"Bright Star" is now available from iTunes - I immediately downloaded it as soon as I saw that. And so I had the luxury of viewing all my favorite scenes several times.
The picture above is a screen cap from a favorite scene, where the young men of the town - one of them refers to them as the "Hampstead Heathens" - put on a concert. I was pleased to see in the credits that Ben Whishaw actually did sing in the chorus. And I got to hear again his reciting of Keat's Ode to a Nightingale over the credits as well.
What a wonderful piece of film-making is "Bright Star" - from the attention to the ordinary details of early 19th century England to the wonderful performances to the heart-rending reality of poor John Keats' early death (at 25). And also, something dear to my heart: the solace of poetry in the face of romantic anguish and desolation. The final scene has Fanny wandering the woods grieving and longing for Keats, reciting his poem "Bright Star" like a prayer.
Keats was quite opinionated on the subject of poetry, which really doesn't come through clearly in the movie, but at one point he explains to Fanny - and the quote comes from one of his letters on the subject:
"A poem needs understanding through the senses. The point of diving in a lake is not immediately to swim to the shore; it's to be in the lake, to luxuriate in the sensation of water. You do not work the lake out. It is an experience beyond thought. Poetry soothes and emboldens the soul to accept mystery."
Well said, Keats.
When I compare a movie like this to some of the stupid movies in the world - especially ones that are pointless, derivative exercises in degradation, and to make the degradation absolute, the crass orcish filmmakers find it expedient to exploit actors and mock their professionalism in order to generate pure effluvia - the contrast could not be starker. Those movies are hideous, while "Bright Star" is beautiful.
"A thing of beauty is a joy forever" said John Keats.
BEN WHISHAW threw a series of jersey tops and skinny jeans on and off his wiry body like a juggler tossing scarves in the air. He stood before a full-length mirror, head cocked, his petite frame topped by an explosion of thick black hair, a boyish yet chiseled face and the eyes of a pixie.
Mr. Whishaw, 29, was in a Midtown rehearsal studio at a costume fitting for "The Pride," a play about gay identity and the price of sexual liberation that is now in previews at the Lucille Lortel Theater. He tried on a striped pullover that caught the eye of his director, Joe Mantello.
"I don’t think we should transform him into Gidget," Mr. Mantello said to Mattie Ullrich, the costume designer.
Not that the versatile Mr. Whishaw couldn't play a surfer girl from Malibu if he wanted. On film he's metamorphosed into John Keats ("Bright Star"), Keith Richards ("Stoned") and Bob Dylan ("I'm Not There") as well as an 18th-century man with a killer nose in "Perfume: The Story of a Murderer," Lord Sebastian in a remake of "Brideshead Revisited" and an unhinged teenager in "My Brother Tom."
But it was a stage role that brought most acclaim. In Trevor Nunn's 2004 production of "Hamlet," at the Old Vic in London, Mr. Whishaw, then 23 and six months out of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, played the title character as an overprivileged brat.
Critics were jubilant. Charles Spencer, writing in The Daily Telegraph, said that Mr. Whishaw "earned his place in such distinguished company" as Gielgud and Olivier. Ben Brantley of The New York Times has listed Mr. Whishaw among his most memorable Hamlets, alongside Mark Rylance and Simon Russell Beale. more at the NYTimes
Alas he won't be wearing Regency era clothing for this play, but I'm still looking forward to the production at the Lucille Lortel.
Well now my excerpt from the Darlington Curse has been read 948 times, still received only 8 votes and has a rating of 3.50 out of 5. But I finally got some feedback, via email:
You write well. For me, this means you create a tangible sense of setting and give a lot of color and detail around the characters. It draws me in. When you inject erotic situations into this mix, it is all the more arousing. In short, you get the imagination going and that drives everything else.
And, don't think I didn't notice the appearance of boots in this story. Hmm, I might have to wear some sexy boots
He also read my first Literotica story, hence the boots reference. And I think he's flirting with me.
What IS it with Janis Joplin? She's been dead for almost 40 years, longer than she was alive - she died in 1970 at age 27. I posted a few things about Joplin on this blog and now I get SO many hits for her. According to my blog statistics, 3% of all visits to my blog come from the search words "janis joplin" and 2% for "janis joplin photo" - that's more than search on my name OR "heavens to mergatroyd". I might as well just devote my blog to Janis Joplin.
