Well, dear readers, as you know, I went down a big ol’ rabbit hole of free music to grab from Apple Music and I downloaded about twenty-three albums, and I’ve been having fun listening. The Ruth Gipps Chandos albums I didn’t have are fantastic – what a wonderful composer she was. Then I listened to a couple of Joe Hisaishi albums, including his latest film score. And now, it’s John Williams’ big slice of Americana called The Cowboys. It’s Williams by way of Copland and a lot of fun. I don’t like it as much as I love The Reivers, but still, it’s classic Williams. I also downloaded the special edition of is first Jurassic Park score. I’ve only seen that movie twice and remember little about the score. Otherwise, yesterday was okay, with the nicest part being meeting this lady from the LA Public Library, who I’ve been helping with identifying LA locations in a huge photo collection they got hold of. She told me lots of stories about the guy who took the photos, and she loves what she does. I gave her a copy of the new book and asked her if she could help get my books into the library system in LA, since they’re all about this city, from the 40s to now. I think she’ll be able to help and that would be great, and she also said she thinks I should do an event, and she’ll try and make that happen when she’s back from a trip to Paris in a week. It was a really fun lunch. We went to the Cheesecake Factory. She had their chicken salad sandwich – I’ve had it many times and it’s really good. I had something new – their orange chicken. I knew it wouldn’t really be like Chinese orange chicken, and it wasn’t, but it was very tasty. Their portions, which used to be so big that there was no way to eat it all, have shrunken – I had no problem finishing. Prior to that, I got about five hours of sleep, I think, due to the rabbit hole thing. Once up, I answered e-mails, then shaved and showered, and had a nice telephonic call from a guy who does an author podcast – so, I’ll be doing that on October 1. Then I did the lunch thing, and that lasted two hours. Once done, I stopped and got a little sweet treat, came home, ate it, took pill two and all other pills. I had a couple of long telephonic calls, then sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched the first half of a 2006 monster movie called The Host. The director, Bong Joon Ho, who made Okja and Parasite, had always wanted to make a kaiju movie, being a big Godzilla fan. And that’s what this is. It’s fun in its way, but apparently, he likes comedy with his horror, and so the family at the center of the film is a comedy family and at times it’s so silly and over the top that it stops you from investing in the characters and the plot. The monster is very well done and it’s certainly enjoyable in its way. It got mostly rave reviews and is now considered the best monster movie of the 2000s, with some proclaiming it as the greatest monster movie ever made, which is, of course, balderdash. I put another six CDs up on eBay. There would have been a seventh but sometimes this weird thing happens where the page I’m working on just disappears and goes back to the previous page and there’s no way for me to get it back, which means I just wasted ten minutes writing the blurb and doing all that stuff. I was so furious about it, I just stopped, and I’ll think about doing it today, I guess. Then I had a hankerin’ for some noodles, so I ordered from a nearby jernt I’ve always stayed away from, but they were having a little coupon thing, so I ordered some lo mein with chicken. It’s just a few blocks from here, so it arrived quickly. It was a bit bland, but a little soy sauce perked it right up and it was pretty good. I ate half, did some listening, had another telephonic call, and then ate the other half and now I am full of lo mein. Next time, might try the hi mein. Hi and Lo Mein – isn’t that a Kurosawa movie? And here we are.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll do whatever needs doing, but mostly it will be a ME day. I will upload another small batch of CDs to eBay, but other than that, I’ll just eat something fun and small, and then basically just watch, listen, and relax.
This week has lots o’ stuff happening. I have much to do, then an eye doctor appointment followed by more bloodwork, setting audition dates, finding our lighting designer, attending an opening night on Friday and getting the act one tracks done – we have slowed to a crawl, and we can’t have that. We have to keep moving forward or we won’t have everything ready for rehearsals. But I really want them done two weeks before that, so our cast can work with the tracks and learn the songs prior to the first rehearsal. I push and push, but sometimes it’s just slow.
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, have a ME day, upload more CDs to eBay, eat something fun and small, 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 postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have had some good lo mein that was more hi than lo, mein-wise.