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December 6, 2015:

FIFTEEN OPENING SENTENCES

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, I have now rewritten the opening sentence fifteen times and this is the one. I feel it, I feel this is the one. This sentence has it all – pith, excitement, a certain style, and a certain heft. Some of the other sentences were okay, but I felt they had a quality of déjà vu or even vu deja. Wow, did you see what happened there? The first time I wrote deja it automatically put those adorable little accent mark, but each subsequent use did not – that is because you have to follow it with vu. If you don’t got the vu you can deja all you like but with no accent marks. In any case, here we are, fifteen sentences later and we’re on our merry way.

Yesterday, I was up at six in the morning, the went back to bed, then woke up, then went back to bed – somewhere in all that I believe I got eight hours of sleep. Once up, I had a lot of e-mails to answer, which I did. Then I ascertained that part three of the miracle did, in fact happen, so that’s good and now on to part four. I then did some writing, then some work at the piano, and then I sat on my couch like so much fish.

Yesterday I watched a motion picture on a DGA screener entitled Brooklyn. I really had no interest in seeing it, but then again, I really didn’t know much about it, other than it was based on a novel people seem to like, and that it was about an Irish girl coming to live in American, specifically Brooklyn, New York, in 1952. I do like the actress who stars in it, and that was the main reason I decided to give it a go. It just sounded like typical Oscar bait dreary art film time. And, if you were to look at it in a certain way, that’s probably not inaccurate. But the fact is, it’s a truly lovely film and a special one in that they never ever put drama in to just have drama, there are no big, huge earth-shattering scenes, it’s a film of small moments and small pleasures. It’s directed well and has nice cinematography. The screenplay by novelist Nick Hornby really works and, as said above, he avoids all the horrid clichés they usually stick into this kind of film. At the two-thirds point, when the girl returns to Ireland for a funeral, I was really worried it was all going to go to hell and that I’d hate the character – but it didn’t. A film like this is usually about the performances – and it’s one of the best-cast films I’ve seen this year.

I really like Saoirse Ronan in The Lovely Bones and even more in The Grand Budapest Hotel. She has a simple, lovely quality that’s very endearing. And she’s so good in this that I’m sure she’ll be nominated for an Oscar, just as I’m sure it will go to a “showier” performance. But she does amazing things in this film and it’s all as subtle as can be, with no grandstanding at all. She seems to bloom in front of your very eyes, starting off as a shy wallflower and growing into an assured young woman. Julie Walters is wonderful, too, in her role as the woman who runs the boarding house in Brooklyn. Emory Cohen was great as the girl’s Brooklyn suitor, and Domhnall Gleeson is also wonderful as a suitor back in Ireland (he was in Ex Machina, too). Jim Broadbent is understated and fine as a priest, and it was fun to see the second Mrs. Don Draper, Jessica Pare, in a small but good role. The only slightly negative thing I can say is about the music score – it’s fine, really, but as I said about a score yesterday, it’s just laid on like wallpaper and has nothing to do with the drama unfolding – it really could be any music at all. But I give this thing my highest recommendation, if just for the beauty of Saoirse Ronan’s performance.

Then Kay Cole stopped by briefly and we chatted about the show we’re doing next year, the musical revue. And I played the opening number and the epic number for her (she’d already heard C.C. Brown’s) and I must say I couldn’t have asked for a better reaction. Every show has defining moments in their creation, and for me the epic song was that – it took longer to write than anything I’ve ever written, song-wise – just the structure of it, making it move right and never seem boring for its six-and-a-half minute length, and it was key for me that it resonate emotionally. But that’s the thing – if I get emotional when I’m singing it, I know I’ve done something right, and Kay’s reaction to it was exactly that – she got teary-eyed at the end of it. I was very happy. I told her about other bits I’ve been thinking about and it’s always good to talk those out.

Then I went to Doug and Dorathy Haverty’s Christmas partay, and that was fun. I’m still feeling a bit weird, so I only stayed about an hour. I had a piece of ham and some carrots, no bread, and that was about it. I stopped at Gelson’s on the way home and got some odds and ends to nibble on. Then I came home, nibbled, and then sat on my couch like so much fish.

Last night, I decided to watch three episodes of the ABC show, American Crime. It didn’t sound too good to me, but I do like Timothy Hutton and Felicity Huffman, so I gave it a go. While the premise isn’t uninteresting, it’s done with such a heavy hand, and with such a precious “style” that is so off-putting and pretentious, that it never really has a chance, at least not with me. This is a show that shouldn’t be called American Crime – it should be called ANGST AND MORE ANGST. It’s just one scene of angst after another, rather like movies in the style of Crash, if you remember THAT dreadful film that story-hopped all over the place. How they’re going to come back for a second season is anyone’s guess – certainly they can’t keep this storyline going, or maybe they think they can. The actors are fine but it’s just too much damn ANGST and it gets very one-note and repetitious. Plus, we have all the requisite drugs and unlikeable characters – I may stick it out just to see where they can possibly go, but for a show that literally got all rave reviews, which, for me, just shows that TV critics really do have their heads up their rectal cavities even more than film critics, I’m just not getting the love.

After that, I relaxed.

Today, I’ll relax until the stumble-through – I’m on the verge of not wanting to sing the song I was going to, just because my voice is weak for no reason at all and I’m tired of worrying about it. We’ll see how I feel today, but it’s an easy cut. Then we’ll do our stumble-through, I’ll give whatever notes I have, and then I go to an early birthday dinner with the Staitmans (it’s mom Staitman’s birthday two days after mine) at Ruth’s Chris in Woodland Hills.

This week I have a bunch of important stuff to do, we’re shipping the Victor Young CDs, probably on Wednesday, and then we have our sound check and show on Wednesday, then it’s more of the same, plus seeing a few shows.

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, maybe jog, have a stumble-through, and have a birthday dinner. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s free-for-all day, the day in which you dear readers get to make with the topics and we all get to post about them. So, let’s have loads of lovely topics and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have set a new record with fifteen opening sentences.

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