Cramming

Everything else I did this weekend was eclipsed by the effort to learn my lines.

The attorney's opening statement is a sprawling, weak-written salvo. Words are repeated needlessly (the word "world" pops up three times within five sentences), and the character fails to properly identify the deceased. One of the agreements of buying the rights to produce a play is that you don't drastically alter the script. Technically, you're not supposed to change it at all, but many companies erase bad language. This company has already rewritten the former Aunt Jemima housekeeper character, removing the now-embarrassing dialect. I wonder if I can tinker with the lawyer's monologue.

I also learned the examinations of two witnesses: the medical examiner and that rewritten housekeeper. What helps is the understanding that a lawyer has to paint a picture of the crime for the jury. Again, it would be nice if I told them -- and, most important, the audience -- exactly who died. The lawyer's questions follow a linear logic of describing the events. The ME conversation is a tad over a page -- what did you find, what kind of bullet could have hit the body, maybe he was dead before he was tossed off the penthouse -- but the housekeeper material goes on for days: who are you, why were you there, what have you seen, what happened the night of the death. This includes mystery men who went to the penthouse and walked off separately.

There's no easy trick for this that I've found; you simply have to know the material. I usually read a script page and memorize my lines each time they appear. I read a line, say it aloud, move to the next line, say them both aloud, go to the next, say those three aloud, etc. It dominated my weekend just to wrangle with ten pages. That's a discouraging fraction of the script. But that initial hump of a soliloquy hindered the work. I think now I can tackle batches of pages at one time, clawing my way to full memorization. I'd love to start the next Act One rehearsal with the script closed and across the room. I think it will shock the others.

I recited the material on the way into work and it felt good. I don't think I dropped any lines. That overnight mental retention is the sign that it wasn't short-term. My brain feels tender, like I overworked it.

I just got emails from the director. The PI actor has dropped out of the play and quickly managed to snag the male lead in Taming of the Shrew in another production; sounds like he auditioned for two roles and picked the better offer. Can't blame him for that. We also still need a handful of actors for small roles and a stage manager AND a production designer.

The director also is surveying the cast for which weekend day we'll surrender for a full, regular run-through of the play. It seems like we're only rehearsing Tuesday through Wednesday, and the director wants to avoid Monday. Because of schedule hiccups, we're doing Act Two on Tuesday, Act One on Monday, and then Act Three the last day. I'd rather do the run-through on Friday and give myself the full weekend at home.

Instead of becoming worried about this show, I'm instead almost disturbingly determined to be the best part about it. If nothing else, the folks spending their time and money to see this play will enjoy watching me. I will not let this show become a waste of time for me or them.

Saturday morning, I hit the garden. We had piled deadwood on top of the dead blackberry bushes in hopes of burning everything. But the state is under a burning ban stretching back to spring. Now we hope to make mulch using a wood chipper. I pruned away the sprawling vines atop the wood, then moved the wood to the previously cleared garden patch. This will make for a shorter and cheaper worktime when I rent a chipper. Now I have to dig up the stubborn root balls in the other half of the garden, clear the ground cover, and ready the soil for next year's crops. It's becoming a regular Saturday activity, and I'd be less inclined to do this if there were any decent cartoons on at the time.

I then watched a convergence of horrors that kept me from my first win in fantasy football.

Picture of the Day
Best t-shirt ever? Mayhap.

Walking and Talking

Today's fast-food supper: Arby's. One worry of theatre is eating badly and putting on weight. This is especially bad after you've been measured for a costume. Unlike the last show, where I had an hour commute after rehearsals and performances, the warehouse is just five minutes from my house. I should go home, snack, and drive to the rehearsal. But at home I'm distracted by mail and cats and the sweet allure of Pardon the Interruption. And there's the subsequent danger of my lawyer sounding like Tony Kornheiser.

We walk through Act Two tonight, and it starts with a very long broad comedy piece with a Swedish housekeeper excoriating the defendant as a greedy hussy. The defendant then takes the stand to explain how she met and fell under the spell of the deceased.

Someone brings a Wiki bio of Ayn Rand, and the cast take turns glancing at her life and philosophy. These comes as a surprise to many, especially the defendant. She starts to understand how Rand wants her female characters swayed by the heroic menfolk. And her testimony is packed with comments about her happy, wanton obedience. Many small conversations overlap about her connects to Alan Greenspan, her 50-year marriage, and her hatred for feminism. It reminds me of the Hot Lips quote from MASH: "I could never love a man who didn't outrank me." Some of us have read Rand; some have never heard of her. Most of us don't know how to pronounce her name (Hint, it ain't "Ann." Really. Stop it.).

I should mention the age spread of the cast. There are three or four young recent grads, me and the defendant at 30-40, and then a pack of silver hair. The latter is accompanied by a significant lack of hearing, and conversations take a while. The judge, who has the script in his lap, constantly misses his cues. On the other hand, a young actor has yet to show up and read his part.

One of our first play-related conversations involves costuming. The play stretches over three days, but there's no reason for us to leave the court, change, and come back in. It will just elongate the show. The mock-up of the courtroom unfortunately blocks the jury with the defense table and creates a small nook next to the witness stand. It makes strolling the court and working the jury awkward. Don't block the witness, cheat out to the audiences, don't stand in front of the other attorney and the defendant. We're hoping to get into the courtroom soon to physically see the floorspace. The producer, who saw and documented the courtroom, has taken ill and will miss the entire show. We need the director to rethink the practice space.

I'm also told to make my character more arrogant, to "strut" about the trial. I know I'm not yet steeped in the Denzel; I'm coasting a bit while I try to plot movement and inflection. And in a show that can become broad, I don't want to walk like Vince McMahon storming the ring. I'll be able to concentrate on posture and flow once I get this damn script out of my hand. Yes, I'm saying this just a week into rehearsals. I would love to get Act One memorized by Monday, but that's quite a chore.

I'm consistently getting laughs with the one bit of comedy Flint has: He laughs at his own joke, and the judge silently chides him. It's a moment of deflation dependent on puffing up the attorney beforehand. This is the act where the attorney shows more liveliness, and I have obvious moments of lighthearted mocking of accents and criminal behavior.

I'll spend the weekend running through Act One, braking the script down witness by witness and trying to get a handle on the sprawling opening argument.

Rehearsals
Readthrough
Marking the Floor

Auditions
First Night
Second Night
Third Night
Fourth Night

Picture of the Day
The epitome of awesome.

Marking the Floor

I read over the opening arguments during dinner at the local Japanese steakhouse. It's set up in what used to be a Southern diner, and the decor hasn't changed. It looks like a roadside chicken shack but they feed you mounds of shrimp sauce and sir-fried chicken. I adore this place. And it's here that I start to memorize the script. Except I'm doing it in the hardest manner: I'm just sitting and quietly reciting it. I have no movement or vocal flow to work as mnemonic devices. Also, the director could always make changes to the script. And frankly this argument needs it. The DA strangely fails to identify the deceased even as he describes him, and he does so in an unsympathetic way. It's weak writing, but I blame the editor, not Rand.

At the rehearsal, we again sit and read Act One. We still have no private eye, and the widow isn't here tonight. The handwriting expert and the rookie cop are though, although they arrive late. The reading takes about half an hour.

