Category: writing

Creating something every day for 365 days: the writing

Shopping (Day 296/365)

Posted on by Dale

Today was an all-day shopping spree. We did it for my grandmother.

Some background: when we were married 29 years ago, my grandmother in her wisdom gave us the money to buy a washer and dryer. These were the first of the appliances that have saved our marriage. Without them, we would have had to do the whole laundromat thing, and I don’t think either of our temperaments would have permitted our relationship to survive the constant planning of when we could go, finding quarters, lugging laundry to and fro, and then the awful tedium and Darwinian atmosphere of the laundromat!

As I said, these were the first. Others have included a refrigerator with an icemaker, a dishwasher, a microwave, a new microwave, a VCR, an even newer microwave/convection oven combo. When one sublimates one’s agressions and frustrations into innocent machines, it’s best to have them aplenty, and in working order.

My grandmother died last year, age 99, and not a sentient molecule in her head, bless her. Recently my mother, who was her executor, finally cleared everything out of the estate. My share of the inheritance was enough to start thinking about replacing some appliances.

Our refrigerator’s icemaker finally gave up the ghost a few months ago. Personally, I like the ice trays and the cubes they make, but others in the house do not. I think inertia could have kept us from moving on this one, but the interior shell in the freezer is cracked. That can’t be good, can it?

The oven, on the other hand, is just not working. Ginny has complained for years that it won’t bake like it’s supposed to, but I have always poohpoohed that. It baked my stuff just fine. But again, a couple of months ago, it really just stopped altogether. It will put out heat, but it doesn’t put out the right amount of heat. I’ve been using it as a platewarmer and doing all my baking in the microwave/convection oven.

The tipping point for the oven, like the refrigerator’s cracked case, was the fact that recently while I’ve been warming plates, the oven will occasionally go “WHOOMPH” and the door will burp open. I’m thinking this is probably not a good thing.

So, in honor of my grandmother, we set out to find replacements. Mirabile dictu, we found both at Sears, first stop of the day. Great deal on the refrigerator, although I’m still unconvinced that I will like the bottom freezer, and it makes those damnable half-moon ice chunks. We splurged on the stove, springing for a gas range (which is my preference for cooking, and since I do the cooking, my preference is the standard) and a convection oven. Both will be delivered and installed next Friday. My one day off before having to pack and head to Valdosta.

Rather than savor our triumph, however, we pressed on in search of a sofa and some porch furniture. We found neither. But in looking for a nonexistent patio furniture store in Fayetteville, we somehow ended up with an elliptical exercise machine in the back of my van. Ginny likes these machines, and she is convinced that if we have one in our basement, then I will be more likely to exercise and avoid dropping dead before 60, as is the wont of the men in my family.

That was it. That was all the shopping I could stand, so home we came. Fixed a nice supper, and then we watched Borat, an appalling work of genius.

A column (Day 291/365)

Posted on by Dale

Spent all day rearranging the media center, moving my desk out into the main room, generally preparing for the arrival of my Promethean board in a couple of days.

Near the end of the day, I checked my Moleskine notebook and realized with horror that I had not actually written my column for the Big Ideas website over the weekend. I put many stars by it and swore to make it top of the list tonight.

So after a brief Masterworks rehearsal, I came home, put on my “contemplation” playlist in iTunes, fired up WriteRoom, and set my mind to snark mode. In an hour and a half, I had knocked out a not-too-rambling piece entitled “Are you smarter than a fifth grader?,” taking potshots at standardized testing, the privileging of logico-verbal intelligences, adult smugness about knowing “stuff,” and E. D. Hirsch.

My favorite lines? “Of course I’m smarter than a fifth grader. I outwit them every day.” And (in the riff about multiple intelligences) “I think I could beat them in kickball, but only if I didn’t actually have to run the bases.”

74 days to go.

A new thing (Day 285/365)

Posted on by Dale

Today was a little creative in an unexpected way: I started a new blog. And no, you can’t see it.

Mike Mitchell, who teaches PE at Newnan Crossing, approached me a couple of months ago with a proposition: he and I should collaborate on a book, 100 Things to Do Before You’re 60. I had plenty of things to keep my busy and told him so, but still, it’s a good idea.

However, now that William Blake’s Inn has stopped for a moment, I figured we might tackle it. But how? At work, we might go days without seeing each other. How could we possibly keep up with the amount of work it takes to write a book?

And what should this book look like?

Yesterday, I had a scathingly brilliant idea. Mike is fairly conservative, and I, of course, am not. He’s an ex-military PE teacher; I’m an effete intellectual. Why do not do it like a dialog between us, sort of like those silly newspaper columns where two opposing writers take turn making comments? We could tackle serious issues, we could do some funny stuff, we might even agree.