I AM tempted to write a play about her. Her sister has already collaborated on the well-received "Love, Janis" so the time probably isn't right, but when the time is right, and if it's written well, it would be very popular. Hmmmm....
I invited David Ives to sit in on a meeting of NYCPlaywrights a few years ago, and that was fun. Afterwards I gave him a ride home to his place on the upper west side of Manhattan. As we drove I explained that the reason I had a bunch of bullwhips in the back of my Prius was because I accidentally ordered a dozen through eBay when I thought I was only ordering one. I only wanted one, as a prop for the slave trader in my adaptation of Twain's "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" (recently David Ives adapted Twain's play IS HE DEAD?) I offered one to each of the cast members of my HUCK FINN, but there were still a few left. I offered one to David Ives.
"No thanks" he said as he got out of the car "I already have one."
"Hah hah hah" I said to the others in the car after he left "isn't that David Ives droll?"
But after reading the review of his VENUS IN FURS I'm wondering for the first time if he was kidding...
Hot Man in Regency Period Clothing of the Week - January 29, 2010
Here we see the hot Regency man very conspicuously displaying his hat label. This comes by way of the previously mentioned Oregon Regency Society. On their "description" page they rightly identify Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres as a prime source of Regency imagery. Although if I know my Ingres, this image, although interesting, and the guy is pretty cute (the outfit helps) is not by Ingres.
Well the SODOM & GOMORRAH production's underway - got the cast and got a web site! Although why it's so hard to get actors to cough up bios promptly I'll never know... oy...
Well so far Astoria seems to lack a nearby place to buy the furry mousie toys that my cat Mr. Fuzz is addicted to, so I was forced to buy in bulk - a dozen bags of a dozen mousies each. Mr. Fuzz is ecstatic!
Now remembering that I'm a producer and that my standard response to people wanting more money is that "You'll work for two dollars a day and a kick in the pants"
He's only talking about writers here - for him to discuss paying actors MORE money he'd have to be paying them any money in the first place.
And based on what I've seen of his movies, the awful irony is that the actors he's worked with are much better than the writers.
I just spent the whole day making a 12-minute reel of nudity in Pandora Machine films. The Queen of Mars wanted it so she would have something to show to actors who are auditioning for roles which have nudity.
It's pretty tame stuff really. Contractually we're obligated to be able to get an R-rating or lower. But I'm happy with the love scenes in Angry Planet.
The funny thing I discovered is that because we tend to have creepy love scenes we tend to reach for the same piece of music I wrote for the love scene in the movie Pandora Machine. It's a tad comical when you string all the love scenes together and we're using the same lovecreepy music in them.
Why am I not surprised that their "love" scenes are uniformly creepy? But apparently they are "pretty tame." Well, I realize things have changed alot thanks to the Internet - but is it actually possible to get actors to do PORN for NO PAY now? If it wasn't for the damn R restriction my guess is he'd have already investigated that potential avenue of exploitation, very thoroughly.
It's time for the old pangs of despised love in Darlington
Darlington Literotica excerpt report:
Readers: 877 Votes: 8 Rating: 3.50
I should mention that my story "Victorian Boots" which has been online for almost two years now has had 4278 readers, 8 votes and a rating of 3.25 - so I guess I'm becoming a better prose writer.
Once again Jonathan Wallace has asked me to contribute a play for the Where Eagles Dare Playlab that he is curating. This next one is scheduled for the end of February. These plays are all about life in the theater. That's what prompted me to write SODOM... I had actually been kicking around the story idea for a couple of years, but for a full-length play. Nothing says I can't expand on this short play into a full-length though.
I came up with this logo - I was inspired by the artwork for Monty Python's "Life of Brian." I'm working on a web site too. I really don't NEED to put so much graphic work into these Playlab shows - nobody else does - but I enjoy it and I want to keep in practice for when Mergatroyd Productions can afford to do another major production.
Well I had it out yesterday - and I do not even want to think about how many hours I spent on this - with a mob on the science blog Pharyngula. It was silly of me to think that the level of discourse would be superior on this blog, just because it's a science blog. Blog comment tribes are the same everywhere.
I stopped commenting on the blog "I Blame the Patriarchy" in spite of that blog owner's brilliance because there is an established group of insiders who enforce conformity. If you tried to argue something that you might believe was uncontroversial - say you suggested that not all men are violent jerks - you would kick up a shit-storm of abusive comments by the in-crowd.
