Well, dear readers, it is the day before the final day of 2006. Soon we shall all be greeting a brand spanking New Year, one I hope hold wonder and loveliness for all of us. Continuing my ruminations of this year, after the cabaret series and my beginning a new play towards the end of summer (as soon as David and I finished our rewrites of The Brain), I began to prepare for the production of The Brain From Planet X – meeting with the design team and thinking about casting the show, as well as hiring our musical director. During this time, our original musical director was notating all the songs in preparation for my incredibly wise decision to ask dear reader elmore to do the show’s orchestrations. At the same time, Miss Alet Taylor and Miss Joan Ryan both came to me and asked me to help them create new one-person shows, and to direct them. I agreed to do both and began weekly meetings with them. I also signed on to direct an interactive kids show, albeit one that was a ways away at that point. I did help its creator get his script into presentable shape. Then I got a very unexpected call from dear reader FJL. Would I, BK, be interested in doing an upcoming staged reading of The Last Starfighter at NYMF. My initial reaction was one of surprise, then nervousness, then fear. Luckily, I’d dusted off my actor chops earlier in the year when I replaced an actor in Deceit. After a day or two of deliberation, I said yes. Concurrently, I had run into Miss Alice Ripley, and we met and had breakfast one fine day and she asked me if I’d be interested in recording a live reunion concert with her and Miss Emily Skinner. Since I’d done both of their duets albums and Miss Skinner’s solo album, I naturally said a quick yes. So, just before Brain rehearsals began, I was whisked off to New York, New York for a week of rehearsals and performances for The Last Starfighter. I really had a wonderful time – FJL and Skip couldn’t have treated me better, and I liked the director and my fellow cast members. It was fascinating to appear in a musical again – the last one I’d done was in 1982! Two weeks later, I returned to New York to record the Skinner/Ripley concert. Four weeks later, it was released on CD. I’ll finish my ruminations in tomorrow’s notes.
Speaking of ruminations, yesterday was Friday. But I kept thinking it was Thursday and I felt discombobulated or, at the very least, discomgeorgeulated all the livelong day and night. Today, in fact, seems like Friday, so I am still feeling like I’m in the wrong day at the right time. In any case, yesterday was filled with relaxation – I got up, I jogged, I had a splendidly splendid luncheon at Musso and Frank, and then visited with my friends at Heavy Rotation as they were packing up. After that, I came home and sat on my couch like so much fish.
Yesterday, I also managed to watch two count them two motion pictures on DVD. The first motion picture on DVD was entitled Cesar and Rosalie, un film de Claude Sautet, starring Mr. Yves Montand, Miss Romy Schneider, and Mr. Sami Frey, along with a teenage Isabelle Huppert. It was another warm, funny, and wise film from Mr. Sautet. The back of the DVD case promises a “romantic comedy” and that it’s not – it’s bittersweet, occasionally has amusing things, but it’s also enigmatic, and sometimes very serious. The performances are all stellar and there’s a beautiful score by Mr. Sautet’s usual collaborator, Philippe Sarde. I then watched a region 2 DVD of something called The Death Of A President. I didn’t know anything about the film, but when I perused the DVD case it looked fascinating, like one of those Peter Watkins what if docu-dramas, like The War Game. The film has been roundly criticized by many in this country – none of whom, incidentally, have actually seen the film. The film is set in October 2007, in Chicago, when Mr. George W. Bush is supposedly speaking there. The film is in the style of a retrospective documentary, the kind you might see on A&E or The History Channel, and it gets it pretty right. However, what the naysayers (who haven’t seen it) don’t seem to realize is that it’s not an indictment of Bush and has very little to do with him, other than using an assassination of him as the jumping-off point to tell a story about a country consumed with overt fear, with a government that takes every advantage they can of said fear – and the taking way of personal freedoms and abuse of the constitution and the rush to judgment of the press and the government and the people. I don’t want to give away too much, other than to say a Muslim is blamed for the crime, based on the most inconsequential of evidence. The film is shockingly realistic and has great verisimilitude. The use of real footage and filmed footage is masterfully put together – there was only once when it was really apparent that an image was being digitally composited into another image. The film is riveting, compelling, occasionally humorous, and I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen. I did recognize one of the actors, but for the most part, they play their parts in an extremely realistic manner, save for one “actorly” performance by a guy playing a Secret Service agent. It’s one of the best things I’ve seen this year. The director has apparently made two other controversial docu-dramas, which I now shall seek out.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because she of the Evil Eye will be here all too soon and I must get my beauty sleep.
Today, I shall ship out the last five packages of the year, do some grocery shopping (I am – shudder – out of Diet Coke), and then watch many DVDs. I shall, in the vernacular of me, sit on my couch like so much fish all the livelong day and night.
Tomorrow, I will do nothing at all but relax and prepare for our New Year’s Rockin’ Eve Do right here at haineshisway.com. It’s going to be the rockinest New Year’s Eve Do on all the Internet – safe, fun, filled with wine, women, men, and song, not necessarily in that order. I’ll talk about my usual New Year’s Eve routine in tomorrow’s notes, although those who’ve been around for past Do’s know what it is.
Quick, let’s all put on our pointy party hats and our colored tights and pantaloons, let’s all break out the cheese slices and the ham chunks, let’s all dance the Hora and the Continental, because today is dear reader Dakota Celt’s birthday. So, let’s give a big haineshisway.com birthday cheer to dear reader Dakota Celt. On the count of three: One, two, three – A BIG HAINESHISWAY.COM BIRTHDAY CHEER TO DEAR READER DAKOTA CELT!!!
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, jog, ship, sup, and watch motion pictures on DVD. Today’s topic of discussion: What were your favorite male and female performances on film and on stage? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, on this the day before the final day of 2006.