Posted by Jrand55 @ 12/09/2002 07:40 AM PST

First post...huzzah!

Posted by Jrand55 @ 12/09/2002 07:41 AM PST

I did a major remodel of a house I used to own. Though I did receive professional help (and if you've ever done a major remodel, then you know you need professional help of the psychiatric kind!), I did do a lot of the carpentry myself, including a supercool finishing of the attic. This included walling off part of a gigantic master bedroom, and creating an oval shaped alcove where we built an unbelievably beautiful birch and oak spiral staircase that attached both to the curved wall and a very impressive looking pillar that went clear up into the attic. I still miss that house a great deal, since I left so much of my blood, sweat and tears in it (the attic project was just one of many--including completing stripping all the wainscoating of 80 years of numerous coats of paint and restoring it to its original wood lustre).

I'm actually on the hunt right now, including eBay, for a game my sister used to have that I loved playing. It was called "Haunted Mansion" or "Haunted House" or something like that and had a huge plastic mansion that sat upright. You moved little pegs through it, and some of the pegs would open "secret" doors that revealed mummies, bats (with glowing red eyes, I remember to this day), etc. Haven't been able to track down a copy yet.

And happy first day of year 56 to Mr. BK!!

Posted by JMK @ 12/09/2002 08:06 AM PST

Re: trivia--as I mentioned in my email to you yesterday, I think this is one of those "either you know it or you don't, and if you don't, it's unresearchable" ones. The researchable credits of the "likely suspects" I mentioned simply do not contain a show which meets your criteria.

Posted by JMK @ 12/09/2002 08:14 AM PST

Only 364 days until BK's birthday!

j/k (just kidding in internet lingo)

Posted by the count @ 12/09/2002 08:46 AM PST

JMK is so right about the Trivia Question....grrrrrrrrr. Can't even figure out one thing. I'm thinking the novel, off-Broadway, and movie must have had different titles....but that's as far as I've gotten.

Posted by Jrand55 @ 12/09/2002 08:52 AM PST

Ah, I also searched the "likely suspects" and came up with nothing. So, for those of you who objected to my own trivia question of some time back, at least it was quite searchable under "Howdy Doody".

So there too: 8-P>

Posted by William F. Orr @ 12/09/2002 09:16 AM PST

I made a lot of little things when I was younger. I was in 4-H for a few years, and still remember the napkin/mail-holder I made - first time I used stain and varnish. I also remember making this frame-like cover for a hole in one of my bedroom walls - they had to install a new shut off valve for the water system - it was hinged to the wall, and would open up to reveal the valve. Very simple, but very effective and affective at the time. I'm sure there were other things I made - I used to love going to Hechinger's, Sears, etc., and buying dowels of all shapes and sizes, various types of molding, pieces of wood, even checking out different types of saw blades. What a contrast to the sewing kit I made for my sixth grade teacher - a scissor cozy, a notions pouch (with a drawstring closure!), and a pin cushion - all in red gingham.

As for something I want from my childhood - and, unfortunately, I can't get it on E-bay - is a wonderful letter I received from the student musical director of my high school's production of The Music Man. -He also doubled as Harold Hill - don't worry, the school band director conducted the show. I was a sophomore at the time, and he was graduating. It was more or less a closing night gift, and it was so worth the wait - he told me it would take a few days for him to sign my program, and then when I was presented with a beautiful two-three page letter... I remember bits and pieces of it, but what I remember most was how it made me feel special, how it made me recognize my talents, and how it made want to share those talents with everyone. It made me cry when I first read it, and, right now, just thinking of it, I'm starting to get a little teary-eyed. It was the letter I always read when things were starting to get tough - and we all know just how tough high school life can seem at the time. I had it all the way through my sophomore year in college. It somehow just got lost in one of the various moves from dorm room to apartment. And I always hope that one day, I'll be going through a box of stuff, and I'll come across it again. Unfortunately, I haven't crossed paths with him since high school, although I know he's had a pretty good career - and my career hasn't been too bad either. *This is one of the people I mentioned in one of those "someone from your past" posts. So, if anyone knows how to get in touch with Bryan Louiselle, I would love any information you could pass on to me. The last I heard, he was still in New York, and he used to conduct and arrange for the Radio City Music Hall Spectaculars.

