Well, dear readers, what a strange weekend it was. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, what a strange weekend it was. Despite being productive and having some fun, there was just a strange undercurrent of weirdness the entire weekend. I can’t put my finger on it, though. That’s because it doesn’t like when I go sticking my finger on it. It gets very upset and has even been known to get a little violent. Where was I? Oh, yes, the undercurrent of weirdness. I began feeling said undercurrent of weirdness on Friday evening, and then forgot about it whilst I did the ASCAP workshop, then it came back as I drove to the Ray Courts show, then it went away, then came back Saturday evening and stayed around for most of Sunday and Sunday evening. Part of the weirdness was starting the second act of the play, which I did on Friday evening. It was like slogging through glue. I knew how I wanted it to begin, but as always it was torture to get the first two pages to flow and do what I wanted. I finally came up with a cute way to open it and once I had that, I was able to get those two pages to be decent. But, then every page thereafter was like pulling teeth just to get through the page. Part of that, as I’ve said, is that writing these plays in Final Draft is difficult, simply because the pages hold so much dialogue and it just takes forever to get to the next page. Interestingly, Deceit was really an eighty minute show (plus intermission) and in Final Draft it was sixty pages long (but with a very long visual sequence at the end of act one). This play’s first act is fifty-four pages at the moment, and the second act will probably be forty or thereabouts, so page-wise it’s considerably longer. Of course, I won’t know how long it really is until we sit down and read it. I’m still deciding if I want to read act one first, or just wait another few weeks until I finish everything. We shall see. By last night, it felt like I’d only done a few pages since Friday, but when I added them up I found I’d managed to crank out eight pages, so that’s not too bad. I have to go back and smooth them out, which I will as soon as I get into the next section of scene one (scene one is broken up into two parts). Other than that, I spent a rather restful Sunday. The undercurrent of weirdness was present, though, and it was freaking me out a little. I finally got out of the house and drove around for a while. I even visited Tower Records on Sunset for the first time in about a year.
Last night, I watched a motion picture on DVD entitled 49th Parallel, a film of Michael Powell, written by Emeric Pressburger. It’s an episodic story of some escaped Nazis in Canada, and it’s wonderfully entertaining and beautifully directed and written. Most of the stars are in for one sequence apiece – only the Nazis run through from scene to scene. Laurence Olivier has never been hammier than here as a French Canadian. Leslie Howard is great in one of the later sequences, and a very young Glynis Johns is terrific as a sixteen-year-old. Anton Walbrook, as always, is wonderful, and Eric Portman, as the head escaped Nazi is cold and nasty. Also excellent are Niall MacGinnis as the Nazi with a change of heart, and Raymond Massey as a Canadian soldier. The film has a brilliant musical score with one of the greatest main title themes ever written, courtesy of Ralph Vaughan Williams, who is actually listed with the cast members at the top of the film. The DVD, from France, is mostly great-looking. I must say, Michael Powell really was a fascinating and wonderful director.
What am I, Ebert and Roeper all of a sudden? Why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I’m hoping that the strange undercurrent of weirdness will have abated by the time we get to the next section.
I must say that I did get one great night’s sleep over the weekend, despite the strange undercurrent of weirdness. I’ve been watching The Aristocrats on the bedroom DVD player, about fifteen minutes each night before I fall asleep. That’s the best way to see it, I think. I’m finding it a truly unfunny experience, with a few funny exceptions. The only time I have actually laughed out loud was when Tom Smothers was telling the joke to a confused Dick Smothers. But, for my money, The Smothers Brothers can do no wrong no matter what they do. Their timing and chemistry is classic – always has been, always will be.
Today I shall be writing and shipping, not necessarily in that order. I must get a large order out to Tower, and then must ship a bunch of orders that came in over the weekend. I also have to make several important telephonic calls. One important telephonic call that didn’t occur this past weekend is the one I was really looking forward to. I’m going to write the person who set it up and see if maybe I can just call the person involved. I’ll keep you posted.
I’ve been getting lovely reports from a couple of people who’ve been reading the manuscript of the short story collection. Miss Tammy Minoff finished it on Saturday. She really loved all the stories (she’s been one of my guinea pigs on each book, from the very beginning), but her absolute favorites were, How To Write A Dirty Book, The Book Scout, and Adventures With My Father. It’s very heartening to hear such nice reaction to each story as they’re read.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, write, ship, eat, do errands, answer e-mails, and write. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite Motown songs and who are your favorite Motown singers and groups? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, and let’s hope the strange undercurrent of weirdness has run its course.