Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
JaNell -- As do I...

Will -- No, Harlan has never directed that particular brand of charm
at my person.  (I'll have cake.)
     I am heartened to hear that the new Garbage CD is good.

Pamela -- I can't believe you did that.  That story is also available
in a footnote in Hy Bender's Sandman Companion, though it's always
nicer to hear Neil tell it.
  

    

Stagewalker- so what you're saying is that, despite the fact that inside of
a dog, it's too dark to read, it is NOT too dark to put on a stage
production?
I learn things every day.
  

    
Oh, and I forgot to remark that while Neil's story was kept in England, my
story was moved from an unnamed Midwestern city near Wisconsin that has
Jewel supermarkets to an unnamed Western city that has Albertson's--
  

    
Jen~I loved the Chihuly Exhibit when it came to the KMA! I just love
glass work, period...

Pam~If you flipped by the blog, didn't you notice the "Scary Trousers"
link there from a few days back? I forgot to put it up until this past
week or so, but I've had it a while and forgot to share...
  

    
All of which just proves that Wisconsin is much more of a foreign
concept to West Coasters than England is. :)
  

    
JaNell- I was going to say that I hadn't noticed the "Scary Trousers"
link you mentioned, either, and then I realized you were talking about
*your* blog (you are, right?).  Which I haven't checked in a while. 
Sorry.

You know, you guys are making me really, really damned jealous lately.
 Tori and Neil at shows.  Drinks with Bono (you know, I'm not a big U2
fan, but Bono seems like a good bloke to have a drink with).  Awesome
plays.  Dammit.  Philly better be more interesting than Manhattan,
that's all I'm saying.
  

    
Will-the "Scary Trousers" link is on the JaNell blog, the chatty one;
all my stories that are posted have moved to the Excentrica blog.
  

    
It's on the Tuesday, Oct. 16 entry...
  

    
Pamela - thank you for the links! I'm so glad to have über bandwidth
at work, so I was able to watch Neil's clip after a decent interval.
The story about Moore was also really groovy.
Also, I can't take credit for the device of layering the actors...
it's a purely practical concern as we would have had to have a cast of 
 about 20 if we had cast each part separately.

Madman - nowadays, artists will put on a performance anywhere they can
get space. It does require very tiny lights to stage a production
inside the gastro-instestinal tract of small canines.

Martha - interestingly enough, she always gets a laugh with the
Albertson's bags. I've never been entirely sure why...

btw... I hesitate to mention this, as the information is available in
my Well profile.. but while my website doesn't have a blogger per se,
I've got a collection of poetry, short stories, short plays from my
church days, and an online journal I've been keeping for over two
years. Since everyone else is throwing out their urls lately...
http://come.to/macguru
  

    
It looks pretty interesting over there, Dan. I've filed the book mark
in my 'Thingees' folder so I can look more later.
  

    
... well.

That dot.come I worked for? Dot.gone.

Pfffh.
-Loiosh, who should probably be grateful she's getting 2 weeks
severence...
  

    

I got laid off on Monday. No, actually, let me rephrase- I was informed on
Monday that I had been laid off the previous Tuesday. When on the previous
Wednesday, the company controller had informed me that the furlough (2 weeks
long thus far) had been "extended" until Monday.
The company owes of $3k in back wages, and that's ignoring the promised
severance, because I'm sure they've lost the paperwork that shows that they
had promised it in the first place.

Don't mean to try to one up- just showing the silver lining in your
situation. Or something.

(Yes, I've filed legal action.)
  

    

Man it just gets worser and worser.  Sorry you guys.  %^)  You can come
camp out over by me.  I had a job interview yesterday.  I was supposed to
meet with four people, but after the first two was told that the other two
were not available.  Ordinarily I might not have thought too much about
that, were it not for the fact that it's a technique I've used myself when
I've been the hiring manager, and I can see that a candidate is so wrong
that there's no point in wasting any more time.  I get one job interview
about every six weeks, interspersed with intervals of no response to
resumes at all.
  

    
Heh madman - I'll believe I'm getting my last paycheck and severence
when it hits the bank account..  :-/

-Kel
  

    

You are wise.
The only reason I'm only owed $3k instead of $5.5k is because they failed to
stop the wire transfer in time into my direct deposit account.
  

    
Kelly, Madman--Sorry!  This sucks.

I work for a travel agency, and we've been cut down to 4 day work
weeks to avoid having to lay off more people (that's without pay).  The
economy is scaring me worse than terrorists right now.

Will--Garbage opened for U2 the other night.  They so totally rocked,
but I was bummed that they didn't play Androgyny from the new album. 
Shirley kept saying that she was messing up, and if that's what they're
like on an off night, sign me up to see 'em again!