Pharyngula has a well-established blog comment tribe and as I discovered, demonstrating you have any "accommodationist" sympathies - that is you believe that it is an acceptable fact of life that some scientists might also hold religious beliefs - you will be trashed as savagely as anybody with pro-male sympathies on "I Blame the Patriarchy."
It's truly fascinating and there is almost nothing online, at least, that addresses the nature of blog comment tribes groupthink. Somebody should do a study. It would certainly be cheaper and easier than most studies - simply review comment threads and analyze the behavior: who insults whom and why, who agrees with whom, what are the unspoken rules that guide the behavior of group insiders, that kind of thing.
There's a wiki on Groupthink but it's not extensive. It's worth considering though:
Groupthink is a type of thought exhibited by group members who try to minimize conflict and reach consensus without critically testing, analyzing, and evaluating ideas. Individual creativity, uniqueness, and independent thinking are lost in the pursuit of group cohesiveness, as are the advantages of reasonable balance in choice and thought that might normally be obtained by making decisions as a group.[1] During groupthink, members of the group avoid promoting viewpoints outside the comfort zone of consensus thinking. A variety of motives for this may exist such as a desire to avoid being seen as foolish, or a desire to avoid embarrassing or angering other members of the group. Groupthink may cause groups to make hasty, irrational decisions, where individual doubts are set aside, for fear of upsetting the group’s balance. The term is frequently used pejoratively, with hindsight.
One issue I would really like to see a study for: do the dynamics of Groupthink change based on whether the blog is dedicated to science, or politics, or art, etc. My hunch is there is no difference - the group dynamics displayed by commenters on Pharyngula will be shown to be exactly the same as the group dynamics of, for example, Free Republic, a right-wing political blog.
Hot Man in Regency Period Clothing of the Week - January 22, 2010
Is it Friday already?
Here we see Colin Firth looking good as Mr. Darcy - with some handy call-outs explaining what the various parts of his costume are called. I just saw Colin Firth on the Daily Show the other night. As Jon Stewart said: "set your TV for 'handsome'"
Well still no feedback on my Darlington excerpt on Literotica, but the statistics have changed: now it's been viewed by 807 readers, been rated by 8 and its score has raised slightly to 3.50. I guess that last person quite liked it.
Watching some liberal members of the House explain why they won’t do what's necessary, and pass the Senate bill, I was wondering what they imagine will happen. Then the answer came to me: it's the Underpants Gnomes business plan. In its original form this was:
1. Collect underpants. 2. ????? 3. Profit!
The current version is:
1. Reject the only bill that can be enacted any time soon. 2. ????? 3. Universal coverage!
Nudity required, no pay - the joys of actor exploitation
I guess people who come from families with money and/or have lucrative financial-services industry jobs just don't believe in nasty words like "exploitation" - I learned that first from Edward Einhorn. Although as far as I know he never expected actors to get naked for no pay.
Producer: Laura XXXXX Director: Andrew XXXXX Casting Director:Laura XXXXX Interview: late January Shoot/Start Date: February 15 Location: New York
SUBMIT ELECTRONICALLY TEL: 732-XXX-XXXX
THERE IS NUDITY IN THIS PROJECT.
[ LAURA ] Lead - Female, 20s - plagued by voices in her head, one of very few survivors of the apocalypse. She is hunted by the giant robots and must find a way to stop the invasion. Nudity, one back-lit love scene.
[ DR. MASCHWITZ ] Female, 40s-60s - Laura's psychiatrist, secretly trying to protect Laura from the robots.
[ NEIL ] Male, 30s-40s - a crazy drunk, former Special Forces op. Knows way more about the invasion than he should.
Thanks to Anonymous for tipping us off to this masterpiece where our heroine, poor, haunted, schitzo Laura, will probably be forced to make back-lit naked "love" to Neil the crazy drunk. It is very fortunate, however, that her psychiatrist is one of the "very few survivors" of the apocalypse. I mean - what are the odds?
We put a notice on Actor's Access for a couple roles in Day 2. We're starting to get the pile o' submissions one gets for that. Remember, we're non-SAG, no pay. Some nudity.
It's thanks to people like this that unions are so necessary. Too bad some of the suckers actors he's managed to get for his shitty Star Wars/Bladerunner/Transformers ripoff movies worked for him in defiance of their unions. Way to show solidarity, assholes.
