Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Figures. I'm seeing a friend's show all the way down in Palo Alto that
night.. odds of getting back to SF in time for the show are next to
nil.

I still need to have you and boy over to my new digs, but nights are
totally shot for the next two weeks. Actually, I'm overdue for a Story
Night. Maybe a Sunday night, after Comedy of Errors opens?

Oh, and I actually find cats less than condusive to napping...
something about the feline desire to sit on my chest and massage my
neck in an attempt to kill me...

feh
  

    <scribbled>
  

    
(Michelle doing a little dance)

<img
src="http://www.handykult.de/plaudersmilies.de/party/dance2.gif";>



(Accompanied by Rosin Coven)

<img src="http://www.handykult.de/plaudersmilies.de/nopity.gif";>





[Please pardon any parts of Well HTML that rebel; at least I scribbled
the one with my own mistakes in it.]
  

    
Now how did I know that Neil's very next journal entry after Monday
afternoon would begin with "There."?
  

    
Quite a bit ago (in the previous topic) there was mention of Donnie
Darko.

Well, I've finally watched it, watched a couple of the out-takes, went
to the website and made it mostly through the 3rd section.

This is an odd film, in that I still can't say I'm satisfied, but at
the same time, I want to go back and watch it again and maybe listen to
all the commentary.
  

    
Glen,  it gets under your skin. As does the wonderful
score/soundtrack, which I bought directly after seeing the film (and
incidently, have been listening to while I'm trying to write song
lyrics (the most recent effort being here:
http://www.livejournal.com/talkpost.bml?journal=maure&itemid=15375 for
anyone who has a masochistic bent)).

re: band stuff: Our first gig is on Valentine's Day. We're playing
love songs, of course. Chrissy (groove box diva) has been sending me
song titles, to which I have to write the songs. Some of them include
"You're Awesome, But You're Ugly," "I Thought You Had A Trust Fund,"
"Please Don't Take That Out Again," "Discard That Cane (During
Love-Making)," and "Your Love Is Like A Train Running Over My Legs."
She's very helpful.

Christy,  you possess psychic abilities? 

Dan, my cat Frankenstein believes she should be closest to my face --
when I sleep, she'll work her way in front of Kira, even if it means
being directly on my face. I wake up before being suffocated with a
mouthful of cathairs. I love cats.

Squeaks, I miss you singing too. I kept checking the SFMidi Mafia site
for more clips of you, but no luck. Glad to see you popping in, even
if it is just my imagination.
  

    <scribbled by dfowlkes Tue 3 Jul 12 10:14>
  

    

Wow, how many people have cats named Frankenstein? I wouldn't expect it to
be a common name for a cat.
I'm back from the holidays. Hi everyone. This year I gave out one hardcover
_Dream Hunters_ and two copies of Coraline- one hardcover and one book on
tape. The person I gave Coraline to made the mistake of starting it before
going to bed one evening.

She told me the next day that she slept with the light on.
Congrats, Neil. I think she likes it.

I'm off to bed. Hello and goodbye, as always.
  

    
My cat is Cleopatra. Cleo for short. Queen of the Condo.
  

    
Maure -- Chrissy comes up with great song titles!  Reminds me of a
contest <i>The Tonight Show</i> ran, back when Johnny was host, where
people had to invent a title for Doc Severinson to turn into a country
song.  The winner was:  "If You Knew Susie Like I Know Susie, Here's
the Name of a Good Clinic."

Now there's a love song for ya!

Welcome back, (madman)!

I forgot to mention that I also gave "Nicholas Was..." Christmas cards
to my mom and my brother.  Then I got The Sandman 2003 calendar for
Ben, along with a set of Sandman postcards.

Does anyone else frequent (I use the word loosely) the Hyphenation
topic besides David and me?

I'm tired today.  Wonder if it's the weather.
  

    
Apologies if anyone's seen this elsewhere, but PlayGround's Monday Night
PlayLab (a competition that presents winning short plays written to a tight
deadline on a monthly topic, at A Traveling Jewish Theatre's stage in San
Francisco)

(sentence too long, takes a breath)

has selected my entry, "Cold Calls", to close this Monday's show of staged
readings.  This is the second time in three months I've entered (the first
competition, I was in anaphylactic shock, and last month was Christmas, so
actually two out of four).  The first one they've taken.  My first play
wasn't skiffy, this one is.

Not that I've _heard_ from them yet, but they've got it up on their website:

http://www.playground-sf.org

Been an age since I've written an original piece for the stage.  I'll be
really interested in seeing it.
  

    
Congratulations, Martha!
  

    
That's wonderful, Martha! Congratulations! I'd love to see something
of yours on stage.

Christy,  Chrissy comes up with difficult song titles. They're obvious
enough, and usually spell out the song's content, but it's very
difficult to find rhymes that make sense for things like "menage a
one." I don't really know how to go about writing songs for "I'm A
Seven Sided Octagon Without You," or "I Don't Like It When You Look At
Me With Your Glass Eye." I mean, after that, what is there left to say?
A friend of mine thought our songwriting arrangement was very funny --
I told him in jest that she makes up the titles, I write the songs,
and she gets all of the credit, and he said, "Hey -- it's the Marvel
way!"