So of course I decided to set up a blog for us to work on together. One of us can post a Thing to Do, and then we can both comment. Great way to get stuff out there, and we can edit later. And no, you can’t see it. It’s our private workspace for the time being.

I think this is the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

80 days to go.

Editing (Day 249/365)

Posted on by Dale

This afternoon, after the power went out at school, I tinkered with the first eight measures or so of Make Way. (Laptops run on batteries when the power goes out. It’s a beautiful thing.) I think I’ve got it bearable.

My intention was to work on the next eight measures tonight, but after I got upstairs and sat down, there was an email from Mike Funt. Not only is he getting married in Las Vegas on a Monday in two weeks, preventing my attendance, he has the nerve to send me a script for House he wrote upon an agent’s request for a sample hour-long script. Well, it’s not so much the sending as the asking me to look it over that takes nerve.

First of all, of course, do I look like a script doctor to you? Am I sitting in That House in L.A., overlooking the Valley, cocktail in hand, multiple Emmys on the glass bookshelf behind me, as I look out at the lights of the city twinkle on below in the purple sunset? Is there a buxom starlet in the pool? Is she nude? Is there a pool? (No, no, and no.) Feh.

Second of all, there is no second of all. I’m still stuck on the first of all: why would Mike Funt, who is clearly talented and headed for great things, think I knew enough to do anything but correct his spelling? Which I did, needless to say.

Very flattering, to be sure, but nothing throws one into a panic as being thought of as competent in fields one knows nothing about. My tirade about the Pirate Queen does not count; any idiot could have done that, except, apparently, for Alain Boublil, Claude-Michel Schönberg, Richard Maltby, Frank Galati, and Graciela Daniele.

Oh well, I’ll work on the music Thursday and Friday.

New York, Day 5 (Day 244/365)

Posted on by Dale

When we got downstairs, we found the Honeas getting coffee, so we parted with them then. They’re going home today. They had enjoyed Curtains, so that gave us a little hope heading into the afternoon.

Off we went to Chinatown in the cold, cold rain. After getting turned around, one never can tell which direction one is facing after emerging from the subway, particularly on a cloudy day, we began strolling up the street and checking out the trashy stores. I bought a rain hat and a surprise present for Kathy Bizarth. (No clues here, just in case anyone who would care is reading this.)

We came across one of many Pearl art stores, where I was able to replace some tubes of gouache that have dried up on me back home. They had a complete line of Moleskine notebooks, so I succumbed to the charms of a small storyboard version. As we begin getting heavy duty with William Blake’s Inn, it will be handy to record some staging ideas.

We made the turn into Little Italy and came across Ferrara, the fabulous pastry shop we had visited a couple of years ago when we chaperoned that ill-fated chorus trip. (“Ew, we don’t know what all that stuff is…”) We paused for coffee and sugar. At that point, we made our contact with Lynne Jebens, Ginny’s college roommate and an agent here in NYC. She was going to find us a nice Italian restaurant for dinner, so that sort of made our search for lunch in Little Italy redundant.

I suggested perhaps finding Le Streghe, the fabulous restaurant we ate at four years ago, but it was decided that we would go ahead to the next main goal of the day, getting Ginny’s eyebrows done at Sephora. It had been decided that the Sephora on Times Square was too crowded, so we would use the Herald Square one. Off we went on the subway to Herald Square, but it turns out that the eyebrow studio, who knew there was such a thing?, is only at the Times Square location.

And so we walked, in the cold, cold rain, up Broadway to Times Square. Great walk, if my feet weren’t soaking. When we got to Times Square, which I officially hate and avoid now, I left Ginny and Carol Lee at Sephora and went to Garvey’s the bar at the hotel, where I ordered multiple life-restoring gin & tonics and some lunch. I figured that I would lower my defenses before heading into Curtains, so that if it were even halfway funny I would laugh hysterically. Of course, if I had had multiple life-restoring gin & tonics before last night, I would have been shouting my notes at the stage.

Soon I was joined by the ladies, who had given up on the eyebrow job. We quickly got them drinks and burgers, and they finished in time for us to walk the half a block to the theatre.

Curtains was a delightful throwback, a gag-filled, tuneful, old-fashioned Broadway musical. Not a thing wrong with it, and it even had a fairly interesting mystery plot. Debra Monk is divine as the tough old producer; David Hyde Pierce is wonderful as the stage-struck detective. It was relaxing to be in the presence of competence and craft, unlike last night.

After the show, we went back to the hotel to dry out and rest. I called AirTran to double-check our reservations. Here’s a reservation code, I said. Call it up and tell me what you see. Well, she saw that we had reservations for the 3:06 flight (good) but wait, there was a notation that we were sending our old paper tickets back to the travel agent (bad). Never heard of that, I said. Oh, she said. You need to have your agent call us.

