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Hey mothers, hey others, Happy Mothers' Day to you and yours.

Well, it's been a calm Sunday morning. As always, I began my day uneasily, waking up early without enough sleep and immediately wondering what the hell I was behind on and what I had to rush and get done, and eventually realized that there was nothing to do right now.

The rehearsal schedule is worked out, the first run of press releases have gone out, all emails to people I needed to email have happened, we've done what we can at this point on sets/props, and there was nothing to do until after noon (to call the parents) or when Berit got up (to set the tunes for the two Ophelia mad scene songs, which we have to teach Jessi today).

So, I got to play around online for a bit. Not much happening. Added more songs to the iPod (bringing it to 21,280 songs), then started dropping them (got to 21,170). Tried to deal with a ridiculously needy cat - Hooker has become more and more attached to me and won't leave me alone, which is nice sometimes but not ALL the time. He gets yowly and bitey and clawey as he demands for me to hug and hold him. Not pleasant. Eventually he gives up and plops down on top on sleeping Berit and is happy again.

After a few hours, Berit got up and we just spent the last hour working on the songs, finally settling on the tunes. Called the parents for Mothers' Day, left messages, got a call back from Mom. Rehearsal tonight at 6, leave here at 5 or so . . .


Ian W. Hill's Hamlet is moving right along. Friday we staggered through all of Act I, then blocked the finale. We started late, and worked long - in a very muggy rehearsal studio. It was tiring but good to see. Beginning to feel out the whole show. Saw what I have to work on more and more.

Almost everyone still has scripts in hand at least some of the time, but more and more it seems that people are in the same boat as I, holding the script and knowing 80% of the lines, just having to look down to catch a word here and there. I've asked everyone to be off book by the 19th, and should be there myself. As it is, being still partly on-book is wreaking havoc on cues and pacing - I have to keep on top of that and make sure no bad habits stick. Act I felt basically good, but didn't feel like it got GOING until the Hamlet/Ophelia scene. Of course, we really hadn't worked a number of the scenes prior to that yet.

So I figured out what to work the next few days late Friday night (well, early Saturday) and we did the Gravedigger and Osric scenes last night. About 90 minutes on the first and 45 on the second, and both wound up in excellent shape by the end, though I will keep refining them.

Tonight we work Ophelia's mad scene, Claudius' first entrance and talks with Laertes and Hamlet, and Polonius and Voltimand talking to Claudius and Gertrude. One big scene and some fragments that need work and focus.

Not exactly drudgery, getting through this part of the process, but close. Things that have to be done and dealt with now that are still unformed and almost painful to watch now which will be correct in a couple of weeks' work.

So, work tonight, a movie or IntarWeb surfing after -- maybe another night of YouTubing, link-to-link.

Tomorrow I'll deal with things that have gone a bit by the wayside as show work has been going on -- doing the dishes, doing the laundry, cleaning the catbox, returning books and videos to the library -- and write up the second press release. Gaby at Q1: The Bad Hamlet has made the excellent suggestion that we do a joint release apart from our own ones, promoting both Hamlets together, so I'm making up the basic release, leaving space for Gaby to fill in about their show.

Oh, I guess I should look over the part of the Ophelia mad scene that I cut, since I've added in part of it happening silently upstage, and want to be ready with it tonight. OK, that's something productive to do with the afternoon . . .


Oh, and here's a video I found on YouTube last night that I remembered to look for, which I had never seen in full, and only that many years ago -- Wall of Voodoo (with their second lead singer Andy Prieboy) covering the Beach Boys' "Do It Again," in a video featuring Mr. Brian Wilson himself (not entirely at a great point in his psychological health). Enjoy:

A few scattered things of interest from around the IntarWebs:


Apparently my two theatre friends - from different parts of my theatre life - Tom X. Chao and Bryan Enk have now become acquainted. Dear lord!


Tom X. Chao marks the occasion with a Peculiar Utterance of the Day that, for any friend of these friends (many of you that read this blog), MUST NOT BE MISSED! Pulse-pounding action! Right HERE!


There is something . . . unsettling . . . about putting what is basically a viral advertisement for a multi-million dollar motion picture here, but all the kids are doing it, and, as a fan of the books, I have some hopes for the film -- so here's the Daemon I got from the Daemon Generator on the tie-in website for the upcoming film of Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass:






I was a little unhappy to see that Zack Calhoon got another feline with the same name as mine -- hey, how many names/animals have they got in this Generator?

