Sunday, January 03, 2010

Mysterious Cities of Gold

hen I was a kid, this short-lived cartoon was one of my fleeting addictions:

That theme!  I can’t remember the show, but that theme….

Friday, January 01, 2010

To the Lighthouse

ut what after all is one night?  A short space, especially when the darkness dims so soon, and so soon a bird sings, a cock crows, or a faint green quickens, like a turning leaf, in the hollow of the wave.  Night, however, succeeds to night.  The winter holds a pack of them in store and deals them equally, evenly, with indefatigable fingers.  They lengthen; they darken.  Some of them hold aloft clear planets, plates of brightness.

“The autumn trees, ravaged as they are, take on the flash of tattered flags kindling in the gloom of cool cathedral caves where gold letters on marble pages describe death in battle and how bones bleach and burn far away in Indian sands.  The autumn trees gleam in the yellow moonlight, in the light of harvest moons, the light which mellows the energy of labour, and smooths the stubble, and brings the wave lapping blue to the shore.

“It seemed now as if, touched by human penitence and all its toil, divine goodness had parted the curtain and displayed behind it, single, distinct, the hare erect; the wave falling; the boat rocking; which, did we deserve them, should be ours always.  But alas, divine goodness, twitching the cord, draws the curtain; it does not please him; he covers his treasures in a drench of hail, and so breaks them, so confuses them that it seems impossible that their calm should ever return or that we should ever compose from their fragments a perfect whole or read in the littered pieces the clear words of truth.  For our penitence deserves a glimpse only; our toil respite only.

“The nights now are full of wind and destruction; the trees plunge and bend and their leaves fly helter skelter until the lawn is plastered with them and they lie packed in gutters and choke rain pipes and scatter damp paths.  Also the sea tosses itself and breaks itself, and should any sleeper fancying that he might find on the beach an answer to his doubts, a sharer of his solitude, throw off his bedclothes and go down by himself to walk on the sand, no image with semblance of serving and divine promptitude comes readily to hand bringing the night to order and making the world reflect the compass of the soul.  The hand dwindles in his hand; the voice bellows in his ear.  Almost it would appear that it is useless in such confusion to ask the night those questions as to what, and why, and wherefore, which tempt the sleeper from his bed to seek an answer.”

-Virginia Woolf

Thursday, December 31, 2009

French Navy

Camera Obscura: French Navy

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Rhymes

t’s cold in the cafe, but when I look at the couple in question I imagine their bulky parkas and sports-team sweatshirts are all-season wear, the kind of ratty uniforms that draw judgmental stares from fellow bus riders on humid July afternoons.  I’m guilty of judging, but it’s not their clothes that catch my attention—it’s a loopy, repetitive rhyming game.

Him: “Stitch.”
Her: “Bait and switch.”
Him: “Tear at the stitch.”
Her: “Stitch?”
Him: “I said ‘tear at the stitch.’”
Her: “How about ‘bait and switch?”

And so on, endlessly, moving from rhyme to rhyme without discernible meaning.  A scrap of paper is involved, and I wonder if it’s Mad Libs or poetry or insane manifesto.  Perhaps I am too hasty to judge.

The rhyming game reaches its end.  No winner is declared.  As the couple leaves, they debate leaving their pile of food garbage on their table for the waitress to clean.  “She gave me a fuckin’ attitude,” the woman says.  Her man didn’t notice.  It’s decided: waitress will just have to deal with the mess.  They attempt to leave through the emergency exit—once, twice, thrice, fourth time’s a char… nope, door still won’t open. Embarrassment. Frustration. The normal, for-chumps exit is utilized.  From the sidewalk this woman flips the whole cafe off, and me in it.  I am delighted and offended.

I love this moment, and I want to record it.  I remember I have a blog, and briefly consider the implications of sharing something so slight in such a public forum.  Then I tell myself that the internet exists, in part, to archive memories.  I spend a lot of time obsessing about how this site might read to a stranger.  I get caught up in presentation, professionalism, and polished honesty.  This seems less useful, even in the short-term, than using the internet for what it is, right now: an infinite conversation.

I commit to writing more in the present, without knowing exactly what that means.

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Coast to Coast

’ve been a terrible blogger this month.  It’s a busy time of year, and my free time has been claimed by scriptwriting and planning for 2010, which promises to be an eventful year.

30 days’ worth of delightful milestones, condensed:

• Finished a spec script for 30 Rock, hopefully demonstrating my chameleon-like ability to write in other people’s voices.  Hopefully 30 Rock will stay relevant for another season or two.
• Obsessively read the comments for our Hard Left Choose Your Own Adventure sketch (see previous entry).  Not a lot of helpful feedback from the YouTube crowd, but lots of fun and affirmation.
• Brought Code Duello to the UCB for our first UCB show outside the Del Close Marathon.  New Yorkers turned out in spades, and we had a very enthusiastic and welcoming full house.  We’re headed back there in early January.  Matt and I are also reinventing the show itself, retaining some superficial elements of our structure while drilling deeper into the characters.
• Submitted Unbalanced to the ITVFest in LA, one of the few festivals on which I hang a lot of my hopes for the pilot.
• Watched far too much (good) television and read too few books.
• Helped Sarah build the framework for her own website.  Outlined a plan for filling it with content.
• Launched my next screenwriting project.
• Experienced Sleep No More for the first time.  Obsessed with going again.

On top of all this, I’m cautiously approaching 2010’s biggest project: moving to Los Angeles.  Sarah and I have been dancing with the specter of LA for a year, and every month it becomes more of a real thing, a plan with shape and purpose.  The latest date that we will move is July 31st, but it may be earlier depending on what opportunities we discover in the next six months.  Every snowfall may be “our last in Boston.”  It’s an exciting time.

For example: the cost of moving all of our scrappy, utilitarian furniture to LA is equal to the cost of buying all new furnishings in our new home.  Can we really sell most of our belongings in the next six months?  It’s liberating to think so.

Friday, November 13, 2009

Ghosts Are Gross

’m proud to help unveil the newest Hard Left Productions YouTube sketch, an interactive Choose Your Own Adventure!  Thanks to Robert and Taylor for the invitation to write, direct, and edit this piece.  We shot it in a single day.

If you share it with friends and family (please do), make sure YouTube annotations are on… that’s the interactive part!