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May 23, 2007:

HAPPY HAPPENSTANCES

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, just when we thought it was Tuesday, it’s Wednesday. Well, it’s really still Tuesday as I’m writing these here notes, but I have to pretend it’s Wednesday, or otherwise this whole thing will mess with the windmills of my mind. Another week is flying by like a gazelle in a garter belt, and I suppose there is nothing to be done about it – either the flying week or the gazelle in a garter belt. I’m now in the thick of entering proofer number one’s editorial corrections into the book. Not in the thin of entering proofer number one’s editorial corrections into the book, no, I’m in the thick of entering proofer number one’s editorial corrections into the book. I’m also in the thick of beginning to book the talent for our fundraiser in November, and we’ve just had the good fortune to add the wildly amusing and wonderful Mr. Bruce Vilanch to our merry troupe. You dear readers and lurkers will be the first to know as we add more performers over the coming weeks and months. Speaking of the coming weeks and months, yesterday was yet another long day filled with both happy happenstances and annoying annoyanstances, although there were more of the former than the latter. For example, I got up. That was a happy happenstance. I then did an early morning errand. That was an annoying annoyanstance. I then packaged up a couple of packages and got them shipped out. I then worked on the order of Miss Joan Ryan’s show and came up with a pretty decent first pass. I then toddled off to lunch at the French Quarter with Miss Merissa Haddad, and we had a splendidly splendid time. I then came back home and did some more work on the music for the upcoming reading I’m doing, and then I began doing the corrections, after which I sat on my couch like so much fish.

Last night, I watched one motion picture on DVD, which was entitled Prince Of The City, a film by Sidney Lumet. I suppose it’s better liked these days, but it was not a hit when it came out, it was pretty much ignored at Oscar time and it received very mixed reviews. I’d missed it back then, and it’s never interested me enough to watch it until the DVD came out this week. While I don’t think it’s in Lumet’s top ten, it’s a very good film and, despite it’s extreme length (167 minutes), and some awkwardness and confusion in the first twenty or thirty minutes, it moves along at a steady clip and always holds the attention. Treat Williams has never been one of my favorite actors, but he’s good here in a very demanding role. Jerry Orbach has a much smaller role, but walks away with every scene he’s in – it’s pretty obvious that the Law and Order producers saw this film. Mr. Orbach has the most fun scene in the film, when he confronts and gets the better of a character we loathe. The rest of the very large cast is excellent, the camerawork is top-drawer, and the film’s excellent production design was by our very own Mr. Tony Walton. There is also a really nice score by Paul Chihara. The transfer is just about perfect, a surprise since it’s from Warner Home Video, the studio that has screwed up the color on more films than I can count. They do tend to get films from the 80s on right – it’s whoever’s doing the classics that’s the complete idiot. Oddly, the film is split over two discs – you have to change discs about 110 minutes in. By way of warning – if you’re like me and you hate anything to do with vomit, there are about four vomit scenes in this film, which is four too many, if you ask me.

What am I, Ebert and Roeper all of a sudden? Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because perhaps there will be some more happy happenstances in the next section.

Today, I shall enter more corrections, have lunch with dear reader Jeanne at the Farmer’s Market, work on the music for the reading, do more work on Joan Ryan’s show order, and do a lot of work for the alumni organization, including getting all the design elements in place for our new website. Then, I may sup with an old high school chum who lives in my neighborhood.

Tomorrow, I’ve got a lot to do, too, including a walk-through at the Alex Theatre, and then a meeting with the president of LACC, after which I think I’m going to try and see a brand new 35mm scope print of The High And The Mighty at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. On Friday, I hope to get together with dear reader Pogue’s ever-lovin’ Julieanne, who’s in town this week.

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do everything in paragraph one plus various and sundried other things, including some whatnot. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Ask BK Day, the day in which you get to ask me or any dear reader any old question you like and we get to give any old answer we like. So, let’s have loads of lovely questions and loads of lovely answers and let’s also have nothing but happy happenstances.

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