Stanislavsky said we shouldn't slavishly follow his system, but should create our own.
Boleslavsky, a student of Stanislavsky, brought his teacher's ideas to America.
Ivana Chubbuck claims that if you go to her school, and/or follow her advice, you will be a winning or successful actor. On the other hand, Boleslavsky claims in his book, Acting; The First Six Lessons, "Art cannot be taught. To posses an art means to possess talent' and he adds "Talent can be developed, but cannot be created" Chubbuck insists one must always do or not do this or that. In other words, she makes hard and fast rules N actora must follow to "win" whereas BOESLAVKY writes:"The only real rules in art are the rules that we discover for ourselves."
I believe Chubbuck occasionally gives the acting student good advice , and she is certainly well informed from her years of experience looking at films, TV serials, and stage plays. In my last post I implied that, by and large, film and video were less concerned with art than live theatre. Perhaps I was overlooking the value of the media which Boleslavsky reminds us can be viewed and re-viewed, and leave lasting records of great performances by actors like Lawrence Olivier, Irene Worth, James Dean, Barbara Stanwyck, Meryl Streep, Humphrey Bogart, etc. Other arts, architecture, sculpture, painting, writing, by there nature, have means to preserve the great works, but the performing arts, music, dance, theatre, had left no permanent traces before Edison and others created recordings and movies. We haveno idea what the performances of music and acting, and dance of 5th century BC Athens. When the "talkies" came along, we now have the means of making records of actor's and director's art. And some of these movies are most certainly works of art.The literary creatons of the great playwrights from Euripides and Sophocles to O'Neill and Albee have a permanence that performing artists lacked before recent times.
Acting for movies and television is very different than acting before a live audience. Scenes are broken up and are rarely filmed in the order they will finally appear. Even short scenes are frequently interrupted. I have had bit parts in a few films. I was a Boston cop in a film called Mission Hill. My very small role was to visit the next of kin of a young man who was killed during a high speed car chase. After bringing the bad news to his mother and sister, my partner and I were filmed leaving a Boston tripple-decker and driving off in the police car. In that scene I had no lines to speak, but we had to repeat the scene five times. Several times I drove the car around the block to return where the director and cine-photographer were, and each tme was told to do it again. No other directions. I had no idea what I was doing wrong. The fifth time there was cheering when we returned to the scene, and for some reason it was "a wrap." What was different in the final attempt was the changing light as the sun was setting. The blinking left signal light gave the effect the director wanted in the dimming light. Was this acting? Would I have done it better had I more acting lessons? Other experiences in film were similar. I died in an HBO film about the Coconut Grove nightclub fire. In a film about the woman's Suffrage movement called Under This Sky,I was a Kansas farmer one snowy day in Rhode Island. In the fire I died several times, and I listened to Irene Worth's short talk about why women ought to have the vote from early morning to late afternoon. Had I read Chubbuck and taken her advice before filming Under This Sky, I would have tried to make Ms Worth "want to like me" so that I would be asked to play a larger part in subsequent scenes. As it was, I did get to have lunch with her. Lunch is a major part of the movie making tradition. Bit playrs are not paid very much. T he guy in the "Kansas" scene got 6 times as much as I because he had a mule to tend. In the final edited movie, that scene would have lasted less than 5 minutes.
Another difference between movies and live theatre is in the writing. Plays are copyrighted. You cannot produce a play that is still under copyright without permission and agreeing to pay the royalty for the use of its "intellectual property." Screenplays are not regarded as art and art and not usually copyrighted. You can download screenplays of even recent movies. Some screenplays are written by committees, and unless you are Robert Reford or a Paul Neumanm yu have to follow a precise formula. Your screenplay has to have tree acts, be typewritten (or at least use Courier fonts so that they look like they were typewritten) and the pages have to be fastened together with those old fashioned brass clips inserted into three hole punched pages. The scripts have to be 120 pages long, as they estimate that one page of a script equals one minute of film, and movies are supposed to last two hours, unless they are comedies,which can be one and a half hours long. Screenplays are often reworked from day to day and not followed word for word as the movies evolve in the editing rooms.