Well, wasn't that a nice trip down memory lane... :-)

So, I think I'm going to head back to bed and get a few more hours of sleep - what a truly exhausting week last week was for me - but tech weeks are supposed to be that way. Thankfully, the techs were relatively painless, and we got a lot done. We still have a list of tweaks to get to this week before opening on Friday, but for today, I'm doing nothing. Absolutely nothing. Well, nothing South Pacific-related. I actually may go see a movie tonight - my first one since the spring. Oh, and I hope to be able to catch the chat tonight too!

-Mais bien sur, "catch the chat" could mean something totally different to notre ami, François.

A bientôt!

Posted by Jose C. Simbulan @ 12/09/2002 09:18 AM PST

Happy Un-Birthday to everyone today! (Unless today happens to be your birthday, of course. Then it's a Happy Birthday to you!)

As for something that I've constructed or built with my own two hands that I am especially proud of, it most certainly must be the pinhole camera I made for the science fair in high school. It was great fun to make and even took real pictures which I then developed in the dark room. Of course, being a pinhole camera, it required that the subject of the picture sit absolutely still for several whole minutes in order to give proper exposure to the raw film within. This was no easy feat, as my good friend Peggy who sat for such a picture will tell you (thank you, Peggy!), unless the subject was an inanimate object like a pot of flowers, which can sit still for hours and not seem to mind it at all.

And as for the second topic – if I could have one single item back from my childhood (one that went missing) what would it be and why would I want it - it most clearly would be the one and the same, my very own made-by-my-own-hands pinhole camera. I'd love to show it to my kids and maybe inspire them to make one for themselves and experience the same joys I did with the project.

Posted by Susan Gordon @ 12/09/2002 09:22 AM PST

All right - here's two clues for the trivia question - they were originally included in Mr. Brockman's question but I removed them because I thought it might be too easy. The book the play was based on was a Pulitzer winner. The movie was an Academy Award-winner.

Posted by bk @ 12/09/2002 09:28 AM PST

Bruce, Happy belated birthday, and welcome to the 55 club, which I joined last February. Sorry I didn't get to wish it to you yesterday, but we left early in the AM and didn't get home 'til late and I never logged on.

Regarding this week's trivia, I didn't see anyway to search and I didn't even try.

Something I've built - in the late '60's I build a Heathkit color TV and a Heathkit stereo receiver and they worked great. My parents had the TV for many years, and when it was first built, it had the best picture of any commercial TVs then on the market.

I want my Howdy Doody marionette back from my childhood. My wife has hers, and we adopted another one in 1972, but I want mine back. I know its out there looking for me.

Posted by steveg @ 12/09/2002 09:38 AM PST

It isn't exactally "building", but I do needlepoint and I have made many gifts for friends.

From my childhood --- well a little later than childhood --- I wish I had my high school senior yearbook. It got lost in one of the various moves I've made over the years. I registered with Classmates, but so far the only name I even recognized was someone I barely knew. In fact the last time I got a notice of a class reunuion they included a list of classmates that could not be located, and it was like a list of all the people I was close to in high school but lost touch with. Although I have had a good life, I never appreciated the high school years while I was going through them and now I look back at them as the best time in my life. The yearbook --- signed by so many people --- is the great loss.

Posted by William E. Lurie @ 12/09/2002 09:46 AM PST

This will sound very peculiar -- I wish I had receipts from my youth. When I was a young person I would always save the receipts when I purchased new LPs. On the back of each receipt I would write the names of the LPs that I'd purchased and the date of each particular purchase. I saved those receipts for many years and the stack grew quite tall. One day the stack became so tall that I opted to turn the one stack into two stacks. Those receipts became a chronicle -- I could look at an individual receipt, be reminded of when & where I purchased a particular LP, and this would spur my memories of the many events and people that were part of my life at that particular moment in time. Then, one day, I decided to simply throw out all of those receipts. I think I thought that my memory stored all the information, so it was redundant to save the paper receipts. Well, I've learned my lesson the hard way, as age does so play games with our ability to accurately recall the moments from our past. Where & when did I purchase an LP named "Circus Maximus"? Only "The Wind" knows ("You say that once you knew for sure, but now you're walkin' into shore to wonder...").