Berit, another fan of the Pullman books (though she HATED the ending of the trilogy a great deal) liked the Daemon she got, though she might have preferred something in the feline range. I think this is cooler:





And finally -- thanks to a pointer from urbaniak, a music video featuring the great Bob Hoskins (definitely no stranger to lip-synching) of Jamie T.'s "Sheila." I'm not sure when I think Hoskins is better -- when he's talking and expressing completely different emotions in his eyes, with his mouth, and with his body at the same time, or when he's just thinking and reacting, and letting you feel everything that's inside of him -- the final shot of The Long Good Friday, an extended, silent close-up of his face - actually a medium shot, but there's only one place you're looking - is one of the greatest moments of film acting ever (maybe, I'm not joking, the best).





Enjoy.

I started culling out songs from the iPod again that I really really didn't need in there. It had reached 21,100 songs, and was getting low on space (which also makes it work a little slower in some ways. So I went through and took a whole bunch out -- for some reason, I find it easiest to put them in order of length and go from longest to shortest -- and got rid of nearly 200 songs after going through maybe a fifth of the whole thing, so, not bad. Then I found a whole bunch of downloads I wanted, and put them in.


It's now at 21,147. I have to do a more thorough culling. Here's what's coming out of the little stuffed device this morning:


1. "Understand Your Man" - Johnny Cash - Legend

And part of what's been filling the iPod recently has been newly-added Johnny Cash. I now have more Cash in the iPod than I'll ever need or want (and I love the guy).

Problem is, he makes everything sound so damned good. This song would just be a tossed-off nothing for anyone else, and somehow, in a simple laid-back way, he makes it sound important and significant.

The title pretty much sums up the entirety of the song.


2. "Redd Kross" - Shonen Knife - The Birds and the B-Sides

Early, raw, unskilled Knife playing live -- exciting and charming. A Japanese girl's romantic view of how great the L.A. punk scene must be.


3. "Video Prick" - Deep Wound - Deep Wound 7" EP

Tight, skilled, wonderful hardcore. Could use a better vocalist, but s'okay. A good minute and a half.


4. "Moonshiner's Dance Part One" - Frank Cloutier & The Victoria Cafe Orchestra - Anthology Of American Folk Music, Vol. 2A: Social Music

And, from an old, scratchy 78, as collected by Harry Smith, another kind of driving, exciting music -- a great dance rave-up that sounds like it should be blaring from the saloon down the block.

I used this in my production of Mac Wellman's Harm's Way pretty effectively.


5. "Teachin' the Blues" - John Lee Hooker - The Ultimate Collection: 1948-1990

Professor Hooker schools us with a master lecture in the blues, breaking down the chords and where his beat came from -- "Now digs my feet!"


6. "I Can't Do Anything" - X-Ray Spex - Germfree Adolescents

One more piece of magnificent honking sax and handclap-driven English punk from a band that didn't give us nearly enough music before vanishing. Every song on this album is a classic. I miss this style/period/sound of rock -- hard, nasty, and yet somehow goodnatured in the midst of it all (as also with The Rezillos).


7. "December (demo)" - Regina Spektor - mix disk from my Dad

When I thought I'd had pretty much enough of the piano-playing female singer/songwriter, along came Spektor.


8. "Sammy's Theme" - Shawn Lee's Ping Pong Orchestra - Ubiquity Studio Sessions Vol.1—Music and Rhythm

Recent music trying to sound like European thriller/spy movie soundtrack music (or library tracks for such) and doing a pretty damned good job of it.


9. "Reelin' & Rockin" - Chuck Berry - The Great Twenty-Eight

I'm so used to hearing the great man covered that when this started my first thought was "Okay, who is this doing which Chuck Berry song?" Nice to hear the original.

I am always stunned by the brilliance of his craftsmanship and art, more so in having read his autobiography and seen the film Hail! Hail! Rock & Roll where it is apparent that he has no perception of his greatness in that way. He just did the songs as a good job, better than carpentry, and better-paying. To him, he just knocked them out.

Then you listen closely to the lyrics of "Maybelline" or "You Never Can Tell" or "Brown-Eyed Handsome Man," and realize how great they are (on top of his musically turning R&B into rock&roll) and wonder how they could have just been knocked out for the money. Jesus. Goes to show you never can tell.


