Well, dear readers, I have been caught napping. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, I, BK, have been caught napping. Two and a half hours of napping. Now I am knappered. Oh, wait – there’s no such word as knappered. Oh, wait – there is such a word as knappered. It’s a Dutch word meaning handsome. I guess I’m using it incorrectly. Too bad, it sounded right, but just because you’ve had a two and a half your nap doesn’t mean you wake up handsome. Earlier, I had some fried shrimp from The Cheesecake Factory and I’m hoping the shrimp were not bad because my stomach is revolting. Well, even looking at my stomach is revolting these days, but I’m feeling a little queasy and uneasy, so I hope that passes without incident. Earlier, I watched the first half of Gone Girl again, just to watch the mechanics of it and I have to say it’s really not very good and I won’t watch the second half because that never worked for me. But I do find it very typical of today’s thriller novels, mostly written by imitators of Gillian Flynn and since there’s nothing really original about Gone Girl in the first place, other than it was a best seller, well, each imitation is weaker than the last. And I really can’t stand the trend of writers writing in the present tense – “I take the bread knife and stare it it and then I plunge it deep into his heart. He spurts blood and then leaves to play poker.” And so many are doing that today, mostly female thriller writers. Where’s Ira Levin when you need him? In fact, where’s Margaret Millar when you need her? David Fincher knows how to film a movie, but I like his films less and less with each new one, and knowing his “process” I like them even less than less and less. I also watched about forty minutes of the musical version of The Yearling, the four-performance flop from 1965. I wanted to make a studio recording and talked extensively with the composer about it, but another producer got in the way, as he did with two other projects, making promises he couldn’t keep and so, of course, we have no studio recording of The Yearling. For a flop, it produced several known songs thanks to Barbra Streisand – the great I’m All Smiles, Why Did I Choose You, My Pa were all done by here. And jazz artists did a large number of covers of I’m All Smiles and Why Did I Choose You. I recorded two other songs from it – One Promise Come True and Everything in the World I Want. And the others I’ve heard from this 1985 production starring John Cullum are every bit as good. What’s not good, of course, is the very idea of The Yearling being a musical and the book is long and extremely talky. The nice thing about the bootleg video is that there’s a full orchestra playing the wonderful orchestrations of Larry Wilcox. Lloyd Richards, who’d never been near a musical in his life, was the original director. This Theater of the Stars production was directed by Lucia Victor, who wasn’t really a director at all – Lucia was Gower Champion’s assistant on Hello, Dolly! and staged most of the companies that went out – being someone who stages other peoples’ work does not a director make. Tony Stevens was the choreographer, but as of forty minutes there really hasn’t been any choreography. It’s on the Tube of You if anyone is interested.
Yesterday was okay, with only one irritant that I suspected was coming. I got eight hours of sleep, answered e-mails, did a quick Gelson’s run and got some creamy tomato soup and some salad from the salad bar, came home, had the soup, had the salad, then Marshall Harvey came by and dropped off the back-up drive with our ten episodes, which will now go to close-captioning and I’ll now start listening for audio levels to make sure everything is matching as it should be. Those things are easy to adjust before we make the final hi-resolution HD copies.
Then I had a Zoom with David Wechter, and that was fine and the result was we’re not going to do what I didn’t really want to do. After that, I did some viewing and whatnot, after which I had the fried shrimp that’s now making me queasy, and then more viewing and the knappered napping (the handsome napping). And of course, here we are, very late in getting the notes up.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, it’s a holiday so there’s nothing really going on and hopefully my queasiness will abate. So, I’ll just eat (if I can) and view and be lazy, and I don’t care who knows it.
The rest of the week is choosing songs for the March Kritzerland show, a Sondheim evening of songs I’ve recorded, including the many world premieres. It’s already cast, save for one young person who I want to do the film version of The Glamorous Life. My first choice can’t do it, so I’m thinking about who can. It’s a very long and difficult song. I’ll have some meetings and meals, including a celebratory dinner with Marshall for completing the editing of Sami.
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, hope my queasiness is gone, eat, and just watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What do you think of all these female-centric thrillers today? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, still groggy from the knappered nap (the handsome nap).