Well, I still haven't gotten feedback on my Darlington excerpt, although it has been rated by 7 of its 676 readers so far - it got a 3.43 out of a possible 5. That's disappointing - all my sonnets have been rated 5 except for one which just got a 4. And I got another nice comment - this time for my "Emily Dickinson" sonnet ("Are you thinking of me on this spring morn, In Emily's neck of the woods?") that said:
Different and quirky. I love it.
Either I'm a better poet than fiction writer, or the fiction readers are just more discerning.
Well so far I haven't gotten any feedback on my Darlington excerpt, but somebody did have something to say about my sonnets that is very nice:
"I read all of the sonnets you've posted on Literotica and wanted to let you know how much they touched me. I so envy someone like you who can artfully express the powerful emotions they are feeling. Each one made me feel something strong and new, which is the best compliment I can offer."
Sunshine Dore was the third of Harold's three dating-service dates arranged for him by his mother, in the movie "Harold and Maude". Sunshine, an actress in the Sunshine Playhouse, was much more unconventional than his other two dates, although her clothing was pure mod 1960s. At the time I first saw the movie, her ensemble was out of style - the big puffy visor-brimmed hat and the knee-high boots.
She's played, wonderfully, by Ellen Geer, the daughter of Will Geer (Granpa Walton.)*
But her look seems to have come back. Seems like I can't walk down the street in the city without seeing a woman who reminds me of Sunshine Dore because of the hat and the boots. Although the funky collar Sunshine wore hasn't come back. But no doubt someday it will - that's fashion for you. Well, women's fashion. Men's fashion is determined to make men look as drab and un-glamorous, un-sexy as possible. Otherwise we'd see lots more Regency-period ensembles around.
I will admit though, that I aspire, as a director for an actor to say about me what Sunshine says about Louis Sunshine: "(she) was such an influence on the development of my instrument."
Watch Sunshine in action - including the awesome "what's hari-kari" scene:
*wow - while googling around for Ellen Geer, I checked out her father's wiki - Granpa Walton was a very interesting guy! While he was being blacklisted for being a Communist - an actual card-carrying Communist - during the 1950s he built the Theatricum Botanicum - I'd never heard of it before, but boy, would I love to go there, it sounds absolutely awesome. Next time I'm anywhere near California, I'm gonna check it out.
1. Don’t put drugs in people's drinks in order to control their behavior.
2. When you see someone walking by themselves, leave them alone!
3. If you pull over to help someone with car problems, remember not to assault them!
4. NEVER open an unlocked door or window uninvited.
5. If you are in an elevator and someone else gets in, DON'T ASSAULT THEM!
6. Remember, people go to laundry to do their laundry, do not attempt to molest someone who is alone in a laundry room.
7. USE THE BUDDY SYSTEM! If you are not able to stop yourself from assaulting people, ask a friend to stay with you while you are in public.
8. Always be honest with people! Don’t pretend to be a caring friend in order to gain the trust of someone you want to assault. Consider telling them you plan to assault them. If you don’t communicate your intentions, the other person may take that as a sign that you do not plan to rape them.
9. Don’t forget: you can’t have sex with someone unless they are awake!
10. Carry a whistle! If you are worried you might assault someone "on accident" you can hand it to the person you are with, so they can blow it if you do.
There are some play reading groups that maintain that post-reading feedback must adhere to a strict "constructive" line.
The NYCPlaywrights philosophy is that verbal feedback is unnecessary for a reading - the purpose of a reading is for the playwright to hear their work. But more importantly: the best feedback is to be had by watching the audience respond during the reading. In this we agree with the playwright/teacher Jeff Sweet.
Sweet says, although not quite so bluntly, that the reason it's more important to watch than to listen to the audience is because people lie more with their mouths than with their bodies.
This is not usually out of malice: people tend to soften their criticisms in a public forum like a play reading. And the "constructive" stricture for feedback sessions only magnifies that tendency.
But the truth will out, sooner or later. I've seen promoters of "constructive" feedback in action: they avoid expressing negative feelings about the play, and spout a string of soft-sell euphemisms instead. Then, once the playwright has left the room, they say what they really think.
This is the behavior of politicians, not people who care about art.
Enforcing "constructive" feedback means that dissident voices are often squelched through the effort to reach some kind of consensus and achieve a teaching moment. Sometimes the squelching is done quite deliberately - I attended the reading of a founder of another playwrights group in New York, and in the notes of his reading's program, he very explicitly said, in effect "if you didn't like my play, STFU." He then went on to produce the play, and it was thoroughly trashed by critics.