10. "David B." - Brigitte Bardot - Le Disque d'Or

And from Bardot . . . an instrumental?! Well, I wasn't expecting this. Guess this was an interstitial track between songs on this album of hers. Short and sweet, anyway.


That went quick. Short songs today. Back to work -- things to do for Ian W. Hill's Hamlet, of course. But I'll take some new cat photos to put up later, too.

Enjoying my new ability to watch videos here, a link to a link to a link jogged something in my mind, which, combined with Tim Lucas' obit for director Curtis Harrington, reminded me to look for David Cronenberg's great short film Camera on YouTube and share it with those who haven't caught it yet:

PB,


Some answers below. Thanks for being on top of some of the textual issues. It's good to have a couple of people remind me of these things (Aaron Baker has also been on top of some of this).

Regarding the things I've done to the text, having worked on it for 15 years, I sometimes can't remember the reasons I did what I did to the play anymore. I've been living mainly with the cutting that I've been doing for all that time, not bothering to look at a "complete" version of the play. When I moved my pen and pencil cuts from the paperback I'd been working with to an electronic version in 2001, other problems may have come up (the online version I went to was a different combination of Q2 and F1 than the book I'd been using). The dropping of "observation" from my line that you pointed out last night is a good example of errors that should be corrected.

At the same time, some of the cuts that apparently change the meaning of the text are intended (I'd think of it not so much as changing as I would 'clarifying"). While things that might be confusing should be brought up, at the same time the text as it stands should be approached as a "Q3," in a way. This is the play we're doing, and variants should only be brought in when needed (as one would in doing a F1 production but bringing in Q1 or Q2 where it actually makes more "sense").

The show is Ian W. Hill's Hamlet not only out of ego, promotion, and pretension, but also to indicate an individual's specific point-of-view on the play. Hamlet, a masterpiece, is not a masterpiece like King Lear, or a damned great play like Macbeth, both of which work as dramatic pieces if you just stage them as is and stage them well. Hamlet is a big, brilliant, sprawling monster that works best as a play on its feet when a focus is given to it -- and many different focii will work -- but an unfocused version without a point of view becomes a tedious museum piece or a collection of "Billy Shakepeare's Greatest Hits!"

I haven't gone as far as Charles Marowitz, whose views on the play were very influential on my own, though ultimately towards different ends -- he cut it to a 90-minute collage and called it The Marowitz Hamlet -- but it is a WAY of looking at Hamlet. Which is what any production is, after all; it's just a question of HOW you choose to place your gaze.

But sometimes I need to reconsider whether I've looked the wrong way, even for what I want to do. Thanks for the ombudmanism.


Hey, Ian.  Got your note about Saturday.  A couple of "Hamlet" thoughts, FYI, or for the blog.


In rehearsing the speech to the players last night, I was struck when you pointed out how obnoxious is Hamlet's greeting to Horatio in the very next scene.  How Hamlet assures Horatio that his effusive greeting is not meant as flattery, for the simple, if mercenary reason that Horatio has no "revenue" to bestow upon flatterers.  Apart from his "good spirits," of course.

I just wanted to be sure you're aware that you've trimmed a large subsequent portion of that speech which places Hamlet's blithe snobbery in context.  After the initial comment about Horatio's "revenue," Hamlet goes on to praise Horatio for his even temper, a trait much more highly prized.


Yeah, here's a place where I didn't remember the cut at all - but this is the way it should be for this production. Whether I knew it when I made the cut, it's a vital part of this Hamlet.

I could have maybe used the "even temper" part to make the point that ultimately this is NOT a good thing for Horatio, one of the reasons he is NOT A GOOD FRIEND to Hamlet -- he accepts things in his friend that he shouldn't stand by for.

But in the end, dramatically speaking, we don't need it here, for this production, and it goes.


Also, you may want to consider trimming Gertrude's "Lady doth protest too much" line.  In the folio text, it comes after the spoken dialogue of the play-within-the-play, a large chunk of which involves the Player Queen declaring her undying love and loyalty to the King--BEFORE he's killed.  In your version, you have it coming after the dumbshow, which presents the entire plot of the play, ending with the Queen taking up with the Poisoner.  So the only thing the Player Queen can be protesting too much of now is either her grief over the dead Player King, or her refusal to take up with the Poisoner. 

Do you mean for Gertrude to be saying, in effect, that the Player Queen should've grieved less and fallen for the Poisoner more quickly?


