You know how I can never figure out how to save other people’s Instagram photos to my own private photos on my phone?
Well, of all the photos I have absolutely loved over the last couple years, and couldn’t save, yesterday I accidentally managed to save this one!! And while I do love it, and consider it a motto to live by, I’m not sure I actually need it on my phone. How on earth did I do it? (And can I repeat it? — is the most important question!!)
I so fucking LOVE this. The best 17 words ever. This saves me from having to actually write my memoirs…
Okay! On a similar happy note… I got great writing done yesterday on Thug Luckless: Welcome to P-Town. I am really happy with the tone of it and with where it’s heading. I am still only on Chapter One because I am totally re-writing what I had originally written last fall, or whenever it was that I began writing this novel. But it’s like night & day — the difference in the tone of it.
Other good news — the mourning dove eggs have hatched! There are now little chirping baby mourning doves, in the nest that’s in the rafters of the roof overhanging my front porch. And one heck of a busy mom, darting back & forth, and back & forth, all day long, trying to keep them fed.
It’s a rainy day here today. But, of course, I’m not planning on going anywhere. This afternoon, online, is that fundraiser for Marcus Books in Oakland, CA. (Noon, Pacific Time/ 3pm Eastern Time.) A live poetry reading. (If you want to attend it, the details are here. They ask you to purchase a ticket, at whatever you can afford, because it is, of course, a fundraiser.)
I also have a couple of private invites to watch some short subject films premiering online today. So I’ll do that, too. But other than that, I’m just going to work on the new novel. And probably do yoga.
Bob Dylan dropped another new song yesterday. This one titled “False Prophet.” And they announced that his new album is coming this summer, titled Rough and Rowdy Ways. It is available for pre-order wherever you get your music from.
I like “False Prophet” but so far, I have only listened to it one time and, once again, while I was doing something else. So I wasn’t really listening that closely to the words. I’m not really sure what it’s about yet. But I loved the feel of it — blues. And the sound of his voice.
Okay, so I just went into my storage closet to find a Neo/Matrix McFarlane action figure from 1999, and instead I found my collection of Olympia Press Paris first editions (!!!) that Richard Kasak had given to me as a gift a couple of decades ago. (Gift meaning, absolutely FREE.)
They are all first edition Olympia Press Paris titles, but a couple are also actually first editions that ever appeared in print, anywhere — and, at the time of publication, were still illegal in the US and the UK. Including:
1959, and 1961
Isn’t that amazing?? Kasak was in publishing for so many decades — starting at Grove Press — that he didn’t even care about most of what he had anymore. Obviously, he knew what Maurice Girodias and the Olympia Press meant to me and one day he just gave me all of those books. I think there are about 10 titles in the collection. And none of them have ever been read.
Well, that was an unexpected little digression!
Okay. I guess I’d better get started here today, gang. I hope you have a nice Friday, wherever you are in the world. I leave you with my breakfast-listening music from today. I think I posted it here once before, a few months ago. “Something’s Gotten Hold of My Heart,” from the Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds cover album, Kicking Against the Pricks (1986). (Oh my god, 700 million people keep texting me. I am so serious. I really gotta close this and get to work here.) Okay, gang. Enjoy!! And thanks for visiting. I love you guys. See ya!!
I said I would be back here to post again yesterday but I lied.
But I’m here now, so let’s just move on! All righty??!!
Well, the sad news first: Today is that dreaded day that comes once every 3 months, when I have to go down into my super scary, 119-year-old unfinished basement and change the filter in my furnace.
I can’t tell you how much I don’t look forward to doing that. Even though, once I’m down there, it’s never as bad in reality as it is in my imagination. It’s just that forcing myself to go down those stairs at all is the really hard part.
Well, okay. Just had to stop and have a phone chat with the director of Tell My Bones. I was going to post here today about how happy I am with how the plans for the Zoom staged reading of the play are progressing!! So I will just go ahead and say that right now:
I’m really happy with how the plans for the Zoom staged reading of the play are progressing!!
I really am, gang. I am getting so excited. Even though it’s not the whole play, and all the music is being taken out to simplify the reading, you will still be able to get a good feel for the overall play. Plus, I personally can’t wait to start hearing actual people reciting the dialogue, you know??
Between the four years it’s taken me to adapt this play from the film script version, and then the few years that I was focused just on the film script version — that’s a long time to have this story in my head and never hear a single other soul speaking a single one of these lines of dialogue. So I am getting really excited.
The other good news, of course, is that they finished putting the new roof on my barn yesterday. And I am so happy, gang!! Unfortunately, the back alley and one segment of Basin Street are now littered with the bodies of neighbors who died from heart attacks yesterday afternoon because they didn’t think I was ever gonna fix that roof, but oh well. That’s the trade-off, I guess.
Of course, I jest! No one died. But I did indeed notice people noticing it, that’s for sure. So it is a huge relief for me to finally have that barn looking more presentable. It still needs re-painting, but the worst part of it is now over.
And not only am I starting to make some interesting progress on the new novel, Thug Luckless: Welcome to P-Town, that is making me feel really happy, but I am also coming into a new relationship with Blessed By Light, which is now indeed going to be officially titled The Guitar Hero Goes Home. (So, as of today, I will no longer be calling that novel by its old title, okay? Hopefully, it will not be too confusing.)
It’s really interesting how, having the virus completely gone now, is making my brain work again.
Valerie in Brooklyn sent me a link during the night to an article in a NYC newspaper, where they interviewed people who had recovered from the virus to find out what the virus had felt like. It is the darnedest thing — how differently it affected different people. But there were two people interviewed who had the exact same experiences that I had: mainly, the weight of an anvil on the lungs, inability to breathe, overwhelming fatigue, and inability to think straight. (I also had the loss of the senses of taste & smell.)
Anyway. It just feels so great to be back to normal. And also to be able to work out again. Yoga especially feels so good now.
All right, well, the day before yesterday, Nick Cave sent out another Red Hand Files letter. It was one of the sadder ones, where he replies to people who are struggling with the deaths of their own children and he talks about how he and his wife continue to manage their grief over the death of one of their sons. You can read what he says at the link there. It’s enlightening.
Well, it’s another beautiful day here, but a little chilly. I did make a quick trip into town yesterday to buy more groceries and — YES — to buy yard waste bags in order to start raking up all those dead leaves outside my backdoor. Honestly, I don’t know if I’ll do it today or not, only because it’s cold out. Not because I’m (still !!!) being incredibly lazy.
I did notice, on the trip to town and back, that traffic is back to normal now around here. A lot of Ohio is coming out of lockdown, though not all of it. (And you still have to wear a mask pretty much anywhere you go.) But there was plenty of traffic. It’s no longer a ghost town anymore. And the gas prices are inching upwards. It felt good to see that. Although in the county where my dad lives, they are getting new confirmed cases of the virus every day. So the more populated urban areas of the State are still having issues. But it was good to see that for a lot of us, we are now entering that light at the end of the tunnel. For now.