We then mark off the floor in measuring tape to the measurements of the courtroom. The reference pictures show a modern courtroom where I expected a 1950s-style Southern room. We are presumably setting this in the 1930s, so that design would have worked. But this new style will be slightly incongruous. Then again, we don't have to set this in the '30s. The swindled money is still significant and there's no anachronistic technology involved. On the other hand, we are supposed to be in New York too. The director proposes the attorney tables be turned around so we sit facing the audience. This puts our backs to the judge and the witness stand, which seems awkward at best. I'm hoping we change that.

Having this marked-out dimension lets us get a notion of workspace. We won't be able to rehearse in the courtroom. Our first crack at it will be with our first audience. Also, we presumably won't have a practice jury to work with. I wonder how those who have to address the jury (me included) will handle it. Remember the jury will be made up of volunteer audience members, and we have to convince them of our cases. The defense attorney, with whom I'm talking shit all night long, is going down.

I appreciate the working space so I can tinker with walking patterns and posture. Already, the acting improves across the board, and it's only our second day. I'm still working on projection, and I may be overdoing it. I fear I'm talking on a flat keel, and I need to vary my tones with each witness. I continue to imaging Denzel Washington in the role.

The judge improves his ability to follow along, and we make our comments to the pretend audience. I imagine faces in the chairs (well, faces attached to bodies and those bodies sitting in the chairs; I doubt we'll have a jury made up of multiple Re-Animator Dr. Hill heads), but the table closest to the jury blocks my access to them. I can only work those 12 people in an arc, moving from end to another of the jury box while also keeping halfway turned to the side so the audience can see me.

Standing at a 45-degree angle from the person you're addressing is called "cheating." If the director needs you to turn your body more to the audience, you'll be told to "cheat out." And now your head is turned 90 degrees from your body to make eye contact with the other actors, less if they're standing between you and the audience.

We run through Act One while skipping the parts of actors who aren't there, and we're quickly done. With this strolling and standing, I can start to cement the lines in my head, even if they're edited later by the director. We have a short rehearsal time; I can't wait too long to learn the script. Besides, I want to make a good impression.

Rehearsals
Readthrough

Auditions
First Night
Second Night
Third Night
Fourth Night

When I got home, we ignored the TV and sat on the couch, yakking it up for hours. It was a couch date, and we should do it more often. I worried that we watched too much TV anyhow.

Picture of the Day
The first official pic from the Sex and the City movie. The first thing I notice is that Carrie has cleaned up a bit. She always exhibited a touch of New York trash, the outlandish accents of a perpetual fashion hound. And here she's working the natural look with her makeup. I hope this is a sign the character is growing up a bit.

I'm still angry that this "committed writer" didn't bother to jot down one word while she lived with Alexsander in Paris; really, no one would have run a column by a transplanted, published author/love columnist who worships fashion and spends all day shopping? No one?

Speaking of Paris, I love that purse. When I shop with Your Sis -- in my position as Official Wardrobe Engineer -- I constantly see items I would gobble up if I was a gal, and a purse like that would be in heavy rotation for my various hypothetical ensembles.

The Readthrough

I drop by Wal-Mart to buy a small notebook before arriving at the warehouse. The local constables have set up a checkpoint right after the warehouse driveway. I turn on my turn signal to show that I'm heading off before I pull up to the cop a few cars ahead. What's odd is that he sees my signal, points to the parking lot, and nods his head. There's no effort to check whatever it is they're looking for -- license, inspection, seatbelt, etc. The other cops don't follow me in.

Lesson learned: If you need to duck a checkpoint after getting blotto at the local Hooters, pretend you're pulling into a rehearsal.

As I walk to the building, three older folks introduce themselves (and I've of course forgotten their names as I type this) and they ask after my Matrix. They're car shopping, and I praise the mileage and handling. Doc is there too, and we all walk in together. The assistant hands out instructions on turning in our playbill bios and headshots and verifies our contact information. After a bit of conversational murmurs, the director tells us to form a circle with our chairs so we can start reading.

There are no round-robin introductions nor is there a schedule of our rehearsals. This is a mite informal compared to what I've seen before. Obviously some of us know each other from previous plays, but others appear to be complete strangers. And we don't have a full complement. I don't know who's playing what until they start reading their lines.

Let me here tell you the story: The Night of January the 16th concerns the trial of Karen Andre, accused of killing her business partner and possible lover, Bjorn Faulkner. Bjorn recently married Nancy Lee Whitfield, daughter of a great philanthropist. Bjorn fell, or was thrown, from a penthouse rooftop after being shot. The question then is whether this was a very thorough suicide or murder. We see a bevy of caricatured witnesses: a Swedish housekeeper, an unrelated shady Swedish bookkeeper, a rookie Irish cop, a poor housekeeper (originally written like Aunt Jemima), a gangster, a PI, and a stripper.

But the trial has a twist. Andre and the gangster admit that they were trying to pull a swindle with Faulkner by faking his death, and the body actually is that of a rival gangster. Faulkner, the first gangster, and Andre were stealing money from Whitfield and were going to vanish in Buenos Aires, but Faulkner's plane crashed, and now he really is dead. The trial becomes a question of whether the gangster and Andre are lying about the conspiracy to get her off the initial murder charge.

Ayn Rand wrote this, but it has been "edited" by another writer, and the latter seems to have tried to make this a comedy with goofy accents. There are tiny Rand touches throughout, but any Objectivism present is reserved for the detailed morals of the filthy rich.

Clockwise from my left are the judge, the accused, Whitfield, the medical examiner, the Swede housekeeper, the gangster, the director, the shady Swede, the poor housekeeper, the widow, the stripper, the defense attorney, and back to me.

And we read. Doc does a fine job. His natural speaking voice is perfect for the quietly clever lawyer. The Swedish housekeeper nails her lines. The de-blackified maid and the Gangster are good too. Other folks may not have seen the script before. As with every reading, folks stumble over certain words. I have to learn the correct punctuation of "Rennsalaer." The director reads the parts of those not present. The judge gets lost, and we joke that the attorneys will have to nudge him awake when its time for him to speak.

The play has two endings depending on the verdict rendered by the audience-culled jury. Both endings have the same last lines by the judge accusing the jury of ignoring certain evidence and striking their named from the jury rolls for five years. But it's only a funny punchline if you know that both endings are the same. The accused actress approaches Doc after the reading and pleads straight-faced "you've got to get me off every night." Doc and I exchange raised eyebrows.

It's a two-hour read, and I make notes as to which words to emphasize in my delivery. Almost all my lines are questions, and I need to vary the cadence. I also have to adjust my tone depending on whose witness I'm questioning. I've listed my favorite lawyer roles in films (Denzel, Pacino, Newman, Tracy, Hackman), and I'm imitating them at various times in the play, mostly Denzel. I assume that my innate lack of fucking cool will keep the Denzel impersonation unrecognizable.

We start rehearsing Wednesday night with Act One. Two of the actors will be gone for ten days, but they play smaller witness parts. We can work around it. I won't worry about imprinting the lines in my head until we're sure there are no further director-mandated edits to the script. I've got my pen for notebook scribbling, my pencil for writing on the script, and my highlighter for stage directions and lines. I feel like an uber-prepared college student.

Picture of the Day
I've officially logged in 10,000 miles on a car I've owned five months. Your Sis is horrified and wracked with guilt over my commute. I'm OK with it; I have my Ipod, loaded with podcasts and disco.

It's Not Much of a Cheese Shop, Is It?

Kathy and Travis came over with Anna Claire. She's walking now, but not for very far at one time. She staggers for a bit and then drops to the floor. But she's a quiet child and seems happy. We can't agree on whom she favors more.

