Well, dear readers, we are now in the final week of 2020 and I, for one, say good riddance to a mostly horrid year, including yesterday as the car battery was once again dead, due to some electrical thing not shutting down properly. I’ll have to take the motor car in this week to have it looked at, I suppose, because I can’t have this keep happening. As long as it’s working today, I’ll be okay to take it in tomorrow morning, early. And then I suppose I’ll have to Uber around until it’s ready, presuming it’s not too crazy to fix, cost-wise. But 2020 wasn’t all horrid and perhaps it’s time to accentuate the positive parts, which I really have tried to do ever since last March when the crazy stuff really hit the crazy fan. So, what was good, at least for me? I didn’t get the dreaded Covid. Knock wood. I was very proud of my twentieth book, Simply – A Lifetime of Lyrics. That preoccupied the first three weeks of the year. It wasn’t a hard book to write, since most of it was just reprinting lyrics. The manuscript was huge, and the book is over 500 pages, but I was very pleased with it. I also began the year going into rehearsal for Doug Haverty’s play, In My Mind’s Eye, which was, for me, one of the best experiences I’ve had directing, thanks to an absolutely perfect cast who made my job so easy. It wasn’t an easy play to get right, but I was very proud of the production, the look, the feel, and mostly the brilliant performances. The rehearsal period flew by – we were into run-throughs after about six days. It wasn’t all roses after we opened, but I shan’t talk about that, other than the issues were resolved with a heartfelt apology to me and thankfully all the health issues that were involved and the cause of all of it have been mostly put right, which is a good thing.
We closed the show, the day that the stay-at-home stuff started. In fact, I had dinner at the Smoke House after, the last time that restaurant was open for indoor dining. Then the horror show began, and it was very irritating, especially the people who were hoarding everything in sight. We’d played a February Kritzerland show at Vitello’s and that would be the last of the year. In early April, I began to think about doing a Kritzerland show online, but after having seen some truly wretched Zoom attempts at shows, with all the technical issues, I was determined to find a way to do our shows so there would never be any technical issues. And I enlisted Hartley Powers and between us, we spent a lot of time investigating every platform, and then made our decision. And we have never had a single technical issue. The minute we aired our first show in May, everyone began trying to figure out how we did it – one person, who’d started doing online shows a couple of weeks before us, and whose shows were really amateur-looking, suddenly started doing it just like us – or trying. And as we kept on doing them over the next months, everyone started to emulate us. It was fun to watch, but certain folks STILL don’t understand all of what we do, and that’s also fun to watch. So, it was nice to have those shows, which kept me very busy for most of the rest of the year. Of course, we were supposed to do the musical Applause at the Group Rep and that was sad not to be able to, but it will happen eventually.
We celebrated the tenth anniversary of Kritzerland cabaret shows online with a spectacular show filled with great folks. Somewhere around September, I began to think about what I might create that would be unique and play specifically to doing online things. And I came up with two ideas pretty quickly, which I called projects one and two. I tackled project one first and I was really pleased with how it came out. It took about a month to finish it, and I really loved writing songs again, and today we start on it in earnest and we’ll unveil it at the end of January. I then tackled project two, which, in its way, is as weirdly constructed as my first mystery novel, Writer’s Block, but I think it came out well, too, and we’ll be gearing up for that one shortly. I also got an idea I liked for what will hopefully be book twenty-one, and I made notes on it, and just the other day, wrote five pages so that I’d just pick up where those left off come January 1. And I was asked to direct Doug Haverty’s holiday playlet for a Group Rep evening of short plays. That was fun – good cast, and I always enjoy directing for the camera.
Otherwise, like everyone, I wore a mask when I went to the store or mail place, I mostly stayed home, I was tested once for Covid because of the filming of the play and that test was negative. I lost some weight and probably gained back a pound or two this past week, but I’m back to the 1000-calories a day program for the next month. And I discovered a lot of new music this year and that’s been great fun, especially the world of opera. And mostly not the standard repertoire, more the off the beaten path stuff, save for the opera that got me in the opera mode again, which was Humperdinck’s Hansel Und Gretel. And that was pretty much 2020. I think a lot of the bad things that happened this past year are attributable to one person and thankfully that person will not be part of the picture come the third week of January and that’s all I’m saying about that.
Yesterday wasn’t much of a day because I got ten hours of sleep, not arising until one-thirty. Once up, I answered some e-mails, then wanted to go to the mail place – unfortunately, the battery had been drained again, so I called AAA and they got there about forty minutes later, and jump started it, and all was well. I picked up more packages than the one I knew was coming, because Amazon delivered some other overdue ones. I have certain packages that are three weeks overdue now, that are still “in transit” but sitting somewhere. Hopefully, those will get here sooner than later because later has come and gone already many times over. I ordered a Chinese chicken salad from Stanley’s and that arrived and got eaten. Then I listened to a wonderful opera by Weinberger called Wallenstein – very different from Schwanda the Bagpiper, but very beautiful passages and I really enjoyed it. Then it was a Janacek opera called Kata Kabanova, which is just great. I’m so glad I heard The Cunning Little Vixen and that piqued my interest to hear more of his great music. Then I sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched most of The Boys from Brazil, a real hit and miss movie, but one I enjoy watching every few years, from the novel by Ira Levin. The screenplay isn’t quite great, and the director, Franklin Schaffner, by this point in his career, just wasn’t as good as he used to be. But Laurence Olivier is fun, and Gregory Peck is more fun in the two leading roles, with James Mason doing his usual great in a smaller role. Uta Hagen has one scene, which is a master class in acting – she’s brilliant. The photography is great – Henri Decae – and the Jerry Goldsmith score really helps and its fun hearing the Der Rosenkavalier homage in the main titles. After that, I listened to a Renee Fleming album of arias from American operas and I rather liked it. James Levine conducts, and we get some Douglas Moore, Menotti. Carlisle Floyd, Bernstein, Gershwin, Stravinsky, and Previn. Hearing the Streetcar aria, I immediately pulled out the entire opera and am listening to it as I type these here notes.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll do whatever needs doing, I’ll pray that the motor car will start, I’ll eat, I’ll hopefully pick up packages, I’ll have a brief visit, then I have some work to do as we begin on project one. After all that, I’ll watch, listen, and relax.
Tomorrow, I’ll try to find out what’s what with the motor car. Then I’m just relaxing as we approach the last of 2020, and, of course, we’ll be having our annual New Year’s Rockin’ Eve Bash, where we’ll ring in the New Year.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up when I’m up, do whatever needs doing, pray the motor car will start, eat, hopefully pick up packages, have a brief visit, do work on project one, and then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: Let’s hear about your 2020 highlights, the things that gave you some positivity and happiness this year. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have had a look back at some of the positive things that happened in 2020, the year that was.