Okay, I’m gonna close this because I want to get started on some writing and editing here today. I leave you with three options. My music-listening from last evening — an old song by Shaggy from 20 years ago (!!) that they play on TikTok constantly and the chorus always just cracks me up. Talk about infidelity, right? “It Wasn’t Me” (2000, from his album Hot Shot): “But she caught me on the counter (It wasn’t me)/ Saw me bangin’ on the sofa (It wasn’t me)/ I even had her in the shower (It wasn’t me)/ She even caught me on camera (It wasn’t me)…” 😂
And then this morning, my breakfast-listening music was from an upcoming new album by Joshua Redman, Brad Mehldau, Christian McBride, and Brian Blade: Round Again. The song is “Right Back Round Again.”
And then this one will give you sort of an idea of what some of the music to Tell My Bones will eventually sound like!! This is a vintage recording from Smithsonian Folkways Records of Ella Jenkins and the Goodwill Spiritual Choir of the Monumental Baptist Church!
All righty. Thanks for visiting, gang. Have a great Thursday, wherever you are in the world. Enjoy that Super Flower Moon in Scorpio tonight!! Assuming you live with someone you don’t have to stay 6 feet away from, this is supposed to be a very, very sexy full moon, so enjoy those vibes! (Since I live alone and dearly love myself, perhaps tonight I will, I don’t know, take up smoking cigarettes again!! Yay!) (Remember that old joke about cigarettes and sex? HE: “Do you smoke after you do it? “ SHE: “I don’t know, I never looked.”)
Okay, on that happy note. I’m outta here. I love you guys. See ya!
Well, it’s finally happened. I’ve gone about 36 hours now, being able to breathe just fine. And I know for sure now that the virus is completely gone. All the pressure is 100% out of my lungs.
Yet, I awoke at about 4am, knowing for certain that I was completely well again, after an entire month of dealing with that virus, and all I could do was cry. For, like, two hours. It’s been the weirdest morning.
I don’t know whether it was because my body was letting go of everything — the stress of having to always overcompensate for not getting enough air. Or what. But it was just weird. Especially since, yesterday, for the most part, I had just the best day.
I know that part of what made me sad, though, is that yesterday evening, when I went across the road to get my mail, there was a letter in there from my dad. And it was a list of all his art pieces and I was supposed to put a check mark next to any of the things I wanted after he’s gone, or in the event he has to go into the actual nursing home and thus downsize.
It was depressing. There are a few pieces I actually really want but I have no room for anything whatsoever. No room at all. One is a painting of empty boats at a dock that my dad has had forever. Another is a crystal sculpture of the sail of a sailboat — something else he’s had for most of my life. And so I would like to have those things. The other is a somewhat enormous wooden model of a galleon ship, replete with sails. My dad built it and it’s really awesome. However, it’s also really just huge, you know? I have absolutely no room for it. And it doesn’t actually make me think of my dad, because it’s not that old. It actually makes me think of Ghosteen, by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds (“Galleon Ship”), and so I want it, too.
Even though I actually really want these things, what the heck am I supposed to do with them? So I know that was weighing on me — the idea that my dad sent me that letter, I mean. That alone stressed me out. But that’s not enough to make me cry for two hours the following day…
I think that, mostly, my writing is weighing on me. Just generally.
I had a great session with Peitor yesterday. We worked for two hours on revising the “Lita” script and we are just about done with that. All we have left after that will be to create the pitch deck presentation.
And I made the decisions to hire a “happiness engineer” to help me put the rest of the web site together. (It really has just gotten to be too much for me to figure out how to make the most with these “user friendly” web templates. And it just makes me so frustrated. I can’t tell you how simple it used to be to throw together amazing looking web pages, just knowing html and a little bit of java code, you know?)
Anyway. I decided to release that stress and just hire someone at WordPress to make sure it got done correctly. So that Peitor and I can keep moving forward and be ready with everything the moment LA gets back to normal. And he and I are both really excited about the studio in Alabama, too. Just having access to that space, with the cinematographer right there. It’s going to be so much fun.
Plus he and I have never been able to travel much together, but when we do, we really have fun. Once, about twenty years ago, we took a trip to Catalina Island, back when it was still really charming, and we had just the best time. We stayed in a bed & breakfast that used to be the writer Zane Grey’s estate. (And oddly enough, the County Seat of Muskingum County is Zane Grey’s birthplace — isn’t that weird?)
We laughed like crazy that whole trip. In fact, here’s a photo of Peitor in our room at the bed & breakfast — 20 years ago:
He’s in his 40s here and he looks so young! It’s hard to believe we’d already known each other 15 years by this point. How young were we when we actually met, you know??!! (We met at the Museum of Modern Art, in NYC, when I was 25 and he was 27.)
So, I’m really looking forward to the Alabama trip. And the director of Tell My Bones texted again, saying that he was going to call this morning to give me an update on what he and the producer of the staged reading are mapping out. So I’m excited about that.
Not a whole lot of reasons to cry here, right? So I just don’t know.
I sat at my desk and read over what I have so far of Thug Luckless yesterday. I wasn’t unhappy with it, I just wasn’t sure how to proceed with it. And that bothered me.
And then I took a look at the beginning of Blessed By Light (or whatever I’m planning to call it) to begin the final edit of that and as much as I love that novel, it disturbs me that I always manage to write things that are just so impossible to market, you know? And it’s not like that’s ever my goal, or anything. I’m just lucky that way.
So that depressed me a little bit, so I closed the file and, instead, began reading the latest newsletter from the Biblical Archeological Society. There were several really cool articles about the Canonical Gospels. One, specifically, about the Hebrew-language origins of the Gospel of Matthew. And it also examined how later versions of all the Gospels seriously revised the role of John the Baptist, in order to make Jesus seem more like God. And that kind of stuff always fascinates and disturbs me. (Meaning the manipulation of information in order to control people.)
And just as I was deep into reading a section about the symbolic role of Lazarus in the Book of John, I got an alert on my computer screen that Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds had just uploaded something to YouTube. So I clicked on it and suddenly Nick Cave is reciting from And the Ass Saw the Angel, saying, “Pa beat the mule to death in Autumn…”
Jesus Christ, you know? (No pun intended.) But I certainly wasn’t expecting that. (I love that novel, but still. Whoa. Thank you for putting that image into my head…)
I listened to the whole thing because it was only 2 minutes long, but then decided to close down the computer for the night. I went down to the kitchen and streamed a PBS special, titled Inside the Vatican. It was really interesting. All the various people who work at the Vatican are so cool; they have such meaningful jobs, you know? But it made me feel like I don’t really know what my purpose is anymore — or if I even have one. I know that I don’t actually need a purpose in order to exist. But it just felt disconcerting.
And I’m guessing the tears this morning stemmed from that, which I know must be connected to my writing in some way. Now that I’m finally well, and what’s left of my life is still ahead of me, what am I planning to do? Right?
And then I was really missing that man who died a couple years ago. He had this really uncanny way of knowing exactly what I should do about everything. And I mean, everything — all the things that mattered to me. He would just tell me what to do, and he would always be right.
