Well, dear readers, it was pointed out to me that in yesterday’s notes I consistently misspelled the word pus (as puss). But I simply could not spell the word pus as pus because pus spelled backwards is sup and since I sup every day I don’t want to think of pus when I do it for that would make me want to vomit on the ground. So, when I say pus I shall spell it puss, even though puss is something entirely other. Is that taking poetic license? Have you ever taken poetic license? Like saying, “I think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as a dog.” That’s poetic license, all right. I had a poetic license once – it was on my first convertible car – it read BISQUE – which is, of course, my initials (BSK) sounded out. That was a poetic license, all right. As some will remember, the day before yesterday had several annoying annoyances. I’m happy to report that today had none. It was just a perfectly nice day. I got a very good night’s sleep, got up and answered e-mails and began the liner notes for our upcoming CD release. I had a few telephonic calls, and then I had to mosey on over to the West Hollywood Hugo’s to have a lunch meeting with a very nice chap. I hadn’t seen him in a couple of years, so it was a lot of fun catching up. He’s a huge fan of the Kritzer books, and I gave him my new book and some Kritzerland CDs, too. We spoke of this and that and also that and this. The food was, as always, quite good. I had the Pasta Victor, even though my name isn’t Victor. Is that poetic license? After lunch, I had to hurry back to the Valley. They have so screwed up the streets in my neighborhood that it is now virtually impossible to get to the mail place without waiting in horrendous traffic. So, I detoured a mile and a half out of the way and got there, picked up two count them two packages, then came home. Then I had a two-hour work session with David Wechter via iChat. Then I had lots more e-mails to answer, and I had to finish writing the liner notes and got those off to the designer. The master for our new CD is coming to me as I write this, but we may still have some work to do on the sound, according to the mastering guy. I don’t really need it before Friday, so that’s fine. I then sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I wasn’t really in the mood to watch a motion picture on Blu and Ray, but I did watch the first forty minutes of Spartacus, the 50th anniversary Blu-Ray release of a film I like quite a lot. I’d read Robert Harris’ assessment of the transfer, which was not good. But I don’t always agree so I was anxious to see it for myself. Now that I’ve seen the first forty minutes, I feel even stronger than he that it is a travesty of the highest order. What did Universal decide to do for the 50th anniversary of one of their crown jewels? They decided to use a ten-year-old hi-def master that’s what they decided to do. Then they cleaned that up digitally. For what they must have spent cleaning up a ten-year-old transfer it would most likely not have cost much more to make a brand new sparklingly fresh transfer. So, what do we have here? We have an image that isn’t that much better than the Criterion DVD. This film should be breathtaking in its sharpness – but there is no sharpness. A few of the close-ups almost have sharpness, but anything that is a longer shot has no sharpness. I suppose I’ll watch the rest, but this is the disappointment of the year.
After that, I did some work on the computer, and listened to some wonderfully wonderful soundtrack music by the great Vladimir Cosma. I’ve had this huge box set (about fourteen CDs) of his music sitting here for two months so I decided to dive into it and boy is it great.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I feel that would be poetic license.
Today, I have a work session for the long musical – I’m going to try and have it be ninety minutes rather than two hours, because helper is arriving at noon and there’s just too much to do to get ready to ship Busting CDs tomorrow morning. After all that gets done, then I have some writing to do, as well as some errands and whatnot. The evening is mine all mine.
Tomorrow, I have only some errands and whatnot and writing, otherwise it’s a not too busy day, the way I want it. Friday is a work session for ninety minutes, then writing, meetings and all that jazz. The weekend is, I’m hoping, relatively free.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, have a work session, address packages, put postage on packages, sup, do errands and whatnot, write, and then relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Ask BK Day, the day in which you dear readers 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, shall we, whilst we all take a little poetic license.