I wish I could get those receipts back, but unlike items that can be easily found on eBay, my receipts were truly irreplaceable mementos. They have gone to rest at the same location where our beloved Twin Towers have gone to rest. Oh, wait a second -- THAT'S what I miss most from my youth -- those two beautiful towers that grew as I grew. As a young child I watched them grow and I recall being excited the first time I saw them fully completed. Those Twin Towers were like a good friend. Those receipts were like a good friend. Someone once said to me, "friends are friends forever . . . only the phase of friendship changes in time and circumstance." She was right.

My very own "Rosebud" -- The World Trade Center.

If blood will flow when flesh and steel are one
Drying in the colour of the evening sun
Tomorrow's rain will wash the stains away
But something in our minds will always stay

Posted by The Wind @ 12/09/2002 09:46 AM PST

A very merry un-birthday to BK who has "another" birthday dinner to attend!

I can "ditto" BK's remarks about the day being grey -- we've got grey skies, rain and fog. Sometimes, the fog is so thick you can't see from grey. But it's Monday, and that's okay, 'cause Rainy Days and Mondays NEVER get me down! (But they used to...oh, yes, they used)!

Posted by Ron Pulliam @ 12/09/2002 09:48 AM PST

The thing that I've lost from my childhood is particularly annoying as it might be worth a bit of money.

I was brought up near Liverpool and just before the Beatles went on their first tour of America, my father met a journalist from the Liverpool Echo who was going with them. He promised to get the Beatles to send postcards to me and my sister. Lo and Behold a couple of weeks later, the postcards arrived duly signed by all 4 Beatles.

Can I find that postcard? Can my sister find hers? We think they may have been victims of one of my mother's tidying sprees.
How annoying is that??

Posted by Allan @ 12/09/2002 09:50 AM PST

Jose - I'm emailing you what may be Bryan's address and phone number. Nice story.

Posted by Robert Armin @ 12/09/2002 09:56 AM PST

Hey there, All! Just wanted to thank all of you who have sent me Bryan's contact info. I'll have to try again sometime soon. Very soon.

Posted by Jose C. Simbulan @ 12/09/2002 10:06 AM PST

In my family, building something with your own two hands is called "rigging something up." I come from a long line of rigging something uppers. It's not anything to be especially proud of, though. I would go into more detail, but the computer I am using right now has a most unseemly keyboard. Maybe I should rig something up.

Posted by Sandra @ 12/09/2002 10:18 AM PST

Things from my childhood I'd love to have back: My mother gave me a book at Christmas when I was about 5 or 6 that had a pop-up Santa in his sleigh and all the reindeer -- they popped up and extended well beyond the book. I'm sure that the Santa was extracted and lasted but a few years...I loved Santa.

I remember her saying I "shouldn't" take the Santa out because one day I would wish I had preserved it and could look at it each Christmas.

Sigh.

I still have -- in bad shape -- a Frosty the Snowman snowglobe. The edges of the red plastic base have all been broken away, and the water is now at the 3/4-full level. It still snows, though -- and Frosty looks just as magical as he did when I received in back in 1954 or 55.

Among other things I still have, an autographed school photo of Phillip Alford -- he played Jem in "To Kill A Mockingbird." I wrote him a fan letter in 1963 and asked for a signed photo. A number of weeks went by and I figured I'd never hear anything. And then that photo arrived -- from Birmingham, Alabama, of all places!!!

A year earlier, I had written Peter O'Toole after seeing "Lawrence of Arabia" -- received a very nice autographed 5X7 b/w of him as Lawrence, plus a pre-printed note thanking me for my interest in his work and apologizing for not being able to write back personally.