And then he died, and I went back to floating off on my little cloud again.
Well, in other good news: The Amish guys called yesterday to say that, weather permitting, they will be here on Saturday to put the new roof on my barn! And that really does make me happy. I can’t wait. And now that I’m finally really well, I can start cleaning up that backyard — get all the dead leaves raked up and out of there. Get ready for summer.
Okay. On that note! I’m gonna close this and get started on something around here. I hope you have a really good Tuesday, wherever you are in the world. I’ll leave you with “Galleon Ship,” off of Ghosteen, even though I think I might have already posted it here once before. I can’t remember! Anyway. I love this song. Enjoy! And thanks for visiting. I love you guys. See ya!
Not only did I wake up breathing, but I got out of bed and went downstairs and was still breathing. And the morning has officially gotten underway here and I’m still breathing.
I can only hope this means that the virus is actually completely gone.
I even extended the yoga yesterday to half an hour instead of just the 15 minutes I’d been doing for a few days now, and I still woke up breathing. I didn’t go in reverse at all. So I’m thinking that maybe I’m finally really well, gang.
I can’t tell you how relieved that makes me feel.
I slept with all the windows in my bedroom partially open all night, too. Even though it cooled down during the night, it felt so good to have all that fresh air. So maybe that helped, too.
It’s really just a gorgeous morning here today, gang. I’m in the best mood, too.
Peitor and I are planning to actually work on the “Lita” script today. Just checking the script for typos (there are tons!), and making sure the formatting is as readable as possible. The script is 98% shots, lenses, blocking — it doesn’t read like a normal script does. So now we’re trying to make it “readable” for the other people involved.
I’m also feeling inspired today in two different directions, finally. Doing a final edit to Blessed By Light (and probably changing the title to The Guitar Hero Goes Home), in preparation for getting it into a publishable format. And also doing some brand new writing on Thug Luckless: Welcome to P-Town.
BTW, I did try to watch another episode of “Dummy” on Quibi (the show about the girl who befriends her boyfriend’s AI sex doll and they go on a road trip). But I just couldn’t stick with it. There are a lot of elements to the show that I like, however, the dialogue just aims way too low. And, in my opinion, it doesn’t have to. It could still be racy and dirty and challenging and funny, without resorting to just being smutty.
(You know, if I was able to laugh out loud over the dialogues between Adolph Hitler and a 10-year-old Nazi boy in JoJo Rabbit, then we ought to be able to move mountains — dialogue-wise — with an AI sex doll, right? I should think so.)
Okay.
I finally finished reading Love in the Time of Cholera. And instead of picking up Rilke (for now), I went for James Merrill’s The Changing Light At Sandover because I really am feeling like getting underway again with Thug Luckless. And I keep thinking that something about Sandover is going to inform the direction of Thug Luckless. (For some inexplicable reason, a few months ago, it occurred to me that the original name of P-Town before the Apocalypse was “Sandover.” I’d like to find out why that came to me.)
So I’m feeling inspired. And it really has been weeks since my mind was clear enough to attempt any new writing. So I just feel really happy.
Oh, and another “btw” — I looked through all the old lyrics & music sheets yesterday and never did find the chords I was looking for to that song! I found chords for everything else. Apparently, I thought the chords to that one song would simply live on forever in my mind. I did see a ton of set lists that indicated the song was in the key of C# — but I guarantee you, I never wrote a song in the key of C# in my life. That has to be something the lead guitar player changed at some point. But it doesn’t help me. I see something now like the “key of C#” and my brain implodes. (“What the fuck is C#? How do my fingers do that? And what other horrible chords go along with it???” — stuff like that.)
Okay!!! So. Have a great Monday, wherever you are in the world, gang. (May the 4th be with you, and all that happy Star Wars stuff!) I’m gonna leave you with two options today, both of which I have posted here before. My breakfast-listening music — John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme (1964) (because I was feeling supremely happy about love at breakfast today). And my post-breakfast-listening music, “Little Empty Boat,” by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, from their B-Sides & Rarities collection (1997, 2005). Enjoy!! Make it a really great day, okay? I love you guys. See ya.
Remember yesterday? Remember how I almost died there in my kitchen, trying to breathe while my lungs exploded after I used the steroid-based allergy spray for the first time in a month?
It took awhile for the feeling to level off, but it does seem like the steroids actually helped. By the end of yesterday, I was breathing normally for the first time in a month. And so far today, I’m still breathing normally.
So I used the allergy spray again this morning, since I need it for my allergies…
I hate to speak too soon, because every time I post here that it seems like I’m nearly 100% fine — finally — I then get breathing issues again. However, I actually am feeling just about 100% totally fine. So we’ll just see.
Well, my dad is leaving the house today for the first time in 6 weeks because he has a doctor’s appointment. When he told me about this yesterday, I was totally speaking to him like he was a two-year-old: Wear your mask, don’t touch anything, don’t speak to anybody, wash your hands! I was so not happy that he was planning on leaving the assisted living “compound,” you know? He’s almost 90 and he’s made it for 6 weeks without getting the virus. And he lives in a county that has a high rate of not only the virus, but also deaths from the virus.
But off he goes to the doctor today, so we’ll just see about that, too.
All things considered, yesterday was a really good day around here. I discovered that the very old tree in my backyard is a dogwood tree! I noticed yesterday that it was in bloom, so I went out to look at its blossoms and, lo & behold — it’s a dogwood. All the other dogwoods in town have lost their blossoms already and are green now.
I love dogwoods so much that I was even thinking recently that I should plant a dogwood tree in my backyard. And in keeping with the absolute magical nature of this crazy town — voila! — I suddenly discover that I have one!
The tree is ancient. Last spring, I did notice that it had some sort of white blossoms on it but I never took the time to really investigate them. However, since this spring I am just indescribably here, 24/7, and always looking out the kitchen window at my backyard, I took the time to really look at it. Plus, this spring, it seems to have way more blossoms than it had last year. So, what a great discovery.
My dogwood, yesterday afternoon
Also, yesterday, the a1000mistakes blog out of Australia posted that Einstürzende Neubauten has a new album coming out on May 15th, Alles in Allem, and that they dropped an official video for a new song, “Ten Grand Goldie,” featuring Blixa Bargeld singing in a lovely surgical mask.
I watched that video many times yesterday — some of the lyrics are in English, but most of them are in German, so I have no idea what the song is about, but I still really liked watching it. (And it could very well be that even if I understood German, I still wouldn’t know what the song is about, because I don’t really understand what most Einstürzende Neubauten songs are about. ) Anyway. It’s posted below.
I also watched a video for The Birthday Party’s song from 1983, “Fears of Gun” numerous times. Whoever put together the images for the video, I liked it a lot. It’s an intense song and I don’t think I ever really understood that song, either, even though it’s in English. It has something to do with not being super happy about love, though — and so on and so on…
I also streamed the movie The Vicious Circle, a British crime-thriller from 1957, starring John Mills (father of the indescribably adorable, Hayley). It was really good. I loved the cinematography — great black & white footage of London in the late 1950s. Plus, I never did figure out who the murderer was until the final 3 minutes of the film, so that was cool.