Even so, some great scripts ave been written, not all of them abiding to the usual formula. The film script for Casablanca was written one day at a time while the movie was been filmed. Actors had no idea what their lines would be until they showed up for the filming. But then, not every screenwriter had Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart to write lines for! You can download the Casablanca script of free on line. Where else can you get a great work of art for nothing?
Friday, January 22, 2010
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Power of the Actor, CHapters 1 - 3
I have to say that I have begun to appreciate the required text, The Power of the Actor, by Ivana Chubbuck, who I had mistaken for being a man in an earlier blog. Evidently she has had an influence on many successful actors who have taken her classes or have turned to her for help in winning a role in a movie or sit-com.
Few of her examples refer to the stage. Perhaps it is because a movie or an episode in a sit-com once done is done. She gives an example of a young actress who made her one episode role into a character that demanded to be continued in further episodes, by making her bit part seductive and hot, and sex sells. Subsequent scripts were written to make room for her reappearances. In a play, if the young woman playing Desdemona decided on her own to make Hamlet want her, so he would not tell her "to get thee to a nunnery," chances are subsequent performances would not have her character a winner of her SCENE OBJECTIVE to seduce Hamlet and avoid suicide.
On the other hand, actors can have a considerable influence on the final script while rehearsing for the premier performances of plays. The playwright is most fortunate to work with a company of actors from one play to the next. Shakespeare had this advantage with the Globe players. His Falstaff character once created by the collaboration of the playwright and his actor, demanded to be featured in further plays by the Bard. Ms Chubbuck does occasionally cite examples from plays, like The Glass Menangeie, but for the most part she is Hollywood based, which makes her claims to help actors to"win" more understandable, as film and television unlike theatre, are primarily, commercial enterprises and secondarily intended to be works of art.
Chubbuck's chapter on Scene Objectives is quite good, for the most part, even though her examples of objectives are too often "to get another to like me" or "to get another to want to make love to me," and the like. And she tends to make universal claims that always apply. For example, on page 35 she says in determining your OBJECTIVES, "Always Make Selfish Choices" and continues: "To help another selflessly can make you feel good, but it doesn't have heat to it because there's nothing personally at risk for you." While this may be true at times, to claim that one should "Always" be selfish is certainly questionable.
Her chapter on OBSTACLES is very good, and loaded with examples of what she calls the three kinds of obstacles: physical, mental and emotional. Again, she occasionally goes overboard with her superlatives, like when she claims the more obstacles the better. I recently saw the film, Pursuit of Happyness, where the character played by Will Smith had so many obstacles to overcome to achieve his goal of getting a high paying job so he can establish a good, stress free, home for his son that is is extremely stressful to watch. And then when he gets this desired position, it is as a Wall Street stockbroker, which is perhaps one of the most frantic and stressful jobs imaginable. Out of the frying pan and into the fire.
Few of her examples refer to the stage. Perhaps it is because a movie or an episode in a sit-com once done is done. She gives an example of a young actress who made her one episode role into a character that demanded to be continued in further episodes, by making her bit part seductive and hot, and sex sells. Subsequent scripts were written to make room for her reappearances. In a play, if the young woman playing Desdemona decided on her own to make Hamlet want her, so he would not tell her "to get thee to a nunnery," chances are subsequent performances would not have her character a winner of her SCENE OBJECTIVE to seduce Hamlet and avoid suicide.
On the other hand, actors can have a considerable influence on the final script while rehearsing for the premier performances of plays. The playwright is most fortunate to work with a company of actors from one play to the next. Shakespeare had this advantage with the Globe players. His Falstaff character once created by the collaboration of the playwright and his actor, demanded to be featured in further plays by the Bard. Ms Chubbuck does occasionally cite examples from plays, like The Glass Menangeie, but for the most part she is Hollywood based, which makes her claims to help actors to"win" more understandable, as film and television unlike theatre, are primarily, commercial enterprises and secondarily intended to be works of art.
