Well, dear readers, it’s quite late and therefore I must write these here notes in a hurry and get them posted for to dally and/or tarry would be unseemly in the extreme.
Now, that is an example of a boring opening salvo (ovlas, spelled backwards). I can think of no salvo more boring than the one I wrote above. Let’s try to do better, shall we?
Well, dear readers, I ate a lot of eggs yesterday. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, for reasons not entirely clear I ate a lot of eggs yesterday.
No, I’m afraid an opening salvo about multiple eggs is not worth writing home about, and yet I just wrote home about it but home wasn’t home so it was a waste of time and writing, not necessarily in that order. Let’s try another, shall we?
Well, dear readers, we had our third work session with a singer and Lanny Meyers and it was quite fun and very productive. This session was to create a twenty-two minute thing that the singer will be doing at APAP, which is a cabaret conference thing in New York, where bookers and club owners come to hear all the cabaret folks in search of acts to book.
There, that was a much better opening salvo, as opening salvos go. What the HELL am I talking about? Enough with the damn salvos already. I mean, if it weren’t for George Farthington Salvo, we wouldn’t even have such a stupid word. But noooo, thanks to George Farthington Salvo we DO have such a word. Mr. Salvo was in vaudeville, you see, and he was the opening act for many famous performers, hence his name, the opening Salvo. Back to the singer and her twenty-two minute set. I just dove right in and kind of put it together. I’d heard the songs yesterday and made some notes about which I thought might work. So, we have seven songs in total (one of what we count as seven is a medley of three or four songs) – most of these are not well-known (which is part of what her act is about), and they’re all chosen to show off different facets of what she can do. I made two song suggestions for her – both beauties – the cut song from Sweet Charity, Pink Taffeta, Sample Size 10, and the gorgeous On My Way To You by Michel Legrand and the Bergmans. She loved them both, so she’ll learn those and I gave her some staging ideas and we even worked on interpretation a little. She was very happy and comfortable with the order and structure, and I gave her some ideas about what her brief patter has to accomplish. They’ll now work it up over the next week or so – the medley thing they’ll put together and send to me and I’ll probably cut it down and finesse the arrangement. Then a few days before she does the presentation, they’ll videotape it and send it to me so that I can give notes. I like this lady a lot and I think it will really be fun to actually create the act when she and Lanny return in January.
Prior to that, I got up very early and was at the Cinerama Dome at eight. There, I watched five short reels of the original version of Scent Of Mystery in 70mm. Even though they were completely faded and four of the reels’ sound had gotten degaussed and therefore erased, it was really fun. The ending of the film was there, and most of the footage we saw was, in fact, still in the shorter version that’s being restored (Holiday In Spain) – there were two sequences, however, that are not in the shorter cut – one was without sound, but the other had sound and can be included. Also fun – in the shorter version they moved the intermission point earlier. When I saw it I said, “That is not where it happened and it’s completely inane there.” I then described the intermission point in great detail, all based on my almost fifty year old memory of seeing the film. Well, the real intermission point was amongst these reels and it was frame for frame exactly what I described – sometimes my memory of arcane things like that astonishes me.
After that, I had an breakfast burrito at Jerry’s Deli – what had been yummilicious only a few days ago, was fairly rank yesterday. It really does depend on what chef you get. But I now know exactly what to tell them to do and not to do. I then picked up no packages and no mail, came home, and then the wiring man came and hooked up the new region-free Blu and Ray player. It works wonderfully well, although there’s something a bit strange about the way in which it’s working. There’s a paper with instructions on how to change the region coding depending on what disc you’re going to watch. However, when I put the first region B disc in it played perfectly. So, thought that it probably came set that way, but then I put in a region A disc and that played, too. It will, of course, play any disc that’s all region. But then I continued to do tests and while it played some region A discs fine, it wouldn’t play others (no Criterion title would work). I didn’t try changing anything because I don’t want to screw it up if it IS going to play the majority or regions without having to switch. I also tried a region one and region two DVD and both played fine. But there are occasional glitches, and I had similar glitches on the other region free player, so I had him swap out the HDMI cord for a new one. But that didn’t help. We tried it in another input, the one I use on my Samsung, but we got the glitches there, even though I’ve never had a glitch on the Samsung. So, maybe it has something to do with the multi-region thing, or maybe something is shorting out in the receiver – hard to know. It usually only happens in the first minute or so of operation, and then it seems to be fine. We put it back the way it wuz and we’ll see how it works over the next week or so. The player is very fast loading and very quiet. And it was simple as pie to configure it for wireless Internet, something I’ve never been able to do with the Samsung. So, any firmware upgrades are done quickly and easily and it notifies you when they’re available. In fact, it did one the minute we configured the wireless part.
After the work session, for some reason I went to Gelson’s and got some flour tortillas and made two more egg burritos, homegrown style – just a fried egg and some cheese. Then I sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched half of Meet Me In St. Louis on Blu and Ray, but I’ll withhold my comments until I finish it. I then watched the first episode of Maigret from the second volume box set – this was an earlier episode from 1997 and it was like greeting an old friend. This one’s first half had a lot more humor than usual, and, as always, the casting was perfect and the story interesting and the score superb.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because all those opening slavos have tuckered me out and a tuckered me is not a pretty sight.
Today, I can hopefully get up a little later. I have some bills to pay, some errands and whatnot, have to do the four-mile jog and eat something very light, will give the final approval on the packaging of our two upcoming releases (which I’ll announce here Friday or Saturday for you early birds), and I’ll hopefully hear the masters at some point soon. Then I’ll be making copious book notes. Oh, I forgot to mention that the wonderful actress Shelly Morrison called me yesterday – she’d finally gotten my book and was very touched that it was dedicated to her and by what I’d written. We had a wonderful conversation and we’re going to try and have a meal after the holidays.
Tomorrow it will be more of the same, and both days I will hopefully pick up some packages and an important envelope. Also, we’ll be shipping out The People In The Picture. Saturday I’m being taken out for a birthday dinner and Sunday begins my Christmas vacation.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do the four-mile jog, pay bills, do errands and whatnot, eat something very light, hopefully pick up some packages, approve packaging and hopefully hear masters, as well as make copious book notes. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite Judy Garland films and your favorite Vincente Minnelli films? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland as soon as I finish this closing salvo.