Well, dear readers, I admit it. I admit that I am starting these here notes late and that I shall now endeavor to write them quickly so that I can post them not too much after midnight. Therefore, I shall keep things short and sweet, not necessarily in that order. I will not waste time writing in an arch fashion (string bikini and wooden clogs). I will cut to the chase, get to the point, keep my eye on the sparrow. What am I, Baretta all of a sudden? Little known factoid: I was offered a couple of days on Baretta and I turned it down, perhaps the only TV show I ever turned down. I simply didn’t want to work with Mr. Blake and all his improv junk. Where was I before I took that little factoid detour? Oh, yes, cut to the chase, get to the point and keep my eye on the sparrow. Speaking of the sparrow and the eye, yesterday was a very productive day, and a very long day, but a day that was somewhat pleasurable. It began with my arising. After my arising, I had to answer a few e-mails and then Miss Joan Ryan came over. We transferred all her work CDs into my iTunes and then I put everything in my first-pass order. I then had her sing through everything, in order, and, surprisingly, it felt pretty darned good. There will be a couple of things for me to keep my eye on when we begin to stage the show, but for now it’s a good beginning. I suspect I’m going to cut one number and move a couple of things around. After that, I had to ship out a number of packages (14, to be exact), and then I went to the mail place where I had a surprise package awaiting me. We love surprise packages. After that, I kept my eye on the sparrow and came back to the home environment, where I finished entering corrections. I still have to ask my muse Margaret about a few things I was unsure of, but mostly I’m done with this pass and will now pass on the manuscript to proofer number two. I must say, proofer number one caught a couple of doozeys that I’d missed and might never have caught. After that, I had some supper, then went and did a CD trade and got some interesting new soundtrack CDs, and then I finally came home and sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched a motion picture on DVD entitled Broken Arrow, starring Mr. James Stewart, Mr. Jeff Chandler, and Miss Debra Paget. I’d somehow never seen this film, but I’m a big fan of its director, Delmer Daves, so I knew I’d at least enjoy it. Well, I more than enjoyed it – it’s a great movie from top to bottom. It has an excellent, literate script by Albert Maltz (on the original prints of the film, Michael Blankfort was credited with the script when Mr. Maltz fell victim to the blacklist), beautiful photography, and a great score by Hugo Friedhofer. Mr. Stewart is, as always, wonderful, but the real surprise of the movie were the performances of Jeff Chandler and Debra Paget, neither of whom I’ve ever been a big fan of. Here, they deliver excellent, nuanced performances, the likes of which they never really gave again, at least in what I’ve seen. The transfer looks very sharp and has mostly nice color, even though certain scenes have a little too much green in them.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I’m already eight minutes late and the clock is ticking and, as we all know, time stops for no man.
Isn’t it lovely that we have a long, long weekend? I, for one, will do very little other than relax and smell the coffee or the roses or the iceberg wedge. For example, today I shall do a few things that need doing (most of which have to do with the alumni association), but other than that, I have no plans whatsoever. Tomorrow, I have a little alumni meeting, but that should be short and sweet, like these here notes. Monday, I have no plans, other than to have a drink with a friend.
The notes are now eleven minutes late. No matter how fast I try to write, it’s never fast enough. But still, I’m getting the job done because I’m keeping my eye on the sparrow, baby.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, get back to jogging, do some errands, and do a little work and watch a lot of DVDs. Today’s topic of discussion: James Stewart has made some of the best motion pictures in history – what are your all-time favorite James Stewart films, and what was the first Stewart film you ever saw, where were you, and what did you think of it? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst we all keep our respective eyes on the respective sparrows.