Chubbuck's chapter on Scene Objectives is quite good, for the most part, even though her examples of objectives are too often "to get another to like me" or "to get another to want to make love to me," and the like. And she tends to make universal claims that always apply. For example, on page 35 she says in determining your OBJECTIVES, "Always Make Selfish Choices" and continues: "To help another selflessly can make you feel good, but it doesn't have heat to it because there's nothing personally at risk for you." While this may be true at times, to claim that one should "Always" be selfish is certainly questionable.
Her chapter on OBSTACLES is very good, and loaded with examples of what she calls the three kinds of obstacles: physical, mental and emotional. Again, she occasionally goes overboard with her superlatives, like when she claims the more obstacles the better. I recently saw the film, Pursuit of Happyness, where the character played by Will Smith had so many obstacles to overcome to achieve his goal of getting a high paying job so he can establish a good, stress free, home for his son that is is extremely stressful to watch. And then when he gets this desired position, it is as a Wall Street stockbroker, which is perhaps one of the most frantic and stressful jobs imaginable. Out of the frying pan and into the fire.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Three Plays in Six Weeks
Sometimes I can't write a thing. I'm like an artist with a blank canvas and no scene, model or still life to inspire me. But I have been on a tare of late, and finished three plays in six weeks. Granted, two of the plays are only ten minutes or so long.
The first play was the one I mentioned in an earlier blog about John Milton in prison writing Paradise Lost. I titled it Satan and Me. My working title was Reason to Rebel, the name of my grandson's band, out in San Diego, which seemed to fit my play as Milton's justiication for the trial and overthrow of the king of England is mirrored in his apparent justification of Lucifer's attempt to overthrow God in his epic poem, but I knew I would not continue with the plagiarism of my grandson's title in the final naming of my play on words. I called it Satan and Me because my hunch is Milton identified with his angelic, albeit fallen, character.
The second play I titled Anything A Man Can do... a phrase which would be immediately followed in some people's minds with the phrase "a woman can do better." Edna St. Vincent Millay is often referred to as the "New Woman" because of her rebellion against all the restrictions placed upon 19th and early 20th century women. The Suffragettes won the vote for women; VIncent, as Millay preferred to be called, won the right to act like men, including smoking and drinking and having affairs. Many of her early poems resonated with other women's feelings of rebellion. Millay, of course, also wrote great poetry, and did better than many men in doing so.
The third play was in response to an invitation to participate in a sort of competition. A friend of mine, Bob Richardson, whose musical, Lighthouse, I co-authored, emailed me an Opportunity for Playwrights flier. Thomas Moser, whose chairs have become world famous, is also a patron of the arts. He has an art gallery at his headquarters it seems, and he annually sponsors a competition in which people are asked to submit 10 minute plays which will be performed in the Spring in Kennebunk. The catch is the plays have to have as one of the principle characters a Thomas Moser chair! Well at first I just laughed and was about to toss the flier, when I had an idea, and I wrote my ten minute play in little more than ten minutes. I paid homage to the author of Waiting For Godot and titled the play Waiting For the Chairman.
The first play was the one I mentioned in an earlier blog about John Milton in prison writing Paradise Lost. I titled it Satan and Me. My working title was Reason to Rebel, the name of my grandson's band, out in San Diego, which seemed to fit my play as Milton's justiication for the trial and overthrow of the king of England is mirrored in his apparent justification of Lucifer's attempt to overthrow God in his epic poem, but I knew I would not continue with the plagiarism of my grandson's title in the final naming of my play on words. I called it Satan and Me because my hunch is Milton identified with his angelic, albeit fallen, character.
The second play I titled Anything A Man Can do... a phrase which would be immediately followed in some people's minds with the phrase "a woman can do better." Edna St. Vincent Millay is often referred to as the "New Woman" because of her rebellion against all the restrictions placed upon 19th and early 20th century women. The Suffragettes won the vote for women; VIncent, as Millay preferred to be called, won the right to act like men, including smoking and drinking and having affairs. Many of her early poems resonated with other women's feelings of rebellion. Millay, of course, also wrote great poetry, and did better than many men in doing so.