Interesting side note--you know how most headliners have almost no
contact with their opening act?  Like they may say a couple of nice
things about them when the tour starts & then that's it?  After the
show Monday night, all the guys in U2 & all of Garbage were spotted
munching sushi at some late night place here in town.  Just thought it
was kind of cool that they hung out together.  Of course, last tour,
Bono went out to dinner with the band one night & paid for everybody in
the restaurant.  No wonder we love him here ;-)   

Mary (trying to finish Angel of Darkness to find out *what happens*!)
  

    
Don’t you just hate it when you’ve written a great post [to your mind]
and you accidentally hit the mouse and end up at the placemark page
twice losing everying you’ve done?!   Sigh

Will -  The Dumbo Arts Festival is happening in Brooklyn this weekend.
 Come on over and cure those Manhattan blues.  

Pamela -  I’m embarrassed to say it, but the sock puppets were the
notorious Sifl & Olly from the now defunct Sifl & Olly Show that used
to air on MTV.  It was a talk show hosted by two sock puppets in their
very bizarre world with crazy friends and strange guests [They once
interviewed a 9 volt battery!].  The show was somewhat reminiscent of a
cross between Pee Wee’s Playhouse and Tenacious D.   It was very
creative, subversive and hysterically funny.  So of course it got
cancelled.  Anyway, a few months ago while I was in Nashville attending
a sock puppet convention associated with the show, I kept having
dreams about the puppets.  And before you think I’ve gone over the
edge, most of the people there had been corresponding for over four
years and it was an opportunity for us to finally meet at this
convention [for lack of a better word] with the creators of the show. 
About 75 people showed up from all over the country in the worst hotel
on the planet.  It was comparable to the worst sushi on the planet that
I experienced that last time I was in Nashville, but once again the
excellent company saved the day.

By the way, the only other convention at the hotel that weekend was a
retreat for “The Church of the Burning Pillar of Christ and the
Grounded Truth.”   They were right above “Sockheads” on the hotel’s
event marquee.  ;>

And thanks for posting the links “Scary Trousers” and the article on
Alan Moore.  It was surprising to learn that while there are many web
pages devoted to his work, apparently he hasn’t had much interaction
with his fans on the Internet. 

I was struck by his observation about the relationship between fans
and celebrities:

"People don't communicate with celebrities the way that they
communicate with ordinary human beings," he says. "I believe very much
the maxim that communication is only possible between equals, and when
people are putting me on a pedestal as they did do at the conventions
and things like that, then they're talking up to you through this
stellar dazzle. It didn't feel very human and it felt very lonely."

Seen from that perspective, I can well imagine.  If you’ve ever
attended a book signing or convention it can be very awkward to meet
someone you admire in such an unnatural setting.  You wish to leave an
impression and they wish to please.  Not easy.

However, the Internet has possibly been the one tool that has
humanized the interaction between the one who admires and the recipient
of such admiration.  Certainly a forum like The Well manages to strip
away the artificiality associated with those events.  

But that still begs the question, once “fan mode” gets switched off,
does engaging in a sharing thoughts and ideas with the individual whose
work one admires really bring about communication between equals?  

I have no idea why this is stuck in my mind, but it is.
  

    
Rocky asked, "But that still begs the question, once ?fan mode? gets
switched off,
does engaging in a sharing thoughts and ideas with the individual
whose
work one admires really bring about communication between equals? "

No, not always. 

(These are thought more about friendship with the famous than
conversations)

A great conversation between equals often leads to exchanged phone
numbers, email addresses, friendship.
How often does that happen between celebrities, and non-celebrities?
There's always that fan/celebrity thing in between, cutting them off
from each other. I can't see Bono calling me up some afternoon saying,
"I'm bored, talk to me," or "this new album really sucks and I'm scared
it's all over," but my friends do... 
Celebrities shield themselves much more than regular people, it seems.

As if that level of friendship you can reach with your non-celebrity
friends is missing, or inaccessible, or more hidden... 
So they still aren't treating you as an equal.
Not that I'm saying it's impossible.
 
  

    
I forgot to say, I'm not a fannish person. 
If it ain't equals, I ain't interested.
If I don't have just as much to offer you, celebrity or not, as you
have to offer me, then I'm wasting both of our time.
  

    

It's looking like tonight is the best time available to me to go see Hearts
In Shadow... anyone else up for going tonight?
  

    
Well, I went last week and I'm otherwise engaged tonight, but have fun!
  

    
Pamela -- what a cool, strange dream.

