Is it a comedy or just bad writing?

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One thing about living in the Hinterlands: Even while I do have an AMC megaplex within walking distance of my rental house, it only shows really big budget movies, or absolutely anything animated for kids.

Because of the craziness of the holidays, along with the continued snow and below-zero temperatures around here, I haven’t been able to get into the nearest city and see any of the movies I really wanted to see: Lady Bird, 3 Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, and The Man Who Invented Christmas, to name the top 3.

Well, thanks to that #NationalScreenwritersDay this past Friday, I was able to download a ton of amazing screenplays for free.  Of course, reading a screenplay doesn’t necessarily mean you get a true idea of how the movie wound up telling the story, but it still gives you some great visuals and at least you do get to read the basic plot.

I have been so eager to see 3 Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri since back in November, when a producer out in L.A. first raved about it in an email. I watched the trailer and thought, Hmmm, this is really, really violent, but Frances McDormand is in it and I trust her choices and her judgement… So I still wanted to see it. I literally had no clue whatsoever that this movie was a comedy.

I began reading the script before it won the Golden Globe over the weekend and I thought the script was just horrible. Really, just a downward-spiraling potpourri of hate, violence, and awfulness. I was dumbfounded. I thought to myself, the only way this endless collection of horrific cliches would work is if this were a comedy….

Of course, once I found out that it was, indeed, a black comedy, it became brilliant. Funny how that works, right? (But it’s also peculiar how a comedy might not necessarily read like one on the page, isn’t it? How you really do need good direction and great acting to help your vision come to life.)

I’m in the middle of reading Lady Bird right now, which, in my opinion, is just terrific writing. So visual. So charming. It just leaps off the page. Next in line are Mudbound and The Disaster Artist. And I still have dozens of scripts left.

It’s actually really cool to just live out here in the middle of nowhere, no distractions, the snow still sprinkled about, and read a whole pile of screenplays. Oh, I actually watched (streamed) The Big Sick on Amazon last night. I’d been wanting to see that for months. I adored it. It was the perfect blend of comedy and emotional tension. They did a great job with it.  (Oh, and back before Christmas, I streamed Marjorie Prime and I really loved that. I found the pacing so hypnotic. I was just riveted.)

Since I am going on and on about movies, it occurs to me that I never mentioned having seen the current remake of Murder on the Orient Express. I only wrote that I had plans to go see it. Well, I saw it. As always, I loved Johnny Depp, but he’s in it for about 5 minutes (literally). The rest of it, I could have done without. Why they remade it after a number of great versions of it already exist, is —yes! — a mystery!

Okay, I’m gonna get on with real life around here today. Still so much paperwork-type stuff to do regarding the new house. Then some of my own writing to do. Thanks for visiting, gang! I leave you with this wonderfully atmospheric tune that I’ve been playing a lot lately. it seems to go well with gently falling snow…

All righty! See ya!

(PS: After listening to the above song a bazillion times, I got curious about watching the movie of the same name that came out earlier this year, written by Allan Loeb. I really liked it! Very messy and romantic. Had a real “New York in the 1990s” feel.)

Re-Charge, Re-Group, Release! Rejoice! 2018

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I’m so excited because, for the past few days, I’ve been BETA testing an online course for learning Galilean Aramaic.  (This is an ancient Galilean dialect, and is an all but extinct language, but it is the dialect that Jesus spoke. If you’re interested in learning it, and being a BETA tester, you can sign up at The Aramaic New Testament website.)

Loyal readers of this lofty blog no doubt recall that before I was inundated with re-writes of both The Tea Cozy Murder Club script, and the Cleveland’s Burning script, I was re-learning Biblical Hebrew and was beginning to learn Ancient Greek.  Even though the script-writing projects haven’t died down, the fact that I finally seem to have a permanent dwelling place on my horizon again, made me think I should get back to Biblical Hebrew, at the very least.

In the middle of that, though, I got a month’s free membership to a really cool online French course, and even though I’ve been doing really well in that course, especially after not having read or written a word of French in 5 years, I don’t really think I’m likely to go back to France and I don’t see any reason to keep studying French, after having studied it for about 40 years…

Well,  I’ve taken to the Galilean Aramaic like a fish out of water! I really have.  I just love it. At age 57 ( my age right now), I see things in terms of being the last chapter of life.  I don’t want to spend/waste anymore time on anything French, or on re-learning Biblical Hebrew, and I don’t really have a burning desire to learn Ancient Greek at this point (my desire always lay in wanting to read the Septuagint in Greek, which I’m thinking is not really likely to happen!).  But it became crystal clear to me that in whatever time I have left (of course, I’m hoping for another 40 years), I would really like to concentrate on learning Galilean Aramaic!

