Well, dear readers, this week has flown by, like a gazelle doing a triple lutz. I gotta tell you. Last thing I knew, it was Monday. Now, it’s Friday. What a whirlwind week it’s been, too. Since last Thursday, I’ve written another fifty-something pages and am within twenty pages of wrapping this puppy up. The book has really been consuming me the last three weeks, and as I’d get further along, I just became the protagonist and it’s really a breathless and invigorating way to work. That alone would have been a plateful, but there were all those other little things to attend to, like taking over an alumni association, and directing Miss Merissa Haddad’s act, and having work sessions with Miss Joan Ryan and Miss Alet Taylor, and more. Yes, it was a whirlwind week filled with whirlwind events the sped by like a gazelle doing a wheelie. Speaking of a wheelie, yesterday was a whirlwind day. For example, I got up and wrote a whirlwind three pages prior to my leaving for a lunch meeting with the head of the Theatre Academy of LACC. We dined at Cassell’s, a classic LA burger joint that’s been around for fifty years or so. The meal was excellent, and we had a splendidly splendid discussion. I was trying to keep track of the time as best I could, as I’d put an hour and twelve minutes worth of dough in the meter. I got out of the restaurant less than a minute late, and a conscientious meter person was writing out a ticket. Normally, I would have laid into him but good (I am notorious amongst meter persons), but I was feeling good and I just went over and joked with him, and he was actually taken aback and really appreciated it and told me so. I then came back home and wrote another seven-plus pages, close to eleven pages in total for the day. I’d say that was a splendidly splendid days’ work, but the work wasn’t over. I then shipped a few packages. I then toddled off to a rehearsal with Miss Merissa Haddad. We ran straight through the act – the good news was it was structurally just right, it runs just what I wanted it to run, time-wise, and the material is really varied. We had an important chat about the work itself, and then we did extreme detail and staging work on the first three songs. We’ll continue doing that this morning for every other song in the show. Then we’ll do a run-through. In one of the other rooms, Miss Kay Cole was rehearsing some understudies for a show she’s directed, so I said hi to her and gave her a Brain CD – she’d heard all about the show (good things). I finally toddled back to the home environment, where I sat on my couch like so much fish, and also cleaned up and fixed what I’d written earlier.
Last night I didn’t feel like watching a motion picture on DVD, so I watched a motion picture that I TIVOd a while back. It was entitled The Sniper, a Stanley Kramer production, directed by the always-interesting Edward Dmytryk. It was really quite a good little film – it did get a little too preachy in the middle, but most of it was taut and tense, with a couple of truly shocking scenes. It was very daring for a 1952 film. Arthur Franz, an actor I’ve always liked (especially in Invaders From Mars) gives a terrific performance as the tormented title character, and Adolphe Menjou is good as a detective, as is Gerald Mohr, another actor I always liked. Marie Windsor has a tiny part, and Richard Kiley is saddled with all the preachy palaver. Wally Cox has a small role. The film has an excellent score by George Antheil, and the whole affair runs a crisp 87 minutes.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below, because we must continue with our theme of the whirlwind and we must move on to the next section so that we can wrap up these here notes in whirlwind fashion (leather pants, stiletto heels, and a bustier).
Yes, today will be another whirlwind day. I will try to get up early and write three pages if I can. I then have an eleven to one rehearsal, then I come back and try to write as many pages as I can before I pick up Miss Adriana Patti so that we may attend the screening of Sacco and Vanzetti and see dear reader edisaurus. I’m hoping we can all go out afterwards, and I’m also hoping she has time to do something on Saturday or before they leave. I do have a rehearsal on Saturday, and I must write (I’m thinking if I can really concentrate, I might wrap up the book by Sunday), but otherwise, I’m free.
This coming week will be filled with work sessions and rehearsals, and lots of other interesting stuff. I will also have the second batch of CDs to list, so stay tuned. For those who have been thinking about ordering from the first list, the time is nigh – those titles will all be going back to the storage facility.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, write, rehearse, write, sup, attend a screening, and perhaps go out with edisaurus afterwards. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Friday – what is currently in your CD player, and your DVD/video player? I’ll start – CD, various soundtracks by composer Vladimir Cosma, and the glorious soundtrack to a film called Angela, with music by my current fave, Philippe Rombi. DVD, den player, Royal Flash, bedroom player, season one of The Streets Of San Francisco. Your turn. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we? In fact, let’s have a whirlwind of posting.