Kathy and Travis are back from Germany and visiting the family of their exchange student. She told us they tried a lot of cheese, some of which was too fuzzy for her to munch. Your Sis suggested she read Monty Python's "Cheese Shop" sketch, and I dusted off the script books I bought in high school. Then I remembered I also have a CD set of sketches, and we all stood in the big room listening to Palin and Cleese recite as many cheese names as they could. Then we returned to football and wrestling.

Kathy brought Your Sis some tiny German incense cones to burn in her equally small gnome candle. It smells right nice.

I showed Travis the highlighted script, and he asked how I was going to memorize all the lines. I told him I'll have to break down the script into chunks of events and learn how my character relates to each witness. It's feasible. But it will be work.

Before all of this, I mowed the yard and kept a wary eye on the yellowjacket nest in the front yard. I need to buy a bug-bomb of some sort to burn out their underground clubhouse. The weather is considerably cooler suddenly, and that will help me sneak up on them. I don't think I'll have time to do that before I go to the read-through tonight.

Picture of the Day
Time lapse photo of a circling helicopter.

Bad Luck

We shopped for new clothes Saturday before watching 3:10 to Yuma, a quick and cool Western remake. Great acting, clean script, nice soundtrack. Your Sis really liked it. Then again, her head could have been swimming from the successful shopping.

I had less luck. For virtually all my life, a 32-inch inseam meant a 32-inch inseam. Apparently, no longer, no. Now, a 32-inch inseam equals 34 inches. Much like my hell of shirt shopping, I now can't assume pants will fit if they have the same measurements as the clothes I've worn for half my life. I managed to find some jeans once I tried on smaller pairs. I also snagged a freakishly cool shirt in Hot Topic, a store I'm almost too old to shop at despite their continued offering of items only my generation would appreciate. A Darkwing Duck shirt, for instance. What person under the age of 20 would even remember Darkwing Duck?

I took a highlighter to my script lines, and, wow, do I yap a lot in this play. I'll need a notebook to track my mnemonic devices.

While shopping, I happened to glance at a pancake spatula, and I remembered we have a new stove-top griddle. So I offered Your Sis a breakfast. I woke up Sunday and drove to the store to get the ingredients, and after a larger mess and longer time than necessary, I delivered fresh pancakes and bacon. Not bad, I think. But the meal filled us up for virtually the whole day and reduced her to naps. I watched my fantasy team dissolve after a horrible day of games.

The NFL Contest
HER PICKS
NFC: New Orleans (0-2), St. Louis (0-2)
AFC: Indianapolis (2-0), New England (2-0)

MY PICKS
NFC: New Orleans (0-2), Carolina (1-1)
AFC: New England (2-0), San Diego (1-1)

The Saints seem to have remembered that they are the Saints. Dammit. Once again, New England salvages my fantasy team.

Picture of the Day
MacGyver Punch!

Fourth Audition Night

First Night
Second Night
Third Night

Tonight is ostensibly for the benefit of the actors in Fiddler, but they have a dress rehearsal tonight. So they can't be there. How does that work? Were they gonna show up to audition before the rehearsal? Oh and here's a tidbit from an actor in that show: The weekend rehearsal lasted 11 hours. Eleven. The older actors had trouble with their lines. I know, you're shocked.

I arrive at the warehouse at 7 and am greeted by the stage manager. Inside is Doc, and we talk about choice of clothes and work dress codes. We're killing time because no other applicant is there. It's the two folks working the sign-up table, the director, the stage manager, another theatre figure, and the two of us. We hover in the "lobby" outside the audition room before slipping inside to grab a few Xeroxed pages to study. The director and others are talking about who is cast in what part, and Doc whispers that we should leave the room so they can talk about us. I argue that we should eavesdrop to find learn where we stand. But leave we do and chat a bit.

Very quickly, the director calls for me, and I go back into the room. And then she says it: "I'd like for you to be Flint (the DA)," This is the part I wanted. I smile a bit and say "I'd be glad to." And there we have it. Lead role. The aggressive DA in the noir play. The director says Lynn will play "the stripper" as a result of her audition last night. She continues to talk aloud about who is cast in what role, and then realizes she hasn't informed Doc yet. "Oh, well I'd like you to be the defense attorney." Doc is pleased as punch (he's not playing a doctor again), and we exchange proud smiles. I offer my hand, we shake, and talk shit.

"You're going down, sir."
"So you get to be Gooper again, right?"
"Oh no, this time I'm win."

Lynn arrives a little bit later, and the director tells Lynn the good news. We three applicants congratulate each other. A new arrival is known to the director and Doc, and he quickly reads for the part of Whitfield, the rich father-in-law of the deceased. Doc and I read our parts against him, and as we finish, the director says, "well, I think we have our Whitfield." Would anyone else get a role if they walked off the street? I don't think so. The theatre folks seem to be plugging cast holes now, and they discuss who to get for very small roles. We also learn one character originally written as a black maid character will be re-written. They're removing the stereotypical "oh lawdy, I don't knows anythang, suh" stuff.

We're also told that the jury in the play will be chosen from audience volunteers and will indeed be allowed to decide guilt. We'll perform the very end of the play based on that. That's cool. Now, I have to make my case as best I can. Another element of reality I look forward to.

No one else arrives, and we kill time thumbing through the full script until the theatre folks decide to close shop. We'll meet on Tuesday to start rehearsals. We'll have seven weeks to mount a 90-page script. No problem.

So long as Doc doesn't forget his lines again.

I met Your Sis at a Mexican restaurant to join Kathy and Travis for Anna Claire's birthday party. Because I get there so later after the start time, I can only eat a piece of cake. No din-din for me. We watch her open presents before going home so I can, ironically, eat. I give her the story of the audition and some rather dramatic doings at the office today. Here's the gossip-free version: Today was a very good day all for me.

Picture of the Day
GUILTY!

Third Audition Night

First Night
Second Night

It's been two weeks later, and this week's auditions are for the benefit of those performing in Fiddler. They are also open to the public. I stop by the house between work and auditions to dress up in lawyer-ish duds. I show up at the warehouse, and the guy working the sign-up table calls me on the outfit. I say I had to dress up for work anyway (lie) and laugh it off. The Doc from Cat On a Hot Tin Roof is at the table, and he also jokes about me dressing for the role.

I normally don't do something like this, but I also normally don't go through four audition nights for a show. Since I will be seen so often, there's no harm in dressing up at least once for a reading. I'm the only one decked out to this degree, but some of the womenfolk are nattily attired. I can't tell if this is their everyday wear or special for the audition. I haven't witnessed people going to absurd lengths for a period play. No one, say, in the Shakespeare audition strolled in wearing leotards or Elizabethan collars. No one came to the Sound of Music readings in lederhosen.

We have about 15 people auditioning, a big bump from the previous nights. Most of them look younger than me. There is an older gent and three guys, one of whom announces he's 30. A baby-faced 30, I should note. There are equally younger gals, and a few older women. One of them nails a part on her first sit-down. The 30-year-old guy reads the PI role in a top-notch "Nu Yok" accent.

Me, I'm there for the DA role. I've practiced my shady Swede accent and delivery, but the DA is the one that I seem to be the right age for in this group. Luckily, I get to read for it more than five times. The director tells all of us to read the DA with an edge, combative, and aggressive. About halfway through my chances, she stops me to say she needs a louder volume and more animation for me. No problem. I imagine myself heavier and older, almost angry and read the lines. It's comfortable and fun. I also read for the defense attorney once, and I add a bit more charm to that. The other people reading the roles have soft voices and high pitches which seem to work better for the defense attorney. When the director asks if anyone wants to try the Swede, even though I've practiced the dialect, I don't volunteer. I don't want to lose focus on the DA.