The third play was in response to an invitation to participate in a sort of competition. A friend of mine, Bob Richardson, whose musical, Lighthouse, I co-authored, emailed me an Opportunity for Playwrights flier. Thomas Moser, whose chairs have become world famous, is also a patron of the arts. He has an art gallery at his headquarters it seems, and he annually sponsors a competition in which people are asked to submit 10 minute plays which will be performed in the Spring in Kennebunk. The catch is the plays have to have as one of the principle characters a Thomas Moser chair! Well at first I just laughed and was about to toss the flier, when I had an idea, and I wrote my ten minute play in little more than ten minutes. I paid homage to the author of Waiting For Godot and titled the play Waiting For the Chairman.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
play production class
I signed up or another class at U Rock, the local branch of the University of Maine Augusta here in Rockland. I have had several years of graduate study at the University of Chicago and elsewhere, but I still like to take a class now and then for what i can learn and for the fun of it. I take them for credits I don't need. Robert Frost once said writing poetry without rhyme is like playing tennis with the net down. Although I sometimes write blank verse, I believe that taking classes without credit is like having obstacles removed.
The course I am taking is titled PlAY PRODUCTION, and I thought it would be about the elements of producing plays, like directing, casting, blocking, and back stage things like sets, lighting, sound, etc. To my surprise it is an acting class. Although I have some experience as an actor, I have never taken an acting class, so I decided to stay at least for a few classes because I had googled the instructor, Jonathan Potter, and on the basis of his extensive resume, felt I could learn a lot from him, and in the process possibly find some actors who might help me cast two or three plays I hope to produce this year.
The first class was great fun, We started by introducing ourseleves to each of the other students, followed by some breathing and stretching etc,. Some of these games required me to drop to the floor and get up again. I HAVE GREAT TROUBLE WITH THIS. I can get to the floor in stages but cannot sit on my but there or lie on my back, and can get up if there is a chair or something to hold onto. I am only 77, but feel older when I have to get up from the floor. After a break, we did role plays. I WAS VERY MUCH IMPRESSED BY THE TALENTS OF MY CLASSMATES. They quickly assumed roles in conflict situations, and sometimes were humorous and sometimes poignant, In each of the assigned roles, we were asked to not give in but to stick to our predetermined goals. As a one time mediator, and an often successful catalyst for resolving conflicts, I was not entirely comfortable playing a role where I had to not find a way to resolve the conflicts we found ourselves in. As a playwright, I would have to create characters who had goals that were achievable only if the character is able to overcome obstacles and discover ways to resolve such conflicts. However, as short dramatic events, they were very successful, and each pair of role players was cheered on by the rest of the class, which was refreshingly free of high ego driven competition.
We were assigned a text, Power of the Actor, and told that some of the grade weight would be based on the text, There will be two performances, the first a monolog ( possible auditioning material?) and the second a short play or scene, presented to an audience.
I ordered the text from Amazon.com, and while waiting for its arrival began to read Potter's copy of Joe Navarro's What Every BODY Is Saying. It is an eye opening book, I had always been aware of body language, but never thought to read peoples feet. It is a fast read, and ought to be a great help to actors and directors who can be bilingual, or bi-corpual as it were, and speak not only the lines tripingly off the tongue but also reinforce the lines with learned body language.
Yesterday the required text arrived, and i read the introduction. Ie reminded me of the TV salesman selling NOT FOR SALE IN STORES items. 'BUT WAIT!' THERE;S MORE!, read this today and we will DOUBLE the offer." The author was not only full of himself but overflowing with his incredible death defying accomplishments, and his claims tha he would teach actors to WIN. Win what? Academy awards? Might be a good read for actors who want to make martial arts movies or car chase flicks. Turned me off. HOWEVER, I will plow through it before the end of the semester like a 'good' student.
Looking forward to the next class.
The course I am taking is titled PlAY PRODUCTION, and I thought it would be about the elements of producing plays, like directing, casting, blocking, and back stage things like sets, lighting, sound, etc. To my surprise it is an acting class. Although I have some experience as an actor, I have never taken an acting class, so I decided to stay at least for a few classes because I had googled the instructor, Jonathan Potter, and on the basis of his extensive resume, felt I could learn a lot from him, and in the process possibly find some actors who might help me cast two or three plays I hope to produce this year.
