Well, dear readers, is it Friday already? How did that happen? I gotta tell you. This year is almost over. How did that happen? I gotta tell you. Oh, well, there’s nothing to do but go with the flow and, conversely, flow with the go. It is the way of thing, how things are, we now are hurtling through the years like a gazelle with a split personality. I am still very tired, thanks to being up at six in the morning to announce our new title. I think I did manage to get about five hours of sleep, and then I tried to go back to sleep but sleep was like the elusive butterfly of love. I did stay in bed until eight-thirty, then got up and began the day. I printed out orders, answered e-mails, and figured out the order for the Kritzerland show (which I may or may not have to futz with), and then figured out the order for the Christmas album. I listened to that in the order I came up with, made two little changes and it plays really well. I also saw the packaging – it will be Kritzerland’s first digi-pack and it’s quite handsomely handsome.
Then our musical director came by and got his music and CDR. I’m looking forward to working with him. Then I moseyed on over to the Dale of Glen to have a lunch meeting. Said lunch meeting, which I didn’t think would be of much interest, turned out to be of great interest, with some exciting possibilities in terms of something I am trying to make happen. It would be a different way of looking at it, but the things that were being put forth made a lot of sense to me, and they liked me and what I had to say about it all. We shall see where it goes from here.
After that, I stopped into Mystery and Imagination Bookshop to visit with Malcolm and Christine, and that was fun. Then I went to the mail place and picked up one teeny-tiny package. Then I did some banking, went to Gelson’s for a little snack to have in the evening, and then came home. I printed out more orders, had a really irritating e-mail that I responded to very strongly because one must do so when one gets a really irritating e-mail. Then I finally sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched a motion picture on Blu and Ray entitled Ed Wood, a film by Tim Burton, about the fabled low-budget filmmaker. I’d seen it when it came out and thought some of it was fun and that some wasn’t so much fun, and watching it again now I felt the same. The look of the film is terrific, the sets are great, and the actors are all very good. Johnny Depp has a loopy, goofy charm as the title character, Bill Murray doesn’t have much to do but he’s very droll doing it, Jeffrey Jones makes a good Chriswell, but the film belongs to Martin Landau as Bela Lugosi. I remember enjoying the performance back in the day, but it really is superb. But for everything the film occasionally gets right, we get just as much that’s wrong – where the screenwriters do ham-fisted scenes that have no basis in reality and that are bad – I wish Mr. Burton hadn’t put them in his close to two-hour film. One such over-the-top and ridiculous scene is the premiere of Bride of the Monster, with a full house of rude moviegoers who behave nothing like moviegoers would have behaved because they’d have been tossed out. And when they come running from the theater angrily chasing Wood and cohorts it’s just a bad cartoon. And while it might be fun to imagine that Plan Nine From Outer Space had its premiere at the Pantages, well, let’s just be kind and say that I don’t believe it did. However, unlike the lauded L.A. Confidential, the art director here gets the Pantages right by putting the box office back in the forecourt where it used to be and by hiding the side box-office that’s used now. L.A. Confidential, whose art direction was praised to the skies, just couldn’t be bothered to get that detail right. Howard Shore’s music is fun and the photography is great. I just wish the script had been better. The transfer is fine but nothing outstanding.
After the movie, I read a couple of issues of Firsts magazine, which is devoted to collecting first editions. I ate my two teeny-tiny snacks and then it was time to write these here notes. Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I really must get as much beauty sleep as I can.
Today, I have a telephonic meeting at ten, then I have errands and whatnot to do, hopefully I’ll pick up some packages and an important envelope, and then I’ll be supping with dear reader ChasSmith and the Staitman family. I kind of have an idea of where we’ll be dining.
The weekend is pretty much mine all mine, but I will start to write my contextual commentary for the Kritzerland show, just to get that out of the way. Next week is a busy one but not quite as busy as the week after.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, have a telephonic meeting, do errands and whatnot, hopefully pick up packages and an important envelope, and dine. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Friday – what is currently in your CD player and your DVD/video player? I’ll start – CD, too many to mention. Blu and Ray, next up Letter From an Unknown Woman. Your turn. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, where I shall go with the flow.