As the night progresses, the director is clearly reading certain applicants for certain roles. One kid reads for the rookie cop twice. Doc reads for the defense attorney twice. There are two women presumably reading for the same role, and at one point the director has them stand side-by-side to compare heights and builds. They know each other, and they joke through the slow removal of shows and the jostling. Lynn, a former student of Your Sis, blushes as everyone jokes about her reading for the "stripper" role. We learn through whispers that some roles are already cast, but I can't find out which ones. They sound like random, smaller roles though.

Most of this crowd seems to know each other. Doc knows some of them from previous plays. I know him and Lynn, and that's it. I sit toward the back next to Doc, who offered a chair, and watch the group pre-read the Xeroxed pages and share war stories. I'm clearly not a part of the group, and I'm aware of group dynamics each time I'm asked to read the DA. I admit to feeling a mix of sheepishness and pride that I''m trying this role so much. I avoid consciously admitting that I want a role, even to Your Sis; it's jinxed me in the past.

But I really want this role. Especially after thumbing through a Xeroxed copy of the whole script and seeing the DA's opening and closing arguments. Lordy, it's the good lawyer speak. It's the meat of a courtroom drama, and it's pages of monologue. We wants it.

After we're dismissed, some applicants introduce themselves to me, and it feels like being welcomed into the group. One woman, I learn, works at the college I attended, and we trade notes on Homecoming and theatre. It's great ending to what felt like a successful audition.

There's one more audition tonight, and I'll dress down a tad (read: no tie), and polish up on my giddy attempt to get this very desirable role with a theatre group I've consistently shunned since I moved here. I didn't think I've be so invested in this effort a few weeks ago. And I continue to imagine myself performing the lines in my Sunday best in a real, live courtroom.

I try not to giggle.

Picture of the Day
Some assembly required.

Twenty-Year Glee

Back around 1988, I found myself at home alone for the night, a first for me. I was two years away from graduating high school. I, of course, did the responsible thing and stayed up all night watching movies on cable TV. The horror movie on Cinemax around 3 a.m. was From Beyond, a film I had never heard of, and this was odd. I read about movies from an early age, and I was deeply invested in horror movies at this age. Also, the TV Guide movie index noted the movie was "not for the squeamish," a warning I likewise had never seen before. There could be no question then; I was going to see this movie.

And it was crap. I mean, this is what Grindhouse tried to recreate. The script was laughable (really, where does a psychiatrist escaping shock treatment and brain-eating physicists find dynamite in the middle of the night?), but the effects were mind-blowing for the obvious budget limits. It was based on H.P. Lovecraft, an early 1900s writer heavily touted by Stephen King, whose books I was inhaling. This wasn't a horror movie to be scared by, unlike all the ones I had seen previously. This was a film to laugh with, to lose one's standards to. It was the first bad movie I enjoyed for being what is. I had found my first trash film. Combine my age + the material + the joy of running loose in the house, and this became my favorite movie.

It stayed that way. I rented the film from Blockbuster (thankfully, the parents didn't use the option to block me from renting R-rated videos), and eventually bought my own copy. Blockbuster, back in the day, would order you copies of the films they rented. It was a little-known service. When DVDs came along, the film had gone out of print. It managed the small leap to laserdisc but not to DVD in an official version. At the time, you could only get it on DVD by ordering a Honk Kong bootleg from eBay. I did that. It was only mildly better than the VHS quality. A few years back, a German edition was released, but it wasn't much better (I bought that too). Eventually, MGM purchased the film rights and looked into releasing a domestic, official DVD. And then the incredible happened: The studio found footage edited out to appease the ratings board. The DVD would be the director's cut with as much as five added minutes, including an infamously excised scene of brain eating.

It came out yesterday, and I spent almost all of last night watching the entire DVD material, including the commentary track. The film was spruced up digitally to air on Monsters HD, a premium satellite station, and the print is pristine. And letterboxed, for the first time. It's like watching a new film. It's a beautiful, sterling release of what remains a gooey, trashy movie. I'm glowing with joy, but my eyes are shot to hell.

I almost couldn't find it. Best Buy didn't have it on their new-release wall, and the guy rolling a cart of DVDs didn't know of it. He went to check on a store-hub computer, and I glanced over his cart load to pass the time. And there it was. I grabbed one of their two copies and told the guy I found it after all. No, it's never easy.

Before I sat myself down to watch it, I went back to the school to work with the paper staff. This time, I suggested some design tricks to their layout officer. I don't know how much, if anything, stuck, but I told them all to contact me if they need help throughout the year. The paper already looks good; it just needs tweaking.

Six Years

Reflecting on 9/11 also sparks recognition of what's changed personally. Since that day, the following has happened to me:

+ Lost a wife
+ Reconnected to, wooed, and married Your Sister
+ Reconnected to my parents
+ Held two jobs (technically, my first full day at the weekly paper was 9/11)
+ Moved back to my first college town
+ Bought a house
+ Inherited two cats
+ Inherited a new family
+ Started running
+ Created a handful of short comic stories
+ Worked in a half-dozen theatre shows
+ Visited Boston twice and Washington, DC once
+ Grew potatoes
+ Married off my high-school friends

A lot.

Distracting NFL Babble
I officially lost my first week of Fantasy Football League action. Our league is set up so players' drafted rosters compete against each other for statistical supremacy. My team was outdone 89.8 to 78.35. Tom Brady's passing skill saved my ass, but my running backs didn't gain enough yardage to eek out a win for me. Also, the Saints sputtered against the Colts. I was close. I don't regret my picks this early in the season, and the stats make me pay attention to more games each weekend. It's anxious fun.

Picture of the Day
Doll's eyes.

You Killed My Fantasy Team. Prepare to Die.

How long can a cold last anyway? Your Sis is out of the sick bed but feeling utterly raggedy. She went to bed without supper Friday night and left me to my own geeky devices.

I woke up early Saturday and worked on the garden. I hacked down or pulled up the biggest weeds. We still have a pile of sticks where the blackberry bush used to be, and I'm looking into shredding them in a wood chipper to make mulch. She took an afternoon nap before we drove down to Greenville to see Mandy Patinkin.

That man is a showman. Two solid hours of him performing, not simply singing. Just him and the piano player. He has the stamina of someone with lots of stamina. It's exhausting just to watch him.

He performed on a bare stage with his piano player facing the back of the theatre. He wore a headset plugged in with a hundred-foot wire and used some props through the show.

Among his songs:
It's Not Easy Being Green
Send in the Clowns
Broadway Baby
Alexander's Ragtime Band
Dixie Medley
Bring Him Home
You Must Be Carefully taught
Oklahoma
The Hokey Pokey, God Bless America, and Take Me Out to the Ballgame in yiddish
Pennies From Heaven

As he took his bow, he said "let me leave you with these words," and his made the Inigo stance and said "Hello! My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." Crowd went nuts.

We hit my old, favorite head shop to buy incense by the metric ton, and I was momentarily dazzled by a men's belt decorated with the New York subway map. We drove back home at night with the moonroof open and the stars escorting us home.

And I spent Sunday being a Sports Schlub. I watched a TiFauxed broadcast of ultimate fighting (my new interest), followed by almost 12 hours of glorious football.