And I also did some thinking yesterday about how I’m feeling about my writing, even though I didn’t actually do any writing yet. When I spoke to the director of Tell My Bones on Wednesday, he mentioned again how “risky” the scene/song is that’s all about lynchings and slave auctions. And he kept saying that he loved it, and was standing by it, but that it was so risky. So I thought about that a lot yesterday, too — you know, like, why does he keep saying that it’s risky? Am I really setting myself up here? To me, it just feels powerful and completely unexpected. Which, to me, is art, you know? It won’t be included in the staged reading, because none of the actual musical numbers will be included. But I know that it will at least be “alluded” to and I’m really curious to see how they’re going to do that.
Also, yesterday night, Dana Petty uploaded a photo she took of Tom Petty and their dog, Ryder, on a deserted Malibu beach at sunset. (If you didn’t see yesterday’s post, their dog, Ryder, died the other night.) Wow, what a stunning photo. It was so beautiful, it brought tears to my eyes. I know there must be a way to copy photos from Instagram, because I see Instagram photos on Pinterest a lot, but I do not know how to do it. So you’ll either have to follow Dana Petty on Instagram, or simply take my word for it that it was a really touching photo, even though it’s mostly a photo of Tom Petty from behind, as the dog is running toward him, along the beach. (It did have the feeling like the two of them were already in heaven…)
Okay, well. Today is May 1st ! Which was Elvis & Priscilla’s wedding day. And also my own wedding day — back in 1993. I have no idea where the time went, so don’t even ask me!! But May 1st, nonetheless, is one of my favorite days of the year.
I believe in spring weddings — I really do. I’m totally into the whole “I’ll Be With You in Apple Blossom Time” idea. Both my weddings were in the spring. (And I actually left both marriages in the spring, although I didn’t plan it to be like that.) If I ever get married again, I think I’d like to choose a spring day that doesn’t actually exist — you know, make something up: like, Tuenesday May 34th. Something like that. And perhaps then the marriage will only exist in theory and thus be a spectacular success. We’ll see!!
Okay. I’ve just been notified on Instagram that Bad Seeds TeeVee has just had some new videos uploaded to it, so I will no doubt watch that again today! I am actually going to try to do some writing today, too. I am feeling that good, finally.
So I’m gonna get this day underway here. Thanks for visiting, gang. I hope you have a perfect Friday, all things considered, wherever you are in the world.
I leave you with all my listening music from yesterday: “Dead Radio,” by Rowland S. Howard, from his amazing Teenage Snuff Film album (1999). The aforementioned “Fears of Gun,” by The Birthday Party, which I believe is from their Mutiny EP (1983) but I’m not positive about that (lyrics are in the video). And Einstürzende Neubauten’s brand new song, “Ten Grand Goldie,” from the upcoming Alles in Allem (some lyrics, in both German and English are in the video).
All righty! Enjoy. I love you guys See ya.
“Dead Radio”
You’re bad for me like cigarettes
But I haven’t sucked enough of you yet
Nothing is sacred and nothing is true
I’m no-one that’s nowhere when I’m here with you
I’ve lost the power I had to distinguish
Between what to ignite and what to extinguish
I blew in last night, I’m the ghost from the coast
When the lighting is bad I’m the man with the most
You left me to choke on a heart up in smoke
Smiling through your tears and your tetracycline overdose
You’re good for me like Coca-Cola
I don’t get any younger, you don’t get any older
Everything’s sacred and everything’s true
All of this is possible when I’m here with you
I’ve got a lot to say but I keep my own counsel
I’d like to spit it out but I won’t speak with my mouth full
I blew in last night, I’m the ghost from the coast
When the lighting is bad I’m the man with the most
You left me to choke on a heart up in smoke
Smiling through your tears and your tetracycline overdose
I’m back to not breathing so great, but I did sleep well. So I’m not going to worry; I’m just going to focus on letting myself get better however that happens.
It is really cold out there today but super sunny. I really do feel good, all things considered. I’m planning on doing at least a little work with Peitor later today on Abstract Absurdity Productions stuff.
You know, this morning, I saw something on Instagram that really offended me. A well known artist/musician from LA, created a work of art that declared that America was doing what it does best (regarding the virus): Saving the rich and letting the poor people die.
What a sweeping accusation, right?
That is so offensive to me on so many levels. I also feel it’s irresponsible, but one of the valued things about being an American is that you get to express yourself here, regardless of whether or not you offend people or are irresponsible.
In this extremely large country, where a whole lot of people have the virus (614,180) (although there are 20 States where the impact of the virus has been negligible compared to a few key highly populated areas in other States), Corporate America, as well as the Armed Forces and the Federal Government, stepped up production on ventilators, respirators, surgical gowns, masks, etc., to ensure that if you had to be hospitalized in this country — regardless of how much money you make — there’s going to be a hospital bed for you and the supplies that are needed to try to keep you alive.
And even though I don’t believe in health insurance companies (I belong to a Christian healthcare cooperative), still, the largest insurance companies in this country removed the co-pay and the minimum out-of-pocket expenses you have to pay if you have to be treated and/or hospitalized for the virus. And if you can’t pay or don’t have any insurance at all, the Government covers you, so that no one gets turned away from medical care.
I know that there is an issue (that we always have, all over the world, frankly) with poor people of color having more underlying, often stress-related health issues, that are putting them at risk to get the virus and die from it (and any other serious diseases, for that matter), but that’s different from saying that America saves the lives of the rich and lets the poor people die.
There are thousands of healthcare workers in this country right now working extremely hard to keep people from dying. It is so unbelievably disrespectful to them to say that America saves the rich and lets the poor people die.
Also, in Ohio once a week, local and County Governments, along with hugely profitable private Corporate Food Service suppliers, give a week’s worth of groceries for free to low income or no income individuals and families. Every week. And it’s not garbage food, either. It’s real food. You don’t have to pay a dime for it.
And if I can’t pay my mortgage right now (which I can, thank God), I can get my payment deferred. Honda also offered me two months’ worth of deferred payments on my car if I needed it. Two giant corporations, trying to help people not lose their homes or their cars or take a bad hit to their credit reports.
And this morning, I woke up to find $1200 in my checking account — from the Federal Government. My lawn care guys texted yesterday, needing work and since the Government gave me a bunch of money, I can not only afford to pay them to come out and start dealing with my horrific lawn, but I can also afford to pay them to deal with that new hole in the roof of my barn caused by those high winds we’ve been having.
Readers of this blog know that I’ve been stressing about that roof of my barn and the state of my horrible backyard — and I just feel that the Government gave me money to ensure that I could pay my bills and pay people for their services and keep the money circulating as best as possible right now so that nobody has to go without too much during this pandemic. (Plus, the lawn guys are willing to come out and help me even though they know I have the virus.)
