The Marie Antoinette interactive theatre event is now fully live on the St James website. Very exciting! It will shortly be appearing in the next St James season brochure that is mailed out to many thousands of people.
Rehearsals are about to begin, and I’ll be giving some direction about how I want the interactivity to work in this evening. Our performers are incredible and enthusiastic and will be up for every challenge. I also need to do a bit of re-writing in response to the first cast read-through we had; I was very pleased that the script came out looking very good at the end of that, with several people specifically complimenting me on it. Believe it or not but I think working on the 48 and collaborating with an artist on a comic have both helped a great deal, forcing me to get better at cramming more content into fewer words and trusting in the performance/artwork to do a lot of communicating.
Ticket sales are open to the public – a key St James staffer was sick for a couple of weeks when they should have been hitting up corporate clients, so they’ve just thrown the doors open instead. If you’re interested, details at the webpage. (Yeah, it’s on the spendy side but it’s not that ridiculous for dinner, drinks and a show combined.) If we sell out I might even make some pocket money…
Month: July 2009
Seen: I’ve Loved You So Long (2008)
Il y a longtemps que je t’aime – French serious drama about Kristin Scott Thomas getting out of prison and she, her sister and her sister’s family, adjusting to her return.
It’s a nicely-drawn film if a bit too neat in some of its angles, e.g. how it works the cute-children and lovely-grandpa lines shamelessly. It all works well, however, largely thanks to the incredible presence of Scott Thomas. She is amazing to watch, utterly believable, heartbreaking and frustrating by turns.
I never quite fell into this film, but it definitely paid its way. If a moody, melancholy drama in the unhurried French style sounds like your cup of tea, this will not disappoint.
One Day We’ll Find Linky
One literary passage, translated by two different people. Interesting if you read translated lit and wonder about how well the sense of the work survives.
Awful Library Books – librarian snark at books being stripped from the collection.
This one is not safe for work, not because of violence or nudity but because of a bit of Japanese-cultural sexual weirdness. But actually I think this is even less safe for your sanity. It can only be: RoboGeisha
(from Al) On a cruise, no-one can hear you scream
100 characters from science fiction drawn in the Simpsons style.
Writer types: ten fiction editors talk about what they look for in submissions.
And finally… Got that not-so-fresh feeling? Afflicted by a sense of unnameable dread at your insignificance against the eldritch depths of space? Here’s the product for you!
Michael Bay
When I get frustrated at how Michael Bay* does visual storytelling, waving my hands and shouting “coherent sequence of images” and “not crossing the line” and “ignorance of a film grammar built up through trial and error over a century” while flecks of spittle fly across the room and my eyes get progressively more bloodshot…
…I sometimes wonder if this is how people felt when their kids started listening to rap music**.
And this thought bothers me.
* no i have not seen transformers 2 and probably wouldn’t go even if Pearce bought me a ticket like he did for the first one
** or Elvis, or jazz, or whatever
Exquisite Corpse
This entry is part of an on-line exquisite corpse – a short story told in 10 installments by 10 different authors. My 250 word installment is below; if you’re interested in writing the next part, scroll down to the bottom of this post for details on how this all works…
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4.
easy to see much of anything.
“They’re probably in a gully. Lost their feet, face-first into the mud,” Dianne said.
“We’ll find them.”
Dianne felt crowded in by the bush and the mist and Peter’s eyes. The cemetery had bothered her. The statues there had seemed too familiar.
“Good exercise anyway,” Peter said, mostly in jest. “And hot cocoa later. I’m sorry, you know.”
Something rushed past Dianne’s cheek, the thrum of its big flat wings in her ear. It was already too dark to see properly, but she knew it was some kind of insect, something big.
“Get away,” Peter said, swatting as the bug came back. More amused than anything. “Go on now.”
“That thing sounded like a helicopter,” Dianne said as the dusky calm reasserted itself.
“I wish. Search would get done a mite quicker if it was.”
She felt it crash into her back. She flinched. Her clothes yanked and gathered as insect feet grabbed for purchase. She could feel it scratching through her layers, and the pull of its weight – she started to flail, trying to scare it away but it only seemed to tighten its grip and she suddenly became terrified it would leap up and get tangled in her hair.
Dianne turned sharply and saw Peter’s eyes. They were big and afraid.
Then her feet lost their way in the mud. They kicked up into nothing as her centre of gravity shifted, and she felt herself pitch over the side of the path
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This is part 4 of 10. You can find the other installments here (but DON’T DO THIS YET if you want to join in):
1. www.sleep-dep.blogspot.com (26 June 2009)
2. www.multi-dimensional.blogspot.com (27 June 2009)
3. www.deb-onair.blogspot.com (29 June 2009)
4. www.additiverich.com/morgue/ (1 July 2009)
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
WANT TO READ IT? Jump back to the previous entries using the links above.
WANT TO JOIN IN? This exquisite corpse operates on a first-come, first-served basis. If you want to write the next installment, FOLLOW THESE INSTRUCTIONS:
1.IMPORTANT – Don’t read any of the previous entries! Read only the one you see here.
2.ALSO IMPORTANT – Post a comment here, saying “I claim the next entry”, followed by the URL/web address of your blog. If you don’t do this, we’ll never know where to find you.
3.Copy the text of this blog entry into a new post on your blog, but DELETE THE CHAPTER and write your own as the next installment. Start with the chapter number as I’ve done here, and start exactly where the last chapter left off (in mid-sentence if necessary).
4.Your entry should be EXACTLY 250 words long, unless you are writing chapter 10, in which case you must bring the story to a conclusion in 250 words or less.
5.At the end of the chapter, where the text reads: “This is part X of 10”, change this to the number of your chapter.
6.Add the URL/web address of your blog and today’s date onto the list below that, so people reading later entries can jump back to your chapter.
7.Finish your chapter and post it within 24 hours of claiming your place. There – it’s freaking easy! You can go back and read the rest of the story now.
8.IF YOU’VE JUST FINISHED ENTRY #10 and finished the story, DELETE THESE INSTRUCTIONS from the bottom of your post – they’ll just confuse people. ALSO, let CG know by posting a comment on the first entry (on www.sleep-dep.blogspot.com), or sending him an email on squid.mohawk@gmail.com. CG will assemble a full version and send it round to all of the contributors.