The NFL Contest
HER PICKS
NFC: New Orleans (0-1), St. Louis (0-1)
AFC: Indianapolis (1-0), New England (1-0)

MY PICKS
NFC: New Orleans (0-1), Carolina (1-0)
AFC: New England (1-0), San Diego (1-0)

The Panthers rolled over the Rams, the Chargers took advantage of Bears' bumbling, and the patriots had no trouble with the Jets. A Buffalo Bill took a shot to the head and faces paralysis.

Picture of the Day
The alleged title and logo for the upcoming movie planned for next year.

Paper Tigers

I left work early to help the school paper editor and adviser adjust their layout. The paper is nicely designed but it needs some spacing; the columns are crammed together. I showed them how to fix some elements in their software (on a Mac, unfortunately) and suggested some small graphic elements to use if a photograph assignment didn't come through. I may go back next week to work directly with their layout person. After dinner, Your Sis and I took in the hype-a-thon that was the season kickoff TV show and then enjoyed some football.

The NFL Contest
HER PICKS
NFC: New Orleans (0-1), St. Louis
AFC: Indianapolis (1-0), New England

MY PICKS
NFC: New Orleans (0-1), Carolina
AFC: New England, San Diego

The Saints could only restrain the Indy offense for so long, and the second half was a scoring spree for the Colts. I'm currently a distant fourth in my fantasy league. My top running back ( a Saint) was clobbered by the Colts defense.

Picture of the Day
Uranus and its rings.

Sweet Merciful Odin, It's Football Season Again

Your Sis continues to harbor the cold, and now her fellow English teachers are getting it too. She's taking it easy at night and turning in even earlier than normal. She's using the sick bed.

I used the griddle from Your Parents to grill chicken for a pasta dish. We've bought frozen fillet bags for years now, and it's just about time to stop. I notice more and more of the egg-based preservative that coats the chicken, and I don't want it. If I want egg in the recipe, I'll add it, thank you.

Your Sis and I finally made our Super Bowl picks last night. I wrote out all the teams in their respective conferences and let her pick first. I didn't see her picks when I made mine, and surprisingly, half of our picks are identical.

HER PICKS
NFC: New Orleans, St. Louis
AFC: Indianapolis, New England

MY PICKS
NFC: New Orleans, Carolina
AFC: New England, San Diego

New England and Carolina figure heavily in my fantasy team. I have to root for them. Your Sis has a small crush on the Indianapolis quarterback. Indy and New Orleans play each other tonight, and Carolina and St. Louis play each other this weekend. The season begins, and there is no slow stroll toward domestic warfare. As of tonight, it's on like Donkey Kong.

Picture of the Day
This man was clean shaven yesterday. Such if the power of football season.

Laborious

Saturday was highlighted by a cookout dinner at some friends' house and a pleasant summer night conversation on the back deck.

I started Sunday by clearing the garden space of a weed jungle. It took longer than I thought, and I flushed out a small zoo of yard critters including a praying mantis and a frog. The town was oddly quiet, but the cooler cloudy weather may have kept the tourists at bay. Your Sis, still cold-ridden, slept a lot. I washed both cars before grabbing a pizza and DVDs.

The Lives of Others is a German film that won the best foreign language Oscar this year. It concerns a Stasi agent monitoring a writer/actress tandem in the last days of East Germany. It's very good. We see the monitoring agent transition from strident interrogator to a quiet co-conspirator without the knowledge of his bosses or the couple. It didn't go where I expected it to, and I'm relieved for that. If this was a domestic film, there are dozens of places you could pinpoint where the film would go badly.

Monday morning we kayaked down the French Broad, from Rosman this time. I believe this was the same company you and Your Sis used a few years back. We chose the four-hour trip and saw dozens of animals we normally don't get to see: herons, kingfishers, ducks, two flocks of geese (which produce an enormous amount of horsepower when they take off en masse a few feet from your kayak), and bugs by the truckload. The trip would have been quicker had we not run aground so often on the riverbed. Once we dropped off the boats and drove back to Mayberry, we inhaled pub food. Your Sis, shock of shocks, then napped. This morning, I am a wee bit sore from all the work. I'm also guzzling Gatorade to fix my sun-roasted hangover.

Picture of the Day
Mount Fuji



In the News
You could practically hear the celebration in Boone all weekend. I watched my ECU Pirates hold off Virginia Tech for most of their game.

Second Night Audition

Your Sis is still under the weather, and we may not go anywhere this weekend after all.

I did find ABBA interview clips on YouTube, and here's what I learned about the two guys from the group: They sound like they could hail from Illinois. They have nothing like the stereotypical Nordic sing-song dialect. They extend double-vowels like they're from Canada, and they really hit the hard consonants. But otherwise, they seem to mix Britain and Germany. If we do the cartoony Swedish accent in the play, we'd need to also exaggerate everyone else's accent to keep it fair.

But I may not need to worry about it: I didn't read the part tonight. In fact, only one person did, and he was the lone new person to show up.

We had six people there tonight, not including the director and her crew. I'm one of the first to show up, and it's obvious at 7:15 that it will be a light night. Doc is back, as is a former student of my wife and another of the actresses. The latter is a ball of energy; she clearly knows the folks in charge, and she's joking around with them the whole way. The stage manager is also directing another production somewhere else (maybe the local college), and they discuss casting for that show. It appears that show may take away some people from this production. I can't be sure. I'm busy reading the script pages to remind myself what notes to hit for each character if I'm asked to read.

The two actresses take turns reading for two parts: a socialite and the newlywed wife. I read for both attorneys in one of these readings. I try to be cold for the DA, and sympathetic for the defense attorney. The director suggests we treat the nonparticipating actors as the jury, and it does give us somewhere to look. It gives both the actors and the characters an audience to play to. I don't like to worry about physical acting at this stage. I want to focus on vocal acting. But I do work in a facial gesture here and some lawyer-like posturing there.

And I can't say strongly enough how much fun it is to play a lawyer. The wife and I watch L&O:SVU reruns religiously, and my favorite play is Inherit the Wind, another courtroom drama. You don't read the attorney questions as questions; you read them as buoys for the witnesses. What the attorneys say is irrelevant until they start to build their cases, and that happens only after the various witnesses have their moments in the sun. So they're not as flashy as the PI or the gangster or the stripper or the shady Swede, but they continuously prowl the courtroom.

As the stage manager and actress discuss roles, the latter suggests she call up a guy she worked with before to be the gangster. He has a Long Island accent, which would be perfect. He's worked with the theatres in the area, and he may have his weeknights free. And before she says the name, I know she's talking about Brick from Cat. But would they really bring him in to read for only the one part? Is it possible I could lose one of the good roles to him again? It's too early to think like that, and he's not here. Also, the producer of the show has called dibs on the role of the judge.

Doc gets to read for both attorneys, and I think all three of us guys who showed up get to. The guy who comes in later, like I said, reads for the Swede, and he, well, he kinda mangles it. But he had no preparation that I know of. I do get a few director laughs when I read my parts, especially right at the end of the night. And that comes at about the hour mark, just like last night. We're reminded that the next round is in two weeks, and that wraps up this round.

Doc and I say goodnight. He's not sure if he'll make the commute for both nights of the next auditions. I don't know if he's concerned about role availability, but I don't blame him for wanting to cut out a night of driving. The roundtrip commute is longer than each audition. I did virtually the same drive for the Cat auditions, but those were a few blocks away from my office. Still, I know I'll see him in two weeks. At least for one night.

Picture of the Day
She's optimistic. And fond of Six Flags.