The first class was great fun, We started by introducing ourseleves to each of the other students, followed by some breathing and stretching etc,. Some of these games required me to drop to the floor and get up again. I HAVE GREAT TROUBLE WITH THIS. I can get to the floor in stages but cannot sit on my but there or lie on my back, and can get up if there is a chair or something to hold onto. I am only 77, but feel older when I have to get up from the floor. After a break, we did role plays. I WAS VERY MUCH IMPRESSED BY THE TALENTS OF MY CLASSMATES. They quickly assumed roles in conflict situations, and sometimes were humorous and sometimes poignant, In each of the assigned roles, we were asked to not give in but to stick to our predetermined goals. As a one time mediator, and an often successful catalyst for resolving conflicts, I was not entirely comfortable playing a role where I had to not find a way to resolve the conflicts we found ourselves in. As a playwright, I would have to create characters who had goals that were achievable only if the character is able to overcome obstacles and discover ways to resolve such conflicts. However, as short dramatic events, they were very successful, and each pair of role players was cheered on by the rest of the class, which was refreshingly free of high ego driven competition.
We were assigned a text, Power of the Actor, and told that some of the grade weight would be based on the text, There will be two performances, the first a monolog ( possible auditioning material?) and the second a short play or scene, presented to an audience.
I ordered the text from Amazon.com, and while waiting for its arrival began to read Potter's copy of Joe Navarro's What Every BODY Is Saying. It is an eye opening book, I had always been aware of body language, but never thought to read peoples feet. It is a fast read, and ought to be a great help to actors and directors who can be bilingual, or bi-corpual as it were, and speak not only the lines tripingly off the tongue but also reinforce the lines with learned body language.
Yesterday the required text arrived, and i read the introduction. Ie reminded me of the TV salesman selling NOT FOR SALE IN STORES items. 'BUT WAIT!' THERE;S MORE!, read this today and we will DOUBLE the offer." The author was not only full of himself but overflowing with his incredible death defying accomplishments, and his claims tha he would teach actors to WIN. Win what? Academy awards? Might be a good read for actors who want to make martial arts movies or car chase flicks. Turned me off. HOWEVER, I will plow through it before the end of the semester like a 'good' student.
Looking forward to the next class.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
My Next Play
My next play will be about the poet Edna St Vincent Millay. Years ago I took a couple of classes in script writing, and one of the film scripts I wrote I titled 'VINCENT UNBOUND'
I had written a play about the sculptor Louise Nevelson, who grew up in Rockland,so in keeping with the biographical story about a Maine artist, I chose the poet Millay, who was born in Rockland and grew up in Camden, and went on to become one of the most popular American poets of all time. Well, the movie version most probably will never reach the screen, even though biographical movies of artists are not at all uncommon and some, like Lust For Life and Frieda K. among others were big at the box office. But having no contact with the movie industry, and actually preferring stage to screen myself, I think I ought to put all the research I did for the Vincent Unbound script to good use. I am sure that because of the local element in the story I should be able to fill the house when the play is performed in Rockland or Camden.
I have personally related to Edna St Vincent Millay since my high school days. My high school girl friend, Jo Maheu, recited Millay's Renaissance in a state public speaking competition. Years later when for more than a decade I was living in the Midwest, her poems of Maine again spoke to me and were partly responsible for drawing me back to Maine. I had "been too long away from the sea, I had a need of water near."
I had written a play about the sculptor Louise Nevelson, who grew up in Rockland,so in keeping with the biographical story about a Maine artist, I chose the poet Millay, who was born in Rockland and grew up in Camden, and went on to become one of the most popular American poets of all time. Well, the movie version most probably will never reach the screen, even though biographical movies of artists are not at all uncommon and some, like Lust For Life and Frieda K. among others were big at the box office. But having no contact with the movie industry, and actually preferring stage to screen myself, I think I ought to put all the research I did for the Vincent Unbound script to good use. I am sure that because of the local element in the story I should be able to fill the house when the play is performed in Rockland or Camden.
I have personally related to Edna St Vincent Millay since my high school days. My high school girl friend, Jo Maheu, recited Millay's Renaissance in a state public speaking competition. Years later when for more than a decade I was living in the Midwest, her poems of Maine again spoke to me and were partly responsible for drawing me back to Maine. I had "been too long away from the sea, I had a need of water near."