It’s a really exciting feeling. Even while I know that the best laid schemes o’ Mice & Men…  regardless: to know the house & the town I want to live out my life in, the projects I want to get written before I die, the books I still want to read, the histories I want to study, and now the language I hope to master. It just feels so invigorating. So joyful.  An emotional clarity that feels so focused.

It’s no longer about “what should I do next for my career?” or “what should I study next in order to move my career to the next level?” or “where is the best place to live in order to make the career networking more efficient?” All that stuff — it’s done. I did what I needed to do; studied everything imaginable until the cows came home (they eat a lot but it’s great having them home, haha); I networked all over the world and met so many incredibly creative and talented people. However, now I’m just going to do what I enjoy doing and simply live my life.

Well, after the move, I will. Eck!

By the way, if you’re a screenwriter or want to be, ScreenwritingU and Stage 32 are sponsoring National Screenwriters Day. If you join in promoting it, you can download 100 award-winning and award-nominated screenplays for FREEEEE. So check it out.

BTW, #NationalScreenwritersDay is January 5th, which is also the Eve of  Epiphany.  Tradition has it, if you don’t get your Christmas decorations down by tomorrow evening, you have to leave them up until Candlemas, which is February 2nd (!!), or it’s bad luck. So get on it, gang! Nothing worse than seeing all those Christmas decorations hanging around until February…

All right! Have a great day, folks! Thanks for visiting. See ya!

 

Happy, Happy 2018!!

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Well, except for yesterday’s “reblogging” of Ted Nottingham‘s recent video post, I haven’t been here since before Christmas.

So you probably don’t know that we had a white Christmas here! Yes! It snowed Christmas Eve!! What could be better? (BTW, I had the happiest Christmas Eve ever — probably in my whole life. And not just because it snowed; the snow was more the proverbial icing on the top.) Just so much great stuff going on and so much exciting stuff to look forward to.

And we had a seriously white –and freezing cold–New Year’s Eve here last night.  More snow than the Hinterlands has seen in a while, with temperatures below 0 degrees Fahrenheit.  Loyal readers of this lofty blog no doubt recall that I love snow! So these frosty developments only cause me to rejoice. Yay!

I was very tempted, yesterday, to jump into the sporty Honda Fit and drive deeper into the Hinterlands to see what my new house looks like in the snow! But, well, as  much as I love the cold and the snow, I really, really love not driving around in it. So here I remained.

One of the reasons I am having the happiest holidays, ever, is because of that new (very old) house. And I’m sure I will have plenty of winters ahead wherein I will discover what that house looks like in the snow, but that doesn’t keep me from thinking about that great house all the time now. I just love that house, and I can’t wait to live in that strange and crazy tiny town (whose location, btw, cuts more than an hour off my drive to & from New York).

That said, though, I still have to get through the bank appraisal and the closing before I will know for 100% certain that it is my new house, even though it feels like home already. However, because of the looming bank appraisal and the official closing, I haven’t actually announced to people that I have a new house — except, of course, to you, gentle readers, who reside all over the world…

Another reason that it’s been the happiest of holidays here is because one of my theater projects with Sandra Caldwell in New York City is on track for Off-Broadway. I can’t discuss the details yet, and won’t be able to for a while, but things are going so great with that project.  I am so excited. And, out in L.A., TV-pilot shopping season begins in January (which is, of course, officially upon us!), so I am very excited about the prospects of my Untitled Cleveland Drama (once known as Cleveland’s Burning) very soon being sold.

The other thing that makes me so happy, of course, and the thing that makes all the other above-mentioned things a lot less stressful and even more delightful, is my new friend.  His personality, his experiences, his approach to life continue to surprise me anew every day.  He is such a cool guy and just so darned fearless.  It is such a joy to have someone in my life whose response to things is “Let’s do it!”, instead of giving the long litany of all the negative things that could go wrong with any given idea, as most people do.  God knows, I have been inundated with negative people throughout most of my life, going way, way back to my wee bonny girlhood, so he could not be more refreshing, nor his arrival in my life more perfectly timed.

All right, on that delightfully cheerful note, I’m off to the kitchen to make a huge pot of soup on this cold, snowy, frosty day.

Have a terrific 2018 wherever you are in the world and with whatever you’re doing. As always, thanks for visiting, gang! See ya.

 

Knowing God

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Not only does this video contain beautiful thoughts about Jeremiah’s new covenant, on what the Apocalypse was meant to reveal, and about Jesus’s teachings about Daniel, it also contains really beautiful footage of the inside of Mount Sinai Monastery, where some of the oldest Christian icons remain. Some beautiful thoughts and sights to bring in a glorious New Year!

Ted Nottingham's avatarSpiritual Food for the Soul

The meaning of the New Covenant announced by Jeremiah and and its connection to the “end of the age” revelation given by the Christ at the Temple of Solomon.
“The Journey of the Anointed One: Breakthrough to Spiritual Encounter” is on Amazon and Kindle:

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My love affair with trains is about to go up a notch!