And just on a personal note, even while I don’t have good relationships with most of my adoptive family, the fact of the matter is that they all came over to America as indescribably poor Jewish immigrants, fleeing pogroms in Eastern Europe and Russia. And they managed to become extremely wealthy people, because they worked their fucking asses off. And they gave back to their communities, their Country, and to Third World Countries — with both enormous amounts of actual money (sometimes to the tune of tens of millions of dollars), as well as donating their time and skills (a lot of them are doctors).
It could be that some people are experiencing an America that defies all of this that I’m experiencing. Or it could be that they’re only reading stories in newspapers, and in fact live in an income bracket that doesn’t require them to have to actually live among low income or no income people during this pandemic (or at any other time).
As a word of caution, though, I just want to point out that our new Democrat nominee for President has no fewer than 7 women now accusing him of sexual assault and the same newspapers that go after Trump for every single thing (they think) he says or does, are not covering that sex assault story. At all.
I’m just saying: you gotta be careful not to live in a bubble. You could be making yourself crazy for all the wrong reasons.
And as we say here in America, in the poorest taste imaginable: “Other than that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln?”
On that lofty harbinger of a note, I will close this and go back to bed and wait for my lungs to get over this virus.
Have a good Wednesday, wherever you are in the world. Thanks for visiting, gang. And appropriately enough, I leave you with last night’s listening music, a favorite song from my wee bonny girlhood, “Wild World,” by Cat Stevens (1970 — I was 10 when this was a huge hit). It’s from his legendary album Tea for the Tillerman. Okay. I love you guys. See ya.
“Wild World”
Now that I’ve lost everything to you
You say you wanna start something new
And it’s breakin’ my heart you’re leavin’
Baby, I’m grievin’
But if you wanna leave, take good care
I hope you have a lot of nice things to wear
But then a lot of nice things turn bad out there
Oh, baby, baby, it’s a wild world
It’s hard to get by just upon a smile
Oh, baby, baby, it’s a wild world
I’ll always remember you like a child, girl
You know I’ve seen a lot of what the world can do
And it’s breakin’ my heart in two
Because I never wanna see you sad girl
Don’t be a bad girl
But if you wanna leave, take good care
Hope you make a lot of nice friends out there
But just remember there’s a lot of bad and beware, beware
Oh, baby, baby, it’s a wild world
It’s hard to get by just upon a smile
Oh, baby, baby, it’s a wild world
I’ll always remember you like a child, girl
Baby, I love you
But if you wanna leave, take good care
Hope you make a lot of nice friends out there
But just remember there’s a lot of bad and beware, beware
Oh, baby, baby, it’s a wild world
It’s hard to get by just upon a smile
Oh, baby, baby, it’s a wild world
I’ll always remember you like a child, girl
Oh, baby, baby, it’s a wild world
It’s hard to get by just upon a smile
Oh, baby, baby, it’s a wild world
And I’ll always remember you like a child, girl
I’m trying not to get zealous and overdo it around here, but I do think the virus has moved out of my lungs, finally.
I awoke at 4:30am and laid there for awhile, feeling absolutely fantastic. My breathing was completely back to normal for the first time in 9 days. Plus, my bed felt really incredible. On the phone yesterday, my dad had persuaded me to change my sheets and wash the blankets, etc., because I’d been in the same bedding since before I’d gotten sick.
And then I realized I’d also been wearing the same darn chemise with the same white tee shirt on top of it for the entire time, too.
Even though I had found the energy everyday to take a 2-minute shower, I would just get right back into the same chemise, tee shirt, and collapse back into the same bed linens. And I realized that my dad was right — it was probably a good idea to get up the energy to do some laundry.
Just FYI — even though, on the outside — or I should say “verbally” — my reaction to anything any man ever tells me to do is to automatically say “no;” I am in fact intensely submissive by nature and, 99.9% of the time, I will first say “no” and then do exactly what I’m told.
MY DAD (on phone): “You really ought to wash those sheets, Marilyn. That virus is probably all over them.”
ME (on phone): “I don’t think so. I’m so tired. I don’t think the virus lives that long on fabric…” (gets out of bed, washes sheets, then washes everything else in sight)
(The only man I say “no” to and then steadfastly adhere to that intensely negative mindset is the second husband. When/if he ever advises me to do something, I not only automatically say “no,” but a filter type thing — called “You’re Not the Boss of Me” — also gets lowered down over the inside of my brain to ensure that no advise he is trying to give me permeates my consciousness in any way whatsoever.)
Okay. Anyway. All those clean sheets and blankets and the clean tee shirt/chemise helped me get the best sleep I’d had in awhile.
And now I’ve officially switched to the Spring/Summer sheets, too — the 125,000-thread-count pure cotton sheets from Italy. So it was really just a great night’s sleep, and I woke up breathing. Like I used to do 9 days ago.
I don’t know how you guys are about Easter (assuming you celebrate it at all), but for me, even though it’s a joyous holiday, it’s also a day where I do a lot of thinking about my life. Meaning, if the Resurrection is telling me anything at all, it’s telling me to look at my life before I die. Is this how I want to be living it? If not, then here’s yet another chance to try to get it right.
Usually, every single darn year, my answer is “no, this is not how I want to be living my life,” and in this case, the word “no” is not because I have a serious issue with male authority. It’s because whenever I’m pressed to really take account of my life, I’m simply never satisfied with how I’m living it.
The older I get, the tighter the focus gets on “my work.” If I die today, and leave this huge amount of unfinished work behind, it would be okay. Because I honestly believe that we get to finish in the Afterlife whatever we left unfinished here.
However, I also believe really strongly that I didn’t come here to be physical and to start a bunch of projects, just to go back over there (wherever there is) and finish them there, you know? Why bother to come here at all then, right? So I am hopeful that, before I die, I’ll finish all these many projects I have that are half-finished. Even if I don’t get them out into the world, I’d like to at least leave a tidy stack of finished novels, memoirs, stories, micro-short screenplays, and plays on my desk, with a little handwritten note to my sister on the top of the stack: Please take care of these. Thank you.
(Plus, I still really, really want to record that album with Peitor, of maybe 14 or 15 of my favorite songs that I wrote when I was a singer-songwriter, too.) (Readers of this lofty blog, perhaps recall that back when a VP at Columbia Records was trying to get me signed there, Peitor produced a demo for me in his studio that I absolutely loved. He made my songs & my voice sound like nothing else I had ever heard before; I really felt he captured a certain magic in my songs. But the VP at Columbia Records famously said to me, “Why are you singing like this? I can’t do anything with this.” So I’d really like a chance to go back into the studio for real this time, and have Peitor produce all of my best songs. Maybe title it: This is Why I’m Singing Like This, Even If You Can’t Do Anything With It…)
So, since it was Easter yesterday, I was thinking about this stuff — my life. And realizing that I’m going to be 60 in about 14 seconds, so I really need to make a commitment to trying harder to get this stuff done.
Part of the challenge is that most of my projects aim a little higher than I can reach, so I always have to evolve as a writer while I’m in the process of doing the writing. My vision for what I want to achieve with my work is always way out there beyond my grasp, so I am always in the process of finding my way. (When I first began writing Neptune & Surf in 1994, inspired by an extremely long day/night of drinking in Coney Island with Holly Lane, I had never written anything longer than short stories. I know for a fact that I re-wrote the opening page to that book 60 or 70 times before I could even undertake writing the rest of the book; I was trying to learn how to write.)
