CollisionWorks

Finally, my body is getting the message. Woke me up at exactly 6.00 am this morning, kept me up about a quarter-hour, then let me fall back asleep until 8. About time.

Yesterday, excellent performances of Harry in Love and Spell (not that I don't have notes, but the shows were just great with good energy), and week two of the Gemini CollisionWorks August Trio at The Brick is down.

And Berit & I have two days off. Finally.

Except of course, for making a postcard run to the Fringe NYC venues, and doing some email work on the shows (notes) and the upcoming Clown Festival (technical arrangements). Tomorrow.

Today, we're hunkering down. The original plan was to arrange the day so we don't have to leave the apartment, but I think I have to go out for some groceries. I wanna go get myself a breakfast sammich from Alice & Ben's grocery next door, too.

Tomorrow, we go see The Dark Knight in IMAX. Just 'cause. We almost never see movies in the theatre anymore (when in Maine in Summer we've sometimes gone to a drive-in), so it'll be a nice change (in 2006, we saw INLAND EMPIRE twice in December, and that was it, in 2007, it was No Country for Old Men, also twice, also in December). Until I put on the new Criterion DVD of Mishima a few days ago, we hadn't had the TV on in weeks (and then we watched Vertigo two nights ago). Too much to do with plays to bother with others arts and/or entertainments right now.

But we just want to go somewhere cool and sit in front of a big screen right now and watch Big Things Go 'Splody. Well, I do and B is happy to join me.

We live so much at The Brick, it'll be nice to get away. How much do we live at The Brick? Well, I was amused to look up the space on Google Earth not long ago and see this exterior view . . .

Yup, that's our good ol' Big Blue Plymouth (and I'm sure David Byrne didn't have a vehicle anything like this in size or form when he wrote the song of that name on The Catherine Wheel, but it's become our car's theme song anyway) - sitting, as usual, in front of The Brick (with our landlord's car that went up in flames right there directly behind us). Quite obviously, given the poster and signboard out front (for those who don't know The Brick, it's the little entranceway behind the tail of Petey) this was obviously taken during last year's Clown Festival, with the old door still on.

Yeah, it's just chance that Petey was there when the Google Car drove by, but it was a damned good chance, I can assure you.

Oh, and as that reminds me, just for fun, inside the cut, two videos: Talking Heads excellently performing Byrne's "Big Blue Plymouth (Eyes Wide Open)" live in England in 1982 - I wish there was more band footage and less artsy stock footage but whatever - and, apropos of nothing, Boris Karloff doing an ad for the Ronson Comet lighter in the late 60s.

( Find a dangerous, windy place . . . )

In other news, the damned fine Bernie Mac has passed on, and the MAGNIFICENT Mr. Isaac Hayes has as well. He was the Duke of New York, he was A-Number-One (hey, maybe today's a good day to pull out Escape from New York, and then, by extension, a whole John Carpenter fun-fest!). He was also the artist behind the great Hot Buttered Soul album - which I can't access right now, as I only have it on vinyl - and, of course, he was Chef on South Park.

And he wrote the terrific "Theme from Shaft." Leonard Jacobs, over at his blog, does a great service by posting the entire opening title sequence from Shaft in honor of Mr. Hayes, which is valuable as you can see why Hayes' song was such a GREAT theme song for a movie, even more than just as a song on its own - the rhythms and sounds in that piece accompanying Richard Roundtree in his walk around a freezing cold Times Square (great period view of marquees and theatre posters!) are just beautiful (as is Roundtree's FINE coat). Beautifully shot by noted photographer Gordon Parks (here as director).

Okay, thunder outside - time to run and get the sammich and hunker down with some entertainment for the day. The "DO NOT DISTURB" sign is out.

UPDATE: Oh, right - We'll be posting some thoughts on the creation and meaning of the three current shows at The Brick's aptly-named blog, B(rick)log (and when I say, "we" it really means me but I'm hoping I can convince Berit to give her own point of view in an entry). An introductory note is up now. So that's something else I have to do tomorrow or the next day, write some more of these things . . .