Well, dear readers, I have widgets. Yes, Virginia, you heard that right – I, BK, have widgets and I don’t care who knows it. I know I’m late to the widget game, but better late than never – or is it better never than late? In any case, I have widgets and, as the Gershwins wrote, they can’t take that away from me. I’m happy to report that the scratchy throat of yesterday is a bit better today and I hope that will continue to heal pronto (otnorp, spelled backwards). Speaking of pronto, yesterday was, for a day off, not that much of a day off. Oh, I managed to sleep in until ten, but still only got about four hours of sleep, I think. It’s hard to tell because my throat was so weird and scratchy that it felt like I was up most of the night, which was not helped by the fact that I kept dreaming I was awake. I answered a few e-mails and did a little work on the laptop, then I put the laptop in its case and toddled off to the street fair. I cabbed it over to the East side and got out at Park and 54th. I walked to Third and then North until I reached the fair, which started somewhere around 67th St. I hadn’t been to the East side in years, and I must say that it doesn’t change nearly as much as the West side. I had a sublet at 66th and Third for two years (during the Varese years) and a lot of Third is exactly as it was then, and I was happy to see many of my haunts were still in business. It was the usual street fair – lots of vendors and food and such. At 72nd, the Theatermania block began. Mr. Craig Brockman immediately found me – I was supposed to bring him something, but because I was so groggy from my lack of good sleep, I forgot. I saw Scott Siegel and I saw Jim Morgan of the York Theatre. There was a NYMF table and I said hello to Kris Stewart, who was there, and who’s one of the heads of NYMF. People were performing, but that particular set was over just after I got there. I was joined soon thereafter by Barry Pearl, Cason Murphy, and Alet Taylor, as well as our stage manager Rachel, and our accompanist for the occasion, Natalie. We went off to an unpopulated area and our cast of players went over their lyrics and talked through their moves. We then had some time to kill so we took a walk. Alet wanted a Starbucks, but surprisingly it took about seven blocks to find one (there’s a Starbucks on just about every corner in New York). After that, we returned to the stage area and awaited our turn. It was an odd array of talent, and there was another NYMF show performing just before us. They, in fact, did three numbers, all very Sondheimian (what else is new). And then it was time for us, and our trio did a fine job performing The Plan. One tiny flubbed lyric, and a couple of mis-steps, choreography-wise (they were using handheld mics, so it was confusing), but the few people who were watching had big grins on their faces. It was, in fact, surprising how few people were watching any of the performances. Still, it was a good thing for us to do, and we left a lot of post cards, so maybe that will result in some sales.
After we finished, we went to a little jernt and ate a late lunch. For a little hole in the wall, the food was really good – I had Eggs Benedict and fries and it was very yummilicious, and everyone else seemed to like their food. I then toddled over to the Apple Store with Rachel and Cason – Rachel wanted to buy an iPod, and I was there for my five-twenty appointment to have Tiger installed (finally) on my laptop. My five-twenty stretched to six-ten, but I finally sat down at the Genius Bar whilst some genius installed the new operating system. It took about twenty-five minutes and then he told me that there would be a bunch of updates to do when I got home. Was he ever right. What he installed took me to version 10.4.6 – when I checked for updates, there was a huge, all-inclusive update that took it to 10.4.10 – it took over an hour, but then all was well. Now I have Dashboard and widgets and I am a happening person. Of course, the new OS comes out in October, but I’d never get any of these until all the bugs were worked out, and I gather there’s not going to be that much that’s different.
After that, I came home and sat on my chair like so much fish, doing the updates and a little work, then watching some TV (movies on TCM), then listening to some music.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I’ve got to try and get a decent night’s sleep. My throat, while better, is still bugging me a little. Perhaps tonight I shall dream of widgets.
This morning we’ll have a full run-through (although missing one of our ensemble members – most annoying) for our designers – unfortunately, Alet’s big number will just have to be marked since Rob wasn’t there when it was blocked and won’t have a clew as to what’s going on – plus, the choreography is going to be changing. After the run and lunch, then I’ll begin getting down to specifics, and we’ll finish staging Alet’s number, which is all that’s left, staging-wise. I also intend to work extensively on all the Brain scenes today. We’ll be having at least one run-through every day this week, mostly with the full cast (occasionally we have to let people out for auditions, but I hope that will stop as we enter our final week).
Tonight I have to have a long phone meeting, which, I’m quite certain, will be long. I have several dinners to do this week that I should have done last week – one with Linda Hart if she’s available, so I can convince her to do our benefit.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, take some laundry to the cleaners, rehearse, lunch, rehearse, pick some laundry up from the cleaners, have a long phone meeting, and perhaps even have some dinner. Today’s topic of discussion: Cable was a very big deal when it was introduced – what were the first cable channels you watched, which were your favorites, which was your first cable TV provider, which cable channels do you miss, and which did and do you abhor? I’ll start – I think my first cable provider was called ON TV, and I think my favorite channel was the beloved Z Channel. Nudie Musical was shown frequently. And I do know that that’s when I discovered Skip E. Lowe’s cable access show, which inspired Martin Short’s Jiminy Glick. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst we all think of our various and sundried widgets.