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Tired and Thoughtful
Apr. 9th, 2006 12:36 pmSo, Berit and I have a day off after a week straight in rehearsals of the demanding THE ADVENTURES OF CAVEMAN ROBOT - THE MUSICAL at The Brick. The show is fun, but hellishly demanding. I'm getting rather old and worn to be running around and acting full out in even a partial gorilla costume. My legs are killing me. At least I seem to be losing weight as a result, though last night this resulted in my pants (which will no longer stay up with any belt I have) repeatedly dropping over my ankles and under my heels, tripping me up a bit. New belts needed. Job for tomorrow.
We had personal and professional plans for today, but we're trying to cancel them all to instead be large kitty-hugging lumps on the sofa and bed. We are, unfortunately, missing the gathering of antique barrel organs down at Coney Island which we so wanted to go to. Most of them were made in the 1880s in Brooklyn, and I really wanted to hear the cacophony of all of them going at once (which is part of why they were once banned in NYC by Fiorello LaGuardia, the other reason being that they promoted ethnic stereotyping, what with most of them being operated by Italians with thick moustaches and thicker accents). A couple of the ones down at Coney Island today are even actual organ grinders -- as you can't call yourself an "organ grinder" apparently unless you have an actual monkey with you. So we're going to miss the spectacle of a couple of (probably) elderly and peevish capuchins pathetically begging for small change on a windy and desolate boardwalk. Nice image I could have enjoyed . . .
I didn't think I'd get to any work today on THAT'S WHAT WE'RE HERE FOR today, but I wound up doing productive schedule work and sending it out to the cast (or what I hope is still going to be the cast). It looks like I'll be able to work it all out, thankfully. Tight, but more than doable.
Later today, I should listen to the sound cues that inspired this show in the first place and let myself meditate and drift off into that half-sleep zone where fruitful images come from, and see what I get this time. I'm starting to throw the cast members into this lucid dream place where I go, to see what comes out. I've seen Gyda Arber as a WWII WAC girl tap dancing with sparklers in her hands to a racist wartime song ("We're Gonna Have to Slap the Dirty Little Jap"). I've seen Alyssa Simon and Josephine Cashman as telephone operators at plexiglas phone systems connecting and screwing up the whole world with many many cords. I've seen Fred Backus as a confused American patriotic dad desperately trying to tune in voices on his shortwave that might explain something to him about where his country has gone wrong. I've seen Ken Simon and Roger Nasser as smiling bureaucrats ruining lives with big smiles as they speak in well-meaning corporate doublespeak designed to cover their own asses and maintain the Peter Principle as they file vast quantities of paper. I keep seeing Stacia French as the suburban mom with that same damned flaming frying pan I had her with in SOJOURNER TRUTH'S HATBOX in 2000 (can't do that image in The Brick, unfortunately). I see Bryan Enk shadowing children through chainlink fences in schoolyards at recess (in faded Eastmancolor, like a educational film from the 1960s on looking out for evil drug pushers). I see Jorge Cordova confused and scared, nothing specific, just his face looking around, really really scared, as if seeing all these other images and being overwhelmed.
The other day, I was driving around on some errands, and casually putting a tape into the player without really thinking what was on it -- just needing background noise -- I was suddenly stunned by Dylan's "Ballad of a Thin Man" blaring at me from the speakers. I had to keep driving around looking for parking, and I kept rewinding and playing that song over and over, louder and louder. I was screaming along with it sometimes ("YOU'RE A COW!"), banging the dashboard, and crying a little bit here and there. I don't really know why. Somehow it seemed to sum everything up that I was trying to deal with right now. It doesn't fit the original idea of the show -- to build everything out of corporate/industrial found sound -- but it needs to be in there now. I see Maggie Cino being violently thrown around The Brick and across tables to it. Bent and broken like a doll. Thrown and caught. Where does this go? No damn idea yet.
Something is happening here, but I don't know what it is yet.
The piano on that song is incredible. Not complex, just emotionally right. Wonder if that's Dylan on it himself on that track . . .
