Stephen of the North

Filming is going along quite well; knock on every hardwood surface in sight.

Great actors, nice composition, good story editing. So far we've shot for over twelve hours, captured an hour and fifteen minutes of footage, and of that 1. 15 we'll use maybe 10-12 minutes in the final film. Two days down, two to go.

Outline-->Script-->1,2,3 Draft-->Shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot-->E.d.i.t.-->Export=Over two months.

New Sink

Today B&G built us a new vanity and replaced our sink. The toothpaste-stained seashell is no more. For a glimpse of the seashell, visit any of the other apartments in 860 Beacon EXCEPT ours.

Our old sink would leak out of the base unless you made damn sure to turn the knobs all the way into a full OFF position. After bathroom use, I am usually more concerned with the bleeding than I am the faucet, and as a result, the sink leaks a bit here and there. Last week I left the sink leaking. The bathroom kinda flooded. As a result, the laundromat below us developed a leak. Knock on the door: You got a leak? I don't think so--oh, right but the bathroom IS kind of flooded, so I guess yeah.

The new sink is awesome and the vanity is brand spankin new and also is awesome and also is white.

Just a nice one for bed.

"A white--or black--form, which could be a man unless it be a woman, moves forward (is it forward?). the old sailor shudders--or is it sneezes?--we can't be sure; he cries, "Let's go!" and throws himself into a whitish--or blackish--sea (we can't be sure) which could well be the Ocean."

Also from "The Painting of Modern Life" by T.J. Clark.

Golf anyone?

French Cafes in the 19th Century OR: Next Week on Arrested Development

From "The Painting of Modern Life"

"...Towards the back a theatre stage with footlights; and on it a comic in evening dress. He sang disconnected things, interspersed with chortling and farmyard noises, the sounds of animals in heat, epileptic gesticulations--a Saint Vitus's dance of idiocy. The audience went wild with enthusiasm...I may be wrong, but it seems to me we are heading for a revolution. There is a rottenness and stupidity in the public, a laughter so unwholesome that it will take a great upheaval, the spilling of blood, to clear the air and make even comedy sanitary."

Ritter Sport!

I do nothing but look at hockey stats that I don't understand. I reenact scenes from the games; reactions, cheers, goals. I consider buying a jersey several times a day. When I go to FitRec I can't look at Agganis Arena out of fear that I will black out and find myself in an abandoned warehouse hours later. I kind of know a few of the players names (Yip sounds like a dog, Curry is a food). My heart aches when I realize that there is only one more home game, possibly two, that I will be able to attend until second semester hits, and when second semester hits, I don't plan on leaving my bunker that I'm currently digging. Let it be known, if they try to pull me out for graduation, I will take them with me and I'm not talking red carpet and stage.

Alright, we've still got a month left in the semester, right, guy? Huh? Okay, that's better, no more tears, huh? After all, you did just broker what I'm pretty sure is a historic deal wherein you obtained the exclusive rights to the Gaza Strip (Gazaa? Striip? Wild Mid-East spellings) in return for a flotilla market warship. Not Mexican food. A warship.

I worked out tonight and then DOWNED a shake with over 60 grams of protein! I had one pound of filet mignon for dinner!

Oh god, if these scripts don't get me a job writing for a TV show, guess who's jumping? Jeff.

Beyond this, there is simply too much goodness to get into right now. Endless potential this year.

It is enough/to make the heart/swell.

That street

Left the Coolidge Corner theater at 11:45 and seeing as how I was in no rush, I opted to walk back to my apartment rather than take the T. First off, the length of the walk from Coolidge Corner to my apartment is the perfect amount of time for a short stroll: a very pleasant 20 minutes. Less than that is tedious (an 8 minute walk is something to abhor) and more than that breaks the cradle of "stroll" (pilgrimage? fat baby!). Clear sky and warm air.

There were of course the glorious town houses and inns around the 1200s Beacon Street and down to the mid-1100s, and all of the nice little things to look at along the way. Then I get to St. Mary's Street, but not on the even-numbered side of Beacon, but the odd-numbered side. The two sides seem like separate entities because the beefy section of the T tracks makes it impossible for one to walk from one end of St. Mary's to the other. But walk down it sometime, it's an entirely different world.

Toward the end of a very quiet section of St. Mary's (100 on down to about 130) is another street that runs perpendicular to St. Mary's and parallel to Beacon, and can be most easily located by imagining the first right you can legally take after turning right onto Park Drive (when traveling East)...that is our street.

There's also a great neighborhood that begins around this street, but this area is best left for running. A one hour run is the best way to see an area that requires studying and appreciation and time because you are running so you are accomplishing something, but at the same time no one can blame you for not looking harder at the molding on top of the bell tower.

Then there was the whole episode of Le Corbusier and City Hall and Mugar/Law Building/GSU, but that is still an incomplete thought. But I assure you, mind-blowing stuff.

