Well, dear readers, this week is flying by, like a gazelle singing Rigoletto. Rigoletto, for those who might not know, is an opera. I am not very knowledgeable about opera and I have seen very few operas in person. I have heard the whole of Puccini, and I’ve really enjoyed those. I have heard the operas of Erich Wolfgang Korngold and The Tender Land of Aaron Copland and I’ve enjoyed those. I’ve listened to a couple of Verdi operas and I don’t really care for them. But the first entire opera I ever heard was not one of those classics, but an American opera by composer Robert Ward, an opera based on The Crucible. I wrote about this in Kritzer Time, but I was doing The Crucible in high school (it was my very first semester) and I loved the play (and still do). One fine day I was at Phil Harris Records on Hollywood Boulevard and I happen to see on a shelf by the counter something that said The Crucible. I thought it was one of those plays on LP thing that Columbia did back then, but when I looked at the cover I saw it was an opera. I didn’t know from opera at all but I had to have it. I took it home, put it on my stereophonic record player and I sat for its entirety, mesmerized and completely bowled over by it. It was amazing to hear music set to a text I knew very well as text and it was amazing to see how musical a text could be. The music was very accessible and American sounding and I immediately sought out everything I could by its composer. After that, I heard Jack Beeson’s one-act opera, Hello, Out There, another play I’d done in class, and that was wonderful, too.
Flash forward to the Bay Cities days and we’re issuing a lot of Robert Ward music, and I’ve become friendly with him, but we miss out on The Crucible by about a week. But we did get the Jack Beeson opera and a couple of other American operas I loved. Why am I talking about opera? Next I’ll be joining the gazelle in a duet from Rigoletto, which might result in Rigormortis, which is another opera by an Italian composer named Luigi Portobello. Say, don’t I have some notes to write? I do and I shall, not necessarily in that order.
Yesterday was a very pleasant day. I got up at nine. That was pleasant. I then finessed, futzed and fixed the previous day’s writing, the final twenty pages of the book. I made a lot of little fixes, smoothed other things out, and added another half-page that I’d forgotten I wanted to include. Then I rewrote one character’s dialogue in its entirety because it just wasn’t funny or good enough for him. Actually, I’d thought of the new dialogue just after I got in bed and I smartly wrote it down so I wouldn’t forget. So, all I had to do was copy it verbatim and now that’s much better. Then I printed out those now twenty-one pages, after which I had to hie myself to Dr. Chew because all that work took me right up until the time I had to amscray.
Dr. Chew took X-rays and the news was good – no cavities. He cleaned my teeth but good, and then I left. I immediately went to Staples and got the pages Xeroxed, after which I brought them to Muse Margaret, who’ll hopefully get to them soon (her son is in town visiting, and she’s working, so it may take a day or two) – I’m really hoping she likes them. If she does, then I move directly into the next phase, the editing.
After that, I went and had a turkey sandwich and no fries. I am now on my serious diet and will be on it until I shed at least twenty pounds. I know at my age that will not be easy but I am determined to do it. Then I came home, answered e-mails, booked the piano tuner, and had a few telephonic conversations. Then I went and picked up some packages. Then I sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I finished watching To Rome, With Love, which I thought was a pretty horrible movie, and right up there with Woody’s worst. It was so arch and overwritten in that style he so loves where every character sounds the same (at least the Americans – a lot of the film is subtitled). There are several stories, none of which really connect, kind of like the Italian omnibus films of the 50s and 60s, but in those each story played complete – here he just cuts back and forth. None of the stories are very good. The only laughs in the film belong to Woody himself, because he’s just so good at doing his thing. But his episode is painful – his stuff is amusing, but it’s a one-joke thing that just goes on way too long. One episode is very much an homage to The White Sheik of Fellini, which is one of my favorite movies (Woody got on that bandwagon many years after I began touting that film as one of the greatest comedies ever made), and then there’s an awful vignette with Ellen Page, Alec Baldwin, and Jesse Eisenberg, and the one with Roberto Bengnini is just stupid. If you like yellow and orange movies, you’ll like the look of it. I then watched about twenty minutes of The Quiet Man and the same amount of minutes for The Seven Per-cent Solution, both of which I’ll finish soon and then I’ll talk about them.
After that, I wrote the first third of the contextual commentary after making a first pass show order. So a productive but relaxing day, which is just what I needed. Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I must get a good night’s beauty sleep.
Today, the piano tuner is coming somewhere around eleven, and as soon as he’s finished I’ll have to grab a bite to eat. I’m really hoping Muse Margaret calls at some point on this day or evening. Hopefully I’ll pick up some packages, and then we have a rehearsal with the singer at three. That will last a couple of hours. Then I’ll try to do another third of the contextual commentary or maybe just finish it all. Then I can finish motion pictures.
Tomorrow is another rehearsal, as is Friday. And then it looks like I’ll be seeing our very own Brent Barrett in Peter Pan on Friday evening. Just awaiting confirmation of house seats. The weekend is rehearsals and then the singer’s show is Sunday evening. Next week is insanely busy with the Kritzerland rehearsals.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, have the piano tuned, eat, hopefully talk to Muse Margaret, hopefully pick up packages, rehearse, write, and relax. 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, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, where I shall sing Rigoletto in G.