NYCPlaywrights is not a course in playwriting (it would charge much more for membership if it was) but rather a service for playwrights, to hear their work spoken aloud, by skilled actors. Feedback is strictly optional: the playwright must request it. And when the playwright requests it they are warned: they might hear something they don't want to hear. In this, NYCPlaywrights feedback is no different from a critic's review. Anybody who is serious about writing plays needs to get toughened up - critics don't feel the need to coddle playwrights' egos, or reach a constructive teaching moment.
At NYCPlaywrights, audience members get to express their feelings, in any way that they wish (but only about the play, nothing personal) without any group-think restrictions. This means that sometimes arguments break out, and people disagree passionately about some aspect of a play, or even play theory in general. NYCPlaywrights prefers the expression of visceral honest feelings to namby-pamby carefully-articulated verbiage. The NYCPlaywrights philosophy is that honest emotional feedback is far more valuable to a serious playwright than all the "constructive" feedback in the world.
But some people are by nature conflict-adverse. They find the NYCPlaywrights type of no-holds-barred feedback upsetting. If these people are playwrights they should avoid having their work produced in a public, critic-reviewed forum, and stick to readings of their work for an audience of friends and family members.
And they can join a "constructive" playwrights group and never worry about anybody making strongly-worded, passionate commentary about their plays - at least, not to their face.
Hot Man in Regency Period Clothing of the Week - January 15, 2010 edition
Ewan McGregor in Regency costume - yum!
Although he's one of the few men who isn't noticeably aesthetically improved by such attire - he's such a fine-looking man, he looks good in anything, including a kilt:
Alas, I couldn't find a more complete image of McGregor portraying "Frank Churchill" in the movie adaptation of "Emma", but my search did result in another Regency-oriented web site discovery: Risky Regencies
Completely illegal but somebody posted the entire Emma movie online, including this section with Ewan looking extremely fine in equestrian mode.
I had almost completely forgotten I wrote a kinky boot story and posted it to Literotica - I hadn't been on the site in over a year - when out of the blue somebody emailed me to say he liked the story.
So I decided to post a section of the Darlington Curse to the site and see what kind of feedback I get - it might come in handy for when I start re-writing it.
I want to extend an apology to anybody about whom I've said negative things (indirectly, I haven't named names) on this blog in the past - this is only to private citizens, not George W. Bush, Christopher Hitchens or any other dastardly public figures. Or Edward Einhorn, because he sued me and he doesn't think he did anything wrong. See The Strange Case of Edward Einhorn v. Mergatroyd Productions for the details.
Since I'm still not a saint, I will say that I did not randomly write negative things about people - I had serious grievances against them, and none of them has to this day apologized to me for anything.
However, my blogging nasty things about them certainly did not provoke them into any kind of self-examination or feelings of remorse - it did no good, except a very temporary sense of release for me. I should have completely channeled everything into my art, which is a constructive way to deal with anguish, remorse, depression, etc. And the practice of working personal issues out in art has a long and illustrious history, used by everybody from Michelangelo to Charlotte Bronte to the Beatles, and even recommended by Mr. Rogers.
All this is easier for me to say now, since I'm 95% over all the anger and despair I've been working through for almost two years. Well, if not now then when? It's a kind of new year's resolution. I'm not a saint but I can try to do better. And as Mr. Rogers said: "the very same people who are good sometimes are the very same people who are bad sometimes. It's funny, but it's true." The video quality is bad, but you can watch him sing it here.
So it's all going into the art from now on. Speaking of which, very soon it will be time for Darlapalooza - I will attempt to complete the Darlington Curse saga all in one 48 hour period, with hourly installment updates. I don't know when exactly that's going to happen, and I'll keep posting random individual installments until then, but that's the goal. I'm trying to get this story done so the rewriting can begin - and then: submission time. Because getting paid for your art is the most constructive thing of all, in this material world.
John Lennon - one of the coolest guys who ever lived
In this video excerpt from John and Yoko's appearance on the Dick Cavette Show, John explains the origins of the song he wrote with Yoko: "Woman is the Nigger of the World" and then they perform the song. During the explanation, John demonstrates just how articulate, sharp and compelling he was as a person and as a devotee of a cause. And how far ahead of his time he was.
BEN WHISHAW threw a series of jersey tops and skinny jeans on and off his wiry body like a juggler tossing scarves in the air. He stood before a full-length mirror, head cocked, his petite frame topped by an explosion of thick black hair, a boyish yet chiseled face and the eyes of a pixie.