JaNell -- I wasn't laughing at you then or now

Will -- I sent the actual stories to the lady who runs
strange-little-girls.com, as the versions she had up looked like they'd
been scribbled down by someone in a hurry who then couldn't read their
handwriting, so the ones there should now be correct.

(Thanks for posting that they were up, JaNell.)

Mary -- well, if I'd met someone and thought they were unpleasant I
probably simply wouldn't mention it here. But, yes, I liked Bono. He
seemed like he thought about things.

JaNell -- you had the Harlan dream? uh-oh. Most people who have that
dream have him showing up at their houses within the fortnight. Honest.

Martha -- it's only when I read one of your long Martha reviews I
realise how much I miss them. (I saw the Umbrellas of Cherbourg the
other night. Was trying to remember whether or not I'd seen it before,
then realised that, no, I hadn't, I'd read your review on Genie...)

Pamela -- an educated guess, no Alan and Eddie aren't getting
residuals. They may be cut in for a share of the net profits, but
Studios are entities designed to ensure that there can never be net
profits. But they may sell some more copies of From Hell. And they were
well paid for the rights.

Kelly. Madman. Ouch. Good luck.

Rocky -- I think that can be true. On the other hand, it's also why I
try to do a small convention every year, like the one in Tasmania, for
example, or Knoxville -- the kind of cons where the celebrity doesn't
last very long, because there are only a few hundred people there. But
then, the cons that turned Alan off were things like UKCAC and San
Diego, not things like Mexicon, or even the old British Fantasy
Conventions.

Book signings and suchlike aren't about celebrity or glamour. For the
person signing, they're hard work, mostly.

JaNell -- well, leaving aside phone calls from editors and
agents,which I have to take, I try and avoid the phone as much as
possible.I mean, I can't imagine calling anyone up saying "I'm bored,
talk to me." And my response to someone who called me up, famous or
otherwise, saying "I'm bored, talk to me," would be to suggest that
they read a book.

Or to give them Harlan's number, and suggest they call him up and say
"I'm bored, talk to me". I bet they wouldn't be bored any more.

But I don't think that has anything to do with famousness or
otherwise. It has to do with how much time there is in a day, and what
you choose to do with it.

....

Saw MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG last night at the Guthrie lab.

A fine cast, good voices, doing a problem play, not helped by a very
unfocused director, who decided to solve the whole "backward" thing by
Starting with the SPutnick in 1957 scene, and then doing it again (this
time with the OUR TIME song) at the end.

This was a stupid idea. 

Going from there into a televised version of the Hills of Tomorrow
speech and then into the "That Frank" bit made the beginning confusing.
(Why was he giving the speech? To whom? And why did people come out in
coats and hats and start singing "how did you get there from here?" --
they weren't the kids at the graduation. Who on earth were they?)

And from there on, it chugged along, solidly. The director seemed to
feel it was less about the tiny crimes and damage we do to ourselves
and our dreams, than about the road-not-taken of Mary and Frank. The
Gussie character was brittle and over the top all the way, which was a
pity, as the character works best as you see her turning slowly back
into a secretary.

It was also relentlessly choregraphed, in order to fill the large
Guthrie lab space. Good dancing that seemed completely redundant,
obvious and which rapidly became really dull. Sondheim doesn't stop the
action for songs. Why did they keep stopping everything for dances?

I'm only grumbling as I love Merrily We Roll Along.It makes me
uncomfortable in all the right ways. Last time I saw it, off broadway
in NY with my friend Anne Bobby as Beth, I was hugely impressed. 

I suspect that the place where people go wrong with Merrily is in
trying to fix it...

Made me want to write a backwards play, though. Or a backwards story.


 
  

    
Oh, I forgot to say that at the very end, the 1957 Frank climbs on the
back of another cast member and heroically pulls down the huge
projected image of 1981 Graduation Frank as the final beat of the play,
as if to indicate that the play really is about the triumph of
youthful dreams over middle-aged suit-wearing death. WHich, of course,
it's not...
  

    
Neil, you're too sweet.  I was worried that it was too long a review for
anyone to plow through....

Eventually I'll figure out a place on the Well to do that sort of thing more
often.  Because I do see things I'd like to talk about.  Hedwig and the
Angry Inch, a few months ago, it bore talking about.

I've never seen the regular version of Merrily We Roll Along--I've seen too
little Sondheim staged live, really.  A good Palo Alto production of Into
the Woods, a good San Jose production of Assassins, during which audience
members kept walking out (I understand it was to be revived in New York, but
they've put that on hold Considering), and a badly miscalculated A Little
Night Music performed as light opera.  Anyway I'll be sure not to fly to the
Midwest and see this one, but wait for a staging that doesn't try to fix it
so much.
  

    <scribbled>