Apr. 14, 2003 - 1:22 p.m.
Dear Meghan:
Your engagement with the elite sounds positively droll, doll. I am appalled that no string quartet was playing concertos in the corner. Pshaw!
Regarding the Color Scheme, I’d say write whatever from whoever’s perspective hits you at whatever time. Since we appear to be going with the ‘commentary’ approach, we will no doubt have to sculpt this piece, as opposed to simply writing it like normal writers.
The second Clowns show has come and gone. I must confess that Sundays are now a cosmic wasteland for me. In the past, the Clowns played on Friday nights, leaving me two whole days of plotting and planning. Now, with the Clowns shows bisecting the weekend right in the middle, I find I am generally lost in the time preceding and following. So far, the ‘lost time’ has comprised about 24 hours in either direction. Yesterday, I was able to hobble out of my home and hole up in a coffee shop, where I continued my attack on ‘The Lovely Bones’, reaching the point where icicles are mentioned as Susie Salmon’s favorite weapon of choice. I know, through Jennie, that icicles will appear later in the book, and it was with some satisfaction that I found the original mention. Though my real discourse on the book will follow my completion of it, I must confess that the one thing that I strongly dislike (which doesn’t come close to canceling out everything I strongly like) is everyone’s tendency to wax a little too poetic.
When I left the coffee shop, with enough coffee in me to make a sloth edgy, I was very, very aware of myself and those who happen to be toddling up Damen Avenue at the time. It was as if Susie Salmon herself was lending me a bit of her apparent omnipotence. I was aware – keenly – of showing off, subtlety yet definitely, the fact I had a book in my hand to some passing women, hoping to perhaps elicit a spontaneous, “Wow – a book!” or something. Naturally, it didn’t happen.
At home again, I decided I wanted to rock out a bit (something I haven’t done since my in-between-shows creation of 11 songs), so I plugged in my handy dandy bass guitar and brought up on my hard disk recorder a new-ish song called “Summer Wind in November” (most of my new songs are all about contradictions – this is just another). “November” is a cute little ballad with great potential for harmony; I am a little discouraged on this point, due to the fact I have the range of Neil Young with strep throat. Nevertheless, this was not a concern as I only wanted to add a bass track to the existing acoustic guitar track. Unfortunately, the coffee that was in my bloodstream screamed into my fingers, and every simple line turned into an arpeggio or slide-guitar-esque rubber-band gymnastics. Nothing was usable by the time my mind wandered and I went off to play an online video game called ‘Sinistar’ (one of the three video games I can tolerate and/or enjoy).
As I played, my mind wandered back to the song. I should really compile that CD, I thought, as I shot little things floating in space.
Then my thoughts eventually turned back to the Clowns. There is a minor drama going on about a scene called ‘Dating in Chicago’, which had been picked on in our latest review (or at least the genre of 20something single folks sitting together in a scene). I wanted to drop the scene a few weeks ago, and the review was a proverbial final nail in the proverbial coffin. I rang Scott, of course, and suggested it. Now, Scott is a good man; he is my direct opposite in terms of theater, and probably life itself, so I didn’t expect him to agree. He came up with this argument: “I’ve heard that it’s good to run a sketch 3 times before deciding what to do with it.” I accepted that at face value – for a few hours. Then I thought, I’ve been writing for about 7 years now – I’ve never heard that rationale before. I’ve heard that all jokes come in threes, of course, and that you shouldn’t mention MacBeth backstage. But never that you should keep a sketch alive for 3 weeks – always. In retrospect, I am very intrigued by the fact that one of his arguments to keep the scene in was NOT “Well, I find it funny”.
‘Dating in Chicago’ is Robert’s sketch, and my desire to bump it is not based on anything but show structure. I’ve bumped at least three of my own out of shows – including this one, a parody of ‘Crossing Over with John Edwards’ – so authorship is never a motivation. As I’ve mentioned to you before, Meghan, I try and find the musical rhythm in each show I – or Scott and I – construct. ‘Dating’ pulls the train off the tracks in the same way scenes in other shows did, like a scene called ‘Homeland Security’ in the very first show. In those cases, my instinct said ‘cut it’, but I never actively pursued it. For better or worse, when a new scene isn’t developing or loses its wit, we refer to it as ‘a Homeland Security’. Though ‘Dating’ is much, much better than ‘Homeland’, it still doesn’t fit. Think of a kazoo solo in the middle of Mozart’s Requiem and you will sense how I view that scene.
In any event, I chatted with the players and it’s been agreed to suspend ‘Dating’ until we can work on it further during a pick-up rehearsal. It is sometimes frustrating, having been instinctually correct about a lot in the group, that I still have to struggle to make things happen. Perhaps it’s for the best.
Saturated,
Vincent
what they said - what they will say
