A quote from WGA west president Patric Verrone ran in Friday's Wall Street Journal, saying that the current strike is creating new "entrepreneurial possibilities for the talent community to go directly into production and distribution.... The ability to explore this business without media conglomerates is becoming a real possibility.”
He was speaking specifically about internet TV, but his statement has broader reach than that. As any number of small, truly independent filmmakers have demonstrated in the last few years, it's entirely possible to get a film into theaters and then do a DVD release largely over the internet, without ever becoming beholden to a studio or a distributor. Marc Rosenbush and I have done exactly that with Zen Noir, and our success is by no means the most dramatic. Peter Broderick is probably the most recognized authority in town on these issues, and there is an excellent article on his website dealing with all of this.
More and more, I've come to be a believer in the whole Do It Yourself model, across the board. Incorporation for Artists is, I have no doubt, good enough to secure a modest deal at least with a niche publisher like Silman-James, which focuses on film-related books. But if I went that route, I would get a small advance, and then I would get small royalties spread out over a few years, and then at some point the book would be moved off the shelves for something newer and that would be the end of it. But I can sell it online, keep all the profits (after very modest expenses because there's so little overhead), and keep doing that year after year.
And the above-mentioned Marc Rosenbush recently launched an online course called Internet Marketing for Filmmakers, in which he teaches exactly how we put together the Zen Noir DVD launch. It is, so far, the farthest step we've taken in our growing conviction on the value of Doing It Yourself: a statement of what we believe, why we believe it, and how it might help others, as well.
Think of the possibilities: do a simple, small film (I just saw Miranda July's Me, You and Everyone We Know, which is a great movie and perfect example of a film that would fit this paradigm) (here's her blog); release it in theaters or don't, you'll probably make more money, actually, if you don't; then do your homework, identify your audience really well, put up a website and start selling. Thousands of people will see your work, they'll buy it for their friends, the story you want to tell will get told to a much wider audience than ever saw anything I did in the theatre, and all the profits belong to you and your partners. All of the profits.
The strike demonstrates the dangers of being owned by the media conglomerates. Because it's not just the writers risking their livelihoods: there are also uncounted thousands of jobs that are, simply, collateral damage. Some of the production company executives we pitched to just before the strike, for example, have already been fired. And if they're gone, so are their assistants. Hollywood's famous mailroom jobs have probably been whittled down, as well. A friend of mine who runs a temp agency tells me that even normal lawfirm staffing jobs have dried up, at Christmastime when people are going on vacation, almost certainly because everyone in town is simply buckling down and trying to get through this whole thing. There's pain out there, and it's spreading, and it has everything to do with a few big, big companies owning almost everything there is to own in this business.
Now imagine if enough frustrated indie film guys decided to start taking matters into their own hands. Internet TV, self-distributed DVDs, books online, all of it. Then it wouldn't matter what the Sumner Redstones or the Rupert Murdochs of the world, the media conglomerates who own almost all of everything, have to say about our work. Our work is ours, that's how it always should have been and now, just maybe, we can make this oughta-be into a really-truly-is.
There are dangers, to be sure, and some real challenges--not only do you have to be a good artist who makes good work, but you have to become a real businessman, and believe me, I know exactly how much that idea reduces most artists to a pile of jelly. But the alternative is becoming a slave to Rupert Murdoch, and come on, when you think about it for even a second, isn't it worth anything to avoid that particular trap?
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Saturday, November 24, 2007
The Guns of Dealey Plaza
This is true: at the entrance to the Sixth Floor Museum, which is what has become of the Texas Book Depository in the years since President Kennedy was assassinated, there is a sign reminding people that they shouldn't bring guns inside.
And for some reason, I was the only person in the immediate vicinity who found that ironic.
My father and step-mother recently moved to Dallas for work, and I flew out for Thanksgiving. Shortly after reaching the airport I saw one of those red crawl-displays displaying the date, November 22, and realized that I was making my first visit to Dallas on the anniversary of the Kennedy assassination in that same city. So I had JFK on my mind practically from the first moment, and it's not such a surprise, really, that the one thing we all decided to do the Friday after Thanksgiving, before we all flew off to our different places again, was to visit Dealey Plaza.
Since the anniversary itself happened to fall on Thanksgiving, most people visited the next day, as I did, and there was a circus going on all across Dealey Plaza. (Here's a photo of the crowd on the grassy knoll.) There were guys selling things near the entrance, the same sorts of guys you'll see hawking t-shirts outside concerts or selling maps of the stars' homes in Beverly Hills. I leaned over to my sister and said "Hey, one of the great tragedies of American history happened here! Let's exploit it!" My step-mother politely declined to spend five bucks on one of their printed maps of the area.
We paid $13.50 per adult, which seemed a little steep, but it included an audio thingie that you hung around your neck. There really wasn't anything on the tape that added to the materials already on display, and the crowds were so large that the tape was moving way faster than I was; about halfway through I turned it off for good and explored at my own pace.
And yes, right at the entrance, where the young guy took our tickets, there was a posted sign reminding people not to bring guns inside. I asked if anyone found that ironic, and the young ticket-taker said "Well, this is Texas," and my dad pointed out that Texas is a concealed-carry state. All of which I knew perfectly well: it was the fact that in this place dedicated to perhaps the most notorious shooting of all time, people needed to be reminded that bringing a gun was perhaps in bad taste.
Apparently I hadn't sufficiently learned from the map-sellers outside that where money is to be made, bad taste really doesn't enter into the equation.
The exhibition itself strives for good taste by broadening its reach beyond the assassination: brief portraits of the Sixties, of Kennedy himself, and of his administration (prompting Dad to recollect when he was serving on an aircraft carrier during the Cuban Missile Crisis, right at the front line at what turned out to be the moment of greatest tension, almost entirely unaware of what was actually going on). But of course the museum doesn't have much in the way of artifacts to go along with these displays: the Kennedy Library in Boston, quite naturally, has all of that, together with the National Archives.
The plain truth, then, is that this is a museum about one event: an assassination. Here too the curators strive to be as tasteful as possible, given what the museum is: blown-up still frames from the Zapruder film don't show quite the worst moment, though they come close. There is a photo of President Kennedy's dark suit jacket showing the bullet hole, but not of his white shirt, which shows the blood much more obviously. And of course there are no autopsy photos or diagrams, for which many thanks. (Yes, you can find all of that on the internet, if you must.)
And there is plenty on the investigation itself, including the FBI's scale mock-up of Dealey Plaza. But what matters most, of course, is the window itself, from where Oswald fired. A giant glass box surrounds the area now, and empty book boxes seek to recreate the situation: boxes stacked high in order to conceal someone crouching behind, peering out through a rifle's telescopic sight, waiting for the right moment.
And I have to say, all conspiracy theories aside: if you were going to do such a thing, that was a perfect place for it. Coming along Houston Street, the motorcade made a sharp left onto Elm Street, which immediately curves back almost in the same direction they just came from before proceeding on toward the highways. This means the motorcade would have had to slow down to make the turn, then curved away from the Book Depository, a perfect shot getting better and better with each second. It's all perfectly obvious when you look down through those windows; there's a tree in the way that would make the shot harder now, but from the original photos that tree wasn't nearly so expansive in 1963. (Oliver Stone had it trimmed back when he filmed JFK there, but that was 16 years ago and the tree has filled out again.)
Of course, the grassy knoll would make a pretty good spot, too. There are actually three such pergolas on all sides of the plaza, any of which would have made a good sniper's perch. I won't go into the various theories, except to say that even though I do believe governments are capable of attempting most anything, I'm not nearly as convinced that they're actually capable of accomplishing such grand conspiracies.
But at least I know I can say this: now, in a concealed-carry state like Texas, I can rest assured that in this one place, the Texas School Book Depository, I am reasonably safe from getting shot. Good to know.
And for some reason, I was the only person in the immediate vicinity who found that ironic.
My father and step-mother recently moved to Dallas for work, and I flew out for Thanksgiving. Shortly after reaching the airport I saw one of those red crawl-displays displaying the date, November 22, and realized that I was making my first visit to Dallas on the anniversary of the Kennedy assassination in that same city. So I had JFK on my mind practically from the first moment, and it's not such a surprise, really, that the one thing we all decided to do the Friday after Thanksgiving, before we all flew off to our different places again, was to visit Dealey Plaza.
Since the anniversary itself happened to fall on Thanksgiving, most people visited the next day, as I did, and there was a circus going on all across Dealey Plaza. (Here's a photo of the crowd on the grassy knoll.) There were guys selling things near the entrance, the same sorts of guys you'll see hawking t-shirts outside concerts or selling maps of the stars' homes in Beverly Hills. I leaned over to my sister and said "Hey, one of the great tragedies of American history happened here! Let's exploit it!" My step-mother politely declined to spend five bucks on one of their printed maps of the area.We paid $13.50 per adult, which seemed a little steep, but it included an audio thingie that you hung around your neck. There really wasn't anything on the tape that added to the materials already on display, and the crowds were so large that the tape was moving way faster than I was; about halfway through I turned it off for good and explored at my own pace.
And yes, right at the entrance, where the young guy took our tickets, there was a posted sign reminding people not to bring guns inside. I asked if anyone found that ironic, and the young ticket-taker said "Well, this is Texas," and my dad pointed out that Texas is a concealed-carry state. All of which I knew perfectly well: it was the fact that in this place dedicated to perhaps the most notorious shooting of all time, people needed to be reminded that bringing a gun was perhaps in bad taste.
Apparently I hadn't sufficiently learned from the map-sellers outside that where money is to be made, bad taste really doesn't enter into the equation.
The exhibition itself strives for good taste by broadening its reach beyond the assassination: brief portraits of the Sixties, of Kennedy himself, and of his administration (prompting Dad to recollect when he was serving on an aircraft carrier during the Cuban Missile Crisis, right at the front line at what turned out to be the moment of greatest tension, almost entirely unaware of what was actually going on). But of course the museum doesn't have much in the way of artifacts to go along with these displays: the Kennedy Library in Boston, quite naturally, has all of that, together with the National Archives.
The plain truth, then, is that this is a museum about one event: an assassination. Here too the curators strive to be as tasteful as possible, given what the museum is: blown-up still frames from the Zapruder film don't show quite the worst moment, though they come close. There is a photo of President Kennedy's dark suit jacket showing the bullet hole, but not of his white shirt, which shows the blood much more obviously. And of course there are no autopsy photos or diagrams, for which many thanks. (Yes, you can find all of that on the internet, if you must.)
And there is plenty on the investigation itself, including the FBI's scale mock-up of Dealey Plaza. But what matters most, of course, is the window itself, from where Oswald fired. A giant glass box surrounds the area now, and empty book boxes seek to recreate the situation: boxes stacked high in order to conceal someone crouching behind, peering out through a rifle's telescopic sight, waiting for the right moment.
And I have to say, all conspiracy theories aside: if you were going to do such a thing, that was a perfect place for it. Coming along Houston Street, the motorcade made a sharp left onto Elm Street, which immediately curves back almost in the same direction they just came from before proceeding on toward the highways. This means the motorcade would have had to slow down to make the turn, then curved away from the Book Depository, a perfect shot getting better and better with each second. It's all perfectly obvious when you look down through those windows; there's a tree in the way that would make the shot harder now, but from the original photos that tree wasn't nearly so expansive in 1963. (Oliver Stone had it trimmed back when he filmed JFK there, but that was 16 years ago and the tree has filled out again.)Of course, the grassy knoll would make a pretty good spot, too. There are actually three such pergolas on all sides of the plaza, any of which would have made a good sniper's perch. I won't go into the various theories, except to say that even though I do believe governments are capable of attempting most anything, I'm not nearly as convinced that they're actually capable of accomplishing such grand conspiracies.
But at least I know I can say this: now, in a concealed-carry state like Texas, I can rest assured that in this one place, the Texas School Book Depository, I am reasonably safe from getting shot. Good to know.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Reading Devices
On the one hand, I'm an old-fashioned bibliophile, one of those people who has books spilling out from every conceivable corner. (Go ahead, open my kitchen cabinets, I dare you.) I've always agreed with Isaac Asimov that a book is a perfect invention: it requires no batteries, it starts when you want it to start, stops when you want it to stop, waits for you with endless patience, and picks up right where you left it every time. Hours of entertainment, hours of education, a truly perfect invention, no question. And as Borges once wrote, "I cannot sleep unless I am surrounded by books." Exactly right.
But every time I move, I fill dozens of boxes with books. Hundreds of pounds of them, growing every year. Not to mention the aforementioned kitchen cabinets. When I travel, I generally limit myself to bringing two books, simply because of the weight and the bulk. This is no problem when traveling for a couple days; but for a month-long trip, two books might not be enough. And what if I'm on the road but need one of my many reference books?
This is why the idea of a "reading device" (there isn't a good name for these things yet) has some appeal. And since Amazon has just released the Kindle, I figured I'd take the occasion to write about this whole class of gadget a little.
The first e-book readers were basically limited-function computers, with LCD displays that had the same problems as computer screens: tough to read in daylight, and a glare that would absolutely hurt the eyes after too much reading. I liked the idea of them, but none of that early wave of devices was anywhere near as good as a book.
Then came this whole eInk development. Now we were starting to get somewhere: an LCD-like screen without glare, easily readable in daylight, something that really resembled a piece of paper, but one that you didn't have to flip in order to read what was printed on the other side of it. The Sony Reader was first, and it has a lot of advantages: it's light, it has decent capacity, and if you buy you get some books for free to get you started. One gigantic problem, though: it's not compatible with Macs, and in order to get books onto the Reader, you have to first interface with your computer. So much for that idea.
Now Amazon has released the Kindle, and it has one immediate advantage: no computers are involved at all, it operates wirelessly by downloading books from Amazon's servers, using what is basically Sprint's cellphone network--except that Amazon absorbs the cost of the wireless connection (and of course bundles it into the price of each individual book). (By the way, there's a decent comparison of the Reader and the Kindle here, on CNET's site.)
But there's a new problem: the Kindle itself is godawful ugly. I mean, look at it. It's horrifically, incomprehensibly ugly. And there are so many buttons, it looks almost impossible to hold without accidentally triggering something. This ugliness problem is no small thing--like it or not, the hip factor matters, and the Kindle could absolutely learn some things from, say, the iPhone (it could also use the iPhone's touch screen, which would help straightaway by removing that clunky keyboard). The Reader looks much cleaner, and that's good--we shouldn't be distracted by the package, the reading experience should be all about the words, and every other distraction should simply vanish. Accidentally hitting the Next Page button a hundred times is also a pretty bad thing.
And, as with the Reader, it's still too expensive. I'd be willing to spend about $100 on a "reading device," but $400 is way beyond the pale. Particularly when you're not saving that much on the books themselves. It would be even nicer if you could get a bundle discount on the books--buy it in print and for the Kindle, and get a special price for both. That would be nifty.