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
WINTER IN MAINE
YEARS AGO I LOVED WINTER IN MAINE. I remember when my family moved back to Maine from Illinois. WE moved in the summer from DeKalb, where I was working on my PhD, to Five Islands, a small fishing village in the town of Georgetown, and on an island of the same name. My parents lived there, and we bought one of their two houses. Eliot and his family moved there too, and Rolfe and his family came and spent summers there, and Rolfe enrolled in the Master's program at Colby College and commuted. So the whole family was there. I had gone through a period of deep depression in Illinois, and the move revived me entirely. Nan loved Five Islands so much we decided to winterize the house, and we hired Eliot to design and build an addition onto the existing house. When fall came, I had to return to DeKalb briefly. All I had left to do for my PhD was to write my dissertation, and pass oral exams. I dd not have to be there full time to do that, so I soon returned to Five Islands to spend the winter, and presumably to write my dissertaion.
Well, I loved that winter. Eliot and I got new snowshoes and we cleaned off the snow on the little pond in the back yard and made a skating rink. I had always loved winters when a youth. Eliot and I had a "gang" of kindred souls,of both sexes, and we would go sledding and tobogganing. I remember snow shoeing across a frozen East Pond to the Ready's cabin on the other side. Mrs Ready would have arrived there by car and foot ahead of us and had hot chocolate and lunch ready for us. We would ride back to town in her car. Sometimes she would tow our bobsled to the top of a country hill. We would go down fast as a bullet, often ending in a snow bank. Whoever was siting on the end of the bobsled might end up further into the bank than the rest. The last shall be first? Mrs Ready would tow the sled back to the top of the hill for the next run down. She was my best friend's mother. Joe Ready was the son of General Ready, who was off in Japan as head of the occupation force on Okinowa. I believe he was the commander who was the model for the colonel in the musical Tea House In The August Moon. General Ready returned to Oakland before I graduated from High School. That put an end to the good times at the Ready's as he was a strict disciplinarian and seemed to object to anyone having fun.
After we bought our house here in Thomaston, Maine in 1995, I still loved the winters here. They were not so different than winters in Boston. I had lived in Presque Isle, far north of here in Maine, when I taught at the University there one year, and that was the coldest I have ever been. And that includes the winter I spent in Baffin Island in teh Canadian Arctic, North of Hudson Bay. I spent a few winters in Toronto, Ontario, and the winters there were not very snowy, but almost always sunless. Long gray winters. Icy sidewalks. No one there seemed to own a snow shovel, and the light snow would be packed to ice from walking. Maine has winterss -- sometimes ice storms and nor'easters, but when it isn't snowing, we have a lot of sunshine here in Maine in the winter.
However, now that I am about to turn seventy seven, I have had enogh winter and enough snow shoveling. We had our house on the market for 6 months. Our Sotheby's contract expired today and we took it off the market, at least for the winter. So we are in for another long winter. It is early December and already we have had two major snow storms. Last winter we had two thirds of the house re-roofed with with a great clatter, it all slides off at once, a veritable avalanche. You would not want to going out the back door when it happens! Last winter, it blocked the exhaust vent of the monitor in Albie's ofice. I smelled the problem right away, and we had to turn off her heater. It took two days to shovel out the vent after it stopped snowing. Our new pellet stove in the living room saves a lot of money for fuel oil, but it has an intake air vent which also get pluged up when the snow slides of the roof onto the side deck. Then the stove also had to be shut down until we can get out there and shovel out.
I thought this year I ought to buy a snow blower, but since we were hoping to sell the house, Albie thought that was a bad idea, as did my daughter Lauren. In fact, Lauren sent a check for $300 to use to hire a youth to shovel our walks and driveway this winter. Trouble is, there are no more teenagers in Thomaston it seems. So Albie and I shoveled out the first snow storm, and I actually enjoyed it. Then today we got another huge storm, so we called Herb Jones, who has done a lot of yard work and odd jobs for us before, and he came to clear the drive so I could go to work tomorrow. I have to leave for work at 6:30 AM, and if I have to shovel the drive and clear the car before I leave, I would have to get up at 4:OO AM, in stead of the usual 5 am waking hour.