Well, anyway, I decided yesterday that for however long I continue to be alive over here on this side of reality, my mind is just going to have to work harder. Find better words. String them together in a better way. And then if I die anyway and nothing’s finished, well, I’ll worry about it when I get to the Afterlife.
On other topics — I am now deeply into Love in the Time of Cholera and just loving every moment of that book. It is indeed better to be reading it during not only a pandemic, but also to be in some weird form of all-consuming love that has no roadmap whatsoever. It’s good to be reminded that for all time, throughout everything, people have managed to love unconditionally with no hope of grasping any conclusion, while life just went barreling on and tumbling down all around them.
So. I’m learning to just let each day be whatever it has to be.
The Nick Cave art book, Stranger Than Kindness, is just really interesting — thought-provoking; indeed a ponderer’s paradise. Although his handwriting is often just indescribably indecipherable. Lots of original versions of song lyrics are in the book. And I really love seeing what writers write, re-write, re-visit, and then compare it to what was ultimately chosen as the finished vision.
I’m not super well-informed about The Birthday Party era of Nick Cave’s career. I have the Boys Next Door album (CD) that has the song “Shivers” on it and I think that album is so good. It really captures that era of music so well. The songs are very good, too, when placed directly in that whole scene. But I didn’t know anything about the Boys Next Door or the The Birthday Party when I first discovered Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds in 1985. I was so blown away by the Bad Seeds stuff that I hit the ground running with that. (Plus, it was really difficult and expensive to get import albums back then, even in NYC, and I was extremely poor back then.) Over recent years, I have since watched various videos of The Birthday Party on YouTube and they are really good songs.
I also have had the book King Ink, since forever. (Scarily enough, I now see that I have had it for 31 years now. It is really extremely difficult at this moment to wrap my mind around that number.) I remember the day I bought it so perfectly. I was in St. Mark’s Bookstore, on St. Mark’s Place in the East Village. I had no money to speak of, but I was planning to buy some of those underground zines that I used to love — and I got published in several of them, too, btw.
My eyesight must have been amazing back then because I remember the whole sky cracking open when I suddenly saw, way over at the front of the store, way up high, behind the cash registers, far, far from where anyone could possibly touch it or steal it, there was a book written by Nick Cave.
I was, like, holy fucking moly. And I put everything down that I was thinking I was going to buy and went directly to the cashier and asked him if that book was by Nick Cave the songwriter, and he said yes, and then I told him I had to have that book. He looked at me dubiously because he had to climb up on a ladder to retrieve it and he said sort of disgustedly, “It’s $25…”
I was quite taken aback by that amount because I truly couldn’t afford that amount, but I still had to have it, so I made the guy get it down for me, and I bought it without even knowing what the fuck it was. It was the only copy of the book that they had (it was an import from England) and I felt like the cashier was going to grab it right back from me because I’m sure it was written all over my face: oh my god, I can’t afford this. So I bought it. (And we won’t discuss the myriad insane things I had to scramble around and do back in those days to try to scrape together my fucking rent even without buying a $25 book.)
Well, long story even longer — all The Birthday Party song lyrics were included in King Ink. So I have at least known the lyrics to their songs since 1989. But I didn’t know the music to them until years later.
Their songs are very, very interesting. Intense, dark, funny, and, well, intense. And a couple of the original handwritten lyrics are included in Stranger Than Kindness. So I was thinking about those songs a lot yesterday, too. I played “Mutiny in Heaven” on YouTube several times. While it’s obviously dark, I think it’s just an incredible song.Unbelievable. (It is down below the photograph.)
Anyway. In the photo from one of my bookcases in my family room just now, you can see that I thought it was worth the $25 I didn’t have — 6 moves and 31 years later. (Oh, and down at the bottom of that horizontal stack, is a book that contains the script and some movie stills from Francois Truffaut’s famous film, The 400 Blows. I took the book out of the local library when I was 15 and loved that book (and the film itself) so much, that I wound up stealing that book from the library and was not allowed to use the library ever again. But you can see that I thought that book was worth it, too — 14 moves and 45 years later.)
Okay, see ya, gang. I gotta scoot! Thanks for visiting. I love you!!
“Mutiny In Heaven”
Well ah jumpt! and fled this fucken heap on doctored wings
Mah flailin pinions, with splints and rags and crutches!
(Damn things nearly hardly flap)
Canker upon canker upon one million tiny punctures
That look like…
Long thin red ribbons draped across the arms of a lil mortal girl
(Like a ground -plan of Hell)
Curse these smartin strings! These fucken ruptures!
Enough! Enough is enough!
(If this is Heaven ah’m bailin out)
If this is Heaven ah’m bailin out
Ah caint tolerate this ol tin-tub
So fulla trash and rats! Felt one crawl across mah soul
For a seckon there , as thought as wassa back down in the ghetto!
(Rats in Paradise! Rats in Paradise!)
Ah’m bailin out! There’s a mutiny in Heaven!
Ah wassa born…
And Lord shakin, even then was dumpt into some icy font
Like some great stinky unclean!
From slum-chuch to slum-church, ah spilt mah heart
To some fat cunt behind a screen…
Evil poppin eye presst up to the opening
He’d slide shut the lil perforated hatch…at night mah body
Blusht
To the whistle of the birch
With a lil practice ah soon learnt to use in on mahself
Punishment?! Reward!! Punishment?! Reward!!
Well, ah tied on…percht on mah bed ah was…
Sticken a needle in mah arm…
Ah tied off! Fucken wings burst out mah back
(Like ah was cuttin teeth!!)
Ah took off!!!
(Rats in Paradise! Rats in Paradise!)
There’s a mutiny in Heaven!
Oh Lord, ah git down on mah knees
(Ah git down on mah knees and start to pray)
Wrapped in mah mongrel wings, ah nearly freeze
In the howlin wind and drivin rain
(All the trash blowin round ‘n’ round)
From slum-heaven into town
Ah take mah tiny pain and rollin back mah sleeve
(Roll anna roll anna roll anna roll)
Ah yank the drip outa mah vein! UTOPIATE! Ah’m bailin out!
UTOPIATE!
If this is Heaven ah’m bailin out!
Mah threadbare soul teems with vermin and louse
Thoughts come like a plague to the head…in God’s house!
Mutiny in Heaven!
(Ars infectio forco Dio)
To the plank!
(Rats in Paradise! Rats in Paradise!)
Ah’m bailin out!
(Hail Hypuss Dermio Vita Rex!)
Hole inna ghetto! Hole inna ghetto!
(Scabio Murem per Sanctum…Dio, Dio, Dio)
Well, I made it to the market in town and back, without coming closer than 6 feet to anyone at all. Here’s hoping I get through another week without any symptoms.
