Well, dear readers, I am sitting here like so much Friday fish, listening to Alex North’s completely unique score to Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. What other film composer would have taken the approach he did to this material. No other composer. The main theme, scored for guitar, harp, basses, and strings – stunning. And a perfect mood setter for the film. The winds come in halfway through, to give it an entirely different texture. I’ve been trying to give myself an entirely different texture, to no avail. To know avail is to love avail. Avail would like to know what happened to able, if you get my meaning. Avail and able are like two peas in a pod, where they come available. I have no clew as to what the HELL I’m talking about, do you? Right now, it is hot as HELL not in Philadelphia, but in the home environment. I guess I’ll cool it down again, for the tenth time. I did manage to watch a motion picture last night, one I’d never heard of, entitled The Final Cut, starring Robin Williams. It was written and directed by a first timer and no, it’s not great or perfect but it is intriguing, and its central idea is more relevant today than it was back in 2004 when this film was made. It got many poor reviews that it didn’t deserve and of course those are the same reviewers who rave about utter baloney. A handful of critics called this one right – they acknowledged that it wasn’t great, but also acknowledged how interesting it was and what a fine performance Mr. Williams gave. In the film, the central conceit is that there’s an implant called Zoe, implanted in the brain at birth, and this implant records everything from birth to death. Mr. Williams plays a “cutter” as in “editor” – someone who, after someone dies, edits together video of highlights from the deceased’s life for their loved ones. What they edit out, of course, is the bad stuff – lies, deceit, crime and heinous acts. I couldn’t help but think how interesting that would be if we knew we had the Zoe chip. Would we behaving for the implant, would it color the way we behaved, would it cause our lives to be different. And I do like the idea that there’d be an editor to edit out things one might regret having done, so that we only get the good things we’ve done. And isn’t that in essence what I did in the Kritzer books and the two memoirs in a way? I get to present things sometimes not as the actually were but how I wish they were. I usually do it for plot reasons, but we’ve all done things we’re ashamed of and would like to erase or forget or at least learn from. And especially in the age of social media, where all the social media warriors can’t wait to bring people crashing down for past mistakes made years before. Of course, said warriors, every one of ‘em, have things in their pasts that people could use to bring them crashing down.
But if I had the implant, I would want it removed right about now, so I could watch things from my childhood, see people I haven’t seen for years, relive moments that were too fleeting, all of it. Wouldn’t that be something? And that’s why I enjoyed this film, even with its occasional flaws. Mira Sorvino is also in it, as is Jim Caviezel with the worst fake beard in the history of cinema. Brian Tyler wrote the score and it’s not terrible.
Yesterday wasn’t too bad. I got nine hours of sleep, got up, answered e-mails and then began futzing and finessing and boy did I do a lot of it. It’s always fun to read truly mediocre writing and then fix it, which is what I do when I futz and finesse. And I’m always astonished when the writing is okay enough that I don’t have to futz and finesse it. But there was a LOT of stuff from the day before, but I got it done and it’s much better now.
Then I ordered a small pepperoni pizza from nearby Marco’s, then wrote two new pages. Then the pizza arrived, and it was excellent. Then I went on a writing jag and did seven more pages, so I had nine pages by around four o’clock. Then I did some other stuff, had a telephonic conversation, and then over the course of the evening wrote five more pages for a total of fourteen. I was just on a roll and thought it best to keep going and getting to the final little sequence that will end the chapter I’m in.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll futz and finesse, I’ll write new pages, I’ll eat something fun, and then I’ll just write off and on and try to do eight to ten pages and if I’m on a roll, maybe a few more. I am finding this surprise of new book out of the blue is, at times, really fun to write. Other times, it can be difficult for a variety of reasons. At some point, I’ll watch, listen, and relax.
Tomorrow, she of the Evil Eye comes so I’ll be up by eight-thirty and out the door by nine. I’ll breakfast somewhere, do stuff, stop at the mail place and hope that perhaps important envelopes will be there, and then I’ll come home and get back to writing. Sunday will be more of that and we’ll see if I’ve done enough pages to send to Muse Margaret. I don’t want to send under seventy or eighty, so we’ll see where I’m at. Since the last batch of ninety, I’ve certainly already written almost forty-five, maybe even fifty pages.
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, futz and finesse, write new pages, eat, write, and then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What is currently in your CD player, and your DVD/Blu and Ray player and streaming device? I’ll start – no idea. Your turn. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, wishing I had a memory chip that would show me all the things I’d love to revisit.