Well, dear readers, I am sitting here like so much fish, ready for this ridiculous heat wave to be done. I am listening to Bruno Walter’s wonderful stereophonic recording of Dvorak’s New World Symphony. Of course, there are many great recordings of this symphony, many of which I have. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a bum recording, although I’m sure they’re out there. In other news, I had no news regarding the Pro Tools issues, but have found two alternate ways to go – one is purchasing the old legacy version of Pro Tools that would allow this to be opened and which is very pricey, or a company that says it can do it – but that cost is dependent on certain factors – if the files are a certain way, it might be a tiny bit cheaper than the purchase, but if they’re not a certain way, then it would be more expensive. I’m still hopeful the LA guy can figure it out or find a studio that kept the old version for situations like this. John Adams doesn’t live in LA anymore and so he’s not really in that loop anymore, so we have to deal with this here so he can get the sessions to mix, although if I can make a deal with the engineer here, I might just let him do it all – that way, I’m here for notes, not getting everything via e-mail from John. The LA guy would have to agree to do it for what John charges and I have a pretty great deal with John. Anyway, I remain hopeful I’ll hear something today or tomorrow – people he needs to talk to might not be around on the weekend. We shall see. Otherwise, yesterday was all quiet on the western front. I got ninety minutes of sleep, did a few things, then went back to bed and I think I probably got six hours of sleep, although these days bleed into each other, so I don’t actually remember. Yes, I checked – six hours of sleep but I wasn’t up for ninety minutes before actually arising. That part was a falsity. Once up, I answered e-mails, of course, did some more catching up, then I had meal one – tuna pasta salad – very good – and took not only pill one but also Prednisone and Folic Acid pills. Then I finished a motion picture I’d started the night before, some B-movie – well, more like a D-movie, called Fear No More. I can find no evidence of this film ever being released, at least not here. But let me check elsewhere. Okay, okay, it played the bottom half of several double bills around the country, but not L.A. or NYC. It played with Rome Adventure, Tender is the Night, Victim, The Colossus of Rhodes, The Mask, and a few nudie cutie movies.
Fear No More stars Mala Powers and Jacques Bergerac. The former had an interesting career, never quite becoming an A-lister or even B-lister, despite her leading role in Cyrano de Bergerac with Jose Ferrer, for which she won a Golden Globe award. She did a bunch of lower budget pictures, including some sci-fi stuff. I remember enjoying her performances, but here, while she looks fetching at thirty-one, she is so over the top, which is either what the inept director wanted (everyone in the movie is terrible) or she decided she was doing Medea. Jacques Bergerac – how did this man have a career? Charmless and dramatically inert. He was married to both Ginger Rogers and Dorothy Malone – not at the same time – so he must have had some charm. Frankly, the only movie I ever remember seeing him in was The Hypnotic Eye. Apparently, he’s in Gigi and Les Girls. Go know. Anyway, this hyper low-budget films (the interior sets are so cheap you can see the patched flats and seams clearly) – imdb has it filmed at CBS Radford and the one street shot does look like Ventura Blvd. but the only store sign I could read was Mary’s, ladies clothing. I can find nothing about that store online. Anyway, the movie is one of those gaslighting movies where a bunch of nasty men try to say she hasn’t seen what she (and we) have clearly seen. In the end, the nasty people get what they deserve. I found it no Tubi, where some of the lowest budget and worst movies can be found. The problem, however, is that Tubi has ads and they turn a seventy-minute movie into two hours. Ridic. And no way to skip the three or four minutes of ads.
I had my second helping of tuna pasta salad and took pill two, then plopped down on the bed and slept for about ninety minutes. After that, I tried, unsuccessfully, to watch another movie. Then I made a teeny-tiny sweet potato and had that and took pill three. By teeny-tiny, I mean three bites. I bought a bag of sweet potatoes, and this was the smallest midget in the bag, although all of them are pretty small. And here we are in the New World with Bruno and Antonin.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll have me a ME day in total, I may go to Gelson’s to partake of the sale they’re having on Bonne Maman jams – I love this brand, and I’ve wanted to try other flavors and it’s five bucks off right now. Other than that, I’m hoping to hear from the engineer to see what’s what, and I’ll finish off the tuna pasta salad over the course of the day and evening, and I’m sure I’ll watch, listen, and relax.
Depending on how things go, this week could be mostly figuring out how to proceed on The Sherman Brothers Album, and on Tuesday I once again have to go over the hill and do a CAT thing for my chest – it should go quickly, and I’ll come right home, but I really hate doing this stuff and I really hate the drive, as you all know.
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, have a ME day, do a quick Gelson’s run, hope to hear from the engineer, eat, and then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s free-for-all day, the day in which you dear readers get to make with the topics and we all get to post about them. So, let’s have loads of lovely topics and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have visited the New World with Bruno and Antonin.