Although, I have to say that my idea to get to the market the moment it opened on a Sunday morning, when it was also pouring down rain — well, it was an idea shared by a whole lot more people than I was expecting.
But still! I got in & out of the market in under 15 minutes. And now the trip to town is done for another week. Next week, the virus will likely be at it’s peak, though. But we’ll just take it one week at a time.
Yesterday was a bit of an interesting thing. It ended on a really good note for me — although, I was really alarmed to learn that Marianne Faithfull had been hospitalized in London with the virus yesterday. They say she is stable — I hope this is true.
But other than that, I ended the evening feeling really happy yesterday.
However, the early part of the day was not so good.
Man, when you least expect it, people can get really unglued from all this stress. I called a colleague in NY yesterday, to find out how she was doing — she had called and left me a voicemail the night before, so I was not expecting her to be off-the-charts crazy by yesterday morning. But she sure was. And then the emotional damage she transferred over to me, had left me feeling really assaulted, you know? From out of nowhere.
So then Peitor talked to me on the phone for about an hour and was so helpful — he brought me in from that ledge. He truly did — he got me firmly on to a much healthier train of thought that helped my outlook for the rest of my day. (Plus, I am just so fucking in love right now, gang, despite everything, and I just love that.) But it also meant that Peitor and I didn’t work on Abstract Absurdity Productions stuff yesterday. But we are scheduled to work this afternoon instead.
The drive home from the market this morning was enchanting. The rain had stopped and the clouds were beginning to disperse, but there were still enough clouds to keep the sun from really coming through yet, so the filtered light was ethereal.
None of the trees have leaves yet, but there are just tons of dogwoods and tulip trees in this whole region and all of them are in full bloom right now. My drive to town and back is full of hills, and this morning, on my drive home, from the tops of the hills I could see down into the various valleys, into the tiny towns, and all those dogwoods and tulip trees in bloom, cows and horses dotting the hillsides; and now the red-winged blackbirds are back, too — they were everywhere! And, of course, almost no people or cars anywhere…it was just like a painting or something. So breathtaking.
Always a sure sign that Spring has arrived in Ohio!
I was so relieved to have the shopping behind me for another week, and the ride was so beautiful, that I didn’t even feel like speeding. I was really enjoying the drive.
In town, the gasoline prices are now at $1.60 a gallon! Of course, I have no need for gas right now, since I only make one trip to town each week. (Which, of course, is why the gas prices have plummeted — no one needs gas right now.) But it was really something see.
And the shops that have those lit marquees out in front of them all had upbeat sayings on them. You know, “Keep Smiling.” Stuff like that. It really did feel like a dream. The farther you get from the bigger cities (even in Ohio), the friendlier the people are; the kinder they are. I know I’m eventually going to have to spend a lot more time back in NYC, and more time in LA, once all this virus stuff passes through — and I don’t regret any of that. I’m looking forward to it. But, man, living out here in the Hinterlands, in the middle of nowhere, has been the most amazing experience for me, ever.
All righty, gang. I hope you’re able to enjoy your Sunday, wherever you are in the world. I need to get ready for my phone call with Peitor now, so I’m gonna scoot!! I’ll leave you with a song & a prayer for Marianne Faithfull — counting on her full and complete recovery. Stay well. I love you guys. See ya.
“The Gypsy Faerie Queen”
I’m known by many different names
My good friend Will calls me Puck and Robin Goodfellow
I follow the gypsy faerie queen
I follow the gypsy faerie queen
She walks the length and breadth of England
Singing her song, using her wand
To help and heal the land and the creatures on it
She’s dressed in rags of moleskin
And wears a crown of Rowan berries on her brow
And I follow, follow, follow
The gypsy faerie queen
We exist, exist, exist
In the twilight in-between
She bears a blackthorn staff
To help her in her walking
I only listen to her sing
But I never hear her talking anymore
Though once she did
Though once she did
And I follow, follow, follow
My gypsy faerie queen
We exist, exist, exist
In the twilight in-between
And I follow, follow, follow
My gypsy faerie queen
We exist, exist, exist
In the country in-between
We won’t be able to go out and do anything in it, but it will indeed be splendid. (Here in Crazeysburg, anyway — super sunny and almost 70 degrees Fahrenheit. I will at least go out later and take a walk.)
It’s hard to believe that a week from today will be Good Friday. And then a week from Sunday — Easter. How on Earth did that happen? One minute, it seemed months away. Then the world went up in flames. And now…
Well, I guess in honor of Easter, that scholarly book I ordered the other day, which re-examines the role of Judas in Christ’s crucifixion, arrived yesterday.
It’s now my “downstairs” book. It’s on my kitchen table, and I couldn’t resist beginning to read it, even while, upstairs, in my bedroom, I’m deep into reading Love in the Time of Cholera.
If you think about it, the temperaments of each book are kind of similar and perfect for the approach of Easter. (Heartbreak, unrequited love, intense love, let’s kill Jesus, etc.)
I feel like I’m better today than I was yesterday. I’m sort of sticking to my plan to stay clear of my desk & any writing projects for now, and just read. Try not to think too much. Try not to expect too much from myself right now. Ease into the rhythm of this pandemic without trying to fight it. And allow myself to love because I choose to love.
Yesterday, I spoke on the phone with a couple of close friends/ex-husbands in NYC and it is really intense and scary — what they are dealing with right now. I think they are getting ready to experience a surge of deaths from COVID 19 that will outpace the rest of the world. Just awful.
My ex-husband was explaining the details about how it is over there right now, and then he said, “I had to run up to Harlem to get my drugs and buy more needles…” and I was really taken aback. The only thing I know for sure about that particular ex-husband is that I never know what to expect from him, ever, and so I thought: Wow, he’s on heroin now. This pandemic has really hit him hard.
But it turned out, he was talking about insulin. But that kind of shocked me, too, because I didn’t know he was at that stage.
But, anyway, once I realized what he was talking about, all I could say was, “Did you wash your hands when you came back home?”
I know I must sound super annoying to everyone who’s in the thick of this pandemic, but I can’t help it.
He paused, and sort of sighed and then said, “…yes, I washed my hands.” Sounding, like, you know, that was the least of his worries right at that moment.
I’m still calling my dad everyday, and completely on automatic, I did the same thing to him. Yesterday, he said that someone from the main nursing home facility had brought him over some books to read. And even though I know they’re all on lockdown there and following extreme sterilizing procedures, I sort of freaked out — “someone” had brought him books and he just let the books come right into the house, right?
And I leaped in and said, “Dad, did you wash your hands?”
Sort of startled, he stopped what he was saying and said, “Yes, I did…”
ME: “Are you sure, Dad? You don’t sound sure. Did you really wash your hands?”
HIM: “I washed my hands.”
ME: “Okay…” (But I didn’t actually believe him.)
And I thought to myself: My god, this is so weird. I could recall being, like, three years old, and sitting down to the dinner table and my dad asking me if I’d washed my hands.
ME: “Yes.” (Not wanting to get up again and go do it.)
HIM: “You’re sure you washed your hands?”
ME: “Yes.”