And also highly prized are my "My Fair Lady" newsletters. Just as the film was beginning to film, Warner Bros. put an ad in the major newspapers (I saw mine in the Atlanta Journal)offering free newsletters to anyone who subscribed. Each letter would update me on the progress of the filming.

I don't recall how many I received -- it was 8 or 10. I still have them all and their in excellent condition. It was quite a thrill to receive these elegant newsletters about a film whose arrival I eagerly awaited. Sad to say that I saw "Mary Poppins" and "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" first and found "My Fair Lady" very good, but lacking the excitement I found in the other two. I still admire the film but feel they were simply too careful with it which kept it from soaring. IMO, of course.

Posted by Ron Pulliam @ 12/09/2002 10:24 AM PST

My parents moved Los Angeles to Northern California when I was 18. When the moving van was packed to the top, my mother took a look at one long cardboard filing box still to be loaded. It was filled with virtually every one of my toys and Aurora plastic models (one, which I had created from pieces of other models, had actually won an award). "You're too old for all these toys now" she said and convinced me to leave the box behind. Not a good decision. Oh, well, at least my comic books were already in the van!

Posted by Robert Armin @ 12/09/2002 10:26 AM PST

"they're" still in excellent condition. (And there may have been only 6 of them...)

Posted by Ron "correction" Pulliam @ 12/09/2002 10:28 AM PST

No, they didn't actually MOVE Los Angeles to Northern California! They moved FROM Los Angeles to Northern California. Thought I'd beat you to the punch!

Posted by Robert Armin @ 12/09/2002 10:40 AM PST

As a child I loved westerns. I loved pretending I was a cowboy and had to have a holster and guns, something my parents didn't want to give their little girl. More than the westerns, I loved The Davy Crockett Show and of course had to have a hat. It would be fun to still have those, but the item I miss the most was the post card I received in the mail from Davy Crockett. My parents met Fess Parker in Palm Springs and he was kind enough to send me the postcard. I had the card for years but it was sadly lost in one of our numerous moves.

Posted by Jane @ 12/09/2002 11:01 AM PST

Something built.....got into ham radio in the mid 70's and built a small Ameco AC-1 CW (morse code only) transmitter. Didn't work at first, but with the help of my mentor quickly found the problem (bad solder joint) and got on the air. Have built other kits since (mostly Heathkits) but the first is always the biggest challenge.

Something lost from my childhood.....had a fairly complete set of baseball cards in 1969. Used to flip the doubles, keep the rest in a cardboard box. Sold them in the mid 80's to pay some bills. Would love to have that set back!

Posted by Phil @ 12/09/2002 11:02 AM PST

Yes, I built my inner sanctum. A lovely, paneled eighteen by twelve space which now serves as my office space as well as my home theater. It is in the basement, but, seeing it you would never know that once upon a time there were concrete blocks behind two of the walls, a cement floor and that there were rafters. This space was built from the floor to the ceiling with careful planning, keen carpentry and a little help from two friends.
For a wonderful theater company, now defunct, I helped design and build several moveable seating banks to hold the theater's seats which were church pews. There were only three of us building, sawing, pounding and screwing, and today, one of those three is working in Hollywood, and has been involved with THE X FILES, Brandy's CINDERELLA, Drew Carey's GEPETTO and he even worked on a certain film that featured an unseemly interviewee as a babysitter!

From my youth, if there were one thing I could have back, I guess being the sentimental so-and-so that I am, I would have to have my hobby horse named Ernie (and he was named long, long before SESAME STREET).

Posted by td @ 12/09/2002 11:32 AM PST

Oh, yes. All my school yearbooks are gone missing, too, and with them too many memories of growing up in Los Angeles with friends whose names I can barely remember. Perhaps if I had the yearbooks back again, perhaps my memory would come back, too. No? Or at least they would help to jog my memory for a stroll (or jog) down memory lane.