Madman,  when she was a kitten, she had a really big head and great
bulgy eyes, and lurched everywhere (as kittens will). Now she's
probably the prettiest cat I've ever seen, so people look at me funny
when I tell them her name is Frankenstein. My sister Ashley named her,
along with my other cat (Cat), and my mother's ferret (Chicken). Ashley
has a . . . erm . . . way with names.
  

    

I have seen something of Martha's on stage, and yes, it was wonderful.
  

    
Sorry about that. Writing. Currently trying one of those split
keyboard things, and I don't think they were intended for people who
hunt and peck, even if they hunt and peck at astonishing speeds and
have been doing so for 20 years...

Mary -- Merlin's Time or Running Man. Or Mondo Sinistro. Of you want a
CD of 24 Carrots let me know -- I've got two.

good lord. Tara got a haircut.

Dodge -- it's strange running into people who aren't what they were,
or who you thought they were, and then you have to figure out if it was
them or you...

DanGuy -- you're welcome. It's good to spread Enoch Soames.

Erynn - i'm glad to be addictive. I was talking to people at DC about
doing Sandman as 3 boxed sets, with 3 or 4 books in. "And we price the
first box really cheap..." I told them. Heh heh heh.

Mary again, congrats and yay!

Maure -- I'm not sure the office would be as much fun watch the BBC
America way, with ads interrupting it.  it is very brilliant, unless
you're someone who finds it unwatchable.

Hullo Miss Mouse.

Christy -- you animator of Welll posts. How strange...

And it would either have started "There" or "Aaaaargh!!!!"

Madman -- I'm pleased they worked as presents


Martha -- you wrote a play? That's brilliant. What kind of thing is
it?

Maure -- it's very
difficult to find rhymes that make sense for things like "menage a
one."

hmm...
A menage a one
is incredibly fun
Though some prefer
a menage a deux
but not for me
a menage a three
or that awful bore
a menage a four
and I so abhor
a menage a more
I'm going to run
a menage a one
for the rest of my life
until I'm done.

Or I'll borrow a gun.
  

    
Martha - Yay! Wish I could see it, but Comedy of Errors opens Friday
(i.e. I'm in tech week hell while your piece is being performed).

Madman - *beam*

Neil - hunt and peck? ... hrm.. learn something new every day.

ok, off to bed. 
  

    
Neil, well, the first short play that they didn't take was a smooth
character thing.

This one is a weird wall-breaking skiffy thing.  You can actually find the
script where I posted it, in the theater conference, topic 286, post 113.

I've heard from the director, who invited me to the rehearsal--90 minutes,
late Monday afternoon, just a few hours before the performance.  That's the
glory of staged readings!

Wish you could see it too, Dan, but you can read it and send me your
critique!
  

    
Neil,  Hrumph. Show off.

I ended up using "garage a ton," "barrage of fun," "mirage, hon," and
"montage of none."

And the final cliche-riddled thing (barring some minor fiddling) is
here:
http://www.livejournal.com/talkpost.bml?journal=maure&itemid=15885
  

    
I'm not sure what skiffy means, exactly, but her play is definitely 
excellent!
  

    
Neil, oh god, I'm falling out of my chair re: menage.  Oh lordy.
  

    
"Skiffy," as Damon Knight explained, is the correct pronunciation of
"sci-fi."

When menaging by two or three
It helps when all the sides concur
And playing Menageopoly
Mismenagement is de rigeur
And menageur or menagee
In higher orders misrepair
By Heisenberg uncertainty
And Pauli's rule of Don't Go There
But when self-referentially
One bends back on one's single self
The fact is a menage a re
Is awful risky for your health.
  

    
. . . and we have a winner. <wild applause> 
  

    

So, last night I dreamed I was at this party, and Neil was there, and he was
a vampire. So imagine Neil, in the leather jacket, with the sunglasses,
looking kinda like the narrator in "Violent Cases" with a little bit of the
affectations of vampires from Buffy. He sent my friend Jay after me, who was
also a vampire, and who chased me around this area that was a cross between
my college campus and an area of Santa Barbara I was in recently for a
wedding.
It was, as they say, odd.
  

    
Ducking my head in for a minute, as I must go write lesson plans, but
I wanted to say

1) Thank you all for the good wishes and congratulations.  You were
the first folks I told outside my day job, and it means an awful lot.

2)  Neil--have a wonderful, safe trip.  And try to get a little sleep!

3)  Martha--Yay!  Go, you!  Congratulations!  I, too, wish I could see
it.

4)  Mike--you make me *laugh*!

5)  Madman--cool.  Odd, but cool.

I'm teaching American Lit and Creative Writing to Juniors and Seniors.
 All suggestions welcome. I start Wednesday.  Aaaaagh!

I just read a terrific first novel called Amy & Isabelle by Elizabeth
Strout.  Can't recommend it highly enough.  Even if it was an Oprah
movie.

Mary (reading Two Years Before the Mast by William Henry Dana, just
'cause I want to.)
  

    
Maure -- Your mother has a ferret?  Your mother is cool.

Dan -- Break lots o' stuff!  And tell the rest of us how it goes!

Martha -- Making a note to find your script and read it.

> This one is a weird wall-breaking skiffy thing.

You're always doing weird stuff to walls....

Slowly cutting down the volume of new info that is the Well.  I went
from only reading Inkwell, to checking zillions of conferences each
day, back to looking at only a shrinking number of conferences daily. 
But at least I know the other ones are there, if I feel the need to
look them up.