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We had the inspection for the new house this past Tuesday and it passed with flying colors. The house is 106 years old, and it needs only the most insignificant repairs.  It is so exciting! I am finally going to have a new home.

My new friend that I’ve been seeing out here in the Hinterlands came to see the house with me, and he mentioned that an old coal train goes by on the tracks near my new house and it makes a lot of noise. (Even though he was born & raised in, yes, CLEVELAND (!!??), he’s lived out here in the Hinterlands for about 30 years and seems to know every square inch of it.)

Loyal readers of this lofty blog will no doubt recall that I absolutely LOVE the sound of train whistles. Well…

During the home inspection, the train did indeed go by “near” the house and, YOWZA, was it loud! It sounded like it was in my living room.

ME (thinking with alarm): Whoa, so this is what he means by “noisy”!

It was too funny. No one seemed to notice it but me — the fact that the train sounded like it was heading straight at us. Everyone just kept right on talking.

I’ve taken one of the photos of the side of the house and blown it up a bit so that you can see the train tracks. They are literally half a block from my new house.

Railroad crossing is in the background on the left.

By the way, that porch is right off my kitchen door.  And the house has 22 windows!! My cats are going to be in heaven.

Anyway, lots to do here, with Christmas right around the corner, so I gotta scoot. Thanks for dropping by, gang!  I leave you with this! It’s been playing in the Honda Fit as I go hither and yon to far away counties, where my new happy home abides!

See ya!

At long last!

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It looks like I have finally found a new house. We’re at least in contract. Still have the inspection and appraisal to do, but it all looks incredibly promising.

Naturally, this was the only remaining house left in 2 entire counties that was in my price range, and when I went out to see it, it was 18 degrees outside, snowing, and I had a really bad cold. So instead of being all “Yippee Ki Yi Yay!!” about them accepting my offer, I was thoroughly exhausted and felt, like, well, okay, that’s good. Excuse me while I go collapse.

Anyway.

If you think I’m in the Hinterlands now, wait until you see where I’m going to end up! It’s so beautiful out there, but it really is the middle of nowhere. The town has a population of about 1300 and was founded in 1827. The house I’m buying was built in 1901. But everything has been updated.

I am really quite happy, I’m just really tired. So, more details will follow as I get my equilibrium back. Meanwhile, thanks for visiting! See ya real soon.

yes, the house-hunting is going splendidly (not)

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There are two theories about trying to buy a house as winter approaches. One is that the competition among buyers is lower and you might even get a better price.

And the other, more astoundingly accurate theory, is that no one bothers to put their house up for sale as winter approaches because they don’t believe anyone out there is actually looking to buy a house and then be crazy enough to move in the dead of winter. (A fool such as I…)

It has been so frustrating. The couple of houses that were left on the market by the time I finally got my pre-approval in hand for the mortgage, got snatched up so fast it would — yes — make your head spin. All those houses that were in my price range in late summer and early fall are all gone. Sold. Or just plain off the market.

But I remain hopeful. Each night before I go to bed, I pray that some old person somewhere — in this county or even the next one over — will transition to the sweet hereafter by morning and that the perfect house for me, right in my pre-approval range, will suddenly spring onto the market and I can go grab it. (And of course I pray that this random old person already had a rich and deeply rewarding life…)

I have looked at a few houses and it just gets exhausting because they don’t work out for one reason or another (the worst being that it could be a great house but the owners didn’t take care of it and now no one in their right mind, who isn’t a house flipper, would attempt to buy it). Pretty much every day now, I’m exhausted because of the housing search.

This means, I’m getting no writing done. And the more I get no writing done, the less happier and more exhausted-er I am! (Actually, you’ve gotta be one helluva great writer to even come up with a great convoluted sentence such as that!)

It takes a lot of focus to find reasons to stay cheerful, to stay hopeful, to just keep going until I find the perfect house, especially when I’m trying to do this nonsense all by myself. (Although I have an amazingly great & patient realtor.) But I’m so tired of living out of boxes. So tired of not having access to my stuff. So tired of not being able to really celebrate any of the holidays. So tired of living in a few hundred square feet with 8 constantly shedding cats…(can you say “sinus condition”?)

I want a home again!

Yes, like this one, but without those people in it…(the dog can stay)

 

Okay. The seriously good news is that I am actually starting to make real friends out here in the Hinterlands.  Really nice, authentic people, who use a lot of four-letter words and who all seem to own guns. However, they’re just good, honest people. I really like them.

And even a really nice guy has sort of come into my life. It’s way too soon to know what might come of it, but he sure is nice. And funny. On the outside, he’s seems like just a grumpy, half-deaf, slow-moving older guy who always looks either pissed-off or bewildered; he always seems a million miles away. But on the inside, he is just the nicest person, with a sharp wit.  And very direct.  I like that.