Okay, time for some actual body fuel apart from coffee, and maybe the BATTLESTAR GALACTICA dvd from Netflix -- I saw the last half of the pilot (which is what we have now) and was stunned, and I keep hearing that the show is amazing (did I read that it just won a Peabody, too?). Having just finished the ANGEL series, we need a new one to obsess over for a while.
Okay, Simone and Berit are cooing at each other in the other room. Time to go hug the two ladies of the house.
We had personal and professional plans for today, but we're trying to cancel them all to instead be large kitty-hugging lumps on the sofa and bed. We are, unfortunately, missing the gathering of antique barrel organs down at Coney Island which we so wanted to go to. Most of them were made in the 1880s in Brooklyn, and I really wanted to hear the cacophony of all of them going at once (which is part of why they were once banned in NYC by Fiorello LaGuardia, the other reason being that they promoted ethnic stereotyping, what with most of them being operated by Italians with thick moustaches and thicker accents). A couple of the ones down at Coney Island today are even actual organ grinders -- as you can't call yourself an "organ grinder" apparently unless you have an actual monkey with you. So we're going to miss the spectacle of a couple of (probably) elderly and peevish capuchins pathetically begging for small change on a windy and desolate boardwalk. Nice image I could have enjoyed . . .
I didn't think I'd get to any work today on THAT'S WHAT WE'RE HERE FOR today, but I wound up doing productive schedule work and sending it out to the cast (or what I hope is still going to be the cast). It looks like I'll be able to work it all out, thankfully. Tight, but more than doable.
Later today, I should listen to the sound cues that inspired this show in the first place and let myself meditate and drift off into that half-sleep zone where fruitful images come from, and see what I get this time. I'm starting to throw the cast members into this lucid dream place where I go, to see what comes out. I've seen Gyda Arber as a WWII WAC girl tap dancing with sparklers in her hands to a racist wartime song ("We're Gonna Have to Slap the Dirty Little Jap"). I've seen Alyssa Simon and Josephine Cashman as telephone operators at plexiglas phone systems connecting and screwing up the whole world with many many cords. I've seen Fred Backus as a confused American patriotic dad desperately trying to tune in voices on his shortwave that might explain something to him about where his country has gone wrong. I've seen Ken Simon and Roger Nasser as smiling bureaucrats ruining lives with big smiles as they speak in well-meaning corporate doublespeak designed to cover their own asses and maintain the Peter Principle as they file vast quantities of paper. I keep seeing Stacia French as the suburban mom with that same damned flaming frying pan I had her with in SOJOURNER TRUTH'S HATBOX in 2000 (can't do that image in The Brick, unfortunately). I see Bryan Enk shadowing children through chainlink fences in schoolyards at recess (in faded Eastmancolor, like a educational film from the 1960s on looking out for evil drug pushers). I see Jorge Cordova confused and scared, nothing specific, just his face looking around, really really scared, as if seeing all these other images and being overwhelmed.
The other day, I was driving around on some errands, and casually putting a tape into the player without really thinking what was on it -- just needing background noise -- I was suddenly stunned by Dylan's "Ballad of a Thin Man" blaring at me from the speakers. I had to keep driving around looking for parking, and I kept rewinding and playing that song over and over, louder and louder. I was screaming along with it sometimes ("YOU'RE A COW!"), banging the dashboard, and crying a little bit here and there. I don't really know why. Somehow it seemed to sum everything up that I was trying to deal with right now. It doesn't fit the original idea of the show -- to build everything out of corporate/industrial found sound -- but it needs to be in there now. I see Maggie Cino being violently thrown around The Brick and across tables to it. Bent and broken like a doll. Thrown and caught. Where does this go? No damn idea yet.
Something is happening here, but I don't know what it is yet.
The piano on that song is incredible. Not complex, just emotionally right. Wonder if that's Dylan on it himself on that track . . .
Okay, time for some actual body fuel apart from coffee, and maybe the BATTLESTAR GALACTICA dvd from Netflix -- I saw the last half of the pilot (which is what we have now) and was stunned, and I keep hearing that the show is amazing (did I read that it just won a Peabody, too?). Having just finished the ANGEL series, we need a new one to obsess over for a while.
Okay, Simone and Berit are cooing at each other in the other room. Time to go hug the two ladies of the house.
