Well, dear readers, it is later than late and perhaps even later than that. It is, in fact, close to three o’clock in the morning as I begin these here notes, due to a long and exhausting notes session for the musical. I spent six hours going over the new draft and making lots of little notes, a few big ones, and all that stuff one does. And last night at ten, Doug Haverty and I met at the Coral Café, where we both had wraps and then dove into the script. The first two hours were the slowest, just discussing all my little notes and stuff that I felt needed to be done and coming to a meeting of the minds on it, then the final two and a half hours went a little more quickly save for a couple of sections that we spent more time on. But in the end, he wrote down everything and will now make these adjustments. I think the overall structure is very strong and that’s the most important thing – the bones, the framework for the house one is building. Then it’s just a question of what room goes where, how it’s furnished, and all that kind of thing, metaphorically speaking. So, it was very tiring but I’m really glad we got it done.
Prior to that, I’d gotten about seven-and-a-half hours of sleep. I answered e-mails and then had a phone meeting about the Richard Sherman event – that went quickly and wasn’t too too long. Then I went and had bacon and eggs whilst I began going over the script. I sat for over two hours at Jerry’s Deli doing that, then picked up one package (there was mail but it had just arrived and I wasn’t about to hang around for ninety minutes while they got around to it), then I came home and finished going over the script.
After that, I did a three-mile jog, came back, and sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched the new Criterion Blu and Ray of Midnight Cowboy, a brand new transfer off the original negative. For weeks the people on a certain rather silly and harmful message board have been complaining about some screen caps that somehow got posted six weeks ahead of the thing actually being released. The outcry was loud and disgusting – the transfer was all green, had a blanket green tint (these people are ridiculous, just trust me on this – not a one of them know anything and think if the color is different than a previous transfer something must be horribly wrong, when the horribly wrong thing is to assume the previous transfer was correct), it was a travesty of a Blu-ray that not one person had seen one second of. Well, it’s one of the most beautiful transfers you’ll ever see. The director of photography supervised it and Midnight Cowboy finally looks as it should – I never liked any of the other home video releases. The clarity is breathtaking, the various “looks” of the film are all perfectly represented. And what about that blanket green tint? Nope. Not one whit of any color that is off. What these screen cap idiots do is purposely extract the one frame that might seem to have green in it – in the case of one such cap, it’s from a scene that is on screen for about fifteen seconds that is absolutely what it should be in terms of lighting and color. In another instance they chose one frame of Dustin Hoffman running in Florida against a green ocean – totally accurate if you watch the entire sequence as it happens in the film. These people cause such harm with their utter nonsense – people actually cancel orders. And when the word finally gets out about how great a transfer is those people still argue or they completely disappear into the goodnight, never acknowledging their stupidity. The film itself is nothing short of a masterpiece, and it has never looked this good. Highly recommended by the likes of me.
Then I showered and moseyed on over to the Coral Café and the rest you know.
Today, I will most definitely sleep in, then I have stuff to do – I have to pick up yesterday’s mail and whatever else, package-wise, we have two people rehearsing tomorrow and I can’t quite remember when that is, but I think around one o’clock. So, I won’t be able to eat until after. I do have to write the liner notes and get stuff ready for our Friday announcement.
Tomorrow is our second Kritzerland rehearsal, Saturday is our stumble-through, and Sunday is sound check and show.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, sleep in, pick up mail, have a quick rehearsal, eat, jog if it isn’t too cold or raining, write liner notes, and then 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 and loads of lovely postings, shall we, as I finally post these later than late notes.