Friday Ten, and the Rest

Berit and I spent today over at The Brick dry-teching the penultimate episode of Penny Dreadful. Looks good. I thought I'd have more trouble lighting this one with the plot that's been up in the air since Granduncle -- I couldn't change anything, as there's another show using the plot in there already -- but the tech went a lot faster and the show looks better than expected. Good.

Lots of surprises in this episode. The cast and crew have been threatened with bodily harm if any details get out about this one. In fact, Matt and Bryan faked everyone out by sending out a script to everyone - except the actors involved - with one fake scene in it, so we all got one IMMENSE shock last night when we saw it at the runthru. Nice.

One more episode, and it's all over.

And the climb to August continues. First reading of A Little Piece of the Sun in a week. That one's almost completely cast -- I'm seeing actors for the last role early next week. George Bataille's Bathrobe is now down four actors from the cast I'd hoped for, so I've asked two people for two of the parts -- the other two . . . I'm probably going to have to do a call for. Damn. I hate those. I need two similar tall, young, lithe female dancers to be "The Amazing Brundi Twins," and have no one in the tribe right for it except the two actresses I designed the roles for. So, on to new people. And a dance call, too. Oy.

Down three actors from the cast I wanted on Blood on the Cat's Neck, too. Thinking about who to go to for those. I've asked 22 people to be in Spacemen from Space also, and so far three people have responded positively, and one would love to, but his conflicts really kill it. That show's getting huge. It's going to be beautiful and crazy. If I can get it written right . . .

Berit and I have been enjoying the serials we've been watching as research for Spacemen. We found one - The Lost City, that's even more insane than The Phantom Empire, which I thought was the ne plus ultra of fever-dreamy sci-fi/action/adventure/fantasy episodic storytelling. Wow.

And there has been more push from several places to just break down and call our regular August "season" the "Ian W. Hill Festival." Which I hate. But people keep saying it's good branding that's happened on its own (as in, everyone calls it that anyway), that it's actually a mark of "quality" (really? I mean, REALLY?), and it works as a selling umbrella for the whole thing (which we need). Great. I'll think about it.

I've been cleaning out the iPod recently, bit by bit. The other evening, I cleansed about 175 tracks beginning with the letter "A." I tried to get through the "B"s the following night, but only got through the Ba"s - which was almost another 200 songs gone. Maybe by the time I get to "Z," I'll have enough space to put on all the songs I've collected since March, 2008 that I haven't been able to fit.

So from the 25,609 tracks remaining, here's a Random Ten:

1. "Young Girl" - The Twilights - Oceanic Odyssey Volume 01
2. "Go to Her (alternate version)" - Jefferson Airplane - Surrealistic Pillow
3. "You're Just A Song" - Sit N' Spin - Doin' Time With Sit N' Spin
4. "Au Contraire" - They Might Be Giants - Indestructible Object
5. "Fascination" - David Bowie - Young Americans
6. "Searchin' For My Love" - The Golden Cups - Volume One
7. "Creep" - Radiohead - Pablo Honey
8. "Legoff's Theme" - Ennio Morricone - The Sicilian Clan
9. "In Private (7" mix)" - Pet Shop Boys featuring Elton John - Minimal Pt. 1
10. "I'm Not Like Everybody Else" - Hubble Bubble - Hubble Bubble

No more for now -- no new cat photos right now. Maybe Sunday. Time to lie back with more serials and a good book. Buster Crabbe, here I come . . .