Well, I loved that winter. Eliot and I got new snowshoes and we cleaned off the snow on the little pond in the back yard and made a skating rink. I had always loved winters when a youth. Eliot and I had a "gang" of kindred souls,of both sexes, and we would go sledding and tobogganing. I remember snow shoeing across a frozen East Pond to the Ready's cabin on the other side. Mrs Ready would have arrived there by car and foot ahead of us and had hot chocolate and lunch ready for us. We would ride back to town in her car. Sometimes she would tow our bobsled to the top of a country hill. We would go down fast as a bullet, often ending in a snow bank. Whoever was siting on the end of the bobsled might end up further into the bank than the rest. The last shall be first? Mrs Ready would tow the sled back to the top of the hill for the next run down. She was my best friend's mother. Joe Ready was the son of General Ready, who was off in Japan as head of the occupation force on Okinowa. I believe he was the commander who was the model for the colonel in the musical Tea House In The August Moon. General Ready returned to Oakland before I graduated from High School. That put an end to the good times at the Ready's as he was a strict disciplinarian and seemed to object to anyone having fun.
After we bought our house here in Thomaston, Maine in 1995, I still loved the winters here. They were not so different than winters in Boston. I had lived in Presque Isle, far north of here in Maine, when I taught at the University there one year, and that was the coldest I have ever been. And that includes the winter I spent in Baffin Island in teh Canadian Arctic, North of Hudson Bay. I spent a few winters in Toronto, Ontario, and the winters there were not very snowy, but almost always sunless. Long gray winters. Icy sidewalks. No one there seemed to own a snow shovel, and the light snow would be packed to ice from walking. Maine has winterss -- sometimes ice storms and nor'easters, but when it isn't snowing, we have a lot of sunshine here in Maine in the winter.
However, now that I am about to turn seventy seven, I have had enogh winter and enough snow shoveling. We had our house on the market for 6 months. Our Sotheby's contract expired today and we took it off the market, at least for the winter. So we are in for another long winter. It is early December and already we have had two major snow storms. Last winter we had two thirds of the house re-roofed with with a great clatter, it all slides off at once, a veritable avalanche. You would not want to going out the back door when it happens! Last winter, it blocked the exhaust vent of the monitor in Albie's ofice. I smelled the problem right away, and we had to turn off her heater. It took two days to shovel out the vent after it stopped snowing. Our new pellet stove in the living room saves a lot of money for fuel oil, but it has an intake air vent which also get pluged up when the snow slides of the roof onto the side deck. Then the stove also had to be shut down until we can get out there and shovel out.
I thought this year I ought to buy a snow blower, but since we were hoping to sell the house, Albie thought that was a bad idea, as did my daughter Lauren. In fact, Lauren sent a check for $300 to use to hire a youth to shovel our walks and driveway this winter. Trouble is, there are no more teenagers in Thomaston it seems. So Albie and I shoveled out the first snow storm, and I actually enjoyed it. Then today we got another huge storm, so we called Herb Jones, who has done a lot of yard work and odd jobs for us before, and he came to clear the drive so I could go to work tomorrow. I have to leave for work at 6:30 AM, and if I have to shovel the drive and clear the car before I leave, I would have to get up at 4:OO AM, in stead of the usual 5 am waking hour.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Web, blog, twiter, facebook, etc. ad finitem
So no I have a blog I should be satisfied, but I was hoping I would be able to cut and paste things I have already written into the blog, but when I try I get a message that I can not accomplish this seemingly simple task. Oh, it will paste the poem or play or magazine article into the post, but in HTML code, which I cannot read or edit. So I guess I will also need to have a web page.
Over the ears I have published many articles about art and artists, and would like to make them accessible on the web. A few of them already are. Someone in Canada put many of the pieces I wrote for Artscanada over a 15 year span of writing for that great publication, but not all. and now I would also like to put my plays and screenplays on the web, as well as a few poems now and then.