In the case of this version as it's developed and focused, it's more about our Gertrude's royal reaction to a pretend Queen's very unroyal histrionics -- not even so much that Adam's Player Queen performance is bad, but it goes against Gertrude's opinion of how royalty behaves, which has become an important part of this production.

Also, Gertrude is holding back lots of anger -- the dumb show is more than enough to get across to almost everyone in the room what Hamlet is saying, before the Players speak a word, and Gertrude is having to keep a stiff upper lip in extremely unpleasant conditions.


Just one other note: in the spoken section of the play-within-the-play, Lucianus' first line is "Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing."  Not "The croaking raven doth bellow for revenge."  The raven line is not a quote from the PWP, but a continuation of Hamlet's last speech hurrying the actor to leave his damnable faces and begin the next part of the play.

Because, of course, the poisoner Lucianus is not seeking revenge on anybody.  He's about to secretly poison the king for his own gain.  So may I suggest you cutting me off on "hands apt?"


-PB


And here's exactly the kind of correction we need. Yes, of course, you're right on all counts here. That's how we'll do it.


thanks
IWH

Busy few days. Not only rehearsals for Ian W. Hill's Hamlet, but I've been having to put together and run techs for The Tiny Theater Festival in my position as Facilities Manager for The Brick.

As always, being one of the Lord God King Worriers of the world, I spent a good deal of Sunday night sure that I would be worn out and dead after the next few days, but everything wound up going pretty smoothly and, in fact, enjoyably.

Berit's always telling me, "Don't borrow trouble!" But especially after years working in theatres on the L.E.S. for a boss who never seemed to worry about things that needed to be worried about, with me in a constant state of stress and depression, worrying for the two of us and the theatres themselves, doing everything I could to make sure the theatres remained a going concern (and failing, though not-at-all entirely due to any lack of effort from me). I can't help but live, it appears, in anything but a state of assuming at all times that the worst thing that could happen, will happen, and I have to be prepared somehow to clean up the mess.


(Berit says that the worst insult I ever directed at her was calling her by the name of that former boss recently when I was in a funk about something I was sure was going to go wrong and she was trying to stop me brooding about it -- it's true, and was DEEPLY unfair!)


Monday day I went and got supplies that I was going to need to put together the cage for the Festival -- it's a festival of theatre done in no more than a 6'x6'x6' space, so we decided at The Brick to actually build a cage of those dimensions for the pieces to happen in -- well, we thought we all decided on this; it turns out that different people involved had different ideas about what was being discussed (some thought it was to be just a 6'x6' wooden frame downstage), but the cage is what wound up happening. So I got electrical conduit and connectors to make it, and primer to paint it white. Then when I stopped at The Brick to drop off the supplies, I discovered that Berit still had my key from when I was away. Oops. So I left the stuff in the car near the space, and trained up to the U.W.S. to rehearse at Edward Einhorn's place.


The building Edward lives in has a solarium as a public place for residents to use on the top floor. This has come in handy for Edward in rehearsing his shows, from time to time. Unfortunately, they're about to redo the room, which means the rehearsals I was planning to have there this next month are screwed (and Edward will probably have more problems in future working there, as the nice renovations will make the room more popular).

Daniel showed up, and the three of us (and Berit) went over all the Rosencrantz/Guildenstern/Hamlet bits, which were fairly simple tonally, but a little harder than I expected physically -- not easy to block the exact kind of "casual" movement of these three friends around each other. It's mostly there now, in shape, but can't really progress until we're all totally off-book. The movement needs to feel tossed off, easy, but still be rigidly planned.

The arc of the friendship through the scenes became clearer as well -- talk and speculation about their friendship, etc., establishing the whole history for us. The progression of them from two good friends trying to help out an old buddy who's acting weird to two angry members of the court trying to catch a dangerous, murderous madman works well.

Bryan showed up and we did all the bits with R&G and Hamlet and Polonius, together, or near each other. Simple work - first instincts mostly right, just needed focus and specifics to clarify.

Another actor scheduled to show had been working off an old schedule, and couldn't make it, so Bryan and I went on and did the Polonius/Hamlet scene, and then we were able to run a whole nice big chunk, from Polonius telling everyone to get lost, though his meeting with the annoyingly-weird Hamlet, through his leaving in disgust and R&G coming in, though Polonius coming back in to announce the players (and, skipping the players, to the end of scene exeunt of all but Lord Prince Garbagemouth). A good evening's work.


