Well, dear readers, I have some very important information for you – it is Tuesday. I ask you, where else on all the Internet can you get such information? Nowhere, that’s where. I wonder if Tuesday will be my good news day? Certainly, my recent bout of uneasiness seems to have passed. Someday, perhaps I shall go into all the reasons for my recent peculiar behavior and unease, as I find it interesting. This is the first Tuesday since the beginning of February where I will not be doing the musical theater workshop (MTW). That is because LACC is in the midst of a little thing they like to call Spring Break. So, our next musical theater workshop (MTW) isn’t until next Tuesday. At least I can sleep in if I so choose, or even if I sew chews. Have you ever sewn chews? It’s ever so much fun. Speaking of fun, yesterday was a rather pleasant day as Mondays go. I got a good night’s sleep, and then I packaged up a bunch of orders, and while I was packaging them, I got even more orders, which I also packaged up. Then I had some telephonic conversations, and then I did a bunch of errands. My errant and truant package finally arrived (it actually arrived last Saturday, and the brilliant people at my mail place neglected to mention that little factoid to me, even though I made quite a big deal out of it), and I went to the very crowded postal office and shipped out all the packages. I then came home and wrote three pages, which I’m happy to say were really funny – I laughed out loud whilst writing them – sometimes a gift of a really funny idea just happens when you least expect it, and that’s what happened. I’m already fifteen pages in, and let me tell you that’s pretty good considering I just began last Saturday and in Final Draft the pages are really long. If I were typing this in Word, I’d be at least twenty to twenty-five pages in already. Anyway, I’m having fun now. My next big decision, as I mentioned, is to figure out how to do time shifts, which are really going to be necessary. After writing, Miss Tammy Minoff came over and we supped at Hugo’s and then came back to the home environment – we’d intended to watch Brokeback Mountain, but when push came to shove and also when shove came to push, we decided we weren’t in the mood to watch a two hour and fifteen minute movie, so instead we talked for a while, and then watched one of my all-time favorite guilty pleasures, The Swimmer, which she’d never seen. After that, she left, and I went out and got some Milk Duds.
For those who haven’t seen it, The Swimmer is one of the oddest films ever made. It features a superlative performance by Burt Lancaster, and some very good supporting performances, especially one by Janice Rule. The film is adapted from a terrific short story by John Cheever, and it’s just so surreal and weird that somehow as a mood piece it just works. The film is tremendously aided by Marvin Hamlisch’s score, which has just come out on CD. The film had a very troubled history – directed by Frank Perry, it wasn’t finished by him, but by Sidney Pollack, who was brought in to shoot some inserts and to completely reshoot the Janice Rule scene, which was originally played by actress Barbara Loden. The insert shots, which were very obviously not part of principal photography, and which are mostly close shots of Burt, are just thrown in in the oddest places, and while they’re completely jarring in terms of continuity, they’re also weirdly poetic and strange. The real shame is that we’ll probably never see Frank Perry’s original cut of the film, which would just be so fascinating to view, and to see what the problem with Barbara Loden was, and how the film worked without all those inserts. The transfer is decent but not exceptional, although the colors are accurate and fine, and the print is very sharp.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because it is simply the thing to do. Also, I have some very important news to impart, so click away.
Here is my important news: Tomorrow evening is Passover. And, for the first time in ages, I am having a seder at my home. That is because Tammy’s friend Lauren wants to do it, and her apartment is too small to cook the meal. So, she and her husband and a friend of theirs, and Tammy and I will be the eaters, and I’m rather looking forward to the entire affair. We’ll be shopping tomorrow morning, and then Lauren and Tammy will be cooking all the livelong day, whilst I sit and write. Won’t that be fun. I’m sure we’ll have photographs of the event to share with you.
Today, I shall be writing, doing errands, setting up some appointments, and then toddling off to the editing room for a four-hour session. I’m really excited to start assembling our first cut of Deceit – we’ll only use the show taping for the assembly, then I’ll go through it and replace stuff with pickups, inserts, and close-ups that were not part of the show taping.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, write a page or two of the play, I must organize a few things around the home environment that are getting unwieldy, and if I sew chews I must eat something yummilicious during the daylight hours. Today’s topic of discussion: Tell us your favorite beef dishes, and share recipes if you sew chews. For our vegans, what are your favorite vegetable dishes, both exotic and plain? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we?