Thieves Highway, directed by Mr. Jules Dassin. What a shame it was that Mr. Dassin was blacklisted soon after making this film – he most surely was on his way to becoming a world-class director. This country’s shameful behavior during that period is one of its darkest and most sickening hours. I’m not going to blather on about Thieves Highway, for this is the Reader’s Digest version of the notes, so suffice it to say that I found the film (which I’d never seen) absolutely fantastic on every level. Tautly directed, expertly written (by A.I. Bezzerides from his novel), and wonderfully acted by Richard Conte, Millard Mitchell, Lee J. Cobb and Valentina Cortese. The transfer, courtesy of Criterion and 20th Century Fox, is spectacular. There are quite a few extras, including a commentary track by Mr. Alain Silver, which I won’t be listening to. After working alongside Mr. Silver for more years than I care to remember, I’ve heard his noir pontifications until I wanted to eat my desk. Get this DVD, you will not be disappointed. Next up for me is Mr. Dassin’s Night and the City, also released by Criterion.
These here notes are just zipping along, are they not? Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because there are more Reader’s Digest notes in the next section.
Last night I attended the ASCAP/Disney workshop, this time merely as a spectator. I was interested to see what work they’d done on the piece I critiqued two weeks ago. Unfortunately, the forty minutes they chose to do began after the twenty minutes we’d seen, so how much had been changed based on what we’d said, is hard to say. It did seem that they were trying to make the character we all thought the show should be about be the center of things. But, they don’t really know what story they’re trying to tell, although parts of it are still enjoyable. The composer has a very quirky voice, musically, and I’m fond of it. After the presentation, the panel made their pronouncements. We had Peter Schneiderman, Tim Wang, and Jason Robert Brown. Peter began and had several interesting points, but I am no fan of the way he made them (I’ve done the panel with him before). JRB was next. He was very loud, very bombastic, and while some of his comments were amusing and well-taken, it was always more about him than the authors of what we’d seen. Again, it’s the bombast and the pronouncements that I don’t really care for. I go out of my way not to do that when I sit on the panel. Tim Wang had very little to say, but I liked him more because he was quiet and just said what he had to say. Stephen Schwartz is always interesting to listen to. JRB, after his turn was up, came back several times to say more – consequently, it was one of the longest panels I’ve ever seen there. I hope the authors aren’t discouraged, because I think they’ve got some real talent. And I think there’s a show lurking somewhere in the very unfocused show they’ve written.
Well, I think I just violated the Reader’s Digest principal. Well, this paragraph will indeed be an abridged paragraph, a tab paragraph.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must write, I must do some errands, I must eat, and then I must go to the Ridge of North with our very own Mr. Nick Redman to see the Cinerama documentary. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s wrong casting day here at haineshisway.com. So, let’s have the worst casting scenario possible for our haineshisway.com revival of Bye Bye Birdie. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we? We shall.