(Sometime I'll explain the whole Lord Prince Garbagemouth thing -- someone refers to Hamlet that way in William Peter Blatty's The Ninth Configuration -- as it's how I've come to think of the snotty little rich boy, as that or, for short, LPG).


So then, Monday night after rehearsal, back to The Brick (with key this time) to set up for the Tiny Theater techs the next day. Jakob, one of the TT directors, was nice enough to come by and help me with the cage and curtains (there's a permanent, and fragile, set by glass artist Megan Biddle in there for the show The Present Perfect, and it has to be curtained off for the TT shows) - a big help, thanks Jakob! - and I was out of the space by midnight.


And back the next morning at 8.35 am (Bryan gave me the exact time - he lives near the space and saw me opening up as he was going to work) for techs all day to 6.00 pm. And, an easy, fun day it turned out to be, despite all worrying. Three techs, all smooth as silk. And looking to be good theatre, too. A happy productive day doing what I like doing. Can't ask for more than that.


Except a good rehearsal in the evening, which I also got. After worrying like crazy about making it from The Brick to La Tea by 7.00 pm, what with evening traffic and finding a parking space, I was there over a half-hour early.

Then, I worked with Jessi on the big Hamlet/Ophelia scene. This is a difficult one, and we will be continuing to do more and more with it. It's VERY sensitive tonally, and with all the ranting Hamlet does in the show, can't just be another one (well, none of them can be "just another one") - there's a delicacy to the emotion here, even in high shouty anger, that must be conveyed and dealt with.

Jessi and I had some serious discussion about the feelings of the two for each other, but mainly about Hamlet. As in, does he actually love Ophelia? There was some slight dissension there, but in the end it came to a good understanding, I believe. I don't think Hamlet is capable of true love, but I think his feelings for Ophelia are just about as deep as true love, his caring for her, but he's so stunted and sick in some ways -- unable to deal with the combination of the perfect lovely image he tries to keep of her in his head, and his wretched, maggoty disgust of sex itself (and he's certainly slept with her) -- that his ultimate feelings toward her (especially combined with his new paranoias) are CONFUSED and NOT GOOD.

So we got to a good place to proceed from, but I'm still walking a line of not making it too similar to the Hamlet/Gertrude confrontation that we've already staged -- a lot of the same internal ugliness comes to the fore there, and actually finally explodes there. So this has to be a particular climax for Ophelia, a huge break for her, while being a step on a larger road emotionally for Hamlet that ends in his mother's closet. I had not wanted to manhandle Jessi in this scene, just physically threaten her, saving the grabbing and throwing for Stacia/Gertrude, but in the end, it just didn't seem to work unless I pushed her around a bit (Jessi really wanted to go there, and seemed to need it, and, yeah, she was right). Ugly. And a start. Yes, a hard scene.


Bryan and Adam showed up, giving us the whole Polonius clan, and we did the farewell to Laertes scene, which I've set at dockside, with people bustling by, jostling the conversation. Polonius has to rush through his speech as the ship horn blows, then he and Ophelia have to shout some of their lines to each other as they wave goodbye to the (LOUD) departing liner. Very nice.

I have had a very clear idea in my head for years about the tonal qualities, pace, and attitudes of this scene, so there was some detail work immediately involved. And there will continue to be. The family dynamic was starting to be there by the last repetition.


Adam left and we did the little bit of Ophelia coming to tell her dad about LPG's odd behavior, a deeper and richer bit than I had figured. We got a lot out of it.

I've been thinking about this play as "a director" for 18 years, and thought I "had it down," but the moment actors are up there doing it, entire other levels become apparent.

Especially with Ophelia. She has remained, for years, the biggest mystery of this play for me.


Okay, I could go on, but I have to get back to The Brick and paint the cage white and rehang the curtains properly before the 4.00 pm tech.

I've made up a CD of house music for before, in between, and after the four pieces on the Tiny Theater program. I chose songs that came up in iTunes based on searches for the words "square," "box," "cage," and "tiny." I'll see how many people notice who didn't read that here . . .

In a rush right now to get myself together and leave Maine, so I can get home at a reasonable mid-afternoon time, rest a bit, and get myself together again to go into Manhattan for the second reading of Ian W. Hill's Hamlet tonight with the (almost) full cast (we're down one due to a schedule error, unfortunately).