Forty minutes later, whoever my agent was this time at BB&T finally talked AirTran through their issues and assured me that they had made a note in the file that said explicitly that they would exchange our old paper tickets for new ones. I will call again in the morning to make sure.

Then we walked over a block to 44 SW, an Italian restaurant over on 9th Avenue. Lots of good restaurants over there. I had never ventured over to 9th, which is stupid. We will remember this for next time as a place to explore at dinner time.

The food was good, and Lynne is as always great. She looks good, she’s holding it together, and we had a great time catching up. At one point, she and the ladies began an earnest discussion about menopause, so I left and went to the bar.

Since Lynne lives in Jersey, she couldn’t stay too late, so we got back to the room at a human hour. It would be nice to get a decent night’s sleep on our last night here.

New York, Day 1, part 2 (Day 240/365)

Posted on by Dale

Our further adventures

Having gained LaGuardia without any further incidents, we snagged our driver and headed into town. Marc and Mary Frances met us at the front desk, we checked in, headed up to the 18th floor, and unpacked.

The room is small, of course; it’s an older NY hotel, and we look out onto the other wing. There is daylight, and if we crane our necks we can see Sardi’s on 8th Avenue. The wall opposite the bed is totally mirrored. Perhaps this is the honeymoon… cubicle?

First concern is the lack of outlets by the bed. The room is small, but not so small that the power cord of my C-PAP will reach across the room. I call the front desk (this is at 5:15ish), and they promise to put engineering right on it. Great, I say, we’ll stop by the front desk when we get back in tonight.

Within 30 minutes we were down in Garvey’s, the bar attached to the hotel. Life-sustaining drinks were in order, along with large amounts of appetizers. (They’re open till 4:00 a.m., but only serve food up till 8:00. After that, it’s little bags of potato chips.)

And before you know it, it’s 6:30 and time to leave. We’re catching the closing night of the tour of Edward Scissorhands, choreographed by Matthew Bourne (he of the all-male Swan Lake) and set to music based on themes from Danny Elfman’s score for the movie. This is very exciting, because it’s the first time I’ve been to Brooklyn. Neither has anyone else, of course. And everyone relies on me to get them where they’re going.

This is not a problem. I explain to everyone exactly how to read the map, how to follow the signs, what the different versions of the A train mean and when that’s important. Tra-la-la, they say, we’re following you.

BAM is a gorgeous building, built in a fit of Civic Pride almost exactly 100 years ago, and it has always home to a great deal of the exciting, forward-looking musical events in the city. We have second-row seats in the loge, stunning seats and I thought I was lucky to get them, since we didn’t order tickets until the day the show started advertising in the Times.

Edward Scissorhands is a treat. Beautifully designed, witty and pretty costumes, and imaginative sets that come closer to Broadway than to NYCB (a fact about which dance critics grumble, usually saying that “others grumble”). Dancing is great, and the choreography is terrifically interesting. Bourne clearly has a ballet background, but he’s willing to throw in anything that works, and it does.

One of the problems he had to solve was Edward, encumbered as he is with those huge blades on his fingers. The final pas de deux between Edward and Kim was lovely, a combination of ballet and contact improvisation.

The storytelling was flawless. I had not seen the movie, but that was not a hindrance in the least. I had just read a scathing review of Ralph Bakshi’s old Lord of the Rings abomination, and a major issue with that movie (besides criminal direction, animation, and editing) was that if you hadn’t read the books, you would have had no clue about what was going on .

This was not the case. Of course, as I look at the program, I don’t really know which characters were named what, has any ballet had so many people with first and last names?, but during the event, that didn’t matter. No ballet has had so many distinct and recognizable characters, either.

Both Marc and I found ourselves enjoying the show and admiring it and at the same time filtering our experience through the William Blake’s Inn workshop experience. We both could imagine the process behind the results onstage. The creative process that leads us to the Inn, the Sunflowers, the Milky Way, is clearly the same that led to the Topiary sequence or the Suburbia sequence in Edward Scissorhands. My question now is whether we have what it takes to push beyond our own boundaries, both in terms of our own creative freedom and of financial support, to produce something that is equivalent on the stage of the Performing and Visual Arts Centre. I think we, the William Blake team, are quite capable. Is Newnan capable of rising to the challenge? That’s where my doubt lies.

Back to Manhattan, where we walk around Times Square and admire the over-the-top gaudiness of it all. I spot the theatres of the shows we’ll be seeing, and we all just generally play tourist. We walk over to Radio City and down to Rockefeller Center, but they have the rink and the Promenade blocked off for some reason.

St. Patrick’s looks gorgeous at night, all lit up. We stroll back down Fifth Ave. and head back to the hotel. So many shows, so little time!

