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March 1, 2007:

MARCH TO THE BEAT OF A NEW DRUM

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, welcome to March. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, welcome to March. We will march to the beat of a new drum in March. We will welcome March with open arms and closed feet. We will send our most excellent vibes and xylophones that March will bring happiness, success, and riches to us all. But, before we embrace March, let us say a fond farewell to that month we like to call February. February, as you all know, is annoying because of its brevity. Brevity may be the soul of wit, but brevity is also the soul of February. February dashed by like a gazelle in a Thunderbird. But, I must say, we smashed to smithereens every heretofore known record here at haineshisway.com. Hence, February was one for the record books. Not only was February our highest posting month ever (despite its brevity), we had our highest posting day ever, this year’s Oscar bash, which topped last year’s Oscar bash by over 800 postings. We also had the most hits we’ve ever had in a single month – well over 127,000 of them. We also had at least three or four days enter the top ten posting days. And all this in a short month. I felt that February had a little too much tumult in it, and I hope that March is a little calmer and more fruitful for all. Speaking of fruit, yesterday was one of those days when I could not stop. I woke up early, had to do stuff around the home environment, and then had to hie myself to the Music Center for the press conference for this upcoming (in 2008) festival of new American musicals. It was a ninety minute event, peppered with speeches by the festival’s producers, a city councilman, and various representatives of various arts programs. The host of the morning was Mr. Jason Alexander, and there were musical performances by Mr. Stephen Schwartz, Mr. Jason Robert Brown, Mr. Michael Arden, Miss Georgia Stitt, and Mr. Alexander, all performing songs they’d written – some good, some not so good (for more detailed analysis, see yesterday’s posts). There were lots of folks I knew there, and I had nice chats with Miss Karen Morrow, Miss Adryan Russ, Georgia Stitt (with whom I’d worked on the cast album of After The Fair), ASCAP’s Michael Kerker, and others. It was nice of them to include me and I had a good time. The people running this tend to be a little cliquish, and I’m hoping they don’t do that for this festival – I hope they don’t just end up using the same five people they always use to direct, and I hope they don’t just use the same flavors of the month in terms of the shows they choose. I hope, at some point, to sit down with one of the producers to discuss things.

After that, I had some lunch at the Pig and Whistle, then picked up two of the three packages I was expecting (send excellent vibes and xylophones for edisaurus’ package, which should have been here yesterday), and then finally came home. I answered some e-mails, and then buckled down Winsocki to start writing. Every time I’d get going, the phone would ring, or e-mail would come in, or something distracting would happen and it became almost comical. I finally managed to write a page-and-a-half before giving up the ghost. Later, when things were calm, I wrote another page. And then, I sat on my couch like so much fish.

Last night, I managed to watch two count them two motion pictures on DVD. The first motion picture on DVD was entitled The Science Of Sleep, a French film (sort of – a lot of it was in English so maybe it was an English film made by a Frenchman), written and directed by Michel Gondry, who co-wrote and directed Eternal Sunshine of the whatever. The Science Of Sleep is a little too quirky for its own good – it’s almost plotless, so I never really got into it. That said, it had lovely things in it; nice visuals, good music, and excellent performances. A little quirky goes a long way with me, and at 105 minutes I was quirked out. I then watched the second motion picture on DVD, which was entitled Any Wednesday, one of those 60s comedies I’m quite fond of. Well, I’m fond of some of them. I certainly was not fond of the film of Any Wednesday, which I’d never seen. I couldn’t believe the play was that unfunny, so I looked at it and the play is funny. It’s a one-set, four-character play. The film’s first twenty minutes establishes plot and character that are established in the play’s first two minutes. Jason Robards, an actor I adore, is totally wrong for his part, and he’s charmless and strident. However, he’s nothing compared to Jane Fonda, who is so strident and over-the-top that you just want to hurl your shoe through the TV. Rosemary Murphy, the only person from the original cast of the play, is fine, but Dean Jones is merely annoying. Julius J. Epstein, a writer I normally like, adapted Muriel Resnick’s play and opened it up, added characters and new dialogue and just basically changed it so much that it lost all its charm and humor. One can imagine how lovely it must have been with its original players – Don Porter, Sandy Dennis, the aforementioned Miss Murphy, and Gene Hackman. The region 2 DVD from Germany has very accurate color, but is grainier than it should be and it’s also zoomed in, image-wise, so that tops of heads are occasionally lopped off. The transfer is clearly from a print – I don’t mind that at all, because the color is so Tech-looking, but they’ve zoomed in, I presume, to try to lessen the burned-in reel change cue marks in the upper right hand corner. You can still see them, but not like you’d see them if they hadn’t zoomed in.

What am I, Ebert and Roeper all of a sudden? Why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below as we March to the beat of a new drum.

Today, I have a breakfast meeting (I need to listen to some songs before I attend said meeting), then I’m coming back home, where I will hopefully be able to pick up the edisaurus package, and also do some writing without so many interruptions. Then I’m having a dinner meeting.

Tomorrow, I’ll be going to Mr. David Wechter’s home environment, where we’ll talk through a new idea we have for a screenplay, and we’ll start divvying up sections so we can begin writing. After that, we’ll be going to play poker nearby.

Saturday, I have all day to do writing and catch up, then Saturday night I’ll be escorting Miss Adriana Patti to a birthday dinner.

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, write, meet, eat, meet, and eat. And hopefully get some orders in. And I must ship out two or three packages, too. Today’s topic of discussion: We haven’t done games in quite a long time – what are your favorite games to play – games of chance, games of skill, board games, and what were your favorite games when you were a child? Let’s have loads of lovely questions, shall we, whilst we March to the beat of a new drum.

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