Well, dear readers, I must write these here notes in a hurry for she of the Evil Eye will be here all too soon and I must get some sort of beauty sleep prior to her entrance. And so, I am sitting here like so much fish, listening to the music of a newly discovered Russian composer from Russia by the name of Vissarion Shebalin – newly discovered by me, that is, thanks to him popping up on the YouTube sidebar of recommended videos. His five symphonies are really excellent – listening to the fifth as I type this sentence. He was a friend of Shostakovich and Myaskovsky and the former dedicated one of his string quartets to him. His symphonies are very film music-like, very appealing, occasionally dramatic, and frequently beautiful. I always enjoy discovering a new Russian composer, especially on a Friday. I grabbed all five symphonies from the Tube of You, along with a suite from a ballet and a suite from a film score – the latter two are up next. Prior to that, I watched two motion pictures and a short documentary entitled No Place to Hide about Rehtaeh Parsons, a young fifteen-year-old in New Zealand who was raped by some school mates when she was drunk, one of whom took a photo of them having sex and then spread it all through social media, over and over again. The police refused to do anything and didn’t even talk to the boys involved, even though they had the photo and posts from them. The school did nothing. Rehtaeh had nervous breakdowns, was maltreated at a hospital that was supposed to help her, began harming herself and, well, you know where this had to go – eventually killing herself. Only after the mom posted a long screed on Facebook did the story go viral, outraging people all over the world, so much so that one of the boys made a post admitting to everything. And still the police did nothing – nothing, that is, until the infamous Anonymous, the Internet hacker, took note and began to threaten to release the names of the boys, threatened to take down the police – THEN they finally did something. In the end, nothing of note happened to the boys – no jail time was served. Since then, some new laws have been passed. The most sickening thing of all were two trolls who showed up and posted vile things whenever the dad posted a YouTube video, including threats to kill him, and on the mom’s Facebook posts. Thanks to Anonymous and Google and Facebook finally being shamed into having to turn over those IP addresses, it was revealed that the troll of the mom’s posts was the sister of one of the boys, and the troll of the dad’s YouTube posts was one of the boys who raped his daughter. The real shame is that they didn’t release the names of the boys involved – they should have to live in shame for the rest of their damn lives. And the police, who refused to take part in the documentary, should be ashamed of themselves. Of course, they’re not. They don’t care.
The first of the two motion pictures I watched was entitled The Coverup, the true story of a teen arrested for drunk driving, who gets away from the policeman who’s interrogated him at the station, and who then falls to his death from the roof of the station. At least, that’s what the police story is. The truth is something wholly other, because his injuries are not consistent with a fall from a high building, they’re consistent with someone being bludgeoned to death. It’s a very earnest movie, rather like one of those afternoon TV specials – overlit, boringly directed, and with no strong performances. Still, the story is good so I watched it to the end. The second motion picture was entitled The River Murders, made by some guy who was a wannabe politician in Seattle, who also had a production company there. I suppose the next illogical step from failed politician is to become a film director. It’s yet another serial killer movie, this one starring Ray Liotta and Christian Slater, two actors who have both done good work (Liotta especially) but who will seemingly do any film as long as their price is paid. The script is terrible, as is the dialogue – just bits and pieces from other serial killer movies. We know who the killer is within ten minutes, so it just plods along and some of the supporting performances are so amateurish it’s actually surprising that they couldn’t find better. Not that the movie had any chance at all with this director and writer, any chance it had of at least moving along quickly or actually functioning as a thriller should is undone by an awful anti-score – you know the kind – soulful, wailing cello over piano chords the suck the very life out of everything in its path. Truly terrible and then we get the obligatory final scene from Seven. After that, I ate a mini cherry pie thing, literally almost two bites, just to cleanse my palate. Then it was on to the symphonies of Vissarion Shebalin.
Yesterday was a day in which I only got five hours of sleep – it happens, especially if I’ve had ten the day before. Once up, I answered e-mails, got more orders (still not enough – perhaps another twenty would be really helpful), had some telephonic calls, did work on the computer, after which I decided to make spaghetti with butter and cheese and the remaining sweet Eyetalian sausage. I made about six ounces and it was really quite good. Then I did a quick Gelson’s run and got the little bite-sized cherry pie thing so I’d have a sweet, then came back home and began my viewing adventure. In between films, I had one small turkey sandwich for my evening snack. And the rest you know.
Today, I’ll be up by eight-thirty and out the door by nine, I’ll have a light breakfast somewhere, I’ll do a few things, then come back home. Once home, I’ll go look at what I wrote the other day and see if I need to finesse it, I’ll have a telephonic conversation, and then I can relax until about seven-fifteen, at which point I’ll mosey on over to the place where the reading of the new musical will be taking place. I’m trying to get Doug Haverty to attend – if he does, we might go get a bite afterwards.
Tomorrow, I’ll have a Zoom thing with the singer, so I can see the layout, make sure everything is as it should be, work the duet with the kid, and make sure the pianist is doing what he needs to do. Then, if they can figure out how, I’m hoping I can watch it via Zoom – not quite sure how that’ll work, though. And then the rest of the day and evening will be mine all mine. Monday, I’ll finish choosing the last of the songs for the Kritzerland holiday show and get all that music to the singers so they’ll have plenty of time with it, and then I’ll Zoom with David Wechter so we can figure out which scenes I’ll be writing next. The rest of the week is more of the same and doing whatever needs doing.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up by eight thirty and out the door by nine, have a light breakfast, do things, perhaps finesse some writing, have a telephonic conversation, and then see a reading of a new musical. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite serial killer movies? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have discovered yet another great Russian composer.