[Liar, liar/pants on fire/your nose is longer than/a telephone wire… — Ed.]
Is this the face of a girl who would tell a lie? You bet’cha!!
Anyway…
So today is Abstract Absurdity Productions day. I believe we are going to begin creating our pitch deck. (A PowerPoint slide presentation.) So that should be intense and kind of fun. I have another webinar that I still need to take re: points and backend negotiations stuff. Maybe over the weekend. God knows, there’s no rush right now.
All right, gang. I’m gonna get the day underway over here. I hope you are having a decent Friday, wherever you are in the world. Be easy on yourselves in your captivity, okay? I’m leaving you with my breakfast-listening music from this morning (still on a Louis Armstrong kick over here.) I just love this song. It was popular in my wee bonny girlhood, but sung by the Mamas & the Papas back then. It’s actually a song from the early 1930s, though. And it is so evocative of love and all the best things about romance. So enjoy. The light will come again and you wanna be ready for it!! Okay. I love you guys. See ya!
“Dream A Little Dream Of Me”
Stars shining bright above you
Night breezes seem to whisper “I love you”
Birds singing in a sycamore tree
Dream a little dream of me
Say nighty night and kiss me
Just hold me tight and tell me you miss me
While I’m alone and blue as can be
Dream a little dream of me
Stars fading but I linger on dear
Still craving your kiss
I’m longing to linger till dawn dear
Just saying this
Sweet dreams till sunbeams find you
Sweet dreams that leave all worries behind you
But in your dreams whatever they be
Dream a little dream of me
Stars fading but I linger on dear
Still craving your kiss
I’m longing to linger till dawn dear
Just saying this
Sweet dreams till sunbeams find you
Sweet dreams that leave all worries far behind you
And in your dreams
Whatever they be
Dream a little dream of me
It does my heart good, you know? From my desk, I can look out the window and see that the starlings have fucked up the gutters on my neighbor’s house, too. So now I don’t have to feel quite so guilty that my gutters are a complete mess.
I’m not the only one.
And I can also clearly see the starling, sitting happily in my neighbor’s fucked up gutter. She stares out serenely at the world, obviously thinking: God made this gutter just for me, for my nest. What a wonderful world.
I can only guess that all the starlings sitting in their nests in my own fucked-up gutters are wearing the same contended expressions on their tiny faces.
The gutters on my roof sit up way too high for me to see into them, and whenever I walk too close, the birds fly away anyway.
But it’s life — living things, God’s creatures, or whoever makes these sacred creatures — so I don’t really care. What matters more to me is that life goes on and that the starlings return every Spring, along with the robins, to build their nests and hatch their little baby birds, who will come back again next Spring — ad infinitum.
Well, okay!!
Peitor and I did indeed work on Abstract Absurdity Productions stuff yesterday!! And it went very well. We got our synopsis written for Lita måste gå! (aka Lita’s Got to Go!), which is great because synopses are my least favorite thing on Earth to write. I think it’s okay to share the synopsis with you here, because Peitor is showing it to people in LA. And it will soon be on our new web site anyway (she says confidently, as if she’s going to get back to work on that web site at any moment!!).
If you don’t follow this blog all the time, Lita måste gå! is an 8-minute film, a fictional story, with 4 lines of dialogue — but the dialogue is in Swedish with English subtitles, hence the double title.
Our filmmaking style — in all of our upcoming projects — is an homage to Luis Buñuel, Roman Polanski, Ingmar Bergman, Alfred Hitchcock, François Truffaut, Jacques Tati, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Fellini — as well as to the Abstract principles of the photography of the Bauhaus School.
The premises of all our projects are completely absurd, but handled very seriously — almost poetically — so that the fact that it’s absurd only quietly creeps up on you.
Synopsis:
Lita måste gå! (aka Lita’s Got to Go!)
Lita is everybody’s worst nightmare of a maid. Every day, when Gerta returns to her apartment, an uneasy feeling comes over her that something dreadful is going on. Trying to understand the source of this uneasiness, Gerta begins to investigate. Is what she’s sensing real or imagined? Is it something in the apartment or is it her maid? Whatever it is, the fear in the pit of her stomach grows more inescapable each day. Whilst Gerta goes out to ease her mind, Lita’s cleaning antics escalate to a level that the furniture can no longer endure – the writing desk wrestles her to the floor. The doctor is called in to examine Lita’s lacerations and contusions, but writes off her absurd accusations to an overstimulated imagination. Unsatisfied, Gerta calls in the services of a specialist – and then the Desk Whisperer arrives. In a hushed, tender exchange between the desk and the Whisperer, he gets to the root of the problem. It is here that Gerta learns that Lita’s got to go and that the writing desk longs to return to the forest. Heeding the words of the Desk Whisperer, Gerta then fastens the desk to the roof of her Citroen and drives out to the countryside. In the forest, placing her desk at the foot of a tree, Gerta knows that all is now right again in her world.
So there you have it, gang! That’s the plot to the 8-minute script that it took us 15 months to write! And it’s 19 pages of shots, POVs, lenses, sound cues and blocking, with 4 lines of dialogue (in Swedish) that don’t come in until page 15.
(And just FYI, the average 90-page script should take you about 6-12 weeks to write.)
But I couldn’t be happier. I fucking love this project!!
Well, in just a few minutes here, my ex-husband out in Seattle is scheduled to call me for a little happy chat. I haven’t spoken to him since November, I think, even though we email each other many times, every single day. So I’m looking forward to it.
If you aren’t aware, Seattle was one of the first places in the US (if not the first?) that had an outbreak of Covid 19 wherein someone died. Then the State (Washington) was one of the first to go into quarantine, and they seem to have avoided the horrific stuff going on in NYC now because of it.
I was kind of worried that since he is Chinese, he would have been the target of some of that racist awfulness that broke out, but, thankfully, he was not.
So, yes, I have one ex-husband in the thick of it in Seattle, and one ex-husband in the thick of it in NYC. A business partner and dear friend in the thick of it in Los Angeles. And many more friends and colleagues in the thick of it in San Francisco and various areas of the NYC boros. So just pray, right? And just keep hoping that everybody stays indoors. (Although, Dr. David Price, from NYC’s Cornell Medical Center, stresses in a recent video to the world that preventing the contagion hinges almost entirely on washing your hands and not touching your face, period. As well as staying indoors and away from people.)
Okay! On that hopeful note, I better scoot, gang. Thanks for visiting! I might check in again later. We shall see! Have a good Wednesday, wherever you are in the world. I leave you with one of the most beautiful songs, ever. Listen, absorb it, enjoy it and just cherish yourselves, okay? I love you guys. See ya.
“What A Wonderful World”
I see trees of green
Red roses too
I see them bloom
For me and you
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world
I see skies of blue
And clouds of white
The bright blessed day
The dark sacred night
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world
The colors of the rainbow
So pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces
Of people going by
I see friends shaking hands
Saying, “How do you do?”
They’re really saying
“I love you”
I hear babies cry
I watch them grow
They’ll learn much more
Than I’ll never know
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world
Marilyn's Room 