Well, dear readers, I am happy to report that I got over the damn malaise and had a very productive day catching up on all the stuff that didn’t get done during the malaise days. One of the things that energized me pretty quickly was the softcover of the new book arriving. It’s always a moment when I open the package and hold the new book in my hands for the very first time. Here is the new book in my very own personal hand.
So, hoping the hardcover will arrive in a day or two and then I can place my order and we’ll then be able to ship in a couple of weeks. Very exciting. And now, I am sitting here like so much fish, listening to Mr. Mitropoulos conduct Samuel Barber’s wonderfully tuneful opera, Vanessa, with an incredible cast in glorious stereophonic sound. The libretto is by Gian Carlo Menotti. I did manage to watch two motion pictures, too, because I’d been productively productive and needed a little break. The first was another bad “thriller” from the Flix of Net entitled Intrusion. I’m watching all these terrible thrillers to compare to what David Wechter and I have written in our new project. And I can only tell you, our script is so far above these terrible things even in its rough shape and that’s most especially evident in the dialogue and character development. But I’ll get into that in a bit. Anyway, Intrusion is just bad – badly written, badly directed, with one of the most irritating “musical” scores ever, and the actors really can’t do anything with such awful material. After that, I watched a more interesting film – German – entitled Freaks: You’re One of Us. It’s not great or anything, but it’s interesting in any number of unexpected ways and it certainly doesn’t go anywhere near where you think it’s going in its first half. It’s about a young mom and wife who runs into a bum in back of the fast-food restaurant she works at and he tells her to stop taking her blue pill medication – doing so will show her who she really is. There’s a pre-credit sequence that’s baffling until we’re told what it’s about, but it all ties together nicely. Turns out, when she stops the meds she discovers she has superpowers and is able to toss people hither and thither and yon as if they were made out of marshmallow. That part is a lot of fun. She meets others who also discover their superpowers by stopping their meds, all administered by a therapist trying to keep them all in check. But then it goes to very interesting places that are very unexpected and I enjoyed it – it’s short and to the point.
Yesterday was a day in which I got seven-and-a-half hours of sleep, got up, answered e-mails, saw that the book had arrived, but I’d pre-ordered food so I couldn’t go get it until after the food came. I got a chicken breast and wing and chicken pasta salad from California Chicken Café. It arrived around noon-thirty, and I ate it all up and it was good and super calorie friendly.
As soon as I finished, I moseyed on over to the mail place and picked up the new book, then came right back home. Checking e-mails, I got a Uber Eats coupon for 40% off, so since I figured that what I’d eaten wasn’t quite enough, I got a chopped Eyetalian salad from Stanley’s along with a steamed artichoke. Both arrived twenty minutes later, and both were good. I’m still feeling quite stuffed from it.
Anyway, after I got back from the mail place, I put the malaise in the toilet and flushed it away, buckled down, Winsocki, and finished two sets of liner notes, then dove right into reading through the script for the project with David Wechter. I must say, the first twenty pages read really well – I made a few line change suggestions and left a few notes about stuff we might consider condensing. The bulk of what we’re going to have to lose completely is coming up – I began one of those sequences and my interest instantly began to wane, so this sequence, which is about seven pages or so needs to be cut down to its bare minimum – just setting up a character, basically, and then on to the main story. We have to remove anything that gets in the way of the forward momentum and moving the story forward. Anything that’s repetitious has to go, like it though we may. But the idea and plot, thus far, are really solid and the dialogue is clever and at times very funny (it’s not a comedy but having laughs in a thriller is imperative).
After that, I finally sat on my couch like so much fish and watched the two motion pictures. I had a telephonic conversation about a show I’ll be directing later this year. We originally thought this show would open the new season at the theater I’ve been directing for the last few years, which I thought would be late September or early October, but the new season is actually going to begin in early August and that’s just too quick for me – so, it was suggested we make this the end of year show for the holiday season – I thought that was a good suggestion and agreed. So, that will be fun and does give me a little breathing room. And then I began my listening and the rest you know.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll do whatever needs doing, I’ll do more reading and make more notes, I’ll eat, I’ll hopefully pick up some packages, I’ll hope for miracles, and then I can watch, listen, and relax.
The rest of the week is more of the same and I’ll probably have a nice meal out at some point.
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, read and make notes, eat, hopefully pick up packages, and then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Ask BK Day, the day in which you get to ask me or any dear readers 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, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to be past the malaise and back to the productively productive.