In the News
The WWE is, to be blunt, fucked. When they lost Eddy Guerrero to drug-related heart failure, they instituted a Wellness Policy to control their in-house drug dependency. The concern is two-fold: guys doing illegally prescribed steroids to achieve a marketable size and guys stoned to the gills on illegally prescribed painkillers. The policy states that each infraction earns a cumulatively higher penalty, including firing of the third offense. The first discovered offense gets a monthlong suspension. That means, the wrestler is sent home with no pay.

Yesterday, ten guys were tagged for breaking the policy by shopping for drugs through a disreputable source, and their departures means the WWE has to almost completely rewrite their shows for the next month. They lose three main-event guys for the Monday show alone, including the evil title contender to whom they gave a significant push. The announcement of these names comes on the same day Congress voted to push ahead with investigations into the WWE following the recent deaths of Chris Benoit and Bryan Adams. I don't see how the WWE can dodge a Congressional standoff unless it fires people who significantly break the policy. And those pink slips have to go to people with major profiles. The company has to prove it will put honor health over ticket sales, and that hasn't happened yet.

First Night Audition

I found a rather swank t-shirt in my mailbox yesterday. Is that a PC printer iron-on? I thought about doing some of those for my designs before. Your Sis seems to have picked up a bug from the students and lacks a voice. She thinks it's allergies. If that's true, the kayak trip may be off.

The theatre's default headquarters is a warehouse space on loan from a local manufacturing company. It's tucked away from the road, and I initially went to the wrong building. I figured it wasn't the place when I realized there was no way we could rehearse over the noise of the equipment. I drove down the road and notice the collection of cars outside a building that wouldn't be used at 7 p.m. normally and then found the theatre sign taped to the door.

As I walk in, I see a woman having her mugshot taken by a man with a Polaroid. I miss those cameras. Not enough to ditch my digital camera, but I used my old 600 model for years. Behind them is a table with a banner listing the name of the play. I hear the photographer explain why Witness is a no-go, a point my wife says is silly. Why not just go black box style of the scenes away from the courtroom, she wonders?

I have my callsheet in hand to turn over to the organizers, and they take it and attach my fresh mugshot to it. The girl signing up at the table was a student of my wife, and she asks me to pass along her hello. As I grab a stack of xeroxed pages from the script, I see another callsheet on the table. It's apparently been left there mistakenly. I read the name. It's the doctor from Cat On A Hot Tin Roof. The guy with memory trouble. The guy who swiped my socks.

I walk into a cobbled-together room space with two sections of chairs and a director's table facing space for the actors to stand while reading. And theres the doc. We catch up on what we've done since Cat. He's done a few other plays and played another doctor role. I'm introduced to the stage manager, a young gal of about 25. I also meet the director, who I talked to on the phone last week. She takes her place at the table and walks us through the play. The doc knows it and gives me a quick run-through. We're getting long fine. There's about five men here, including me (the youngest by decades), and three women hoping for roles.

The doc and I are first to be called up. It's a scene between the prosecutor and the medical examiner. He asks to read the attorney, and I'm fine with that. I don't get a chance to read the scene before we stand up there so I'm focused on projecting and reading at a slow, steady pace. After about six lines each, the director stops us to switch roles. Doc doesn't like that, but we read on.

The audition lasts about an hour, and it seems to be focusing on the male characters. I read for both attorneys and the shady Swedish accountant. I don't have a Swedish dialect handy, so I German my way through it. I have had time to read this scene, and I know where to add the arrogance. It goes over well. Doc is called up to read for the ME almost exclusively. He does not glow with joy. When he gets a chance to read an attorney role, he's asked halfway through to give it a New York edge. He has a substantial, warm Southern drawl, and a Yankee accent is tricky for him. I don't have an accent unless I'm around my family, so I apparently read OK.

We are told that there will be two audition batches: today and tomorrow and two weeks from now to give the folks performing Fiddler a chance. The rehearsals will start on Sept. 18, giving the cast (whoever they might be) just over a month to learn a 110+ page script. It should be pretty easy for everyone except the attorneys; most of the characters are answering questions on the stand.

Because of the short rehearsal time, I assume they will give the attorney roles to people they know. I'm a bit surprised by everyone else's lack of projection; they're talking very low, so low that they can't give inflection to the dialogue. And it's good dialogue. Flat-out noir stuff. I'm having too much fun working the lines to be nervous. I'm told that if I work on the Swedish accent, that character is essentially mine. I can live with that. A questionable character giving pointed testimony will be fun. But I've got three more nights to angle for the bigger roles.

When I go in tonight, and if I get the chance to read for the DA, I'll give it a little De Niro edge. I'm hoping I can find some Abba documentary videos on YouTube to help me pad out the Swedish. The only other reference I have on hand is Uula from The Producers, but that's a caricature accent. After that, it's mimicking Lake Woebegone or the Swedish Chef ("I didn't keel heem ya, bork bork bork.")

Picture of the Day
I assume I won't be asked to dress like this.

Entering Stage Left

Tonight is the first audition night. I have the barest trace of excitement for it. The latest paper article states the play needs 12 men and 11 women. That's a huge cast for a small community theatre play (a musical could get that many people easier). Since I don't know the play nor do I have any particular character to focus on, all I can do is go in and read the text aloud as best I can. This is a distinction from the Romeo & Juliet audition where I studied the play and practiced delivery. The articles describes the play as similar to the original planned production, and I do hope I get the chance to participate in a murder trial. This is the closest I'll get to being on Law and Order: SVU. I have my updated callsheet ready to hand to the director tonight.

Your Sis and I have postponed pre-breakfast gym visits for the time being. She needs to get acclimated to the school pace again, and she's dragging as it is when she gets home. I, on the other hand, have to stay up longer at night so I don't wake up too early in the morning. Her new batch of kids took much easier to the assignment of dissecting song lyrics, although one tried to pass off Pink Floyd verses as commentary on American foreign policy.

Picture of the Day
That's, um, an interesting ad there.

Bland

Your Sis had a thoroughly average first day at work. Seems she prepared to the point where she lost her frenetic edge, and she feels she short-changed her students. The AP kids had an essay test on the first day of school. Harsh. She was right tired by the time I got home.

Kathy and Travis leave for Deutscheland this week, and last night's wings n'rasslin was a temporary farewell.

We've made reservations for a Labor Day kayak trip, and we might catch the Montford Players this weekend for Much Ado. I've also signed up to provide a page in an online jam comic even if I do get a part in the play.

Picture of the Day
Morgan Freeman as Easy Reader from Electric Company.

Back to School

Your Sis got home at a decent hour last night, and we had a light supper. She got her clothes in order and made sure she packed everything she needed for work and went to bed early. It was almost solemn, like a ceremonial preparation for the new year. She's ready. She's spent all summer getting ready. There's nothing more she can do. The last school-related activity she tackled was to fold the last of brochures. This she did while watching taped horse racing and eventually the preseason Philadelphia-Pittsburgh game.

The fantasy league draft went better than I expected, even though I wasn't there. My team managed to snag Tom Brady and last year's Heismann-winning running back. I even go the kicker I wanted. My wide receivers are weak but had they been better, I would have developed unrealistic hopes for winning the league.

Your Sister's wrestling character turned out very well. She can compete against the male wrestlers, and I designed a championship belt for her to defend. Your Sis likes it. She also competes alongside my wrestling character to defend the Debacle World Championship. She has teaching names for the wrestling holds like the detention, suspension and expulsion (where she actually throws the opponent out of the ring by the belt and collar).