The plan had been to have a quick drink or two in the bar before heading up, but in our absence the place has turned into a very loud twenty-something hangout. All these pretty young things appear to be having a reunion of some kind, so the Honeas go on up. Ginny, Carol Lee and I tough it out for one drink, but then flee.

I stop by the desk to see if they have my extension cord, but of course they don’t. They’ll get the manager on it. After a while, I call back down (it’s after midnight at this point) and they’ve got engineering on it. I ask if there’s some place nearby that I could buy one; there is, of course, a Duane Reade pharmacy two blocks down, open 24 hours. We’re heading down the hall when the engineer shows up. Not supposed to do this, he grouses, fire codes. Blah blah blah.

And so to bed.

New York, Day 1 (Day 240/365)

Posted on by Dale

And we’re off to New York City for five days. Shows, museums, dining with friends, all kinds of goodness coming up. I probably will do nothing on the music, but I will certainly blog about the days. We’ll call it creative writing.

By the time we got to Hartsfield International, my morning coffee was bursting to get out, so I headed off to the men’s room while Ginny and Carol Lee got in the line to check in. By the time I got back to them, Carol Lee was trying to type in her confirmation number in the little electronic kiosk thing, and it was rejecting her.

Customer service appeared and took her ticket. Then came back and tried checking in Ginny. And then finally tried my ticket. Then she took all three and disappeared into the back. When she returned, it was with the news that the tickets had been cancelled.

Well, this was exciting. I pulled out all the paperwork and called the toll-free number, and was a little surprise when BB&T answered. Of course, I thought, I got two tickets with my VISA® TravelPoints® and paid for one. I told the nice person in Mumbai that I was standing in line at Hartsfield International and that my tickets had been canceled and he needed to fix it.

As he waited for the computer to get in gear, he started to give me some kind of sales pitch, I think. I told him that it was hard to hear and that if he were giving me a sales pitch, stop; if he was asking me something, he needed to start over.

Not a problem, he was going to transfer me to a travel specialist. Yanni for on-hold. This was starting to be a good hell.

After a while, my Mumbai friend came back online to apologize for the delay, but the travel office was not open on the weekends. I should call back on Monday.

Please connect me to a supervisor, I asked tersely. More Yanni followed.

After a while, he came back online to apologize for the delay, but there were no supervisors. If I could call back in 30 minutes…

Well.

There I was, standing in AirTran’s check-in line, with printed tickets that were no good and a 10:00 flight leaving without me. And no one at BB&T could help me until business hours on Monday.

Meanwhile, Marc and Mary Frances were in another line, working out what to do about Molly’s not having photo ID.

Ginny went over to our nice customer service lady and simply bought tickets on a 1:00 flight. So now we have three hours in the terminal before we get to New York. I called our limo people to let them know of our delay.

So what’s the deal here? I ordered these online, everything was fine, they sent me tickets. How could they be canceled? And if they were, how was I not notified? And why the hell does BB&T not have people working on weekends when travel is heaviest??

Perhaps I could work on a few more pieces while I sit here. I need to find an outlet.

Comment

Posted on by Dale

This from yesterday’s obituaries in the Times, quoting Henri Troyat on how he developed his writing style:

“I would read a paragraph of Flaubert out loud and rewrite it from memory. Then, by comparing my version with the original, I would try to understand why what I had written was an affront to what I had read.”

This is an interesting take on the writing process and on style. Very metacognitive, in that it’s clear that Troyat was not trying to emulate Flaubert. He simply looked at where his voice went wrong in transcribing a master, and in that way was consciously able to develop some inner voice of his own. I like it.

Prep work (Day 184/365)

Posted on by Dale

Today was a GHP interview day, so I spent the whole day listening to myself on video and answering parent questions.

However, during those video intervals, I was able to get some work done. I began to work on the prospectus for William Blake, a document to give to our backers in May to explain what it is we’re doing and why they should foot the bill.

Also, I explored a new piece of software, you know how I cannot resist new software, that is promising for writing and being organized. It’s called Scrivener and has just been released. Check it out here.

Continue reading “Prep work (Day 184/365)” →

Some accomplishment (Day 149/365)

Posted on by Dale

Okay, so it wasn’t orchestrating Make Way, but at least I got something done.

I wrote an article to publicize the First Look on January 10. I emailed members of our little octet to see if they would like to meet more than once, as per Marc’s suggestion that we need as much practice as we can get.

And I put together a Keynote presentation of the poetry of William Blake’s Inn, with the music embedded in it. Keynote is Apple’s version of M****’s P****P**nt, only prettier. Of course.

Since the William Blake playlist (via iTunes) starts playing as soon as the presentation does, I’m going to whip up some little nothing to cover the title and Prologue pages. At some point. Between now and Jan. 9. Maybe tomorrow?