"I went down to St. James Infirmary, saw my baby there, stretched out on a long white table."
If the meteorologists are to be believed, yesterday the temperature climbed to 82˚F. It felt like it, sitting here in my office with the window open. It felt like proper fucking spring. And it still does today. We're at 78˚, though it's mostly cloudy. I have no complaints about this weather.
But I also don't have much to say about work. Yesterday was pretty much odds and ends: some layout questions I had to answer for Dark Horse, a conversation with the curator at the John Hay Library (they're going to help me retrieve files from very, very old diskettes, 1986 into the late 1990s), sorting through more of the papers that are going to the Hay, helping Spooky with eBay stuff. Speaking of which:
You know the refrain. We're in that "between checks" limbo right now that is the hallmark of life as a freelancer, so eBay sales are currently very important. Please have a look! All books can be signed and personalized. Items up at the moment include Two Worlds and In Between, The Crimson Alphabet, and the Portuguese-language edition of The Drowning Girl. Thank you!
I've got to get back to work on the screenplay. This week. In theory. I'm trying to teach myself Final Draft, and it's mostly a baffling affair. But I have finally accepted that the scenes of the screenplay will be written out of order, the way I never write anything.
And now, television, because I've been watching far too much of it. Some quick thoughts:
1. We finished Carnivàle last night. The last episode of Season Two was beautiful, sublime, and as a premature ending that no one intended as an ending it works far better than I'd expected. It's actually the sort of ambiguous "ending" I might have written as an intentional conclusion, the sort that pisses a lot of people off because they want to know "what happened." And yet, oh what marvels would have unfolded if only Daniel Knauf's six-season plan could have been realized. It was, like Deadwood, I think, a show that was just a little before it's time, though I also think it helped pave the way for this New Golden Age of Television, where such dark, unconventional, expansive storytelling is possible.
2. Have I mentioned my Peter Dinklage fetish?
3. I'm absolutely adoring Penny Dreadful. We watched three more episodes last night. As I told Kathryn, it's a delight, and it's utterly charming. And extraordinarily sexy. Eva Green is going to be taking a space up there with Peter Dinklage, especially after that séance scene in the second episode - which is titled, as it happens, "Séance." Learning that the effects for the scene were mostly accomplished in camera, I was even more impressed. So far I've had only one small complaint, really, and it's that the horridly green absinthe in the fourth episode, "Demimonde," doesn't louche when Dorian adds water. It's an inexplicable sort of faux pas, truly.
And now...work.
Later Taters,
Aunt Beast
But I also don't have much to say about work. Yesterday was pretty much odds and ends: some layout questions I had to answer for Dark Horse, a conversation with the curator at the John Hay Library (they're going to help me retrieve files from very, very old diskettes, 1986 into the late 1990s), sorting through more of the papers that are going to the Hay, helping Spooky with eBay stuff. Speaking of which:
You know the refrain. We're in that "between checks" limbo right now that is the hallmark of life as a freelancer, so eBay sales are currently very important. Please have a look! All books can be signed and personalized. Items up at the moment include Two Worlds and In Between, The Crimson Alphabet, and the Portuguese-language edition of The Drowning Girl. Thank you!
I've got to get back to work on the screenplay. This week. In theory. I'm trying to teach myself Final Draft, and it's mostly a baffling affair. But I have finally accepted that the scenes of the screenplay will be written out of order, the way I never write anything.
And now, television, because I've been watching far too much of it. Some quick thoughts:
1. We finished Carnivàle last night. The last episode of Season Two was beautiful, sublime, and as a premature ending that no one intended as an ending it works far better than I'd expected. It's actually the sort of ambiguous "ending" I might have written as an intentional conclusion, the sort that pisses a lot of people off because they want to know "what happened." And yet, oh what marvels would have unfolded if only Daniel Knauf's six-season plan could have been realized. It was, like Deadwood, I think, a show that was just a little before it's time, though I also think it helped pave the way for this New Golden Age of Television, where such dark, unconventional, expansive storytelling is possible.
2. Have I mentioned my Peter Dinklage fetish?
3. I'm absolutely adoring Penny Dreadful. We watched three more episodes last night. As I told Kathryn, it's a delight, and it's utterly charming. And extraordinarily sexy. Eva Green is going to be taking a space up there with Peter Dinklage, especially after that séance scene in the second episode - which is titled, as it happens, "Séance." Learning that the effects for the scene were mostly accomplished in camera, I was even more impressed. So far I've had only one small complaint, really, and it's that the horridly green absinthe in the fourth episode, "Demimonde," doesn't louche when Dorian adds water. It's an inexplicable sort of faux pas, truly.
And now...work.
Later Taters,
Aunt Beast