A friend of mine has written a number of songs without music. He would love to find a band that would ask him to write lyrics for music they produce and gigs they perform, but has a=had no luck locally. So I have offered to help him publish past works and see if we can attract a band, preferably a Caribean, calypso-like group, to make use of his considerable talent. I showed him a draft of a title page for the proposed book, and he balked at the idea that we might copyright the poems. One of his songs, "Hidden Talent" has the words: "Hidden Talent/Broad daylight/Need no patent/Or copyright/Need no keys/Or locks at night/" and so on. The title no doubt refers to the Bible's advice: "don't hide you talents under a bucket."
Although I did copyright many things in the past, I did it without thinking. I have decided in the future not to copyright my poems, plays and screenplays. Actually, screenplays are rarely f ever copyrighted. You can download the script of Casablanca, for example, without charge. I suppose it is because screenplays are not "art."? Once the movie i made you have to pay for reproductions of it. I have never received a dime from anything I have ever copyrighted anyway. I would be flattered and proud to have someone pick up one of my recent plays and produce it. That would be compensation enough. Just give me credit as=s the playwright.
"Lighthouse: A Down East Musical" which was a collaboration between Robert N Richardson and myself, is copyrighted. Bob and I have an agreement that if the play is produced, he and I would share 7% of a net profit. As yet we have not had a net profit on the production of this play, but it may yet produce a small income for each of us or our heirs.
We are living in a new age..the internet is the great leveler. The software that enables me to blog was free. If I add to my blog something called "Translations" someone who cant read English can translate it into one of 2 other languages. and this can be added to my blog for free. If my "followers" (a strange word for anyone who wants to read what I have posted; I don't want to be followed, by hope to encourage a dialog) cannot read, I can add a gizmo that will have some one read aloud what I have written. Can you imagine hat that would cost? But it too if FREE! So much for "Intellectual Property" I have been copying other's intellectual property on my Zerox machine for years and somehow managed to avoid prison time.
Over the ears I have published many articles about art and artists, and would like to make them accessible on the web. A few of them already are. Someone in Canada put many of the pieces I wrote for Artscanada over a 15 year span of writing for that great publication, but not all. and now I would also like to put my plays and screenplays on the web, as well as a few poems now and then.
A friend of mine has written a number of songs without music. He would love to find a band that would ask him to write lyrics for music they produce and gigs they perform, but has a=had no luck locally. So I have offered to help him publish past works and see if we can attract a band, preferably a Caribean, calypso-like group, to make use of his considerable talent. I showed him a draft of a title page for the proposed book, and he balked at the idea that we might copyright the poems. One of his songs, "Hidden Talent" has the words: "Hidden Talent/Broad daylight/Need no patent/Or copyright/Need no keys/Or locks at night/" and so on. The title no doubt refers to the Bible's advice: "don't hide you talents under a bucket."
Although I did copyright many things in the past, I did it without thinking. I have decided in the future not to copyright my poems, plays and screenplays. Actually, screenplays are rarely f ever copyrighted. You can download the script of Casablanca, for example, without charge. I suppose it is because screenplays are not "art."? Once the movie i made you have to pay for reproductions of it. I have never received a dime from anything I have ever copyrighted anyway. I would be flattered and proud to have someone pick up one of my recent plays and produce it. That would be compensation enough. Just give me credit as=s the playwright.
"Lighthouse: A Down East Musical" which was a collaboration between Robert N Richardson and myself, is copyrighted. Bob and I have an agreement that if the play is produced, he and I would share 7% of a net profit. As yet we have not had a net profit on the production of this play, but it may yet produce a small income for each of us or our heirs.
We are living in a new age..the internet is the great leveler. The software that enables me to blog was free. If I add to my blog something called "Translations" someone who cant read English can translate it into one of 2 other languages. and this can be added to my blog for free. If my "followers" (a strange word for anyone who wants to read what I have posted; I don't want to be followed, by hope to encourage a dialog) cannot read, I can add a gizmo that will have some one read aloud what I have written. Can you imagine hat that would cost? But it too if FREE! So much for "Intellectual Property" I have been copying other's intellectual property on my Zerox machine for years and somehow managed to avoid prison time.
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