Picture of the Day
The latest mix CD for Your Sis. Here's the track list:

Eruption Van Halen
You Really Got Me Van Halen
Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy) Big & Rich
Icky Thump The White Stripes
Da Sound of Da Irish Band KRS-One/House of Pain
Here It Goes Again Ok Go
I Will Survive Gloria Gaynor
Girlfriend Avril Lavigne
Candyman Christina Aguilera
Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy (of Company B) The Puppini Sisters
Amie Pure Prairie League
Lord Is It Mine Supertramp
Russians Sting
Tongue REM
John Allyn Smith Sails Okkervil River
Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald Gordon Lightfoot


In the News
The attorney general quit Friday and will announce it today. The first analysis I heard about this on the radio said the Democrats won by cruelly treeing Gonzales and pressuring him to resign. This ignores what Gonzales did to hang himself and growing Republican panic that the administration's tone will lead to greater Democrat gains in Congressional elections. The administration has a little over a year to bolster the reputation its party, and the departures of Rove and Gonzales can only help. Even the press secretary said he wouldn't last until January of 2009.

+ + +

Also facing the music is Michael Vick, and I can't remember a more prominent active athlete dropping so hard from a lofty perch. He was in the top ten of NFL quarterbacks every year he played. This isn't the biggest scandal for an active NFL player. Carolina had a wide receiver who plotted the death of his significant other, and Baltimore linebacker Ray Lewis was found not guilty of manslaughter during the offseason a few years back.

Fishy Business

Your Sis just called to say she got her brochures from the local print shop after two rounds of excuses. Yesterday, they announced a full invoice price with no deductions for service errors. Today, they handed her the prints but had no idea how many were in each bundle. Is it a full thousand? No one knows. Also, their press broke last night, and they had a competing shop run the remainder of the order. Then they passed the price of that order onto Your Sister. That other shop, by the way, is the company that got my order so horribly wrong in the winter.

Lesson learned: There is no reliable printer in Mayberry.

We drowned our sorrows in lamb curry and ice cream. There was no pre-breakfast workout this morning, but we will do something tomorrow. I'd like to run at the school again, but I'm her gym buddy.

Picture of the Day
Disney is taking The Little Mermaid to Broadway after a preview run in Denver. This was the movie that reinvigorated Disney after about decades of forgettable stuff. Really, unless the title includes the words "Witch Mountain," it probably stunk. Although Pete's Dragon was just fine for a single-digit-aged me. The one person who I think would soil herself with joy about the Mermaid show is my ex, and we ain't talkin'. What I am for comics and wrestling, she was to '80s musicals. Lion King was supposed to be amazing on stage, Tarzan is just about to close after a disappointing run, and Beauty and the Beast is closing so Mermaid can use the theatre.

The cartoon is mostly remembered now for two bizarre phalluses, one in the original poster and the other during the wedding ceremony. The animation is almost quaint by today's standards; I remember the whirlpool scene used some CGI. But the music holds up. "Kiss the Girl" is a standout song. Any musical would give up its stage manager to get that tune. The vocal students at my first college would sing the score while playing pool, especially one guy I've known since elementary school. He did a great Ursula the Sea Witch. Mermaid was one generation's first successful musical, and it paved the way for the form to come back to theatres, although it took South Park to prove someone other than Disney could make money at it.

Still, my favorite Disney cartoon remains Aladdin. We won't talk about Hunchback of Notre Dame or Pocahontas.

Bad Business

Your Sis made a brochure for the new school year and handed it over to a local printer, adopted a haughty demeanor, pointed with steely glare, and yelled "make it so, cur!" It works much better on retail clerks than me; it takes more than that to get me to do the dishes.

It was a straight-forward print job. A tri-fold, double-sided, letter-sized brochure. It has some spot color. She turned it in before we left for Washington. She received a call yesterday (Wednesday) saying there was a problem with the job. The local printer sent it to another shop (they apparently can't handle color locally), and the other site couldn't read her file's fonts. I saw the file as she designed it. She's not using archaic typefaces. Any print shop with automatic Microsoft Office updates would get them; even her hamster-powered laptop got the updates. She decided to run the brochure in b/w so the local printer could handle the job, and they offered to meet her today before they officially opened to get the job done before school starts Monday.

You Sis says she would have had no idea how to handle this if I hadn't spoken of my own print jobs. And the print shop did two things very bad things:

1) They didn't tell her that the job would be sent to another facility with potential difficulties in fie handling.

2) They waited ten days to tell her they had a problem. Granted, they knew she was out of town last week. Let's set aside the possibility of calling her cell phone to inform her of this. They knew she returned Saturday and waited additional four days to inform her of the problem.

She won't use them again even if they handle the b/w print just fine. By the way, she went to this shop because I discouraged her from going to the other local shop, as they royally screwed up my magnet order back in January.

We talked volleyball last night. The school hired a team of spouses to handle both teams. I know the husband coaches local volleyball in the offseason, and I think she may as well. To the relief of many parents, the varsity team now has a male coach, a development thought to magically make them better in the toughest conference in the state. I assume he can use a shorthand developed in previous years, and that may help, but if this team doesn't win their division or the playoffs, this season will be seen as a failure. For the vocal parents to be satisfied, these coaches have to surpass what Your Sis and the other coach provided. And keep in mind, Your Sis ended her final season with a 4-1 winning ratio.

Picture of the Day
And now... Stephen Hawking in Legos

A Bad Idea

I have avoided the tweedy productions of the local theatre company since I moved here. I have seen their production ads, and I have winced at their newspaper write-ups, almost all of which feature the words "wacky" and "calamity" and "ensue." I have seen the pictures of their casts, brimming with retirees posing in what appears to be the director's living room. I have never heard of their plays but they feature such titles as The Marine Wore Stockings.

However, they have recently advertised that they are mounting Witness for the Prosecution. This is meaty stuff. And the hook was this: They were going to mount the show in the county courthouse. Here was a chance to do a standout courtroom drama in a courtroom. I couldn't refuse. I read about these plans over the summer and noticed just last night the article officially calling for auditions for this play. This article was published Monday.

I called the director to ask if I could pick up a script, and she broke the news: They won't do Witness after all. Heartbreak. Despair. They decided they didn't want to dismantle the non-courtroom set after the weekend shows. Now, consider this: They had announced the play and the setting months ago. Months ago. The article for the auditions, proclaiming the play and the setting ran just two days ago. And only within the last few days have they wimped out of what seems like a crucial bit of planning.

I was told they would do another courtroom play instead, a small Ayn Rand show called The Night of January 16th using the courtroom as a philosophical pulpit. I was also told that my age and voice suggested I would have gotten a choice role in Witness (not so reassuring; maybe they should wait to see if I could act).

Anyway, I'm going through with the audition. I'm gonna try this company. Despite all my previous rants against them and their show choices. It's a courtroom drama. Always wanted to try one of those. And it's using a courtroom. But my spidey-sense is goin' crazy.

Picture of the Day
Coffee art.

Grindstone

Your Sister begins a week of a slow death march back to work. My work becomes a cumbersome armload of crazed fish; I have big publications coming out before November, the most significant issues of the magazine and newsletter. Also, we're trying to launch the shopping site and manage a fund-raising project. I needed a vacation just to gird my loins.

Kathy and Travis came over for the Monday couchtime, and we traded notes on Washington. She was there in 2002. They leave for Germany at the end of next month.

The formal wedding was two years ago yesterday, and the time has flown by.