Visitors from up north

0-2, 2-2, 2-3. Egad.

Documentary

The story of Rob Turbovsky and his lurid affair with a bag of dish detergent powder. Tre scandal!


Why did they bring down Beacon Hill's two neighbors? Stay tuned to find out...coming November 21.

So I get it...

...if you don't dig a certain joke, but come on...a series of cigarette ads beginning with the propogation of lies and ending with further propogation from someone with a trach hole is hilarious!

Best college show must equal funniest and most out there. And for the love of god, if you aren't into "out there" then watch some Python and drive us in the direction of wit. But don't suck the poison out!

The Ingestibles

Last week: pumpkin risotto with porcini mushrooms, sage and walnuts...

This week: Filet mignon stuffed with goat cheese and asparagus.

I'm liking this.

amendment to the plan

The additional plan is to, in the off season of sitcom writing, to make small, comercially viable travel shorts. Make small documentaries about places here and there.

In FACT, next semester's documentary production course may have to revolve around such an endeavor. Oh the good things for Greg White that didn't come in the books. Such a well-shucks-yep academic. I do like the lectures though. As long as it works.

Topo

At some point this year, someone please force me to write the screen play (I've given up on the prose version--simply TOO many words unless it was illustrated) version of "Topo." Really going to be so good. I read on imdb that David Mamet has something about a dog that saves France and it's labeled as a satire on celebrity which is exactly what Topo is when you get rid of all the coyote princelings and bears in the dessert, and shaking dogs.

Honestly.

Additionally, next weekend is a weekend wherein Jarffles du Klownweist and Turbo du Nihilfreud and myself will shoot much footage.

The Lady's Dressing Room---Jonathan Swift

(Ed. note: Disgusting creature aren't they?)


Five hours, (and who can do it less in?)
By haughty Celia spent in dressing;
The goddess from her chamber issues,
Arrayed in lace, brocades, and tissues.

Strephon, who found the room was void
And Betty otherwise employed,
Stole in and took a strict survey
Of all the litter as it lay;
Whereof, to make the matter clear,
An inventory follows here.

And first a dirty smock appeared,
Beneath the arm-pits well besmeared.
Strephon, the rogue, displayed it wide
And turned it round on every side.
On such a point few words are best,
And Strephon bids us guess the rest;
And swears how damnably the men lie
In calling Celia sweet and cleanly.
Now listen while he next produces
The various combs for various uses,
Filled up with dirt so closely fixt,
No brush could force a way betwixt.
A paste of composition rare,
Sweat, dandruff, powder, lead and hair;
A forehead cloth with oil upon’t
To smooth the wrinkles on her front.
Here alum flower to stop the steams
Exhaled from sour unsavory streams;
There night-gloves made of Tripsy’s hide,
Bequeath’d by Tripsy when she died,
With puppy water, beauty’s help,
Distilled from Tripsy’s darling whelp;
Here gallypots and vials placed,
Some filled with washes, some with paste,
Some with pomatum, paints and slops,
And ointments good for scabby chops.
Hard by a filthy basin stands,
Fouled with the scouring of her hands;
The basin takes whatever comes,
The scrapings of her teeth and gums,
A nasty compound of all hues,
For here she spits, and here she spews.
But oh! it turned poor Strephon’s bowels,
When he beheld and smelt the towels,
Begummed, besmattered, and beslimed
With dirt, and sweat, and ear-wax grimed.
No object Strephon’s eye escapes:
Here petticoats in frowzy heaps;
Nor be the handkerchiefs forgot
All varnished o’er with snuff and snot.
The stockings, why should I expose,
Stained with the marks of stinking toes;
Or greasy coifs and pinners reeking,
Which Celia slept at least a week in?
A pair of tweezers next he found
To pluck her brows in arches round,
Or hairs that sink the forehead low,
Or on her chin like bristles grow.

The virtues we must not let pass,
Of Celia’s magnifying glass.
When frighted Strephon cast his eye on’t
It shewed the visage of a giant.
A glass that can to sight disclose
The smallest worm in Celia’s nose,
And faithfully direct her nail
To squeeze it out from head to tail;
(For catch it nicely by the head,
It must come out alive or dead.)

Why Strephon will you tell the rest?
And must you needs describe the chest?
That careless wench! no creature warn her
To move it out from yonder corner;
But leave it standing full in sight
For you to exercise your spite.
In vain, the workman shewed his wit
With rings and hinges counterfeit
To make it seem in this disguise
A cabinet to vulgar eyes;
For Strephon ventured to look in,
Resolved to go through thick and thin;
He lifts the lid, there needs no more:
He smelt it all the time before.
As from within Pandora’s box,
When Epimetheus oped the locks,
A sudden universal crew
Of humane evils upwards flew,
He still was comforted to find
That Hope at last remained behind;
So Strephon lifting up the lid
To view what in the chest was hid,
The vapours flew from out the vent.
But Strephon cautious never meant
The bottom of the pan to grope
And foul his hands in search of Hope.
O never may such vile machine
Be once in Celia’s chamber seen!
O may she better learn to keep
“Those secrets of the hoary deep”!