So while I have the needed cup of coffee, and before I do the last little jobs around the house I promised my mom I'd do, here's a couple of cats, and a few songs.





Hooker, and his Floppy Ear, approve. And meanwhile, back in the iPod . . .


1. "Things You Only Know If You Don't Drive" - The Amateurs - download

Nice alt-rock country-tinged pop song. Must of got this from some site where I'm downloading lots of current (?) music in a vague attempt to have some sense of surfing the zeitgeist.


2. "So Many Roads, So Many Trains" - Otis Rush - Living the Blues: Blues Masters

Beautiful, in a distant, recorded across a big empty room, way.


3. "Bumble Bee '65" - The Motions - Wavy Gravy - For Adult Enthusiasts Only

Preceded on this record (and track) with a radio ad for an exploitation film called Pickup on 101 "starring Leslie Warren, Jack Albertson, and Martin Sheen!" Gotta find that film someday. "She looks easy but she's seen and done it all!" "Going . . . my way?"

Then a nasty fast guitar instrumental, with vague "Misirlou" tendencies. I think I have the group's earlier version of this somewhere, too. Guess it was the only song of theirs to make it.


4. "Bedazzled" - Bongwater - The Power of Pussy

Ann Magnuson and Kramer cover the Dudley Moore classic from the film of the same title (yes I know Peter Cook performed it in the film, Moore wrote it).

I had dreamed of covering this on my 4-track for years when I heard this version, and decided "It's been done." Especially as Magnuson does it in the same faux-German accent I had been planning on using.


5. "Ebb Tide" - The Platters - The Magic Touch: An Anthology

Great version of the standard. Obviously late Platters - a clean, 60s-sounding, stereo recording - and almost a little syrupy in the arrangement, but not quite, but the vocals are magnificent! The Platters should be remembered for more than the one or two "big" hits they had. They were special.


6. "Death Walks in High Heels" - Jerry Van Rooyen - At 250 MPH

Slick, spy movie upbeat jazz, from a collection of European (German, specifically?) movie music of the 60s by Van Rooyen, who I don't know otherwise. Much more jazz than pop/lounge based, as most other low-budget spy movie music of the time was. Real nice drum and trumpet solos. Pretty classy, really.


7. "Year of the Parrot" - Primus - Tales from the Punchbowl

And in another universe, 1990s spiky, odd altrock from this power trio, heavily influenced by The Residents, Captain Beefheart, and King Crimson (maybe more precisely by Tony Levin) but making pop music you can groove and dance to.


8. "Shub-a-dooe" - The Peter Thomas Sound Orchestra - Raumpatrouille

What the HELL is this track? Oh, this is great! Also from a collection of a composer's 60s movie soundtracks. It's like a sweet lullaby of nonsense lyrics sung by a jazz-voiced man over a syrupy string arrangement with a roller-rink organ way up front.

Oh, I HAVE to use this somewhere!


9. "Midway Down" - The Creation - How Does It Feel To Feel?

More cool, snotty late-60s "heavy" psychedelic rock that I found in researching the music for Temptation. I used a song by these guys in the show, but I like the whole album. It's kind of typical, but better than most. The lyrics would probably get on my nerves if I bothered to really try to hear what they're saying.

Very poppy "la-la" chorus that would not be out of place, songwise, with The Archies or The Monkees. Helps leven the attempted "heaviness."


10. "Rammstein (edit)" - Rammstein - Lost Highway

A little something from a Lynch soundtrack. Heavy, Laibach-sounding German rock with intoning bass vocalist. Works to provide memories of this, a favorite film.

And also then to remind me I have to be on the highway this dreary, overcast morning myself.


But waiting at home for me . . .





As well as Berit, who would probably prefer no photo of her here. So none. So, more than worth it driving home now.

A lot of people have passed on recently that I haven't mentioned -- plenty of fine tributes elsewhere.
But I thought I should share a little something from Mr. "Tiny Bubbles" Himself, Don Ho.
I heard this cover online the day he died, but just discovered the very entertaining video, courtesy of WFMU's Beware of the Blog.

LINK
UPDATE: I still don't get it. The video shows up in my entry when I edit it, and when I preview it (I see it right now above as I write this update), but vanishes when I post the entry . . . I've included the link again above as I did with the vanishing Greenaway films. And now all my line breaks are vanishing, too, though they're in the code and appear in the preview. This is frustrating. Now my updates are vanishing when I try to post them, and I'm having to go into the (accurate) preview I still have opne and cut and paste everything. What the hell is up with LiveJournal?

