Well, dear readers, this month has flown by, like a gazelle stopping to smell the roses whilst doing a wheelie on a bike. It was a sight for sore eyes but not for eyes that are not sore. Continuing working my way through Malcolm Arnold’s rather humungous output, I’m currently listening to the stunningly gorgeous Sarabande from the ballet Solitaire. Can’t get enough of it, really. It’s three minutes and change and absolute perfection. I have five or six versions, including Mr. Arnold conducting, but I love Bryden Thompson’s best of all. Taking a break from the classical Arnold, now listening to his magical score to Whistle Down the Wind, from the novel by Mary Hayley Bell, mother of the film’s star, Hayley Mills. Then some other film music by him, then back to the classical. Earlier in the evening, I did manage to watch a motion picture entitled Pearl, a 2022 film, a prequel to a film called X, both starring Mia Goth. I haven’t seen X and I’m not sure I want to, but Pearl is a horror film that’s actually interesting stylistically – the director has said it’s influenced by the films of Doug Sirk, The Wizard of Oz and other Technicolor movies. Yes, there’s gore but only three real sequences and it’s nothing you haven’t seen before, although if that sort of thing doesn’t please you you should probably skip it. Critics were completely in love with both film and Mia Goth’s performance, with several saying she should have been up for a best actress nomination. That was never going to happen, but she’s very good in it as a psychopathic movie star/dancer wannabe. Visually, it’s hard not to like what the director does and it moves along at a steady clip. The gory scenes are set up well in advance of them happening so it’s easy to avert the eyeballs. Tyler Bates’ score is old-fashioned in the best way. In X, which preceded it, Goth plays two roles – Pearl as an old woman, and one of the people working on a no-budget porno. Maybe I’ll give it a chance. There’s a third film coming out this July, which is a sequel to X. Prior to all that, I only got four hours of sleep, I answered e-mails, then she of the Evil Eye showed up and I went on my merry way, first to the bank, then to storage. Storage was frustrating. I went in my personal stuff unit, which is so jam-packed you can’t even get a quarter of the way in. So, I couldn’t get to what I wanted to bring home as it’s way in the back. I’m going to have to hire a couple of guys to come, get everything out of there, and then reconfigure it so there’s a clear aisle that will enable me to get all the way to the back and to find what I need. Right now, it’s just a mess and not negotiable.
In another frustration, we couldn’t find the title we needed to find, even though I know we have to have it. We had to press a thousand of it, and there’s no way we’ve sold that many. Frustrating. On the other hand, I found a whole box of Two for the Road, which we’ve been out of for ages, and Breaking Away, which I had to take off sale because we couldn’t find that – and yet, there it was. I also found one or two copies of other long out of print items, so I put those up on Amazon. All told, we were there for about ninety minutes.
Then I came home, ordered a chicken Caesar salad from Stanley’s, that arrived twenty minutes later and was very good. Then I read the pages I had to read, answered more e-mails, got complete information as to what’s happening on Friday, both day and evening, so I moved attending an opening night on Friday to the Saturday night performance. Then I had the telephonic meeting with David Wechter, which was productive, then I watched Pearl. After, I ordered some won ton soup and a couple of veggie egg rolls – that was a reasonable and good evening snack, and it was still fairly early. Then I started to watch a B-movie noir from 1957 entitled The Burglar, from a novel by hard-boiled writer David Goodis, with a screenplay by him. Dan Duryea, an actor I always enjoy, and Jayne Mansfield star. About four minutes in I dozed off for the next forty-five minutes. So, I’ll watch that from the start, and I’ll follow it with another noir from a Goodis novel, Nightfall. And here we are.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll do whatever needs doing, I’ll call the mail place to see what’s what, I think a package or two from the Macy’s sale may arrive, then I have some writing to do. I’ve cast the two men for the June show, one of whom will really please one of our dear readers, so I still have to cast the three women. I’m using one additional woman to do just one or two numbers. I’ll eat something fun, perhaps another salad thing, or maybe even Don Cuco, although if I’m going to do that I’ll probably go there and eat with a friend. We shall see. After all that, I can watch, listen, and relax.
Tomorrow is more of the same, the Friday is a long, involved day that will then morph into evening. Saturday I’ll see a play, and Sunday, as the wags like to say, will be a day of rest or, as I like to say, a ME day.
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, call the mail place and go if there’s anything to retrieve, write, continue casting the Kritzerland show, eat something fun, and then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Ask BK Day, the day in which you dear readers get to ask me or any dear reader 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, where I shall stop and smell the roses whilst doing a wheelie on a bike.