As mutton cutlets, prime of meat,
Which, though with art you salt and beat
As laws of cookery require
And toast them at the clearest fire,
If from adown the hopeful chops
The fat upon the cinder drops,
To stinking smoke it turns the flame
Poisoning the flesh from whence it came;
And up exhales a greasy stench
For which you curse the careless wench;
So things which must not be exprest,
When plumpt into the reeking chest,
Send up an excremental smell
To taint the parts from whence they fell,
The petticoats and gown perfume,
Which waft a stink round every room.

Thus finishing his grand survey,
Disgusted Strephon stole away
Repeating in his amorous fits,
Oh! Celia, Celia, Celia shits!

But vengeance, Goddess never sleeping,
Soon punished Strephon for his peeping:
His foul Imagination links
Each dame he see with all her stinks;
And, if unsavory odors fly,
Conceives a lady standing by.
All women his description fits,
And both ideas jump like wits
By vicious fancy coupled fast,
And still appearing in contrast.

I pity wretched Strephon blind
To all the charms of female kind.
Should I the Queen of Love refuse
Because she rose from stinking ooze?
To him that looks behind the scene
Satira’s but some pocky queen.
When Celia in her glory shows,
If Strephon would but stop his nose
(Who now so impiously blasphemes
Her ointments, daubs, and paints and creams,
Her washes, slops, and every clout
With which he makes so foul a rout),
He soon would learn to think like me
And bless his ravished sight to see
Such order from confusion sprung,
Such gaudy tulips raised from dung.

Slough---John Betjeman

Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!
It isn't fit for humans now,
There isn't grass to graze a cow.
Swarm over, Death!
Come, bombs and blow to smithereens
Those air -conditioned, bright canteens,
Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans,
Tinned minds, tinned breath.

Mess up the mess they call a town-
A house for ninety-seven down
And once a week a half a crown
For twenty years.

And get that man with double chin
Who'll always cheat and always win,
Who washes his repulsive skin
In women's tears:

And smash his desk of polished oak
And smash his hands so used to stroke
And stop his boring dirty joke
And make him yell.

But spare the bald young clerks who add
The profits of the stinking cad;
It's not their fault that they are mad,
They've tasted Hell.

It's not their fault they do not know
The birdsong from the radio,
It's not their fault they often go
To Maidenhead

And talk of sport and makes of cars
In various bogus-Tudor bars
And daren't look up and see the stars
But belch instead.

In labour-saving homes, with care
Their wives frizz out peroxide hair
And dry it in synthetic air
And paint their nails.

Come, friendly bombs and fall on Slough
To get it ready for the plough.
The cabbages are coming now;
The earth exhales.

Ethernet

En route to the couch, I unplugged the Ethernet cable from the back of my computer and as I did I realized that buying the cable was one of the first things I did when I moved in back in September of 2002. That worries me more than the looming G-word that’s just down the road. I plugged the cable into the brand new laptop and said, my goodness me that is some fast Internet. Since then the computer has had its hard drive replaced and more memory added. Brand spanking new on its 4th birthday. Not a bad gig I told it and the thang just laughed.

So much in so small a cable.

Almost tomorrow!

The sun is on its way toward tomorrow! Alright! Okay!

Work week is much best than weekend.

Tueday--Night.

Well, what a day!

After running I came home to my apartment! I had a turkey sandwich with hummus! No way am I sitting in the back of the bus! Then I had fusilli and sauce! I made the sauce DAYS ago using Glen Muir tomatoes! Lycopine! Then sat. Sat around! No sleepy, not Saturday! I wish! (Har-Har Johannes)

Round 10 something I surveyed the day. Oh no! Karl Marx was unread Teuday! Read Williams then regarding the Paris fair! Rawr!

Last seat taken!

Teuday

First I came to the meeting a half hour late. An entire half hour!
Let OJ GO! Then Christian and Jordan came and I was all "Keep your
gold medal!" Then Jordan gave me a hug! Then me and Chris wrote one
sketch, Killian-Lauren-Alia (one word) wrote another, and
Christian-Justin-Jeffrey-Gracie wrote another! Then I left the meeting
because it was over (cause and effect!) and walked down the street with
Christian-Jeff and then we three crossed to the median T tracks and
then me and Jeff walked across the rest of the street without Christian
because Christian went to the T stop! And then Jeff tried to make me
walk with him but I didn't and I ran for four miles instead. Before
all of this, me and Kristin White and Alexandra Stylianos went for
brunch! I had a mushroom omelette with parmesan (no understand
spelling differences here). There was thyme in it! Potatoes.
Breakfast breads too.

Okay! Alright!