Just had two front teeth pulled.


Not so terrible. Everyone has horror stories about tooth-pullings, but apart from the emergency one I had done at Kings County Hospital (I can still viscerally feel that one being wrenched from its socket) mine have been . . . well, not a breeze, but not as bad as having a cavity filled, as far as I'm concerned. This makes six teeth taken out of my head, only two of them wisdom teeth (I'm getting the last two wisdoms out later this year - I'm trying to get my front teeth fixed prior to Ian W. Hill's Hamlet; I might make it).


The problem with the pulling isn't so much the pulling, as the sheer annoyance for a day afterward . . .



Goo goo ga joob!


Ah, yes, the wonderful gauze in the mouth! GOD I HATE IT!


So, I'm trying to get these two teeth (not quite symmetrical, one is next to one of the very front ones, the other is two teeth off, by a canine) replaced for the show. Even if I don't though, I can tell already that my smile looks better and acceptable without the two blackened stumps that I had in there. I'm having two other teeth (next to the pulled ones) fixed on Thursday, which will remove some large stains and discolorations, so things will look better all around.


I spent most of my time in the chair today going over my lines in my head, at least for the first couple of scenes -- with Claudius and Gertrude, then the monologue, then with Horatio, Marcella, and Bernardo. I have barely studied my lines since I've been up here, and that was a big part of the plan in coming up, but the time between appointments has been somewhat filled with helping my mom out on some Spring cleaning, which she really needed done. I should be able to spend all my free time today through Thursday on the script, though.


Still, being in the chair focuses the mind greatly -- while Dr. Dheeraj Pamidimukkala (nice guy, good work) was snapping, twisting, and pulling the buggers out, I was pretty well able to get through the entire sequence, including the "Oh, that this too too solid flesh--" speech, with almost no blips in my head. I tried it out loud in the room between the two pullings, as they gave me time to rest, but it sounded a little too odd:


Ohhh, dhat thiss too too tholid fleth would melllt,
Thaugh, ahnd frisolth itshelf into a doo--


I was worried it would get stuck in my head that way and I'd spend a lot of rehearsals holding back giggles, so I stopped.


So today is script work and biting down on gauze. Nice.

I was saddened to hear about the sudden death - car accident in San Francisco - of writer/newspaperman David Halberstam. The current Times obit is HERE - it appears to be a brief squib from the AP right now; I assume the paper he served (and which stood by him) in difficult times will do more for him later.


There was plenty of writing about the death of Kurt Vonnegut around the blogs, and he certainly meant a great deal to me, but nothing worth saying that others weren't saying better. On the other hand, I don't know a lot of people who read Halberstam's books, unfortunately, and I might as well recommend my favorites as I'm thinking of him now.


He's probably best known for The Best and the Brightest, his epic account of the bad decisions that got America into Vietnam. A great book informationally, I still find it a slog to read compared to his other work. Still, it's amazing to me that, according to Amazon, it appears to be out-of-print (though available used).


I prefer The Powers That Be, a history of the news media in the US, The Fifties, an overview of the decade, which was also turned into an excellent series on The History Channel (with annoying bookends added on the original broadcasts in which Roger Mudd smugly dismisses the achievements of the liberal forces profiled in that evening's show), and my favorite, The Reckoning, a history of the auto industry in the US and Japan -- in my dreams, I have the skill and the budget to turn this massive book into an opera. I generally wind up reading these three at least once a year, and they're always worth revisiting.


An excellent nonfiction work in which Halberstam figures greatly as a character is William Prochnau's Once Upon a Distant War, an account of the first groups of American journalists covering Vietnam in country, and their growing disillusionment with the war and the US government.


I first encountered Halberstam in the parody figure that Garry Trudeau made of him for a week in Doonesbury as he interviewed Rick Redfern for his upcoming "massive tome," The Creme de la Creme. So for years I somewhat thought of him as the pompous ass Trudeau played him as. Later, reading his work and seeing interviews with him, I was pleased to note that, judging from his personality, probably no one laughed longer and harder at Trudeau's version of Halberstam than Halberstam himself.


He had a book on the Korean War scheduled to come out later this year. I hope he left it in some kind of publishable form. I'd like to read it.