All righty. I guess I should get something done around here today, since yet another house I was interested in looking at has been reported to be a sort of “handyman’s special.” And I am decidedly not handy. So now I suddenly have the whole day free and to myself. So I should make some use of that.

Before I close, though, I regale you with this! A few of my cuties transfixed by some sparrows outside the living room window this morning:

Huckleberry, Lucie, and Weenie at the window.

 

Thanks for visiting, gang, and I hope you have a wonderful Wednesday, wherever you are and with whatever you’re gazing at and getting transfixed by! I leave you with this wonderful ditty that I’m currently playing nonstop in the Honda Fit as I go tootling around the Hinterlands!

See ya!

Still Alive!

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I know; you’d never know it by how long it’s been since I’ve posted here!

BTW, thanks to everyone who sent comments to Iris re: her new book of flash fiction (post below), and also to those of you who bought it! She is a great writer. (And a good friend of mine.) Even if you don’t buy her book, you can find a whole lot of her flash fiction (and poetry) all over the Internet.

I won’t go into detail about all that has been going on here. Nothing terrible; just intense. Pace never stopping.  But last night, I got a great night’s sleep, and today I feel energized again. So, onward.

First and foremost: Here’s where I’m going either Tuesday or Wednesday of this coming week!

I can’t wait! I haven’t been to an actual movie theater in months. Nearly a year, in fact.

Loyal readers of this lofty blog no doubt recall that I am a huge fan of Johnny Depp‘s. And one thing I really love about him is that he doesn’t bleach his teeth. And I’m not talking about his hideous Jack Sparrow teeth, but just his regular old teeth — just like movie stars  from days of yore who simply had teeth.

Once, a few years ago, I tried watching the much-acclaimed movie, Mud, starring Matthew McConaughey.  From the start, it reminded me, for some odd reason, of Tender Mercies (which I liked a lot better), but I stuck with it, until McConaughey, a hermit on a deserted island in the middle of (sort of) nowhere, hiding from the law, etc., opens his mouth and reveals a set of stunningly blinding, bright, white teeth.

What kind of lone-hermit-fugitive, living on crumbs of food brought to him by a couple of rogue boys,  is that??!! I lost all interest in the film from that moment forward, because I could no longer believe in any of it. It all just became Matthew McConaughey with a set of artificially gleaming teeth. I could not focus on a single other thing, so I gave up watching it. And came away thinking, Wow, Tender Mercies was such a great little movie. Where did the years go?

Anyway!

Yes. I am officially incredibly behind schedule on the theatrical adaptation of my teleplay, Tell My Bones. Only because way too much has been going on in my life (which I’ll discuss in detail at some later date), that I cannot seem to: a.) find enough time to get enough writing done; and b.) concentrate when I do have enough time to get enough writing done.

Just this past week, I went through that ridiculous thing where I took some very decent writing and decided it needed to be revised, yet again, only to discover that I was completely out of my mind! Not the best frame of mind in which to undertake anything! So, now, I gotta go back and re-do the redo-ing! Arrrgh.

I decided that what I must do, if I hope to achieve anything at all with this adaptation, is channel Jean Toomer. So that’s next on my list. Channeling Jean Toomer. If you hear weird incantations and smell strange wafting aromas coming from my corner of the world, that’s what’ll be going on. I’ll be channeling Jean Toomer.

On a similar, less silly note, however; I spoke with Sandra yesterday and in no uncertain terms, she informed me that there will be a staged reading in NYC for one of our other theater projects this coming February or March, and not only must I absolutely attend this time (loyal readers of this lofty blog will no doubt recall that, even though I’d bought 2 brand new dresses, I never made it to NYC this past September to attend the opening night of Charm, in which Sandra had the lead, and to which many  important casting people and theater investors were going, because I was trapped in this “have to buy a new house” nonsense out here in the Hinterlands). And not only am I going to have to absolutely be there this time, I absolutely have to have the revisions of Tell My Bones done and ready to go and right there with me.

An additional arrrgh… and a bit of a grumble, grumble; crap, I’ve got to get this done already!

So I anticipate being completely crazy for the next few months.  But, after THAT, the TV pilot-shopping season begins in L.A., and as most of you know so well by now, my pilot (once known as Cleveland’s Burning but now called Untitled Cleveland Drama) is on the slate to be shopped and all of us involved could not be more excited! So, you know, exhausted as I am, things are looking super-duper UP.

And that said, I gotta scoot and tackle that channeling of Jean Toomer around here. I hope you have a really sublime Saturday, wherever you are and with whatever you’re tackling. I leave you fondly with this . I’m currently playing it nonstop in my swinging little Honda Fit all over the Hinterlands. So sit back, relax, dream, and keep swinging, gang!

Thanks for visiting! See ya!

 

The world of author Marilyn Jaye Lewis