Still--in his video promo for the Kindle, Neil Gaiman talks about how, when he traveled to Florida to write American Gods, he had to drive rather than fly, because of the hundred pounds of reference books he took with him. This sort of argument carries an awful lot of weight (sorry) with me, and makes the idea of a device of this sort that much more attractive.
But all in all: we're not there yet. We're getting tantalizingly close to a device that could actually bring a significant part of my much-loved library on the road with me, but we ain't quite there yet. Maybe in its second generation of the Kindle, Amazon can drop the price and pretty it up significantly. That might just make the crucial, final difference...
But every time I move, I fill dozens of boxes with books. Hundreds of pounds of them, growing every year. Not to mention the aforementioned kitchen cabinets. When I travel, I generally limit myself to bringing two books, simply because of the weight and the bulk. This is no problem when traveling for a couple days; but for a month-long trip, two books might not be enough. And what if I'm on the road but need one of my many reference books?
This is why the idea of a "reading device" (there isn't a good name for these things yet) has some appeal. And since Amazon has just released the Kindle, I figured I'd take the occasion to write about this whole class of gadget a little.
The first e-book readers were basically limited-function computers, with LCD displays that had the same problems as computer screens: tough to read in daylight, and a glare that would absolutely hurt the eyes after too much reading. I liked the idea of them, but none of that early wave of devices was anywhere near as good as a book.
Then came this whole eInk development. Now we were starting to get somewhere: an LCD-like screen without glare, easily readable in daylight, something that really resembled a piece of paper, but one that you didn't have to flip in order to read what was printed on the other side of it. The Sony Reader was first, and it has a lot of advantages: it's light, it has decent capacity, and if you buy you get some books for free to get you started. One gigantic problem, though: it's not compatible with Macs, and in order to get books onto the Reader, you have to first interface with your computer. So much for that idea.Now Amazon has released the Kindle, and it has one immediate advantage: no computers are involved at all, it operates wirelessly by downloading books from Amazon's servers, using what is basically Sprint's cellphone network--except that Amazon absorbs the cost of the wireless connection (and of course bundles it into the price of each individual book). (By the way, there's a decent comparison of the Reader and the Kindle here, on CNET's site.)
But there's a new problem: the Kindle itself is godawful ugly. I mean, look at it. It's horrifically, incomprehensibly ugly. And there are so many buttons, it looks almost impossible to hold without accidentally triggering something. This ugliness problem is no small thing--like it or not, the hip factor matters, and the Kindle could absolutely learn some things from, say, the iPhone (it could also use the iPhone's touch screen, which would help straightaway by removing that clunky keyboard). The Reader looks much cleaner, and that's good--we shouldn't be distracted by the package, the reading experience should be all about the words, and every other distraction should simply vanish. Accidentally hitting the Next Page button a hundred times is also a pretty bad thing.And, as with the Reader, it's still too expensive. I'd be willing to spend about $100 on a "reading device," but $400 is way beyond the pale. Particularly when you're not saving that much on the books themselves. It would be even nicer if you could get a bundle discount on the books--buy it in print and for the Kindle, and get a special price for both. That would be nifty.
Still--in his video promo for the Kindle, Neil Gaiman talks about how, when he traveled to Florida to write American Gods, he had to drive rather than fly, because of the hundred pounds of reference books he took with him. This sort of argument carries an awful lot of weight (sorry) with me, and makes the idea of a device of this sort that much more attractive.
But all in all: we're not there yet. We're getting tantalizingly close to a device that could actually bring a significant part of my much-loved library on the road with me, but we ain't quite there yet. Maybe in its second generation of the Kindle, Amazon can drop the price and pretty it up significantly. That might just make the crucial, final difference...
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Strike Striking Struck
So you may have heard that some writers are making a lot of noise, and the world holds its breath lest it be forced to endure life without TV shows.
There is a very good WGA-produced video explaining what it's all about that can be found here on a MySpace page...
And the best reporting I've seen on the strike, on a day-to-day basis, is definitely Nikki Finke's LA Weekly column, which can be found at her Deadline Hollywood Daily site...
As a writer, I'm (almost) completely on the WGA's side. As the above video demonstrates, the issue at hand is one that will only get larger as time passes--and the pay inequities, already pretty outrageous, will become intolerable. Since I plan to have a nice long future writing for media including film and television, this is a fight whose worth is self-evident.
So why did I say (almost)? Well, you know. Self-interest takes its toll. And just a week before the strike began, Marc and I pitched City of Truth to several production companies, getting enthusiastic responses from every one of them. Three companies, to date, have asked for copies of the script, so it is now being read in some lovely places. But with the strike, even though I'm not a WGA member, I still can't sell anything to a signatory company (and all the interested parties are signatories). I can't pitch to anyone new, can't have a meeting with anyone from any of these companies. So if we get a call next week from someone saying he loves the script and wants to pay me money, I have to say no. This is whattayacallit--frustrating.
Why am I not a WGA member? Partly because playwrights aren't covered, and partly because I have tried to keep away from unions for as long as possible, ever since seeing what happened to some actor-friends in Chicago who joined Equity too soon--suddenly they couldn't work for the non-union theatres anymore, but they didn't yet have a solid enough reputation to get steady work at the union theatres. End result: an endless string of dayjobs.
Plus there's a whole discussion we could have about when unions are essential, and when they overstay their welcome. But that's for another day. For now, writers are on strike over something they need to strike about, and I'm behind them for this fight--hell, I may even go out and hold up a picket sign once or twice.
Even so... like every other writer, I really hope this one can get settled soon. It won't, but I sure wish it would.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Catching Up
Some random stuff...
The guitar playing is going along reasonably well. There was a point about a month ago when the very thing I'd predicted happened: my usual learning curve curved when it should, and suddenly the things I'd been doing badly just kinda got better. It was definitely sudden: one day I was as bad as I'd always been, and the next day I picked up the guitar and started playing as if I'd been doing it for years. The trick is, the stuff I was good at was only the stuff I'd been practicing--so now I've added a couple more chords to learn, and I still haven't got any single song all the way down, so there are still miles and miles to go before I begin to feel any sort of real competence. Still--when I pick up the guitar, something resembling music does actually happen. This is the first great step. Now comes the trick of keeping up my enthusiasm over the long haul...
Sales of Incorporation for Artists are going along reasonably well--I'd made back the expenses of putting it together in just a couple hours on the first day--but it hasn't quite taken off yet. It's just a question of figuring out the advertising--I was at the big Screenwriters' Expo for the last few days, and when I mentioned the book to some people they got very enthusiastic, so I'm pretty sure it's just a question of getting it in front of the right people. The very definition of advertising.
The skies are slowly turning blue again. And I can pretty well breathe again. The fires aren't out, not by a long shot, but the Malibu fire is contained and the bad ones down south, by San Diego, are slowly being brought under control. Even a couple days ago, the skies were still yellow, and the air quality was decidedly awful. But it's getting better, each day a little better than the one before. This is a decidedly good thing.
Plus the Red Sox won the World Series again, and that's just great all over. Maybe next time I'll tell my version of the Bill Buckner story...
The guitar playing is going along reasonably well. There was a point about a month ago when the very thing I'd predicted happened: my usual learning curve curved when it should, and suddenly the things I'd been doing badly just kinda got better. It was definitely sudden: one day I was as bad as I'd always been, and the next day I picked up the guitar and started playing as if I'd been doing it for years. The trick is, the stuff I was good at was only the stuff I'd been practicing--so now I've added a couple more chords to learn, and I still haven't got any single song all the way down, so there are still miles and miles to go before I begin to feel any sort of real competence. Still--when I pick up the guitar, something resembling music does actually happen. This is the first great step. Now comes the trick of keeping up my enthusiasm over the long haul...
Sales of Incorporation for Artists are going along reasonably well--I'd made back the expenses of putting it together in just a couple hours on the first day--but it hasn't quite taken off yet. It's just a question of figuring out the advertising--I was at the big Screenwriters' Expo for the last few days, and when I mentioned the book to some people they got very enthusiastic, so I'm pretty sure it's just a question of getting it in front of the right people. The very definition of advertising.
The skies are slowly turning blue again. And I can pretty well breathe again. The fires aren't out, not by a long shot, but the Malibu fire is contained and the bad ones down south, by San Diego, are slowly being brought under control. Even a couple days ago, the skies were still yellow, and the air quality was decidedly awful. But it's getting better, each day a little better than the one before. This is a decidedly good thing.
Plus the Red Sox won the World Series again, and that's just great all over. Maybe next time I'll tell my version of the Bill Buckner story...
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Not on Fire
As bad as it is, it could be worse. The pictures from Southern California these past couple days have looked literally hellish, but the fires are not universal. Geography has everything to do with it.
L.A. proper sits in a bowl, surrounded by mountains on three sides (the Santa Monicas, the San Gabriels), with the Pacific Ocean on the fourth side. The fires are in the mountains and canyons, to the north and south. Malibu is to to the north, a case where canyons essentially run right down to the sea, which is how residents get those spectacular views. There are canyon communities all over the area, and they are, most of the time, spectacular places to live (when I first came here, I stayed for three months with some friends in Topanga Canyon, immediately south of Malibu, and loved it). But if there's a fire, those canyons becomes rivers of flame, with results that have been seen time and again.
So if you live there, it can get very bad very fast, because the geography of the canyons provides channels that essentially funnel the flames in a specific direction. At the same time, the mountains doing the funnelling typically protect other areas, unless the flames climb to a ridgeline and flying embers set another area on fire. (Which has in fact been happening quite a lot, which is why three fires became thirteen so quickly.)
But I live in the bowl that is L.A. proper. The mountains are visibly in every direction, and I live toward the northern end of the bowl--on my bike, I can start climbing the Sepulveda Pass into the Santa Monica Mountains in about twenty minutes. (And a mighty workout it is, although the trip back is fabulous--three miles without peddling!) But the only scenario by which my place could catch fire would be the true nightmare: a Chicago-in-1871 conflagration where the whole city is aflame, embers leaping from rooftop to rooftop. It's not impossible, but it is unlikely.
In fact, just standing outside, I can barely see any evidence of the fires. The sky to the west is a little yellow, but to the east it's a lovely blue. My throat has been burning since late Sunday night, and my breathing seems a little shallow sometimes, but that's it. The same Santa Ana winds that caused all of this are blowing most of the smoke due west, out over the ocean. So that's something, at least.
But for now, no real problems here. (Note the qualifier...)
L.A. proper sits in a bowl, surrounded by mountains on three sides (the Santa Monicas, the San Gabriels), with the Pacific Ocean on the fourth side. The fires are in the mountains and canyons, to the north and south. Malibu is to to the north, a case where canyons essentially run right down to the sea, which is how residents get those spectacular views. There are canyon communities all over the area, and they are, most of the time, spectacular places to live (when I first came here, I stayed for three months with some friends in Topanga Canyon, immediately south of Malibu, and loved it). But if there's a fire, those canyons becomes rivers of flame, with results that have been seen time and again.
So if you live there, it can get very bad very fast, because the geography of the canyons provides channels that essentially funnel the flames in a specific direction. At the same time, the mountains doing the funnelling typically protect other areas, unless the flames climb to a ridgeline and flying embers set another area on fire. (Which has in fact been happening quite a lot, which is why three fires became thirteen so quickly.)
But I live in the bowl that is L.A. proper. The mountains are visibly in every direction, and I live toward the northern end of the bowl--on my bike, I can start climbing the Sepulveda Pass into the Santa Monica Mountains in about twenty minutes. (And a mighty workout it is, although the trip back is fabulous--three miles without peddling!) But the only scenario by which my place could catch fire would be the true nightmare: a Chicago-in-1871 conflagration where the whole city is aflame, embers leaping from rooftop to rooftop. It's not impossible, but it is unlikely.
In fact, just standing outside, I can barely see any evidence of the fires. The sky to the west is a little yellow, but to the east it's a lovely blue. My throat has been burning since late Sunday night, and my breathing seems a little shallow sometimes, but that's it. The same Santa Ana winds that caused all of this are blowing most of the smoke due west, out over the ocean. So that's something, at least.
But for now, no real problems here. (Note the qualifier...)
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Family and Funerals
Here's why last weekend I flew to Pittsburgh on a Friday and back to L.A. the next day. Hint: it ain't because I love the good people with the TSA so damn much.
The story requires a boatload of exposition. My dad and my step-mother have for the last several years taken care of my step-mother's mother, Marian (universally known, even by her children, as "Grandma"). She was a very sweet, very gentle, very quiet woman who, since her husband died more than 25 years ago, always seemed to be one of those people left behind in a different era. Never really adjusted to the modern world, but it didn't much matter: she had a lot of family, she did some traveling, and she was, it turns out, tougher than she looked--on a skiing trip she was riding behind Dad on a snowmobile that he flipped, and she popped right up, laughing. So it was agonizing when, a couple years ago, she developed Alzheimer's. Her hearing went, too, so that even when she knew where she was, she couldn't hear anything you said and communication became nearly impossible. Eventually she became a walking ghost in her daughter's house, needing constant care. On October 5, in what can only be considered a relief to everyone, herself included, she passed on.
The world being what it is, there are odd coincidences. Dad, at an age when most men would be retiring, has just sold the house because his job needs to move him to Dallas. My brother and sister have moved into their own places, and everyone else was about to pick up and move to Dallas--but the night before the move, Grandma died. You can't tell me that people don't know when the right moment comes.
Now, Dad is one of the world's great stoics. When something happens, he becomes a no-muss no-fuss get-things-done sort of guy, which makes him a great guy to have around in a crisis. For something like this, though, it's not necessarily an ideal approach. His initial take on the whole situation was that he and my step-mother and her brothers would fly to Pittsburgh for the funeral, but that no one else should stop their lives to attend. He was considering all sorts of factors, like my siblings' new financial constraints now that they're living on their own, and figured it made eminent fiscal sense for them not to go. Which of course it did. But the kids were born late enough that they only ever had one living grandparent, and Grandma was it. I knew after ten seconds of talking to them that they needed to go, and the way to make sure that happened was for me to go myself. (And it didn't take long for Dad to figure all of this out as well, at which point he swung into action, arranging hotel rooms and rental cars.)
Hence four airports in two days. Because of course nothing was flying direct from L.A. to Pittsburgh, so I had to go through Detroit on the outbound leg, and Minneapolis on the way back. (Wondering, the whole time I was that particular airport, "I wonder which bathroom it was?" A friend joked "Keep your feet inside the stall at all times!")
Our planes got in last, so by the time we reached the Comfort Inn in Penn Hills, the rest of the family had a good loud wake going on in the hotel lounge. Tears and tales as the liquor flowed, and we were up till 3:00 a.m. with a 6:30 wakeup call.
Now 3:00 a.m. wasn't a big deal--it was only midnight, L.A. time. But that 6:30 wakeup, that one was a killer. Particularly because (a) our non-smoking room had just had a smoker in it, so everything reeked of cigarette, and (b) my brother, with whom I shared the room, loves cold weather even more than I do, so on a cold night he opened the sliding glass door, and by the time 6:30 rolled around I could barely move what with being near frozen to death. Hands shaking, I immediately started a very hot shower and stood under it for a long long time.
And when my brother woke up? He was frozen too. And we still hadn't managed to clear out the cigarette stench.
The service was quiet and small. And the funeral home was running things at peak efficiency, so that once we reached the cemetery, we didn't have a graveside ceremony at all, we simply filed into a covered room with a nice view for a few words; and as soon as we were done, another family swooped in for their own ceremony. I very nearly served as a pallbearer, but one of Marian's sons appeared at the last moment and I happily gave my space to him.
We ended up graveside anyway. Marian was to be buried next to her husband Walter, and we found the space just as the backhoe arrived. So a slightly macabre scene followed as some family members did (and others decidedly did not) stand around, watching, as Marian was in fact laid to rest. Gorgeous view, right at the top of a hill, with trees and a great big sky all around.
And then back again. The kids and I went into Pittsburgh, which we discovered is one of those cities that rolls up the sidewalks on weekends, then we found ourselves a bar at the airport, watched a college football game, and spent just a little bit of time with each other before getting on planes and planes and going our separate ways again.
The story requires a boatload of exposition. My dad and my step-mother have for the last several years taken care of my step-mother's mother, Marian (universally known, even by her children, as "Grandma"). She was a very sweet, very gentle, very quiet woman who, since her husband died more than 25 years ago, always seemed to be one of those people left behind in a different era. Never really adjusted to the modern world, but it didn't much matter: she had a lot of family, she did some traveling, and she was, it turns out, tougher than she looked--on a skiing trip she was riding behind Dad on a snowmobile that he flipped, and she popped right up, laughing. So it was agonizing when, a couple years ago, she developed Alzheimer's. Her hearing went, too, so that even when she knew where she was, she couldn't hear anything you said and communication became nearly impossible. Eventually she became a walking ghost in her daughter's house, needing constant care. On October 5, in what can only be considered a relief to everyone, herself included, she passed on.
The world being what it is, there are odd coincidences. Dad, at an age when most men would be retiring, has just sold the house because his job needs to move him to Dallas. My brother and sister have moved into their own places, and everyone else was about to pick up and move to Dallas--but the night before the move, Grandma died. You can't tell me that people don't know when the right moment comes.
Now, Dad is one of the world's great stoics. When something happens, he becomes a no-muss no-fuss get-things-done sort of guy, which makes him a great guy to have around in a crisis. For something like this, though, it's not necessarily an ideal approach. His initial take on the whole situation was that he and my step-mother and her brothers would fly to Pittsburgh for the funeral, but that no one else should stop their lives to attend. He was considering all sorts of factors, like my siblings' new financial constraints now that they're living on their own, and figured it made eminent fiscal sense for them not to go. Which of course it did. But the kids were born late enough that they only ever had one living grandparent, and Grandma was it. I knew after ten seconds of talking to them that they needed to go, and the way to make sure that happened was for me to go myself. (And it didn't take long for Dad to figure all of this out as well, at which point he swung into action, arranging hotel rooms and rental cars.)
Hence four airports in two days. Because of course nothing was flying direct from L.A. to Pittsburgh, so I had to go through Detroit on the outbound leg, and Minneapolis on the way back. (Wondering, the whole time I was that particular airport, "I wonder which bathroom it was?" A friend joked "Keep your feet inside the stall at all times!")
Our planes got in last, so by the time we reached the Comfort Inn in Penn Hills, the rest of the family had a good loud wake going on in the hotel lounge. Tears and tales as the liquor flowed, and we were up till 3:00 a.m. with a 6:30 wakeup call.
Now 3:00 a.m. wasn't a big deal--it was only midnight, L.A. time. But that 6:30 wakeup, that one was a killer. Particularly because (a) our non-smoking room had just had a smoker in it, so everything reeked of cigarette, and (b) my brother, with whom I shared the room, loves cold weather even more than I do, so on a cold night he opened the sliding glass door, and by the time 6:30 rolled around I could barely move what with being near frozen to death. Hands shaking, I immediately started a very hot shower and stood under it for a long long time.
And when my brother woke up? He was frozen too. And we still hadn't managed to clear out the cigarette stench.
The service was quiet and small. And the funeral home was running things at peak efficiency, so that once we reached the cemetery, we didn't have a graveside ceremony at all, we simply filed into a covered room with a nice view for a few words; and as soon as we were done, another family swooped in for their own ceremony. I very nearly served as a pallbearer, but one of Marian's sons appeared at the last moment and I happily gave my space to him.
We ended up graveside anyway. Marian was to be buried next to her husband Walter, and we found the space just as the backhoe arrived. So a slightly macabre scene followed as some family members did (and others decidedly did not) stand around, watching, as Marian was in fact laid to rest. Gorgeous view, right at the top of a hill, with trees and a great big sky all around.
And then back again. The kids and I went into Pittsburgh, which we discovered is one of those cities that rolls up the sidewalks on weekends, then we found ourselves a bar at the airport, watched a college football game, and spent just a little bit of time with each other before getting on planes and planes and going our separate ways again.
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Not Launching
Twenty minutes, that's all. The email ad for the incorporation book was about to go out, and twenty minutes before it was supposed to happen, our server crashed. The site became inaccessible. Since you really don't want any of your customers to find a dead site, particularly not your first and perhaps largest wave of customers, the motivated ones who see the ad and say to themselves "Hey, that's exactly what I've been wanting!," a dead site for even a brief time is no good at all.
So we pushed it to tomorrow morning. The site is back up, the email happens in the morning, and then we see how things go.
Good thing I'm not a believer in omens.
So we pushed it to tomorrow morning. The site is back up, the email happens in the morning, and then we see how things go.
Good thing I'm not a believer in omens.
Monday, October 01, 2007
Launching
Launching tomorrow: www.incorporationforartists.com
It's really truly amazing how long it takes to put up a simple website. Or at least, how long it takes to put up a simple commercial website. Because as much time as we spent creating the site itself, we spent more time doing the invisible behind-the-scenes stuff that will allow us to actually sell a product online.
A lot of that time, for example, was spent putting together bonuses, like an email series that will be sent on the first day of each month to everyone who buys the book, reminding them of what documents are due that month. Had to compile the information, write twelve emails, set up an auto-responder, and schedule each "broadcast" individually. An enormous amount of very tedious, repetitive work--but the goal of it is to have everything automated. So I spent a lot of time up front, but now I shouldn't need to spend too much time at all. Once a year I'll have to update the emails, looking for changed due dates and new documents and so forth, but that should be it--otherwise, everything now just kinda happens by itself. (In fact my October email just arrived this morning, and for a moment I looked at it, thinking "Incorporation for Artists? Who are they and why are they sending me email? Oh, wait--yeah, it's me. Well whattaya know.")
The harder part was getting testimonials from people. I'm lousy at asking for something for nothing--I have no trouble asking for things when I've got something to offer in return, but here I really could offer nothing except my enormous gratitude and an unspecifiable "huge favor" back, someday. And yet a lot of people took the time to read the whole book, and some even were able to offer really useful comments that have helped the book a lot. (A friend of mine from college, Melissa Klein, who I haven't actually seen in something like twenty years--we say howdy on MySpace from time to time--lives in New York and was really helpful on the sections that deal with the requirements in that state. How nice is that?)
So it's all ready now, finally. We'll take just a little time today to test all the links and processes, then we'll swap out the "Coming Soon!" page with the real thing and see what happens. Upon which we immediately turn our attention to doing exactly the same stuff with Marc's internet-marketing online course, which we hope will move along a little faster since we've now been through the process so recently.
Next--actual progress is made on the guitar.
It's really truly amazing how long it takes to put up a simple website. Or at least, how long it takes to put up a simple commercial website. Because as much time as we spent creating the site itself, we spent more time doing the invisible behind-the-scenes stuff that will allow us to actually sell a product online.
A lot of that time, for example, was spent putting together bonuses, like an email series that will be sent on the first day of each month to everyone who buys the book, reminding them of what documents are due that month. Had to compile the information, write twelve emails, set up an auto-responder, and schedule each "broadcast" individually. An enormous amount of very tedious, repetitive work--but the goal of it is to have everything automated. So I spent a lot of time up front, but now I shouldn't need to spend too much time at all. Once a year I'll have to update the emails, looking for changed due dates and new documents and so forth, but that should be it--otherwise, everything now just kinda happens by itself. (In fact my October email just arrived this morning, and for a moment I looked at it, thinking "Incorporation for Artists? Who are they and why are they sending me email? Oh, wait--yeah, it's me. Well whattaya know.")
The harder part was getting testimonials from people. I'm lousy at asking for something for nothing--I have no trouble asking for things when I've got something to offer in return, but here I really could offer nothing except my enormous gratitude and an unspecifiable "huge favor" back, someday. And yet a lot of people took the time to read the whole book, and some even were able to offer really useful comments that have helped the book a lot. (A friend of mine from college, Melissa Klein, who I haven't actually seen in something like twenty years--we say howdy on MySpace from time to time--lives in New York and was really helpful on the sections that deal with the requirements in that state. How nice is that?)
So it's all ready now, finally. We'll take just a little time today to test all the links and processes, then we'll swap out the "Coming Soon!" page with the real thing and see what happens. Upon which we immediately turn our attention to doing exactly the same stuff with Marc's internet-marketing online course, which we hope will move along a little faster since we've now been through the process so recently.
Next--actual progress is made on the guitar.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Chirp
Okay, you can't fool me. Call it "anecdotal evidence" all you want, but I know the truth through the scientific method. First, you see, you observe something that seems to be a pattern, and from it you devise a theory. Then you test that theory over time, to see if it holds up. Through this, I have cleverly deduced one of the great unknown conspiracies:
The batteries in smoke detectors have little timers built in so that they will always start to die between 1:00 and 4:00 in the morning, thus waking people up when they start to chirp very loudly and making the general populace tired, cranky and iiritable. (And, apparently, unable to spell.)
As I'm sure you know, most good smoke detectors these days are wired into building power, and this is a good thing--but you always want them to have battery backups, because if the fire takes out building power, you don't want to lose your smoke detector at that very critical moment. Batteries are, therefore, a good thing. But you know how it always works out: the battery starts to go, and the smoke detector is programmed to start chirping so that you know to replace the battery and keep yourself from, you know, burning to death in a fire. But I'll bet you've observed it, too: the chirping only ever starts at some godawful hour of the morning. And "chirp" is the gentle way of describing a most ungentle sound.
Now one might be inclined to think this is all just coincidence, until you climb out of bed and try to remove the battery. The one I wrestled with last night was plugged into the wall through a plug that held tight like a squid with a bottle of fish in its tentacles. Plus it had this little tab that extended right over the battery compartment--you simply could not change the battery without first unplugging the unit, which was kinda sorta impossible. Plus there's the fact that the smoke detector is high up on a wall, and if I were something less than 6'3" it would've been pretty well impossible.
By this point, I was really incredibly awake.
Eventually a pair of pliers did the trick, though I'm amazed I didn't destroy the unit in the process. And now the unit sits on a counter, unplugged and unbatteried, and I'd better hope a fire doesn't start near the front door in the next few hours or I'm toast.
Insult to injury: even after you've removed the battery, the damn thing still retains a charge for a while. It still chirps. Larry David had enormous fun with this in the first episode of the new season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, and of course I watched and laughed and then, not two weeks later, lived through the same scene in real time.
But I just wanted to, you know, warn people. About this great conspiracy. Now let us all turn our attentions to the pernicious question of why.
The batteries in smoke detectors have little timers built in so that they will always start to die between 1:00 and 4:00 in the morning, thus waking people up when they start to chirp very loudly and making the general populace tired, cranky and iiritable. (And, apparently, unable to spell.)
As I'm sure you know, most good smoke detectors these days are wired into building power, and this is a good thing--but you always want them to have battery backups, because if the fire takes out building power, you don't want to lose your smoke detector at that very critical moment. Batteries are, therefore, a good thing. But you know how it always works out: the battery starts to go, and the smoke detector is programmed to start chirping so that you know to replace the battery and keep yourself from, you know, burning to death in a fire. But I'll bet you've observed it, too: the chirping only ever starts at some godawful hour of the morning. And "chirp" is the gentle way of describing a most ungentle sound.
Now one might be inclined to think this is all just coincidence, until you climb out of bed and try to remove the battery. The one I wrestled with last night was plugged into the wall through a plug that held tight like a squid with a bottle of fish in its tentacles. Plus it had this little tab that extended right over the battery compartment--you simply could not change the battery without first unplugging the unit, which was kinda sorta impossible. Plus there's the fact that the smoke detector is high up on a wall, and if I were something less than 6'3" it would've been pretty well impossible.
By this point, I was really incredibly awake.
Eventually a pair of pliers did the trick, though I'm amazed I didn't destroy the unit in the process. And now the unit sits on a counter, unplugged and unbatteried, and I'd better hope a fire doesn't start near the front door in the next few hours or I'm toast.
Insult to injury: even after you've removed the battery, the damn thing still retains a charge for a while. It still chirps. Larry David had enormous fun with this in the first episode of the new season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, and of course I watched and laughed and then, not two weeks later, lived through the same scene in real time.
But I just wanted to, you know, warn people. About this great conspiracy. Now let us all turn our attentions to the pernicious question of why.
Saturday, September 08, 2007
Is It Progress?
I have now owned a guitar for two weeks, and I have been practicing at least a little bit every day. And so far...
...well, so far I still suck.
See, the frustrating part is that it's such a huge thing to learn because the guitar is more flexible than I'd realized. Chord fingerings for the left hand to learn, and not just a few of them--I've seen chord books for sale that advertise "1,000 chords diagrammed!" The techniques of strumming and picking for the right hand. The infinitely tricky separation of the right hand from the left hand. Learning to read tablature. Learning to read chord charts. Learning to read musical notation. A metronome to keep me on track rhythmically. Not to mention the necessity of actual physical changes that are required: the growth of callouses on the fingertips of the left hand so that there isn't so much, you know, pain when I play. ("I got blisters on my fingers!" shouted John, and now I get why.)
But it's been two weeks, and I've been practicing regularly, and I've learned to play five of the principal chords (A, C, D, E and G) pretty well. There are a couple very simple melodies (played on just two strings, involving only three frets) that I can now make my way through decently. I can sit down with tablature or a chord chart and work it through, slowly, but I can do it. But that's about it.
I still can't put any of those five chords together--I've been trying for days now to shift from A to D and back again, and although I'm slightly better than when I started, it's still pretty horrible. (The fingers just keep ending up in bad places for the D chord, and when I try to play it at speed I always get at least one dead string and another one buzzing badly.) Considering that this shift from A to D is part of only Lesson 2 of a course I'm taking, it feels pretty discouraging.
But perhaps part of the problem is that I'm trying too many things at once. When I purchased the guitar I bought a DVD and book for the Hal Leonard
method. And while I like the book, the DVD jumped almost immediately into reading notation on staves, at which I am really terrible. So I poked around on the internet and found a course almost universally recommended called Jamorama, put together by a New Zealander named Ben Edwards, and it only cost $40 so I bought it. And I definitely like it, but that's the one where I'm already stuck on Lesson 2, with dozens of lessons still to go. Then I bought a book containing lots of guitar chords, along with scales and arpeggios, all nicely diagrammed, so part of my practice now involves slowly working my way through, say, the C scale.
It's definitely possible, though, that all that is part of my problem. I'm doing a little out of the Hal Leonard book, a little out of Jamorama, a little scales work, and so forth. I'm not following any one course systematically, I'm trying to design a scattershot program on the fly without any idea what the hell I'm doing. Which is probably exactly why all I can see at the moment is the vastness of the task, instead of just focusing on, say, nailing the transition from the A to the D chord.
I ain't quittin' yet. No sir. I mean hey, I've got these fresh callouses on my fingertips, so that's one thing I've succeeded at. Time and repetition, and there they are, just like they're supposed to be. It would just be silly to quit now.
...well, so far I still suck.
See, the frustrating part is that it's such a huge thing to learn because the guitar is more flexible than I'd realized. Chord fingerings for the left hand to learn, and not just a few of them--I've seen chord books for sale that advertise "1,000 chords diagrammed!" The techniques of strumming and picking for the right hand. The infinitely tricky separation of the right hand from the left hand. Learning to read tablature. Learning to read chord charts. Learning to read musical notation. A metronome to keep me on track rhythmically. Not to mention the necessity of actual physical changes that are required: the growth of callouses on the fingertips of the left hand so that there isn't so much, you know, pain when I play. ("I got blisters on my fingers!" shouted John, and now I get why.)
But it's been two weeks, and I've been practicing regularly, and I've learned to play five of the principal chords (A, C, D, E and G) pretty well. There are a couple very simple melodies (played on just two strings, involving only three frets) that I can now make my way through decently. I can sit down with tablature or a chord chart and work it through, slowly, but I can do it. But that's about it.
I still can't put any of those five chords together--I've been trying for days now to shift from A to D and back again, and although I'm slightly better than when I started, it's still pretty horrible. (The fingers just keep ending up in bad places for the D chord, and when I try to play it at speed I always get at least one dead string and another one buzzing badly.) Considering that this shift from A to D is part of only Lesson 2 of a course I'm taking, it feels pretty discouraging.
But perhaps part of the problem is that I'm trying too many things at once. When I purchased the guitar I bought a DVD and book for the Hal Leonard
method. And while I like the book, the DVD jumped almost immediately into reading notation on staves, at which I am really terrible. So I poked around on the internet and found a course almost universally recommended called Jamorama, put together by a New Zealander named Ben Edwards, and it only cost $40 so I bought it. And I definitely like it, but that's the one where I'm already stuck on Lesson 2, with dozens of lessons still to go. Then I bought a book containing lots of guitar chords, along with scales and arpeggios, all nicely diagrammed, so part of my practice now involves slowly working my way through, say, the C scale.It's definitely possible, though, that all that is part of my problem. I'm doing a little out of the Hal Leonard book, a little out of Jamorama, a little scales work, and so forth. I'm not following any one course systematically, I'm trying to design a scattershot program on the fly without any idea what the hell I'm doing. Which is probably exactly why all I can see at the moment is the vastness of the task, instead of just focusing on, say, nailing the transition from the A to the D chord.
I ain't quittin' yet. No sir. I mean hey, I've got these fresh callouses on my fingertips, so that's one thing I've succeeded at. Time and repetition, and there they are, just like they're supposed to be. It would just be silly to quit now.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
In Which I Acquire a Guitar
The other day, a friend of mine decided to take advantage of a pretty amazing 2-for-1 offer at West L.A. Music. He went shopping for an electric and a new acoustic, to replace the entry-level guitar he'd had for years. I went along, always happy to watch someone else spend money, but once there, I had practically nothing to do.
I play no instruments, it's just not something that comes naturally to me. I took a music theory class and found it even harder than math--this with a very good teacher, Tony Tommasini, who is now one of the classical music critics for the New York Times. I also took exactly one piano lesson from Tony (won it in an auction), who declared that I had good large hands with a long reach, but never said anything about my having any observable aptitude for the instrument. I pretty much decided it was all too hard, and let the whole thing drop. Sure, I taught myself to sing reasonably well, even did a little recording with a madrigal group, but believe me, I've heard Pavarotti sing and the man has nothing to worry about.
And yet. When you watch Inside the Actors Studio and James Liption asks his list of questions, one of them is always "If you couldn't do your current profession, what other profession would you choose?" And every time, for me, the answer is one of two: either astronomer or musician. And astronomy involves math, really ridiculously high-level math, so you know how likely that is.
So I went along on this guitar-buying excursion because I figured it was the only way I'd ever actually participate in the process of buying a guitar. And like I said, once there I had little to do because I had almost no idea what anyone was talking about. I would be asked "How's this one sound?" and I would say "Sounds pretty good" every time.
Then the next day I went out and bought a guitar of my own. Because damn it, that little trip put a bug in my head and I knew I wasn't going to be able to shake it. But hey, I've always intended, for years, maybe decades, to try to learn an instrument some day. And since I don't have a time-consuming dayjob anymore, now seemed like an ideal time.
My friend went along because honestly, I could pick up a guitar and strum it, but I was utterly unequipped to tell a good one from a bad one. (Plus he needed an amp for his new Strat.) I'd seen on the internet that Fender makes a beginner's kit with a guitar, a strap, some picks, a tuner, some extra strings, a gig bag and a DVD with some lessons on it, all for $200. Fender's a good name, it seemed like a good deal, and it was in stock at the Guitar Center in Hollywood. Off we went.
In the end I picked a guitar that wasn't part of a kit, it was simply a solid $200 Yamaha (the FG700S, in case you're curious), then I bought the other stuff separately. Took it home, and since then I've been going through the exciting, agonizing process of learning the guitar, completely from scratch.
And what can I say? I completely suck. My fingers hurt (and when I took a shower this morning, oh how they throbbed in the hot water), there are chords I can barely manage even when I spend five minutes trying to get them right, my sense of rhythm is beyond shaky, and even though it's hot I always close all the windows because if there's anything a neighbor doesn't want to hear, it's the fractured sounds of a novice guitar player wafting through the air.
No, not wafting. These sounds definitely do not waft.
But at the same time, I can now (laboriously) form four of the principal chords, and a couple days ago I couldn't have picked those chords out of a lineup. It's a start. And I know from my experience that my learning curve has always gone like this: when I first start something I am beyond terrible, and I stay that way for a frustratingly long time. Then, at some point, suddenly it all clicks, it's all just kinda there. So I'm going to keep on with this: I've spent the money, I have the time, and for years now I've had the desire.
If only there was some way to skip the whole protracted-suckiness stage and just get to a basic level of competence, that would be soooo cool.
I play no instruments, it's just not something that comes naturally to me. I took a music theory class and found it even harder than math--this with a very good teacher, Tony Tommasini, who is now one of the classical music critics for the New York Times. I also took exactly one piano lesson from Tony (won it in an auction), who declared that I had good large hands with a long reach, but never said anything about my having any observable aptitude for the instrument. I pretty much decided it was all too hard, and let the whole thing drop. Sure, I taught myself to sing reasonably well, even did a little recording with a madrigal group, but believe me, I've heard Pavarotti sing and the man has nothing to worry about.
And yet. When you watch Inside the Actors Studio and James Liption asks his list of questions, one of them is always "If you couldn't do your current profession, what other profession would you choose?" And every time, for me, the answer is one of two: either astronomer or musician. And astronomy involves math, really ridiculously high-level math, so you know how likely that is.
So I went along on this guitar-buying excursion because I figured it was the only way I'd ever actually participate in the process of buying a guitar. And like I said, once there I had little to do because I had almost no idea what anyone was talking about. I would be asked "How's this one sound?" and I would say "Sounds pretty good" every time.
Then the next day I went out and bought a guitar of my own. Because damn it, that little trip put a bug in my head and I knew I wasn't going to be able to shake it. But hey, I've always intended, for years, maybe decades, to try to learn an instrument some day. And since I don't have a time-consuming dayjob anymore, now seemed like an ideal time.
My friend went along because honestly, I could pick up a guitar and strum it, but I was utterly unequipped to tell a good one from a bad one. (Plus he needed an amp for his new Strat.) I'd seen on the internet that Fender makes a beginner's kit with a guitar, a strap, some picks, a tuner, some extra strings, a gig bag and a DVD with some lessons on it, all for $200. Fender's a good name, it seemed like a good deal, and it was in stock at the Guitar Center in Hollywood. Off we went.
In the end I picked a guitar that wasn't part of a kit, it was simply a solid $200 Yamaha (the FG700S, in case you're curious), then I bought the other stuff separately. Took it home, and since then I've been going through the exciting, agonizing process of learning the guitar, completely from scratch.
And what can I say? I completely suck. My fingers hurt (and when I took a shower this morning, oh how they throbbed in the hot water), there are chords I can barely manage even when I spend five minutes trying to get them right, my sense of rhythm is beyond shaky, and even though it's hot I always close all the windows because if there's anything a neighbor doesn't want to hear, it's the fractured sounds of a novice guitar player wafting through the air.
No, not wafting. These sounds definitely do not waft.
But at the same time, I can now (laboriously) form four of the principal chords, and a couple days ago I couldn't have picked those chords out of a lineup. It's a start. And I know from my experience that my learning curve has always gone like this: when I first start something I am beyond terrible, and I stay that way for a frustratingly long time. Then, at some point, suddenly it all clicks, it's all just kinda there. So I'm going to keep on with this: I've spent the money, I have the time, and for years now I've had the desire.
If only there was some way to skip the whole protracted-suckiness stage and just get to a basic level of competence, that would be soooo cool.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
The Big One
Very early in the morning, two weeks ago. I woke up fast, hearing a sound: my window was rattling, and it sounded like someone was trying to get in. The sort of thing that will in fact wake up anybody mighty damn fast. But there was just enough vibration working its way through the mattress that I realized: Oh, okay. Nobody's trying to get in. It's just an earthquake. Contented, I went back to bed.
The occasion was a 4.6 seismic event, 3 miles north-northwest of Chatsworth, which is to say, pretty close to where I live. (The U.S. Geological Survey's report on the event is here.) A 4.6 earthquake is a solid earthquake, but even so, not much happened. No deaths, no injuries to speak of, no real property damage. All that happened in my apartment is that an unlit candle, stuffed in a closet, tipped over. But a few days later, a friend of mine (hi, Sarah!) happened to ask me what I thought about our chances of The Big One hitting.
The Big One is a favorite topic amongst Californians, for obvious reasons. As John McPhee details in his wonderful book Assembling California (collected with two other books in the wonderful
Annals of the Former World--and by the way, I think McPhee is an incredible writer, and I would happily read his writing on any subject under the sun), the state of California was put together in pieces over millions of years. (The great central valley, for instance, is a huge hinge--two gigantic slabs of earth at angles, forming a huge V, into which sediment has slowly filled and filled the V and thus created that massive flat plain between two mountain ridges.) You've got the Pacific Plate over here, pushing against the continental plate over here, plus a smaller plate (the Juan de Fuca) to the north, and it's all inherently unstable. Big earthquakes are, in a word, inevitable.
But precisely because of my reading of Mr. McPhee, I have a remarkably casual outlook toward The Big One. Yes, it's gonna happen. Will it happen in my lifetime? No, probably not. So I just don't worry about it. This is because of an idea called "deep time."
We could call it geologic time as well. For a geologist, a million years is the smallest unit of time s/he cares about. That's how long it takes for any geologic change to happen. And once you start thinking in terms of deep time, your perspective starts to shift like crazy. Here's an example of why: look at a ruler. At the far left you have the first black marking, the Zero line. If you consider the ruler as a timeline of earth's entire geologic history, the entire span of human history wouldn't get past the Zero line. It's that small.
So if you then consider my individual lifetime against the entire span of human history, well, that's so small it simply doesn't show up on that ruler at all. That's deep time. Which means that yeah, a gigantic earthquake in my neighborhood is inevitable; these faults will one day rupture and California will one day break apart just as it formed, in pieces, separating and then drifting away toward future collisions and reconfigurations. But the chance of the first part of that chain, a major event on the San Andreas fault, happening in my lifetime is so small that I just don't see any point in worrying about it.
Think about it this way: there are no guarantees in life. None. There's no guarantee that the sun will rise in the morning tomorrow--there's only the probability that it will. Based on what we have observed in the past, there is an extremely high probability that in the morning, there it will be, the sun, shining forth as usual. We all go to sleep at night perfectly content that the odds are in our favor on this one. Well, I have the same attitude toward The Big One.
Then again--there was a small earthquake maybe two years ago, when I was at work, in Santa Monica. At the time I happened to be on my lunch break, sitting in the lobby of the building with a book in my hand. I felt the ground jump a little and then looked up--to realize that I was sitting in a glass-roofed extension of the lobby, and that these gigantic panes of glass were shivering above me.
And yeah, I'm not crazy--that made me a little nervous.
The occasion was a 4.6 seismic event, 3 miles north-northwest of Chatsworth, which is to say, pretty close to where I live. (The U.S. Geological Survey's report on the event is here.) A 4.6 earthquake is a solid earthquake, but even so, not much happened. No deaths, no injuries to speak of, no real property damage. All that happened in my apartment is that an unlit candle, stuffed in a closet, tipped over. But a few days later, a friend of mine (hi, Sarah!) happened to ask me what I thought about our chances of The Big One hitting.
The Big One is a favorite topic amongst Californians, for obvious reasons. As John McPhee details in his wonderful book Assembling California (collected with two other books in the wonderful
Annals of the Former World--and by the way, I think McPhee is an incredible writer, and I would happily read his writing on any subject under the sun), the state of California was put together in pieces over millions of years. (The great central valley, for instance, is a huge hinge--two gigantic slabs of earth at angles, forming a huge V, into which sediment has slowly filled and filled the V and thus created that massive flat plain between two mountain ridges.) You've got the Pacific Plate over here, pushing against the continental plate over here, plus a smaller plate (the Juan de Fuca) to the north, and it's all inherently unstable. Big earthquakes are, in a word, inevitable.But precisely because of my reading of Mr. McPhee, I have a remarkably casual outlook toward The Big One. Yes, it's gonna happen. Will it happen in my lifetime? No, probably not. So I just don't worry about it. This is because of an idea called "deep time."
We could call it geologic time as well. For a geologist, a million years is the smallest unit of time s/he cares about. That's how long it takes for any geologic change to happen. And once you start thinking in terms of deep time, your perspective starts to shift like crazy. Here's an example of why: look at a ruler. At the far left you have the first black marking, the Zero line. If you consider the ruler as a timeline of earth's entire geologic history, the entire span of human history wouldn't get past the Zero line. It's that small.
So if you then consider my individual lifetime against the entire span of human history, well, that's so small it simply doesn't show up on that ruler at all. That's deep time. Which means that yeah, a gigantic earthquake in my neighborhood is inevitable; these faults will one day rupture and California will one day break apart just as it formed, in pieces, separating and then drifting away toward future collisions and reconfigurations. But the chance of the first part of that chain, a major event on the San Andreas fault, happening in my lifetime is so small that I just don't see any point in worrying about it.
Think about it this way: there are no guarantees in life. None. There's no guarantee that the sun will rise in the morning tomorrow--there's only the probability that it will. Based on what we have observed in the past, there is an extremely high probability that in the morning, there it will be, the sun, shining forth as usual. We all go to sleep at night perfectly content that the odds are in our favor on this one. Well, I have the same attitude toward The Big One.
Then again--there was a small earthquake maybe two years ago, when I was at work, in Santa Monica. At the time I happened to be on my lunch break, sitting in the lobby of the building with a book in my hand. I felt the ground jump a little and then looked up--to realize that I was sitting in a glass-roofed extension of the lobby, and that these gigantic panes of glass were shivering above me.
And yeah, I'm not crazy--that made me a little nervous.
Monday, August 06, 2007
Free the Old Head!
Y'know, without context, that title looks more than a little odd...
Yesterday I was channel-surfing and ended up watching most of a Discovery HD program on the sinking of the Lusitania, which was torpedoed just a few miles off the Irish coast in 1915--nearest a diamond-shaped strip of land that juts out into the Atlantic, known as the Old Head of Kinsale. As I've mentioned before, my grandparents lived in Kinsale for several years, my grandmother died there, and I've always loved the place--particularly the Old Head, which is one of the most beautiful places in the world. Here's proof:
(Mom took that picture, by the way; it's better than any of the ones I took.) The Old Head is one of those geological oddities, a strip of sandstone that will probably be an island someday when the narrow isthmus connecting it to the mainland erodes away, but that someday is very far off indeed. Back when my grandparents lived there, the Old Head simply was. You could go there whenever you liked and explore as much as you wished. And believe me, every time I went to Ireland I made sure to visit the Old Head. To wander for a couple hours, breathe the sea air, revel in the views, find that particular peace that comes with such a beautiful place. And honest, the goats never bothered me even once.
Ah yes, the goats. The stalwart defenders of the Old Head. If they decided they didn't like you, they were perfectly happy chasing you back to your car and then ramming it a few times to let you know that you were not welcome. They were just part of the charm, you see. As you can see from the photo, they were perfectly placid whenever I visited, which can certainly be chalked up to sheer chance, or maybe they just recognized that I too was someone who loved the place as much as they did. If only they had been able to defend the Old Head against the wretched forces of consumerism, then maybe...
The last time I visited, I was given the bad news: some real estate developers had purchased the Old Head, and were planning to put a golf course on it. As an Old Head-loving member of the non-rich general public, I would never be able to go there again. And, indeed, I never have. The course opened ten years ago, and people have been shut out ever since. So when I saw this program on the Lusitania, I was again reminded of the Old Head. And of the enormous crime that has been perpetrated on the people of the world by the owners of that damn golf course.
I went to the course's website (no, I will not link to it, nor honor the place by mentioning its name). Green fees are 295 Euros, which is about $406 in U.S. currency. (For comparison, the legendary old course at St. Andrews, birthplace of golf and one of the homes of the British Open, only costs 125 Euros in the high season, or about $172.) That's not counting rental of a golf cart and a caddy. There's fine dining, for members only. And high fences with razor wire to keep people out.
On their site there is a video where they actually say that the course "helps nature fulfill its potential." As if nature wasn't already doing a spectacular job all on its own, which is why the wretched O'Connor brothers bought the place to begin with. They also advertise helicopter charters "for the discerning golfer," which "cuts out significant time lost on road travel, [and] alleviates time pressures...." Because, don't ya know, their visitors are so in-demand that they simply must be able to chopper in, play a few holes, then get the hell out without having to be bothered by, you know, the rabble on those twisty roads. Why, there's barely a straight road anywhere on the whole island, and you're constantly being stopped because there are sheep being herded across the road!
Of course, some of us see that as one of the great joys of Ireland: the pace is different, and being in a hurry is just plain wrong. Don't these people realize that if the point is to relax by playing a few holes, then stressing out by taking a helicopter in and out completely wrecks the whole thing? Those roads do not efficiently get you from Point A to Point B, no they don't; ain't it great?
But you've gotta love the web. I found this site, Free the Old Head of Kinsale, which is exactly what it sounds like: a site agitating for the Old Head to be opened again to the public. They're not trying to oust the golf course at all, they're not unrealistic about their goals: they simply want a trail, something, to be opened to the public so that the common folk can enjoy this most beautiful of places as they have for centuries. There is apparently a court case pending on this very issue of public right-of-way, and I dearly hope they prevail. In the meantime, there's a web petition you can sign, and I am extremely dismayed to find that my signature was only number 56. Maybe you might find yourself so moved as to visit the site and sign on as well. Here's another reason why you should:
Yesterday I was channel-surfing and ended up watching most of a Discovery HD program on the sinking of the Lusitania, which was torpedoed just a few miles off the Irish coast in 1915--nearest a diamond-shaped strip of land that juts out into the Atlantic, known as the Old Head of Kinsale. As I've mentioned before, my grandparents lived in Kinsale for several years, my grandmother died there, and I've always loved the place--particularly the Old Head, which is one of the most beautiful places in the world. Here's proof:
(Mom took that picture, by the way; it's better than any of the ones I took.) The Old Head is one of those geological oddities, a strip of sandstone that will probably be an island someday when the narrow isthmus connecting it to the mainland erodes away, but that someday is very far off indeed. Back when my grandparents lived there, the Old Head simply was. You could go there whenever you liked and explore as much as you wished. And believe me, every time I went to Ireland I made sure to visit the Old Head. To wander for a couple hours, breathe the sea air, revel in the views, find that particular peace that comes with such a beautiful place. And honest, the goats never bothered me even once.
Ah yes, the goats. The stalwart defenders of the Old Head. If they decided they didn't like you, they were perfectly happy chasing you back to your car and then ramming it a few times to let you know that you were not welcome. They were just part of the charm, you see. As you can see from the photo, they were perfectly placid whenever I visited, which can certainly be chalked up to sheer chance, or maybe they just recognized that I too was someone who loved the place as much as they did. If only they had been able to defend the Old Head against the wretched forces of consumerism, then maybe...The last time I visited, I was given the bad news: some real estate developers had purchased the Old Head, and were planning to put a golf course on it. As an Old Head-loving member of the non-rich general public, I would never be able to go there again. And, indeed, I never have. The course opened ten years ago, and people have been shut out ever since. So when I saw this program on the Lusitania, I was again reminded of the Old Head. And of the enormous crime that has been perpetrated on the people of the world by the owners of that damn golf course.
I went to the course's website (no, I will not link to it, nor honor the place by mentioning its name). Green fees are 295 Euros, which is about $406 in U.S. currency. (For comparison, the legendary old course at St. Andrews, birthplace of golf and one of the homes of the British Open, only costs 125 Euros in the high season, or about $172.) That's not counting rental of a golf cart and a caddy. There's fine dining, for members only. And high fences with razor wire to keep people out.
On their site there is a video where they actually say that the course "helps nature fulfill its potential." As if nature wasn't already doing a spectacular job all on its own, which is why the wretched O'Connor brothers bought the place to begin with. They also advertise helicopter charters "for the discerning golfer," which "cuts out significant time lost on road travel, [and] alleviates time pressures...." Because, don't ya know, their visitors are so in-demand that they simply must be able to chopper in, play a few holes, then get the hell out without having to be bothered by, you know, the rabble on those twisty roads. Why, there's barely a straight road anywhere on the whole island, and you're constantly being stopped because there are sheep being herded across the road!
Of course, some of us see that as one of the great joys of Ireland: the pace is different, and being in a hurry is just plain wrong. Don't these people realize that if the point is to relax by playing a few holes, then stressing out by taking a helicopter in and out completely wrecks the whole thing? Those roads do not efficiently get you from Point A to Point B, no they don't; ain't it great?
But you've gotta love the web. I found this site, Free the Old Head of Kinsale, which is exactly what it sounds like: a site agitating for the Old Head to be opened again to the public. They're not trying to oust the golf course at all, they're not unrealistic about their goals: they simply want a trail, something, to be opened to the public so that the common folk can enjoy this most beautiful of places as they have for centuries. There is apparently a court case pending on this very issue of public right-of-way, and I dearly hope they prevail. In the meantime, there's a web petition you can sign, and I am extremely dismayed to find that my signature was only number 56. Maybe you might find yourself so moved as to visit the site and sign on as well. Here's another reason why you should:
Sunday, August 05, 2007
Coming Soon...
I looked around a couple months ago and realized that over the past few years I've started three companies. (Really, I looked around and there they were, strung in a line behind me, staring back and blinking.) There was the not-for-profit NOWtheatre back in Chicago, which alas does not exist anymore (this one seemed the most forlorn, and blinked only in memory), and then there are the quite-alive-and-still-blinking Zenmovie (an LLC) and Lightwheel Entertainment (a C corp.)
And I realized that every time I started one of those companies, I kept wishing that I could find, somewhere somehow, a list that would tell me the stuff I needed to know in one place: what documents are due to the various government agencies, federally and locally; how much money to pay; and on what dates said documents and payments are due. I scoured the internet blah blah blah, and never found such a document. So finally it occurred to me: I should make one.
So that's one of the things I've been doing. Finished the first draft about a month ago, whereupon my friend Buffie did an extraordinary annotation that led me through the second draft, which I finished last night. Now friend Marc will help me set up a website and, probably early next month, we'll launch the book on the web and see if others find it as useful as I believe it to be.
The book bears the beautiful and mellifluous title Incorporation for Artists, Writers, Musicians and Filmmakers. It ain't literature, it's information, which was an interesting challenge in itself, turning off all my let's call them Thereby-esque writing instincts, my automatic tendency toward the prolix, in order to just convey information. But that's one of the things Buffie is extraordinarily good at, so all praise to her, and I can't wait till we can get this little devil out into the world.
And I realized that every time I started one of those companies, I kept wishing that I could find, somewhere somehow, a list that would tell me the stuff I needed to know in one place: what documents are due to the various government agencies, federally and locally; how much money to pay; and on what dates said documents and payments are due. I scoured the internet blah blah blah, and never found such a document. So finally it occurred to me: I should make one.
So that's one of the things I've been doing. Finished the first draft about a month ago, whereupon my friend Buffie did an extraordinary annotation that led me through the second draft, which I finished last night. Now friend Marc will help me set up a website and, probably early next month, we'll launch the book on the web and see if others find it as useful as I believe it to be.
The book bears the beautiful and mellifluous title Incorporation for Artists, Writers, Musicians and Filmmakers. It ain't literature, it's information, which was an interesting challenge in itself, turning off all my let's call them Thereby-esque writing instincts, my automatic tendency toward the prolix, in order to just convey information. But that's one of the things Buffie is extraordinarily good at, so all praise to her, and I can't wait till we can get this little devil out into the world.
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Gotta Love Magic Hour
In case anyone was wondering "Why travel all the way to Vermont just to shoot a trailer?" I proffer the following:
I had never been to Vermont before, but quickly decided that it's a lot like Ireland: overwhelmingly green, with contours to die for, one of those places where you could pretty much close your eyes, point a camera at random, and get a good picture. The above was taken when I had no time to do anything but point and click, yet it looks like a postcard. Too damn easy. And if the point is to make something with visual oomph, well, this particular property in gorgeous Vermont does half our work for us.
(And besides--the people in town were unfailingly pleasant, and the food was beyond-belief-good. I was working like crazy and still gained four pounds in four days.)
After flying a red-eye, and driving up from Boston (loads of fun to be in Boston again, no matter how briefly), and checking into the hotel, we got off our first shot right at magic hour. A jib-arm shot that floated above a fence to reveal the teahouse, framed in Maxfield Parrish lighting (in fact, Parrish worked in New Hampshire, just next door, so no wonder). Here we've got actors Jennifer Ann Evans and David Goryl doing their thing, while director Marc Rosenbush and DP Chris Gosch do theirs. Me, I had just made the strange Blair Witch-thing, just visible beyond the camera, that was meant to disguise an electrical outlet that would have marred the beauty of the shot. We were supposed to have cloudy weather, with a too-high chance of rain; instead we walked into a painting and shot some film of it. Not bad.
The weather held all through the next day, during which we got the tricky shots: the ones that will require special effects, and compositing and green screens and so forth. There were the beautiful scenes at the teahouse, and at the mini-Stonehenge only a few yards away, and as were working on the last of the tricky effects shots, something blew the power main and we lost power, just as the sun was setting. The next day, it rained. Then rained some more. Then rained harder.
Which is, of course, why everything is so green up there in green green Vermont. We got some interior shots, then started improvising, then kinda had to give up for a while. Went back to the hotel and everyone got a nap for a few hours, till sunset, when the rain finally stopped--and we grabbed a shot at the swimming pond behind the hotel instead of dashing back to the property to get what would have been a nearly identical shot. (Like I said: point a camera practically anywhere in Vermont and you're gonna get something good.)
In the end, we didn't get everything we wanted--but the question remains, did we get everything we needed? Yeah, I think maybe we did. The trailer will be less of a linear storyline and more a progression of interesting images, but that's fine, that's what most trailers are anyway. Now if only we had gotten footage of the time David got attacked by a giant badger...
I had never been to Vermont before, but quickly decided that it's a lot like Ireland: overwhelmingly green, with contours to die for, one of those places where you could pretty much close your eyes, point a camera at random, and get a good picture. The above was taken when I had no time to do anything but point and click, yet it looks like a postcard. Too damn easy. And if the point is to make something with visual oomph, well, this particular property in gorgeous Vermont does half our work for us.(And besides--the people in town were unfailingly pleasant, and the food was beyond-belief-good. I was working like crazy and still gained four pounds in four days.)
After flying a red-eye, and driving up from Boston (loads of fun to be in Boston again, no matter how briefly), and checking into the hotel, we got off our first shot right at magic hour. A jib-arm shot that floated above a fence to reveal the teahouse, framed in Maxfield Parrish lighting (in fact, Parrish worked in New Hampshire, just next door, so no wonder). Here we've got actors Jennifer Ann Evans and David Goryl doing their thing, while director Marc Rosenbush and DP Chris Gosch do theirs. Me, I had just made the strange Blair Witch-thing, just visible beyond the camera, that was meant to disguise an electrical outlet that would have marred the beauty of the shot. We were supposed to have cloudy weather, with a too-high chance of rain; instead we walked into a painting and shot some film of it. Not bad.The weather held all through the next day, during which we got the tricky shots: the ones that will require special effects, and compositing and green screens and so forth. There were the beautiful scenes at the teahouse, and at the mini-Stonehenge only a few yards away, and as were working on the last of the tricky effects shots, something blew the power main and we lost power, just as the sun was setting. The next day, it rained. Then rained some more. Then rained harder.Which is, of course, why everything is so green up there in green green Vermont. We got some interior shots, then started improvising, then kinda had to give up for a while. Went back to the hotel and everyone got a nap for a few hours, till sunset, when the rain finally stopped--and we grabbed a shot at the swimming pond behind the hotel instead of dashing back to the property to get what would have been a nearly identical shot. (Like I said: point a camera practically anywhere in Vermont and you're gonna get something good.)
In the end, we didn't get everything we wanted--but the question remains, did we get everything we needed? Yeah, I think maybe we did. The trailer will be less of a linear storyline and more a progression of interesting images, but that's fine, that's what most trailers are anyway. Now if only we had gotten footage of the time David got attacked by a giant badger...
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Travelating
The idea is, make a trailer that looks like the next movie we want to make, and it becomes easier to make investors say "Hey, I want to see that movie!" so that we can, in fact, shoot the real thing. Film being, after all, a visual medium. Would you rather see a business plan or three minutes of footage?
That's why we're flying to Vermont tonight. A bunch of actors, some minimal crew, and an astonishing amount of checked baggage. We'll shoot for just a few days, be back by Friday, and then I get some real mileage out of Final Cut Pro.
And what have I been up to in the meantime? Well, getting ready for this, obviously, but also: finishing a treatment for a new screenplay, revising the City of Truth screenplay with Marc (incorporating a wealth of great feedback from several sources), defining the mission statement and purpose of Lightwheel Entertainment, and, happiest of all, rediscovering Thereby.
I posted an excerpt from Thereby Hangs a Tale a long while back, but hadn't actually read it in a time much longer than that. (The book itself has been basically finished for years--long enough that there is stuff in there about two towers being destroyed, collapsing with people in them, that most definitely predates Sept. 11th, and consequently becomes a bit of a problem--do you change the novel because it is, accidentally, too close to something real in a way that would be distracting? Unfortunately, the fall of my towers is so deeply integrated into the story itself that that would be pretty much impossible, so all I can do is have one of my characters, from the "real" world rather than the unnamed someplace where most of the novel happens, comment on the freakish coincidence.)
But since my friend Buffie was visiting, I happened to mention the novel to her one day, and realized I'd never actually shown it to her. So I pulled up the file, started reading, and had that happiest of discoveries: after a great deal of time, not only do I still like the book, I absolutely love it. So I zoomed through a touch-ups rewrite, happy to find that it was already in very good shape, and after getting some comments from people I will start working on finding exactly the right agent--someone who'll love it as much as I do.
Being in L.A. had kinda convinced me that Thereby was just too weird to ever sell, that's exactly why it sat for so long, unseen and unloved. But as soon as I started reading it again I realized, Hell no, it's not that weird at all, all it needs is the right agent and the right editor and the right marketing campaign, and I think people will go a little crazy over it.
But enough for now. Now, I have to pick up a fish-eye lens and then finish packing before a red-eye to Vermont. If there's an internet connection (we already know our cellphones will be just about useless) I'll try to check in from the road.
That's why we're flying to Vermont tonight. A bunch of actors, some minimal crew, and an astonishing amount of checked baggage. We'll shoot for just a few days, be back by Friday, and then I get some real mileage out of Final Cut Pro.
And what have I been up to in the meantime? Well, getting ready for this, obviously, but also: finishing a treatment for a new screenplay, revising the City of Truth screenplay with Marc (incorporating a wealth of great feedback from several sources), defining the mission statement and purpose of Lightwheel Entertainment, and, happiest of all, rediscovering Thereby.
I posted an excerpt from Thereby Hangs a Tale a long while back, but hadn't actually read it in a time much longer than that. (The book itself has been basically finished for years--long enough that there is stuff in there about two towers being destroyed, collapsing with people in them, that most definitely predates Sept. 11th, and consequently becomes a bit of a problem--do you change the novel because it is, accidentally, too close to something real in a way that would be distracting? Unfortunately, the fall of my towers is so deeply integrated into the story itself that that would be pretty much impossible, so all I can do is have one of my characters, from the "real" world rather than the unnamed someplace where most of the novel happens, comment on the freakish coincidence.)
But since my friend Buffie was visiting, I happened to mention the novel to her one day, and realized I'd never actually shown it to her. So I pulled up the file, started reading, and had that happiest of discoveries: after a great deal of time, not only do I still like the book, I absolutely love it. So I zoomed through a touch-ups rewrite, happy to find that it was already in very good shape, and after getting some comments from people I will start working on finding exactly the right agent--someone who'll love it as much as I do.
Being in L.A. had kinda convinced me that Thereby was just too weird to ever sell, that's exactly why it sat for so long, unseen and unloved. But as soon as I started reading it again I realized, Hell no, it's not that weird at all, all it needs is the right agent and the right editor and the right marketing campaign, and I think people will go a little crazy over it.
But enough for now. Now, I have to pick up a fish-eye lens and then finish packing before a red-eye to Vermont. If there's an internet connection (we already know our cellphones will be just about useless) I'll try to check in from the road.
Sunday, June 03, 2007
Better Bees?
Huh. Apparently time passes.
Can't say why exactly I'm so fascinated about the story of the bees, but I am. And perhaps even more interesting than the initial reports that caught my attention is the possibility that said reports are, shall we say, overstated. Neil Gaiman, often mentioned here, has recently become a beekeeper, and in his blog he quoted his "Bird Lady," Sharon Stiteler, who wrote to him, saying:
Also, the story about cell phone towers interfering with bees' navigation systems (which so captivated Bill Maher recently) may have been more than overstated, it may have been, according to an April 22 story in the International Herald Tribune, flat-out made up.
Imagine that: all that buzzing over nothing new. Aren't there enough really serious things wrong with the world without making up new ones? Next time: George Bush goes environmental. (That snickering you hear ain't just me...)
Can't say why exactly I'm so fascinated about the story of the bees, but I am. And perhaps even more interesting than the initial reports that caught my attention is the possibility that said reports are, shall we say, overstated. Neil Gaiman, often mentioned here, has recently become a beekeeper, and in his blog he quoted his "Bird Lady," Sharon Stiteler, who wrote to him, saying:
Our bees are Minnesota Hygienic Italian Bees developed by Marla
Spivak at the U of M[innesota]. She is one of the researchers studying Colony Collapse Disorder--she said that this has been a problem for the last 15 years and this year the media has grabbed on to the story. has studied the Varroa mite, which over the past 20 years has become a major threat to commercial honeybees. First discovered in the United States in 1987, the mite weakens the bee's immune system. It kills off most bee colonies within a year or two after invading. Beekeepers use pesticides to control the mites, but Spivak has studied ways to breed honeybees that are resistant to it. The bees have been bred to have a "hygienic" behaviors. They sense when brood is diseased and cleans them out. They also clean out any dead bees as well. This behavior cuts down on foul brood and other colony problems.
Also, the story about cell phone towers interfering with bees' navigation systems (which so captivated Bill Maher recently) may have been more than overstated, it may have been, according to an April 22 story in the International Herald Tribune, flat-out made up.
Imagine that: all that buzzing over nothing new. Aren't there enough really serious things wrong with the world without making up new ones? Next time: George Bush goes environmental. (That snickering you hear ain't just me...)
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Day and Date
I have to assume that Mark Cuban is a solid businessman who know what he's doing, but for the life of me I just can't figure out why he's promoting this whole day-and-date movie release scheme of his.
Cuban runs HDNet, one of the few cable channels that broadcasts exclusively in high definition. I've had a hi-def set for a few months now, attached to my hi-def Series 3 TiVo (one of the great inventions), and I love it. I'm a movie guy, so of course I love it, but what's not to love? Widescreen, great image detail, and it's attached to a good stereo with good speakers. I've even started pulling DVDs off my Netflix list if I saw they were going to be broadcast on an HD channel because they look better there. (And yes, I too am one of those waiting on the sidelines for the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray thing to work itself out before I commit to one machine or another.) So HDNet is one of my mainstays, and I particularly love it when they show some NASA footage--simply spectacular. (Though nothing so far has beat the recent Planet Earth specials on Discovery HD Theatre.)
But HDNet also has a movies-only hi-def channel, and the other night they ran a movie called Diggers. As it happens, I had heard about this movie a couple days before and thought it looked interesting: an offbeat indie about clam diggers, with a good cast including Paul Rudd, Sarah Paulson, Lauren Ambrose and Maura Tierney, all of whom I like. I noticed it was going to be playing at a theater only a few blocks away--a theater for which I have a free admission pass. So it was within easy walking distance and wouldn't cost me anything to go and see the movie. "Well maybe I'll do that," I said--but then I checked the TV listings and discovered that Diggers was also playing on HDNet, that same night.
I ask you, why would I want to go to the theater, then? It's more comfortable at home, my equipment is all first-rate, and I can watch when I want. About the only thing that might have made me go to a theater in such a circumstance would have been if I'd had a date, but that didn't happen to be the case. So I stayed home and recorded it on the TiVo and was completely happy. But, as I say, baffled.
Because bear in mind: I'm a movie guy. And I certainly have a keen appreciation for the power of a shared theatrical experience by an audience of strangers experiencing something together (by the way, for the record, Zen Noir works best on a movie screen; I'm just saying, I've seen it happen over and over, that really is the ideal way to see it). I was already motivated to see this particular film, the theater was in easy walking distance, I like to walk, and I had a pass to see the movie for free. It was, in short, about as easy as going to a movie theater can possibly be--but I didn't go, and the only reason I didn't is because that same movie was showing that same night on my TV.
That's what day-and-date means, and it mystifies me. It refers to a newfangled way to release movies in which the movie is broadcast and shown in theaters on the same night, then gets released on DVD the next Tuesday: all formats show up at once, and people can have their choice of watching it in any way they prefer. Nice for we the viewers, but where is the business model? How is Cuban making any money off this?
Sure, Wagner gets my money as a subscriber to the channel, but he gets that anyway; and now he's lost my theater-going money (well, except for that free admission pass, but that's not really germane). The one thing you most don't want to happen is what happens: one format cannibalizes the possibility for success of another format. I paid nothing to watch it on TV, and did not pay anything to watch it in a theater. They tried this with Steven Soderbergh's Bubble several months ago, and lo and behold, that movie did lousy at the box office. (According to Box Office Mojo, it made $145,000, with a production budget of $1.6 million.)
I don't think I'm being a stuffy old traditionalist about this, and I admit the possibility that Cuban is smarter than I am, but I just don't see how he's making any money here. But in the meantime, what the heck: I've got this lovely movie sitting on my TiVo, I think I'll go watch it now.
Cuban runs HDNet, one of the few cable channels that broadcasts exclusively in high definition. I've had a hi-def set for a few months now, attached to my hi-def Series 3 TiVo (one of the great inventions), and I love it. I'm a movie guy, so of course I love it, but what's not to love? Widescreen, great image detail, and it's attached to a good stereo with good speakers. I've even started pulling DVDs off my Netflix list if I saw they were going to be broadcast on an HD channel because they look better there. (And yes, I too am one of those waiting on the sidelines for the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray thing to work itself out before I commit to one machine or another.) So HDNet is one of my mainstays, and I particularly love it when they show some NASA footage--simply spectacular. (Though nothing so far has beat the recent Planet Earth specials on Discovery HD Theatre.)
But HDNet also has a movies-only hi-def channel, and the other night they ran a movie called Diggers. As it happens, I had heard about this movie a couple days before and thought it looked interesting: an offbeat indie about clam diggers, with a good cast including Paul Rudd, Sarah Paulson, Lauren Ambrose and Maura Tierney, all of whom I like. I noticed it was going to be playing at a theater only a few blocks away--a theater for which I have a free admission pass. So it was within easy walking distance and wouldn't cost me anything to go and see the movie. "Well maybe I'll do that," I said--but then I checked the TV listings and discovered that Diggers was also playing on HDNet, that same night.
I ask you, why would I want to go to the theater, then? It's more comfortable at home, my equipment is all first-rate, and I can watch when I want. About the only thing that might have made me go to a theater in such a circumstance would have been if I'd had a date, but that didn't happen to be the case. So I stayed home and recorded it on the TiVo and was completely happy. But, as I say, baffled.
Because bear in mind: I'm a movie guy. And I certainly have a keen appreciation for the power of a shared theatrical experience by an audience of strangers experiencing something together (by the way, for the record, Zen Noir works best on a movie screen; I'm just saying, I've seen it happen over and over, that really is the ideal way to see it). I was already motivated to see this particular film, the theater was in easy walking distance, I like to walk, and I had a pass to see the movie for free. It was, in short, about as easy as going to a movie theater can possibly be--but I didn't go, and the only reason I didn't is because that same movie was showing that same night on my TV.
That's what day-and-date means, and it mystifies me. It refers to a newfangled way to release movies in which the movie is broadcast and shown in theaters on the same night, then gets released on DVD the next Tuesday: all formats show up at once, and people can have their choice of watching it in any way they prefer. Nice for we the viewers, but where is the business model? How is Cuban making any money off this?
Sure, Wagner gets my money as a subscriber to the channel, but he gets that anyway; and now he's lost my theater-going money (well, except for that free admission pass, but that's not really germane). The one thing you most don't want to happen is what happens: one format cannibalizes the possibility for success of another format. I paid nothing to watch it on TV, and did not pay anything to watch it in a theater. They tried this with Steven Soderbergh's Bubble several months ago, and lo and behold, that movie did lousy at the box office. (According to Box Office Mojo, it made $145,000, with a production budget of $1.6 million.)
I don't think I'm being a stuffy old traditionalist about this, and I admit the possibility that Cuban is smarter than I am, but I just don't see how he's making any money here. But in the meantime, what the heck: I've got this lovely movie sitting on my TiVo, I think I'll go watch it now.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Where Could They Bee?
Since I was just writing recently about bees, I would be remiss if I did not mention that the bees seem to be going on vacation. Or, to be a little more scientific about it, they're disappearing. By the billions.
As the various articles point out, food crops that rely on honeybees for pollination are worth about $15 billion and include a lot of the fruits and nuts that we all love the most: apples, cherries, almonds, and so forth. There is no adequate mechanical substitute for the pollinating prowess of the honeybee, so if this unknown process should continue, it is reasonable to expect that these staples of our diet will not disappear but will become very expensive from simple scarcity. (Imagine a ten dollar slice of pie.) (Okay, in Los Angeles that's not so far from the truth, but imagine it in Dubuque.)
Bee colonies started to collapse last October: huge numbers of worker bees would simply never return to the hive, up to 50% of the colony in many cases. As CNN reports, most of these bees just plain vanished, and their little bee bodies were never found. Since their failure to return was possibly a failure in their navigation systems, speculation ran rampant on all sorts of causes, including cellphone towers (leading Bill Maher last week to ask, "will we choose to literally blather ourselves to death?"). This New York Times article goes into more detail on the science involved, including this disturbing photo of cross-sections of diseased (left) and healthy (right) bee thoraxes:
A chemical trigger for all this seems most likely, particularly since some hives treated with gamma radiation have begun to recover, suggesting that the gamma is killing some yet-unknown pathogen. But research has barely begun on the problem, and all the while, the bees keep disappearing; and despite some lucky breaks, like the fact that Baylor College of Medicine recently happened to finish sequencing bee DNA (thus speeding up immeasurably a search for genetic triggers), we have no idea how long it will take to find answers to this problem.
Diseased bees are being found to be contaminated with fungi common in humans whose immune systems have been depressed by AIDS or cancer. Thus we learn yet again, we're all connected. The question then becomes, if the bees go, what happens to us?
As the various articles point out, food crops that rely on honeybees for pollination are worth about $15 billion and include a lot of the fruits and nuts that we all love the most: apples, cherries, almonds, and so forth. There is no adequate mechanical substitute for the pollinating prowess of the honeybee, so if this unknown process should continue, it is reasonable to expect that these staples of our diet will not disappear but will become very expensive from simple scarcity. (Imagine a ten dollar slice of pie.) (Okay, in Los Angeles that's not so far from the truth, but imagine it in Dubuque.)
Bee colonies started to collapse last October: huge numbers of worker bees would simply never return to the hive, up to 50% of the colony in many cases. As CNN reports, most of these bees just plain vanished, and their little bee bodies were never found. Since their failure to return was possibly a failure in their navigation systems, speculation ran rampant on all sorts of causes, including cellphone towers (leading Bill Maher last week to ask, "will we choose to literally blather ourselves to death?"). This New York Times article goes into more detail on the science involved, including this disturbing photo of cross-sections of diseased (left) and healthy (right) bee thoraxes:
A chemical trigger for all this seems most likely, particularly since some hives treated with gamma radiation have begun to recover, suggesting that the gamma is killing some yet-unknown pathogen. But research has barely begun on the problem, and all the while, the bees keep disappearing; and despite some lucky breaks, like the fact that Baylor College of Medicine recently happened to finish sequencing bee DNA (thus speeding up immeasurably a search for genetic triggers), we have no idea how long it will take to find answers to this problem.
Diseased bees are being found to be contaminated with fungi common in humans whose immune systems have been depressed by AIDS or cancer. Thus we learn yet again, we're all connected. The question then becomes, if the bees go, what happens to us?
Friday, April 20, 2007
I Have No Mouth and I Must Kvetch
Meanwhile, on a lighter note...
Went last night to a screening of an unfinished documentary called "Dreams With Sharp Teeth," about the inimitable Harlan Ellison. (Does anyone ever just write his name, or is there always some sort of adverb in front of it?) (Just found the trailer, here.) I've been a fan of Harlan's for way over twenty years now, since my mom read Shatterday
then handed it over to me. It was one of those thunderbolts from the blue you get sometimes: words on a page with such vigor and imagination that you immediately respond by going out and buying every other book by this guy you can possibly find.
It's hard to describe Harlan, because there are so many colors to his gigantic personality. Well into his 70s now, he is on the one hand a short, cranky Jew from Painesville, Ohio with the emotional life of an 11 year old; he is also an extremely serious artist in a complex, lifelong pas de deux with his muse; he is a raconteur of the first order, a fearsome debater who will absolutely get right up in your face, one of the most honored writers of his time, a moralist who is utterly unafraid to be offensive, a fanboy collector with a house full of stuff called, no kidding, "Ellison Wonderland," and a sweet guy who loves his friends like crazy. Which is exactly why a documentary about him is such a great idea.
The screening was at the Writers Guild Theatre on the wrong part of Doheny Drive. (Woe to you if you plug in the address on your Mapquest search with "Los Angeles" rather than "Beverly Hills." O woe!) The director, who I believe is Erik Nelson (there isn't yet an imdb listing for the film), has been following Harlan around with a camera since 1981 ("I always just thought he was a fanboy!" cracked Ellison), so clearly this was a labor of love--because believe me, if there wasn't love, Harlan would've driven anyone else away within about ten minutes. Because I was so late (damn you, Doheny!) I missed the first fifteen minutes or so, arriving just in time for the section where Harlan joined the army. By this point the audience--full of Harlan's friends--was already laughing hysterically. They barely needed the film's pithy sidebars (re: Ellison and the army, "It was not a relationship destined for success"), but it was a night for laughter, the loving kind: a guy who's lived a full life, surrounded by people he loved (and name-dropping like crazy), getting what amounted to a valedictory celebration of his life.
It may be a fault of the film that it is in fact too valedictory, that none of Harlan's many enemies weren't interviewed--but then, Harlan is so firm in his convictions that you get the impression he regrets nothing and will defiantly stand behind everything he has ever done in his entire life. And when you start to talk about his enemies, the man just cackles with glee, already rolling up his sleeves and preparing for a new battle. He is that rarest of things in this passive-aggressive world of surface politeness but hidden meanness of spirit: a man who plants his feet and stands behind everything he says, who sugarcoats nothing, and who is so much smarter than pretty much anyone that if said anyone gets caught on the wrong side of an argument with Harlan, well, good luck. But if you are a friend, he is just as passionate: he will come up, embrace you in a bear hug and kiss you on the cheek while saying the most wildly flattering things (there's a section of the film about Harlan the ladies' man that, again, got a good rolling laugh out of the crowd).
Josh Olson, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of A History of Violence, moderated the discussion with Harlan after the film and could barely hold it together because Harlan was (literally) all over the place, with Erik Nelson's cameraman and boom guy following desperately, trying to keep up. Werner Herzog was in the audience, so was the great musician Richard Thompson, along with Battlestar Galactica creator Ronald D. Moore and of course Harlan's marvelous wife Susan. Harlan was profane and raucous, and if there's any justice some of this material will get folded into the documentary before it gets released because jeez what a night.
But really, when you talk about Harlan you must talk about the work. Shatterday is a good place to begin: it contains some very good short stories like the famous "Jeffty is Five," the title story, and the delicious "All the Birds Come Home to Roost" in which a man encounters all his ex-girlfriends in reverse chronological order, leading inevitably to the first and worst. There are probably better collections (Strange Wine and Deathbird Stories immediately come to mind) (and man, it's a crime how many of his books are out of print), but I might particularly recommend Stalking the Nightmare, the second book of his I read, the one that really cemented my love for the man and his work. Because this time, in addition to some very good short stories, there are also three tales directly from his life, including the hilarious one in which he worked at Disney for exactly one morning then got himself fired.
In some ways, I like Ellison the essay writer even more than Ellison the short story writer. An Edge in My Voice
stands as the absolute best of his essay collections, although the two Glass Teat books (about television) are better known. But really, you should probably start with The Essential Ellison, a fifty-year overview of his work containing much of the best of everything. Then go watch the documentary when it comes out, and start agitating various publishers to get these books back in the marketplace, damn it!
Went last night to a screening of an unfinished documentary called "Dreams With Sharp Teeth," about the inimitable Harlan Ellison. (Does anyone ever just write his name, or is there always some sort of adverb in front of it?) (Just found the trailer, here.) I've been a fan of Harlan's for way over twenty years now, since my mom read Shatterday
then handed it over to me. It was one of those thunderbolts from the blue you get sometimes: words on a page with such vigor and imagination that you immediately respond by going out and buying every other book by this guy you can possibly find.It's hard to describe Harlan, because there are so many colors to his gigantic personality. Well into his 70s now, he is on the one hand a short, cranky Jew from Painesville, Ohio with the emotional life of an 11 year old; he is also an extremely serious artist in a complex, lifelong pas de deux with his muse; he is a raconteur of the first order, a fearsome debater who will absolutely get right up in your face, one of the most honored writers of his time, a moralist who is utterly unafraid to be offensive, a fanboy collector with a house full of stuff called, no kidding, "Ellison Wonderland," and a sweet guy who loves his friends like crazy. Which is exactly why a documentary about him is such a great idea.
The screening was at the Writers Guild Theatre on the wrong part of Doheny Drive. (Woe to you if you plug in the address on your Mapquest search with "Los Angeles" rather than "Beverly Hills." O woe!) The director, who I believe is Erik Nelson (there isn't yet an imdb listing for the film), has been following Harlan around with a camera since 1981 ("I always just thought he was a fanboy!" cracked Ellison), so clearly this was a labor of love--because believe me, if there wasn't love, Harlan would've driven anyone else away within about ten minutes. Because I was so late (damn you, Doheny!) I missed the first fifteen minutes or so, arriving just in time for the section where Harlan joined the army. By this point the audience--full of Harlan's friends--was already laughing hysterically. They barely needed the film's pithy sidebars (re: Ellison and the army, "It was not a relationship destined for success"), but it was a night for laughter, the loving kind: a guy who's lived a full life, surrounded by people he loved (and name-dropping like crazy), getting what amounted to a valedictory celebration of his life.
It may be a fault of the film that it is in fact too valedictory, that none of Harlan's many enemies weren't interviewed--but then, Harlan is so firm in his convictions that you get the impression he regrets nothing and will defiantly stand behind everything he has ever done in his entire life. And when you start to talk about his enemies, the man just cackles with glee, already rolling up his sleeves and preparing for a new battle. He is that rarest of things in this passive-aggressive world of surface politeness but hidden meanness of spirit: a man who plants his feet and stands behind everything he says, who sugarcoats nothing, and who is so much smarter than pretty much anyone that if said anyone gets caught on the wrong side of an argument with Harlan, well, good luck. But if you are a friend, he is just as passionate: he will come up, embrace you in a bear hug and kiss you on the cheek while saying the most wildly flattering things (there's a section of the film about Harlan the ladies' man that, again, got a good rolling laugh out of the crowd).
Josh Olson, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of A History of Violence, moderated the discussion with Harlan after the film and could barely hold it together because Harlan was (literally) all over the place, with Erik Nelson's cameraman and boom guy following desperately, trying to keep up. Werner Herzog was in the audience, so was the great musician Richard Thompson, along with Battlestar Galactica creator Ronald D. Moore and of course Harlan's marvelous wife Susan. Harlan was profane and raucous, and if there's any justice some of this material will get folded into the documentary before it gets released because jeez what a night.
But really, when you talk about Harlan you must talk about the work. Shatterday is a good place to begin: it contains some very good short stories like the famous "Jeffty is Five," the title story, and the delicious "All the Birds Come Home to Roost" in which a man encounters all his ex-girlfriends in reverse chronological order, leading inevitably to the first and worst. There are probably better collections (Strange Wine
and Deathbird Stories immediately come to mind) (and man, it's a crime how many of his books are out of print), but I might particularly recommend Stalking the Nightmare, the second book of his I read, the one that really cemented my love for the man and his work. Because this time, in addition to some very good short stories, there are also three tales directly from his life, including the hilarious one in which he worked at Disney for exactly one morning then got himself fired.In some ways, I like Ellison the essay writer even more than Ellison the short story writer. An Edge in My Voice
stands as the absolute best of his essay collections, although the two Glass Teat books (about television) are better known. But really, you should probably start with The Essential Ellison, a fifty-year overview of his work containing much of the best of everything. Then go watch the documentary when it comes out, and start agitating various publishers to get these books back in the marketplace, damn it!
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
A Stain Upon the Silence
There came from Virginia Tech the awful silence that follows; and then it was broken when that wretched child whose tantrum took all those lives got the final word. I had just finished reading his so-called plays and felt pretty lousy for having done so, and I was about to come on here and talk a little about what I'd just read; but then I checked the news pages and saw the video package that got sent to NBC. And I realized that this is all exactly what that petulant monster wants: he wants his image everywhere, he wants to become some sort of iconic figure in the awful tradition of "Charlie" Manson and Jim Jones. To hell with him, I refuse to even name his name. He's no writer, he's no artist, and he sure isn't Jesus redeeming his "children." To Hell with him.
Let's talk about this man instead: Liviu Librescu. He of course was the engineering professor at Virginia Tech who held the door while his students leaped from high windows and escaped; then bullets came through the door and Prof. Librescu died. He lived in Romania under the Nazis, and was ghettoized and/or sent to a labor camp (I've seen it reported both ways); then he lived under the Communists, who tried to marginalize him for his support of Israel by refusing to allow him to publish outside of Romania, but he defied the Ceaucescu regime and published anyway. At last a personal intervention by Menachem Begin in 1978 allowed Prof. Librescu to emigrate to Israel, and then while on sabbatical in the U.S. he decided to stay here. There was no mandatory retirement age for U.S. professors, so he could go on teaching for as long as he liked.
It's clear from the above that he always felt there wasn't enough time. A colleague at Tel Aviv University said "He wanted to write many books and have a lot of students," and his wife claims that Librescu published more papers in his field than any of his contemporaries. So much time was stolen from him in Romania that he must have felt positively impelled to transmit as much as he could to as many people as he could; but he always did so, according to his students, in a gentlemanly fashion, always wearing a suit, always feeling the privilege of his position.
Prof. Librescu was buried today in Israel. There is a lovely Times of London tribute to him here, and a Chabad on Campus family condolence page here.
Let's talk about this man instead: Liviu Librescu. He of course was the engineering professor at Virginia Tech who held the door while his students leaped from high windows and escaped; then bullets came through the door and Prof. Librescu died. He lived in Romania under the Nazis, and was ghettoized and/or sent to a labor camp (I've seen it reported both ways); then he lived under the Communists, who tried to marginalize him for his support of Israel by refusing to allow him to publish outside of Romania, but he defied the Ceaucescu regime and published anyway. At last a personal intervention by Menachem Begin in 1978 allowed Prof. Librescu to emigrate to Israel, and then while on sabbatical in the U.S. he decided to stay here. There was no mandatory retirement age for U.S. professors, so he could go on teaching for as long as he liked.
It's clear from the above that he always felt there wasn't enough time. A colleague at Tel Aviv University said "He wanted to write many books and have a lot of students," and his wife claims that Librescu published more papers in his field than any of his contemporaries. So much time was stolen from him in Romania that he must have felt positively impelled to transmit as much as he could to as many people as he could; but he always did so, according to his students, in a gentlemanly fashion, always wearing a suit, always feeling the privilege of his position.
Prof. Librescu was buried today in Israel. There is a lovely Times of London tribute to him here, and a Chabad on Campus family condolence page here.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
In Which Nothing Happens
I live close enough to the VA hospital complex in West L.A. that when the California National Guard decided to stage a bio-terrorism exercise there, a notice got slipped under my door warning me about it. Lest I freak out when a Blackhawk helicopter flew over the apartment at 5:00 in the morning, although really, in Los Angeles having a helicopter fly over is as common as common can be. Still, the notice made it all sound awfully intriguing: "Operation Vector, a large-scale interstate and interagency exercise" that would include a simulated earthquake, then a simulated chemical attack over the Hollywood Hills. I mean hey, why watch Apocalypse Now when you can have all that military bang-bang going on in your back yard?
Alas, nothing happened. Or rather, what did happen seems to have been far enough away that I never noticed any of it. (The place is huge, so it wouldn't surprise me.) With the exercise scheduled to start at 5:00 this morning, I wandered out there around 7:00 and could find no trace of anything at all; later I took a long walk all through the complex and it was as if nothing had ever happened there at all, the place was just as it always is: busy in clusters, sleepy and quiet in others. Disappointing, really; now I'll have to go watch Robert Duvall and the helicopters after all.
Something else is worth noting, though: the VA center was created in the late 19th century as a bequest to the city from someone whose name I can't remember, under the stipulation that the land be used for the benefit of America's soldiers of any war. But now, there is a fierce local fight going on between evil developers salivating over all that open land in the middle of Los Angeles (beyond-prime real estate) and those like me who think that a promise is a promise. I'm not one to automatically inveigh against real estate developers--none of us would live in anything other than tents and caves if developers didn't develop--but this place is a bright spot in the city and it ought to stay that way. As I walked today there were open fields with lush green grass, trees and birds, bikers and joggers, the UCLA baseball team was warming up for a game against Pepperdine on the athletic field, fathers had taken their sons out to play ball on a different field, and people were golfing on a compact public course. There is a little Japanese garden out there, and of course the hospital, numerous in-patient and out-patient facilities, and residential dormitories to provide long-term care for the men and women who risked everything for us.
The VA Center is good for the soldiers, it's good for the locals, it's good for the soul of the city to continue to do what it promised to do over a century ago. Those developers should just bug off and go someplace else.
when you can have all that military bang-bang going on in your back yard?Alas, nothing happened. Or rather, what did happen seems to have been far enough away that I never noticed any of it. (The place is huge, so it wouldn't surprise me.) With the exercise scheduled to start at 5:00 this morning, I wandered out there around 7:00 and could find no trace of anything at all; later I took a long walk all through the complex and it was as if nothing had ever happened there at all, the place was just as it always is: busy in clusters, sleepy and quiet in others. Disappointing, really; now I'll have to go watch Robert Duvall and the helicopters after all.
Something else is worth noting, though: the VA center was created in the late 19th century as a bequest to the city from someone whose name I can't remember, under the stipulation that the land be used for the benefit of America's soldiers of any war. But now, there is a fierce local fight going on between evil developers salivating over all that open land in the middle of Los Angeles (beyond-prime real estate) and those like me who think that a promise is a promise. I'm not one to automatically inveigh against real estate developers--none of us would live in anything other than tents and caves if developers didn't develop--but this place is a bright spot in the city and it ought to stay that way. As I walked today there were open fields with lush green grass, trees and birds, bikers and joggers, the UCLA baseball team was warming up for a game against Pepperdine on the athletic field, fathers had taken their sons out to play ball on a different field, and people were golfing on a compact public course. There is a little Japanese garden out there, and of course the hospital, numerous in-patient and out-patient facilities, and residential dormitories to provide long-term care for the men and women who risked everything for us.
The VA Center is good for the soldiers, it's good for the locals, it's good for the soul of the city to continue to do what it promised to do over a century ago. Those developers should just bug off and go someplace else.
Saturday, April 07, 2007
Bees
In honor of Easter, something a little springy, something with fresh air and sunlight.
On Thursday, I was in Topanga State Park with a camera crew. We were doing camera tests for the next Lightwheel project, a feature that Marc wrote and is directing called Making Love. We had to figure out whether to shoot the movie in 35 mm or hi-def, and the big question with hi-def is how well it performs out of doors. Since a huge portion of the movie must be shot outside, this question had to be settled; so Marc got together with his Zen Noir cinematographer, Chris Gosch, and I went through an amazing amount of rigamarole to get a permit for us to shoot in the park, and on Thursday we went out and did it.
At the ranger station, bees were swarming under the eaves of the building. I wondered why the rangers hadn't gotten rid of the hive, but figured that this being a park, a place devoted to nature, they had simply decided that as long as the bees weren't bothering, they would just leave them be. So the bees buzzed and danced from flower to hive, and everyone went about their busy business as well.
As a producer, once the shoot began there really wasn't anything for me to do except guard the equipment by the side of the road. I sat there for a long while, under a shady tree, with a lush green field just to the left of me, watching seven deer as they slowly grazed their way closer, closer. Above my head, a bee moved from branch to branch, collecting and pollinating.
I was ridiculously happy.
Now bees, I've always been a little wary of. Childhood experiences have their effect, and here are just two of them: once, walking to school, a bee somehow flew inside my shoe and then stung me on the instep, a particularly painful place to get stung; and once when my dad lived in Atlanta, I was up there visiting for a month and was sledding down those red clay hills with some friends when we went right over a yellowjackets' nest. The wasps swarmed, we all got stung multiple times and spent the rest of the afternoon watching the Batman TV show with baking soda caked all over us.
Thus bees (and their even-scarier cousins of the wasp family) became equated with Pain. And since I have spent a remarkable portion of my life trying to avoid Pain in every way possible, I've generally reacted negatively to the mere appearance of a bee. Swatting it away, jumping myself away, whatever it took. (And of course, bees just love me. Maybe it's my very blond hair gleaming in the sun like some gigantic daffodil? Who knows.)
But I recently read a review, by whom and of what and where it was I cannot remember, that talked about bees and their long-standing place in culture. Of the bees that supposedly swarmed the mouth of the infant Plato, indicating the greatness of the man-to-be; of the bee's essential role in pollinating most flowering plants (there would be no almond industry, to pick just one example, without the honeybee); of the symbolic nature of the bee as a crucial part of the cycle of life. With me, if you want to turn my head around on something, just give me material like this, I'm a complete sucker for it.
And so I sat there on Thursday, a bee buzzing just above my head, and for once I was happy to just sit there. And the bee, I discovered, wasn't at all interested in me or my daffodil head, and that we were both perfectly content to do what we were doing, now near and now far apart.
The very next day, I went outside my apartment, around the back and up the stairs to finally clean out my car of all the stuff that had gathered for the shoot. (Two wooden planks, an air mattress, leftover craft-service food, and a power inverter, to name just a few of the oddments.) As I marched up the stairs, I saw several honeybees on the ground, writhing; then heard a fearsome buzzing just above my head. Stepping into the clear of the parking lot, I saw that a hive had taken up residence under the eaves of my building, just as they had at the distant ranger station. And apparently an exterminator had just been there, had just sprayed, so the bees were agitated and dying.
My old thinking was that maybe I should clean out the car later. An angry swarm is an entirely different thing from a lone bee dancing around a fragrant tree. But I felt a new sympathy for them, as they lie there dying by the dozen, literally dropping out of the air. I knew that I no longer bore any animosity toward them, and that they would not wreak their vengeance on me. So I did what I had to do, made several trips slowly carrying things right under the dying hive, and by the time I was done, so too, alas, were the bees.
It felt very like a loss. But at the same time, I have to admit--I'm glad they hadn't built a hive in my walls....
On Thursday, I was in Topanga State Park with a camera crew. We were doing camera tests for the next Lightwheel project, a feature that Marc wrote and is directing called Making Love. We had to figure out whether to shoot the movie in 35 mm or hi-def, and the big question with hi-def is how well it performs out of doors. Since a huge portion of the movie must be shot outside, this question had to be settled; so Marc got together with his Zen Noir cinematographer, Chris Gosch, and I went through an amazing amount of rigamarole to get a permit for us to shoot in the park, and on Thursday we went out and did it.
At the ranger station, bees were swarming under the eaves of the building. I wondered why the rangers hadn't gotten rid of the hive, but figured that this being a park, a place devoted to nature, they had simply decided that as long as the bees weren't bothering, they would just leave them be. So the bees buzzed and danced from flower to hive, and everyone went about their busy business as well.
As a producer, once the shoot began there really wasn't anything for me to do except guard the equipment by the side of the road. I sat there for a long while, under a shady tree, with a lush green field just to the left of me, watching seven deer as they slowly grazed their way closer, closer. Above my head, a bee moved from branch to branch, collecting and pollinating.
I was ridiculously happy.
Now bees, I've always been a little wary of. Childhood experiences have their effect, and here are just two of them: once, walking to school, a bee somehow flew inside my shoe and then stung me on the instep, a particularly painful place to get stung; and once when my dad lived in Atlanta, I was up there visiting for a month and was sledding down those red clay hills with some friends when we went right over a yellowjackets' nest. The wasps swarmed, we all got stung multiple times and spent the rest of the afternoon watching the Batman TV show with baking soda caked all over us.
Thus bees (and their even-scarier cousins of the wasp family) became equated with Pain. And since I have spent a remarkable portion of my life trying to avoid Pain in every way possible, I've generally reacted negatively to the mere appearance of a bee. Swatting it away, jumping myself away, whatever it took. (And of course, bees just love me. Maybe it's my very blond hair gleaming in the sun like some gigantic daffodil? Who knows.)
But I recently read a review, by whom and of what and where it was I cannot remember, that talked about bees and their long-standing place in culture. Of the bees that supposedly swarmed the mouth of the infant Plato, indicating the greatness of the man-to-be; of the bee's essential role in pollinating most flowering plants (there would be no almond industry, to pick just one example, without the honeybee); of the symbolic nature of the bee as a crucial part of the cycle of life. With me, if you want to turn my head around on something, just give me material like this, I'm a complete sucker for it.
And so I sat there on Thursday, a bee buzzing just above my head, and for once I was happy to just sit there. And the bee, I discovered, wasn't at all interested in me or my daffodil head, and that we were both perfectly content to do what we were doing, now near and now far apart.
The very next day, I went outside my apartment, around the back and up the stairs to finally clean out my car of all the stuff that had gathered for the shoot. (Two wooden planks, an air mattress, leftover craft-service food, and a power inverter, to name just a few of the oddments.) As I marched up the stairs, I saw several honeybees on the ground, writhing; then heard a fearsome buzzing just above my head. Stepping into the clear of the parking lot, I saw that a hive had taken up residence under the eaves of my building, just as they had at the distant ranger station. And apparently an exterminator had just been there, had just sprayed, so the bees were agitated and dying.
My old thinking was that maybe I should clean out the car later. An angry swarm is an entirely different thing from a lone bee dancing around a fragrant tree. But I felt a new sympathy for them, as they lie there dying by the dozen, literally dropping out of the air. I knew that I no longer bore any animosity toward them, and that they would not wreak their vengeance on me. So I did what I had to do, made several trips slowly carrying things right under the dying hive, and by the time I was done, so too, alas, were the bees.
It felt very like a loss. But at the same time, I have to admit--I'm glad they hadn't built a hive in my walls....
Monday, March 26, 2007
We Are Preparing to Take Your Call
Idle thoughts while on hold with the Screen Actors Guild:
Minute 10
...okay, one last time through the thing I'm calling about--find exactly the right language to describe it so the call will go fast--okay, yeah, that should do, yeah, good...
Minute 25
...damn but I'm good at computer solitaire...
Minute 33
...they keep repeating "We are preparing to take your call." What the hell are they doing to prepare? Repainting the office? Stretching a tin can and a string to my apartment?
Minute 47
...if I ever play one more game of solitaire in my life, I swear I'll scream my damn fool head off. Okay, there are a couple federal and state forms that I need to prepare today, I'll just go online and get those done.
Minute 71
...okay, the forms are done, and hey, look how much time passed! Why the hell am I still on hold? And what to do about the growing bathroom problem?...
Minute 77
...my shoulder hurts. Why haven't I put this call on the speakerphone before now? Now, is there any way to put the handset back in the base that doesn't create a hellish feedbaYOOOOWWW! No, apparently not...
Minute 80
...what am I calling them for again? Jeez, I have absolutely no idea...
Minute 91
...what's my name? Why is there disembodied piano music playing the same tune over and over? Why do these voices keep telling me comforting things that only make me ag-ag-ag-agitated?
Minute 97
mind blister sell aromatic potions lost lost lost (no no no more voices!) can't linger can't delay can't wait can't cant or keen (piano no piano, no please no piano!) phosphorescent pastaaaaahhh...
Minute 103
blink
blink
blink
Minute ...
Minute 10
...okay, one last time through the thing I'm calling about--find exactly the right language to describe it so the call will go fast--okay, yeah, that should do, yeah, good...
Minute 25
...damn but I'm good at computer solitaire...
Minute 33
...they keep repeating "We are preparing to take your call." What the hell are they doing to prepare? Repainting the office? Stretching a tin can and a string to my apartment?
Minute 47
...if I ever play one more game of solitaire in my life, I swear I'll scream my damn fool head off. Okay, there are a couple federal and state forms that I need to prepare today, I'll just go online and get those done.
Minute 71
...okay, the forms are done, and hey, look how much time passed! Why the hell am I still on hold? And what to do about the growing bathroom problem?...
Minute 77
...my shoulder hurts. Why haven't I put this call on the speakerphone before now? Now, is there any way to put the handset back in the base that doesn't create a hellish feedbaYOOOOWWW! No, apparently not...
Minute 80
...what am I calling them for again? Jeez, I have absolutely no idea...
Minute 91
...what's my name? Why is there disembodied piano music playing the same tune over and over? Why do these voices keep telling me comforting things that only make me ag-ag-ag-agitated?
Minute 97
mind blister sell aromatic potions lost lost lost (no no no more voices!) can't linger can't delay can't wait can't cant or keen (piano no piano, no please no piano!) phosphorescent pastaaaaahhh...
Minute 103
blink
blink
blink
Minute ...
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