Here's a note that I originally wrote in June 2000:

So I'm working on this community theatre production of Witness for the Prosecution with this professional actor, he's SAG and yadda-yadda and a bag of chips, and he asks for a carafe of water on stage for the courtroom scene: his "throat closes up." He and I are at the same table in the scene. So the crew scrounges something up by the end of tech week, and maybe the glassware hadn't been washed in a while. And he sees me Saturday night and asks, "Did the water in the carafe taste to you like fish had been fucking in it?" And I just said, "Ray, it's the first time that I've ever had water on stage: I'm not complaining."

posted: 10:39:34 PM  

We have now blocked scenes 1, 2, and 4. John gave us a nice bit in 4 where we're circling around the kitchen table.

I've learned my words for 1 and 2. I think I will borrow some vocal mannerisms from an acquaintance in high school, I think his name was Chris. His diction was always a little too perfect: he pronounced both T's in a word like written.

I'm always a little grumpy about hauling out to rehearsal on Sunday night. I like Sunday evening to be comfort time, down time: watch the baseball game on TV, drink wine, and do laundry. But there is this in favor of Sunday rehearsals: the commute over to Silver Spring (generally) doesn't involve rush-hour-level congestion.

posted: 10:25:48 PM  

Some quick book notes:

The twenty-ish Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom of John Updike's Rabbit, Run, the first novel in the suite of four, hardly seems the same person as the one who dies in Rabbit at Rest. A lot of Updike and a lot of Rabbit have happened in the meantime. (Mind you, it was twelve years ago that I read Rabbit at Rest). Poetic goodie: "two lovers, holding hands and in a hurry to reach their car, their locked hands a starfish leaping through the dark."

The Weblog Handbook, by Rebecca Blood, has some good coaching advice, while some of her other counsel will be obvious to anyone who has been reading and writing online for any period of time. A good-looking set of referenced URLs in chapters 1, 2, and 4, which I intend to follow up. Much better material on using individual tools comes from Essential Blogging, by Cory Doctorow et al., published by O'Reilly, who are almost incapable of producing a bad book. And there are some good basic design principles to be learned (or re-learned) in The Non-Designer's Design Book, by Robin Williams.

posted: 2:25:03 PM  

Mies vailla menneisyyttä (The Man without a Past) is a fable from a Finland without birch panelling or Nokia phones. A welder, on a trip to Helsinki, is set upon by thieves. Left for dead, he develops amnesia. The nameless man falls into a life with other broken souls, a limbo shantytown of abandoned cargo containers. Sakari Kuosmanen is particularly good as the deadpan caretaker of the place, Anttila.

It seems that the Finnish for "sound recording device" is the trade name, nagra.

posted: 2:14:23 PM