Almost Scandalous Pictures of the Day
Strolling through the local grocery store, armed as always with crackuccino, I spotted a cereal box that stopped me dead in my tracks.


It looked, I was convinced, just like a cover I had done a few years back for the weekly paper. I was so resolved that plagiarism was at work that I snapped a picture to compare the two at home. And then I dug out that particular issue:


Nope. Not that similar after all. Coffee makes me paranoid, it seems.

Settling In

We had lunch with Your Dad upon returning. We arrived home, comforted the cats, and started the laundry. Well, I did. She took a nap. We started the day at 4:30 to get to the airport on time, and our previous night's reservation time with a shuttle van came and went with no van. After a half hour, the van drives by us and keeps on going. Five minutes later, he calls us asking for directions. I really wanted to get a taxi instead, but we stuck with him and he did pick up before 6. Our plane was to leave at 8. He got us to the airport at 6:30, after picking up two more passengers (another fare had given up and grabbed a taxi).

The Spy Museum made her hungry for spy movies, and we rented Ronin (a low-budget DeNiro flick) and Mr. and Mrs. Smith (the Pitt/Jolie married-agent flick). She tricked me into taking a nap on Sunday. Curse her. She discovered earlier in the day that she left her purse in Your Dad's trunk. Your Mom brought it by to my office this morning. We still went to the gym this morning before work, and I am dragging from lag and stationary-bike exhaustion.

Picture of the Day
The T. Rex stands no chance.

Another Early Morning

Kathy and Travis invited us over last night for a pancake dinner. Good stuff. They leave for Germany in three weeks to visit their exchange student.

I was pretty dang tired when I went to bed last night at midnight, but I woke up without much trouble this morning. I was a bit sore in the shoulders and arms. We quietly drove to the gym and drifted into the building. But once I got on a stationary bike, I found energy. I biked until the meter said I burned 100 calories, and then I moved to the various weigh machines and then ran for 15 minutes.

I don't think we'll do this five days a week. Maybe three. Regardless, I will still run my weekend 5ks. Your Sister wonders if if it's worth me joining her at the gym so early if we're only there for a half hour. I continue to assure her that I will be there as long as she is. I believe she feels more guilt about the early start than she feels regret for starting this project.

Picture of the Day
Stormy weather.

The Experiment

School is approaching quickly, so quickly that Your Sis feels summer never really happened. Things she wanted to do between semesters didn't occur. And she's not happy with how much time she spent sitting and thinking and writing instead of walking about. She feels frumpy. Lumpy. Dumpy. Something else-umpy. Starting this morning, we're going to get up stupidly early and hit the gym before her school hours. She tells me I don't have to do this with her. But, yes, the husband should. And I am. I should make better use of my time anyway; I have a two-hour commute that east up so much of my personal time.

We got up at 5:40 and were at the gym at 6, right as they opened. We were there about half an hour. I had to get my bearings; I was last there around March. My favorite machines had moved, and I forgot my old routine. Did a little bit of this, did a little bit of that. I couldn't push it. I'm never any good at exercising immediately after waking up, especially if it's that early. I always seem to pull a muscle doing the smallest thing. Today was an experiment. I just wanted to go through a light routine and take stock of my progress. I seemed to do OK. So did she, even though she thinks she should be further along already. We'll go again tomorrow morning, and now that I remember where things are and what I used to do on them, I can get a better workout. We grabbed Starbucks coffee and split up for the day. It's about three hours after the gym, and I feel OK, I suppose. I may have overdone my arms.

After work, I caught The Simpsons Movie by myself because Your Sister think she has no funny bone. It doesn't try to be anything but a longer Simpsons installment. I like that. It's very funny, and I'll spoil nothing for you. But it's worth seeing in a theatre.

I'll work on the flyer today at work and get you a rough before I leave for home.

Picture of the Day
A baroque Supergirl. I don't get it, but it looks nice.

Your Parents Are Back

Your Sis drove into Asheville with me yesterday and puttered around town while I worked. We met up for a quick lunch at Mellow Mushroom. We picked up Your Parents from the airport as their flight landed on time but without one piece of luggage. Your Sis and I had agreed for a week to take them to the pizza restaurant for supper, but she instead asked them if they wanted Ruby Tuesday's. We went there, loaded them up on grub, and took them home after some debriefing. We were a little shocked to learn that Your Dad has read all but the final Harry Potter books, and I offered him my copy. Kempas was much relieved to be unleashed, and I may have been relieved just a little more. As far as I know, they're still waiting for the other suitcase.

And now our new regular feature, Dear Aunt Slappy.

Dear Aunt Slappy,
When are the dates you'll be in DC?
Signed, Busy in Boston

Dear BIB,
While I may be an artificially alive, 140-year-old spinster and moral buttinski, it's really not for me to say if your son should keep badgers in his room. From what I read here in this 2nd edition of Holmstead's Guide to North American Mammals, badgers are said to be "courteous to the blind, resolute when confronted by elephants, and prone to eating middle children." If your son has no younger and older siblings, he should be quite safe so long as he doesn't make his new pet watch Dumbo. Hope this helps.
Slappy

P.S. Aug. 13-18.

Picture of the Day
A fire dancer

Potatoes and Hams

We caught Cyrano Friday night at the outdoor theatre. It was bad. I say this aware that my inability to make the cast of Romeo and Juliet could color my enjoyment. But Your Sister, who roots for local theatre to be its best, turned to me right after the curtain call and said "so, we're not seeing this group again unless we're part of a large party, right?" And I had to agree. The biggest problem with the show is the lack of microphones. The cast has to shout virtually every line in an amphitheater with poor acoustics. And neighborhood pets. And tree frogs and crickets (actual crickets in the audience, not the cliche kind) and church bells and car alarms and motorcycles. This flat shouting makes for a recital, not a performance.

The Cyrano actor tried his damnedest. He had the goods. His supporting cast was spotty (some of the Montford stalwarts are doing the shows no favors), but a number of them were gamers. I recognized a few from my audition. You'll remember how the director of that show encouraged the SNL-style of comedy delivery. He was in Cyrano, and we saw his style of acting, the classical stereotype of a Shakespeare performance -- broad, stiff, the method that makes an actor sound like Dudley Do-Right. So, yeah, I guess I'll try other companies for my theatre fix. Also, wearing Elizabethan costumes outside in July in Asheville? Not fun looking.

Didn't help that the directors made the actors fly through the lines to fit within a three-hour span. I wanted to like this, and I tried to hear all the lines despite the lack of mics, but Your Sis walked me through the show afterward, and I clearly missed crucial plot elements. If they fix the sound, they can work with inflections and tone and solve probably 80% of their problems. They won't even have to face out to the audience for all the lines.

We worked on the lawn Saturday morning, right before we plucked the remaining potatoes. After about a half hour, we had a bucket full of tubers. Had we not harvested the first batch a few weeks back, we would have too many to handle. As it was we ate four larger ones Sunday night for dinner. A library gardening book says we would notice the difference in taste from the store-bought potatoes, but we couldn't. Still, they were ours and we loved them like proud parents before gobbling them up like Saturn. We're planning on next year's crops and possibly making a cold frame for winter growth. Your Sis thinks we can use the old shower glass to protect the plants from frost.

I, of course, worked on your drawing this weekend, and I'll be able to ink the tighter sketch tomorrow after work. I'll mail you the image and potential text design (for a poster maybe) by the end of this week. I'll still have the weekend to work on it before we go to Washington.

Picture of the Day
Po-tay-toes.