collisionwork | Freed from the Pit

More work on scripts and at The Brick, off and on, back and forth, in fits and starts.

The reading of Devils at The Brick on Sunday was terrific -- not entirely, of course; there was plenty about the script that doesn't work right now, but it was terrific to have a good reading that made the problems (and, luckily, the strengths) apparent. I learned that, yes, the script is long, but it should be long, just not quite so long. Also, that it wants to be in three acts instead of two, with two intermissions -- I couldn't see where an earlier first act break could possibly fall until we read it, and suddenly it was like it YELLED "Intermission HERE, now!"

However, to be a still-reasonable length, including two intermissions, I have to cut about a half-hour from it, which won't be all that easy -- there's plenty of things that can be easily cut and still tell the story, but they're all things about class and character that make the story more interesting. I thought I had a five-minute sequence ready to be cut going into the reading, but unfortunately, the reading proved that the scene was necessary (I still checked with many of the readers and our one audience members, who agreed on this point, as is the insistent Berit). So there's some work to do. Not horribly difficult work, I think, but work.

I'll be going up to Maine for a brief spell to focus and write, and I'm looking forward to that, but before I go I have to finish some needed repair work over at The Brick, where things are moving forward as always. Berit is staying in NYC as she runs sound on Samuel and Alasdair:
A Personal History of the Robot War, which I barely got to see, but DID hear when it was in our Summer Festival last year. It was a damned great show then, and I'm sure it's just been improved since then.

We've been without TV at home for a month or so, which as I said was great for catching up on music listening, but now I have some things to look at, so I did what I said I would last week, and pulled down the busted one and put up the semi-busted one (I forgot how many problems the old set had) and have been watching the original Twilight Zone series from the start, which I think might actually inform the script for Spacemen from Space more than a little now, though it's a very different genre.

And meanwhile, back in the iPod, here's a Random Ten from the 25,396 in there (with associated links):

1. "Come and Join Us" - Bob Leaper and His Prophets - The Pye Story Vol.4
2. "Saved" - Bob Dylan - Saved
3. "Devo Corporate Anthem" - Devo - Duty Now For The Future
4. "Love Life And Money" - Marianne Faithfull - Strange Weather
5. "Pass the Hatchet Pts 1&2" - Roger & The Gypsies - Funky16Corners Radio v.23 - Funky Nawlins Vol 3
6. "Paint It Black" - The Animals - Winds Of Change
7. "Poop Hatch" - Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band - Bat Chain Puller
8. "Sa Radd" - Caligula's Barn - Single
9. "Birdhouse In Your Soul" - They Might Be Giants - Flood
10. "Necronomania" - Manfred Hubler & Siegfried Schwab - Vampyros Lesbos (Sexadelic Dance Party)

Not the greatest cat photos this week, but they are brand new. Here's both of them by the window:

Hooker sleeping on the leg of sleeping Berit:

And I tried to get a nice shot of Moni, but she just wanted to hunker down in her dark fort below the desk, next to the books and Super-8 movie projector: