Fail in order to succeed

You may have noticed how much I admire John August. I think his screenwriting blog is a treasure, as are the glimpses of his vantage point throughout the making of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Big Fish and his directorial debut, The Nines. I really enjoyed this article about what he learned from failure. I think we all have stories like this one, but it is only in hindsight that we can take these lessons. You can’t warn someone off of this mistake, that failure. You can’t protect people from a spectacular failure of their own, because to do so, would rob them of all the knowledge that comes with it.

I think the most I ever learned about directing a play came from the play that I screwed up so badly, I had to cancel it two weeks before opening night. Part of the problem was, half of the cast was not at all invested in the show and thus would skip rehearsals with no warning, come unprepared and three weeks before the show was to go up, had not memorized a single line. The small crew was equally unreliable, and my stage manager was a much more effective saboteur then SM. (He insulted cast members, fired two crew members without consulting me and “lost” all the set designs when they were due to our adviser.) Priority number one from that semester on was “find good people.” Whatever else went wrong in the future (and stuff did go wrong,) if you have an invested set of people, you can make magic happen.

This was the first and last play I ever agreed to direct without reading the script first. It was definitely the last time I let myself over-commit and pretend that I could direct, pull together costume design, makeup and set design and that the lights would just take care of them selves. Exactly one year after the cancelled show didn’t open, I directed an amazing production of The Laramie Project, a project that still tops my list of greatest achievements in life. Had I not failed so miserably a year before, I would not have held out for the best cast possible in casting, would not have worked so hard to outsource the sound production, special effects, prop management, costume design etc. The show was exhausting and emotionally draining, but people on campus, 3 years later, still tell me it was one of the best shows they have seen here.

To pick up a woman, first put her down

I actually caught an episode of  “The Pick Up Artist” one afternoon while I was home sick.  I missed out on many of the “rules,” that this character, Mystery, had imparted to his protegees, but most of them had slick sounding nicknames or abbreviations, like “negging.”  The whole show made me feel dirty and uncomfortable.  Maybe I am not their target audience, but if a guy in a bar used almost any of the prescribed “negging” lines on me, I would close out my tab and head off to another bar.  Some of the most used lines included:

• (Girl turns away, clearly not interested in the guy.)  Don’t be rude baby, the conversation is over here.  (If she still doesn’t turn around, guy turns to his friend and says,) Is she always so rude?  She doesn’t have to be a bitch about it.
• (Touches a girl’s hair)  Your hair would be pretty if it wasn’t so long (or short, or curly or straight, you get the picture).
• In any other bar, you would be the prettiest girl in the room.
• (My favorite!) Guys invite girl and her friend to his VIP couch section of the bar, then proceeds to ignore the girl he is actually into, compliment her friend, then whenever girl he likes starts to talk, he would put his hand in her face or shush her saying “Hey, we’re talking here.”  At some point, he turns the table, puts his arm around the girl he actually likes and ignores the friend until she leaves.

Are girls dumb enough to fall for this?  Do we enjoy having a strange guy put us down with a backhanded compliment.  It was difficult to tell from the editing of the show how long the boys were at work and how many women they approached before one “set” agreed to hang out with him on the couch. There were clips of multiple sets of girls telling a guy to “f- off when he pushed a little to hard on the rude segue into conversation.”  One guy was told to stop swearing or the conversation was over; he called her a bitch and she walked away, to which “Mystery” (watching on a hidden camera) shook his head and said, “not worth it man, move on, find a good one.”  Clearly, a true pick-up artist has no use for women with any kind of limits or self respect.

Success in this episode included getting a girl’s digits or agreeing to move onto the next bar together.

I would also be curious to find out if the girls in the bar knew they were being filmed.   I wonder how that would influence their behavior- would they be more or less willing to be abused verbally on camera?

I am skeptical when advertising for a new DVD claims to have “300 hours of bonus material.”  I have discovered that this usually includes three or four sets of audio commentary on the film by various actors, directors, writers, costume designers, musical directors, stunt teams or special effects teams.

As a writer, I have found commentary by some writers/directors to be illuminating, not only in reference to the film or television show in front of me, but to the writing process, creative solutions to common writers issues and even insight into what a life of television writing/screen writing looks like.

My favorite commentators include

• Joss Whedon (Buffy, Angel, Firefly.)  His commentary for the final episode of Buffy literally brought me to tears, it was so beautiful.  Also, he is extremely generous when it comes to explaining how the process of script to screen works.
• Marti Noxon (Buffy, Gilmore Girls) Has some great things to say about humor, why some jokes work, what she would change on  paper having seen the scene played out by the actors.
• The cast of The Office (US) Since many of them are writers and directors, they often talk about how the story broke in the writer’s room and then how it changed when one of the actors took the joke and ran with it.  It is interesting to hear the actors who aren’t on the writing staff try to guess which scenes are ad-libed and which are written; they are wrong almost 50% of the time.

Commentary I hope to hear (writers whose work I enjoy and have read their blogs/interviews that make me think their commentary will be interesting.)

• John August.  I have the newly released The Nines at the top of my NetFlix queue.  His blog (johnaugust.com) indicates that the DVD is full of great extras, like a script-storyboard-scene section that shows all three steps in the process.
• Shandra Rhimes.  Someday I will rent the Grey’s Anatomy Season One DVD.  I would love to hear her thoughts on the pilot, which I think is brilliantly structured and nuanced.  I am less interested in the commentary on Season 2 and 3, when the drama shifts from “I don’t know what the hell I am doing in life,”  to “complicated storylines based around sex.”
• Writers on “The Wire.”  Also planning on renting this show, as I have heard rave reviews about the content, the writing and the vision of the people behind it.

Commentary I don’t enjoy: I don’t want to single anyone out, but I will usually stop the commentary about 20 minutes into the movie if  one or more of the following criteria are met:

• Poor sound quality (I listened to one commentary that had a crying baby on it!)
• Actors talking about how great the other person is, aren’t they just wonderful, she is just super sweet, this one time in his trailer . . . I just don’t care, thank you.
• Directors/Cinematographers who start to talk about the different types of lenses/shots/cranes and how much each costs to rent/use/develop
• Long digressions into personal life stuff

“If anything characterizes the 21st century, it’s our inability to restrain ourselves for the benefit of other people,” said James Katz, director of the Center for Mobile Communication Studies at Rutgers University. “The cellphone talker thinks his rights go above that of people around him, and the jammer thinks his are the more important rights.”  NY Times, Devices Enforce Silence of Cellphones, Illegally

Yesterday afternoon, after a leisurely brunch, Nicole and I settled down on a brown leather couch in a nearby coffee shop. Nicole had a good deal of homework to finish, mostly textbook reading, and I was making every effort to relax and recharge my batteries post-GRE-Literature test and pre-Cartooning for Peace, by reading the Sunday Times and old copies of Poets and Writers magazine.

Reading and studying is going extremely well for about an hour. Everyone around us is likewise engaged, either with text books, novels or laptops.

Then, one girl sitting behind me answers her cell phone. She begins to talk. Loudly. About the wedding she just went to, what her bridesmaid’s dress looked like and the hot guy at the reception that she hooked up with. Ten minutes later, she starts to talk about her applications to graduate school, complete with citations of her GMAT scores and her GPA and which schools she feels are a lock.

Nicole and I are seated closest to this young woman, but everyone in our half of the coffee shop are glancing up at her, even the people wearing head phones. It is clear that this girl is irritating every single person in the room, yet is completely unaware.

Nicole and I began a very quiet debate about whether or not we could ask this young woman to take her conversation outside. I was held back by the fact that I was reading for pleasure and not studying, so why should my rights over rule hers. Nicole looked around for a sign on the wall that indicated cell phones were not welcome in that space, but could not find any.

So what is the proper etiquette? Clearly, this girl was violating the unspoken agreement that everyone else in the room was following; all conversations should be conducted in a near whisper. Would the staff of the coffee shop have supported us if we had spoken up? It seems like this is one of those grey areas that Miss Manners never quite got around to covering. Clearly, the “polite” procedure would have been for the young woman to take her phone call outside, but barring that, what is the polite way for a by-stander to ask someone to take their phone call elsewhere?

A frustrating analysis and criticism of the Atlanta drought situation and what should have/could have been done to prevent the situation.

Things that I was not aware of until reading this article:

• The drought is over a year old. Ask around and my guess is the average person only became aware of it in August or September, when things got really bad. If someone had mentioned something sooner, could we have helped prevent the situation?
• “Most golf courses are classified as “agricultural.”” Yet golf courses do not produce anything . . . I bet the boys at the club are laughing about that one.
• “Officials have little notion how to provide for a projected doubling of demand over the next 30 years.” A doubling of demand for water in Atlanta! Just how fast can they put up those town home complexes?
• “On Oct. 1, Stone Mountain Park began to make snow for a winter mountain, hoping to attract children who had not seen the real thing. The mountain was planned during the very wet summer of 2005, and the state and local governments were duly informed, said Christine Parker, a spokeswoman for the park.” First of all, why the hell would you build a mountain of snow when it is still 80 degrees outside? Wouldn’t it make more sense to do it in the winter, say “A White Christmas spectacular.” Secondly, why didn’t anyone at the park think, hey maybe we should hold off on this project until next year.

Does anyone have good suggestions as to how to reduce my own water usage? I don’t have a lawn, don’t regularly wash my car and now use only recycled water to water my one pot of plants. Any other suggestions or good references you can point me to?

An entertaining, (if slightly predictable) book review of “How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read“  This one is from the New Yorker, which for those of you who know about my Sunday reading habits, is not my usual book review reference, but I thought it was worth a good chuckle.

Radiohead just released its new album online.  It’s called In Rainbows, and it costs: however much you want to pay for it!  That’s right; Radiohead’s just that cool and edgy.  Of course, they can afford to be.  So I’m not sure how much this is revolutionary.  But still, it’s nice to see the music industry all tizzied up over it.  I haven’t listened to the cd yet, but maybe I’ll post a review when I get a chance.  I have the gut feeling it will be too modern, dissonant, and experimental for me.  I have to admit, I was a little more of a The Bends and OK Computer (grr minus ‘fitter happier’…) kind of girl.  A little more establishment Radiohead, if such a thing exists.  Really, I just think I can’t quite get to the point where ‘like spinning plates’ will do it for me.  I like my music a little more comfortable than that.  But we’ll see.  At any rate, [hehe get it] when it comes down to it, Radiohead’s still pushing boundaries.

No not politics, your brains, sillies.

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,22535838-5012895,00.html

I’m definitely a right-brainer, although I can make it switch if I try really hard.  Good times.

It is nice to know that all of us are capable of a little hero worship.  A O Scott, a reviewer for the New York Times, is capable of ripping apart a film with cruel yet witty commentary.  At times, he seems to care little for the hearts and souls of the director, screenwriter, actors or crew of any given film.  He is merciless when a film does not live up to his standards, which often appear to be placed high above the rooftops of the New York City skyscrapers.

So, it was nice to see him brought back down to the level of an average fan, someone who can appreciate an artist not only for their talent, dedication and accomplishment, but because they are just so freaking cool.  Scott sounds almost breathless during certain paragraphs of his latest review, which focuses on Bruce Springsteen’s latest album and upcoming tour.

It was nice to read a piece by a reviewer who is so unabashedly a fan as well.  The opening paragraphs include this rant:

Bright and early, me and my girl — my wife of nearly two decades, that is — had let the screen door slam, dropped off the kids at school and set out on the open road, blowing through the E-ZPass lanes on the Garden State Parkway in our Volvo station wagon. We had an advance copy of Mr. Springsteen’s new album, “Magic,” in the CD slot, and most of his back catalog in reserve on the iPod. And now we were driving down Kingsley, figuring we’d get a latte. One more chance to make it real. Tramps like us, baby!Our purpose was not to fantasize but rather to observe the E Street Band in rehearsal, and then to hear what the man himself had to say about the new record, the coming tour and whatever else was on his mind.

Later, Scott comes right out and admits that he is a fan that hangs on every word that The Boss puts to music.  I can appreciate a review with a bias, so long as the reviewer is honest and upfront about it.

Possibly my favorite part of the review/interview was this sentence:

 ”. . . he looked trimmer and tanner than he had the last time I’d seen him, which was on the JumboTron video screen at Giants Stadium a few years back. “

On one other note, part of this review made it clear to me that in our modern musical landscape, there are artists and there are “pop phenomenons.”  There are performers that spend hours in rehearsal, trying to nail a piece of complicated choreography in order to stay in time with the fireworks and light show.  There are others who work on the harmonies of a complicated vocal lick.  Then, as this awe-filled review beautifully describes, there are those artists who work to encompass an entire range of emotions, a political statement and a personal reflection in the space between songs.

In conversation, Mr. Springsteen has a lot to say about what has happened in America over the last six years: “Disheartening and heartbreaking. Not to mention enraging” is how he sums it up. But his most direct and powerful statement comes, as you might expect, onstage. It is not anything he says or sings, but rather a piece of musical dramaturgy, the apparently simple, technical matter of shifting from one song to the next.

On the Convention Hall stage, the band handled the new material as deftly as the chestnuts — after 35 years together, communication is pretty much effortless — pausing to work out an occasional kink or adjust the sound mix. But they must have gone over the segue from “The Rising” to their next number at least a half-dozen times.

“You’ve got to let that chord sustain. Everybody!” Mr. Springsteen urged. “It can’t die down.”

The guitarists had the extra challenge of keeping the sound going while changing instruments, a series of baton-relay sprints for the crew whose job was to assist with the switch, until a dissonant organ ring came in to signal a change of key and the thunderous opening of “Last to Die.” It’s not much of an exaggeration to say that Mr. Springsteen’s take on the post-9/11 history of the United States can be measured in the space between the choruses of those two songs. The audience is hurled from a rousing exhortation (“Come on up to the rising”) to a grim, familiar question: “Who’ll be the last to die for a mistake?”

“That’s why we had to get that very right today,” he said later. “You saw us working on it. That thing has to come down like the world’s falling on you, that first chord. It’s got to screech at the end of ‘The Rising,’ and then it’s got to crack, rumble. The whole night is going to turn on that segue. That’s what we’re up there for right now, that 30 seconds.”

I am not trying to place a value judgement on pop music, which even The Boss seems to celebrate with his latest album, but perhaps it is worth noting that the musician capable of such powerful musical statements has been around far longer then any pop prince or princess and thus, the things he has to say are taken much more serious by a difficult-to-please reviewer, who readily admits to the world that he is a fan.

When I used to work in a coffee shop (The Dragonfly Caffe in New York!) we would get people in to the store all the time who would order a macchiato, expecting to get something that looks like this:

Imagine their disappointment when instead, they received this:

If only the owner of the cafe had posted a copy of the following Coffee Diagram on the menu board, then my job would have been much easier and I would have been called an idiot far fewer times. For those of you who haven’t experienced a real macchiato, go to a real, non-corporate coffee shop and order one in a real glass espresso cup with a biscotti. You’ll thank me later.