Posted by Susan Gordon @ 12/09/2002 11:36 AM PST

I am fascinated by Susan Gordon's pinhole box camera....could never make them work. No patience I am sure. And yearbooks - oh my. All that hair.
Heathkits were also a fascination. But when I bought a model kit (Revell) that had a great picture of the SS United States on it and got it home, the box was filled with a couple of hundred white plastics pieces. The end result looked something like the Titanic does on the bottom of the Atlantic. So even though I studied the Heathkit ads carefully, I could just imagine what a color television would look like spread out on the floor. 8-D My congrats to the posters who built these electronics! Heck, I am even impressed that Susan made a pinhole camera!

Posted by Jrand55 @ 12/09/2002 11:53 AM PST

Trust me, Susan, if you had your high school yearbooks, you'd look through them and think, "I don't remember any of these people."

Posted by Laura @ 12/09/2002 12:34 PM PST

What a maze of memories are those above. I was (and am) a total non-practical being. "Rigging" anything at all was a "no go" zone. Same category as sport. Thank goodness I could read! I did love my "stuffed" toys - bears and rabbits mostly. It was suggested by my mum that I give them all away to needy children and I ofd course thought that was a terrific idea as I had (or should have) outgrown them. Now I would love to have them - I remember that my favourite toy was a knitted rabbit who was always chosen to go to hospital with me.
I still like bears - but that's another story!
I tried searching through Hainsies names for clues for the trivia and got nowhere. Maybe Mr Brockman senior produced a play!
Eartha Kitt is singing "Santa Baby" on the radio. I thought she was great in "The Emperor's New Groove" which I caught up with a few days back.

Posted by Tom from OZ @ 12/09/2002 12:38 PM PST

Susan, come to our house and look at our year books. Between the three of us maybe we will remember more. I have our elementary school graduation picture but I can't remember most of the people. You are the short kid next to me who kept me from being the last in the row.

Tom reminds me I cam missing my favorite stuffed elephant. Even though he wasn't the original one (I wore out the first one and had to replace him), I had him over forty years. I am sure I had him in this house, but seem to have misplaced him.

Posted by Jane @ 12/09/2002 01:16 PM PST

Isn't it just too too taking these little detours down memory lane. Here at work, where I am still in the midst of the piece I've been working on which is entitled Sex, Sex, Sex (that is three sexes which is oversexed where I come from) I've been taking detours down mammary lane. We don't allow groaning here at haineshisway.com. We heard that the network was very happy with the piece, but sadly they missed the two best bits which we removed on Friday at the behest of our hosts who loved the piece but who didn't think those two bits were accurate (I disagree, but who am I).

Posted by bk @ 12/09/2002 01:47 PM PST

I am sure the double entendre of "bits" is being enjoyed by our readers in the UK... "bits" refers the the male sexual organ.. and having them removed would indeed be sad...

Posted by Craig @ 12/09/2002 02:28 PM PST

Slightly off topic, but I'm going
to ask all you Dear Readers
for help here. Looking for a
Sondheim lyric with the word
"genuflect" in it...I KNOW
there's one out there, and it's
on the tip of my tongue...but so
far it has eluded me. Any
idea?

Posted by Ann @ 12/09/2002 04:07 PM PST

The reviews for Debacle of the Vampires are starting to come in. From Ken Mandelbaum's review on Broadway.com (I think this pretty much speaks for everything I've read so far): "A bona fide Eurotrash bonanza..." He even said it was JEKYLL & HYDE LITE. Ouch!

Posted by Jason @ 12/09/2002 04:10 PM PST

Dear reader Ann:

I want to say it's in "I Never Do Anything Twice" from THE SEVEN PERCENT SOLUTION, but I'm coming up blank on the rest of the lyric. It would be in the same segment of the song that has "I'll get in the habit, but not in the habit..."

Posted by Jay @ 12/09/2002 04:17 PM PST

Alas, anything I try to make with my own two hands turns out looking like an 8-year-old made it in Vacation Bible School. However, I have made many embroidered things, mostly all given away as gifts.

As far as things I wish I had back again, I have been thinking all day, and I honestly cannot think of a thing.

Posted by Laura @ 12/09/2002 04:33 PM PST

Dance of the Vampires update: Ben Brantley's review is up. If we thought that Ken Mandelbaum was harsh with is Eurotrash comments...wait'll you hear what Ben had to say:

"Michael Crawford, who sported a dashing half-mask for his Tony-winning performance in "The Phantom of the Opera" in 1988, would have done well to have donned a fuller version for his return to Broadway...It is an enterprise to be associated with only under the veil of anonymity."

And that was one of the nicer quotes.

Posted by Jason @ 12/09/2002 05:44 PM PST

In case people have
forgotten...our handy dandy
chat is early tonight, and is
currently going on! Come and
join...

Posted by Ann @ 12/09/2002 05:56 PM PST

IMPORTANT REMINDER!!!

Tonight's chat is at 6pm Pacific time, not our usual later Monday start time. In other words, come chat now!!!

Posted by Jed @ 12/09/2002 05:56 PM PST

When I was in middle school, I took wood shop. I made a plexiglass chess board and a metal keyholder and a name sign for outside my parents' house. It wasn't until my senior year in high school that I took it again. The thing I made (and still have) is a wooden Rubik's Cube. My best friend Andrew had one that he didn't mind taking apart. I measured and made architectural drawings of all the pieces and used the original plastic middle part to put it together. I carved each piece from oak wood, stained and assembled it. I didn't put colors on it, it's very crude (no previous carving experience) and the pieces fall out very easily, but I got an "A" for the effort.

Posted by George @ 12/09/2002 06:05 PM PST

Signed on late - someone please invite me in. Thanks.

Posted by Jrand55 @ 12/09/2002 06:25 PM PST

Me, too!

Posted by Ron Pulliam @ 12/09/2002 06:47 PM PST

Dear Jane,

Sometimes it's best to leave those old yearbooks on the shelf. Unlike my old receipts which chronicled my adventures with friends and could spur memories of journeys to far-off record shops in every corner of Manhattan island (and points beyond), yearbooks contain the photographs of ghosts and living beings. As I noted earlier, it has been noted to me that "friends are friends forever . . . only the phase of friendship changes in time and circumstance." Living beings from our childhood that have gone forgotten with time have probably gone forgotten with time for a reason. Please leave those ghosts on the shelf.

Posted by The Wind @ 12/10/2002 02:17 AM PST

Al and Tipper Gore at the DOTV opening? Joan Collins and her husband Percy? Tommy Tune?
Well at least it was nobody who had to cancel any plans to be there. 8-D

Posted by Jrand55 @ 12/10/2002 04:49 AM PST

Ann:

Has nobody found the "genuflect" lyric yet?

The closest I know is a Sondheim song, but the lyric is not Sondheim's. It is, in fact, my own. When Joel Crothers was appearing at Les Mouche in Manhattan, he wanted to do a male version of "I Never Do Anything Twice", and I wrote him a lyric, as did his friend Stephen Sondheim. Dare I say it? Joel chose to do mine. The third verse began

And then there was the Abess
Whose life held no delight.
The Passion of the Cross had grown jejune.
She brought me to the altar
And dressed me all in white
And, genuflecting, started to commune.

Posted by William F. Orr @ 12/10/2002 05:48 AM PST

Joel Crothers 8-D

Posted by Jrand55 @ 12/10/2002 05:58 AM PST

Well, there is a lyric in CANDIDE. We could perhaps argue about the actual lyricist, since there were so many contributors to the lyrics of the show, but here it is:

GRAND INQUISITOR
The supreme moment has arrived.
All ye faithful -- genuflect!

I wonder if you might be thinking of a lyric from SHE LOVES ME (Bock & Harnick). In the song "Perspective", there is the line "Excuse me while I genuflect..."

Or maybe it is a Tom Lehrer lyric you are thinking of?

Posted by Dave @ 12/10/2002 07:21 AM PST