Nobody Knows Anything

• It makes me happy that all personal music players are iPods and shows are podcasts #

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• License plate sighted today: MATTBEN Must be a fan. #

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Via, of all things, First Draft: Things I Am Not Allowed To Do About Galactica

1. Not allowed to refer to Samuel Anders as “Mr. Kara Thrace.”
* Not allowed to refer to Major Adama as “Mr. Kara Thrace.”
* Especially in front of his wife.
* Not allowed to suggest to Major Adama’s wife that she “do the cheating frakhead one better” by joining me in the rear cargo bay after hours.
2. Not allowed to refer to Admiral Adama as “Mr. Laura Roslin.”
3. Not allowed to spell Colonel Tigh’s name “T-G-H” and claim “the Cylons took the I,” as it is cruel and not remotely funny.
* Okay, so it’s hilarious. It’s still cruel.
…
36. Not allowed, under any circumstances, to ask President Roslin who died and put her in charge.
37. The time has passed for the joke about the Cylon, the pyramid team, the elevator, and Ellen Tigh.
* Or any of its variants.
38. There is no such thing as “recreational gun use.”
* No, not even if Captain Thrace did it first.
* Oh my gods, especially not if Admiral Cain did it first.
* Not allowed to mention Admiral Cain. Ever.
39. Captain Thrace is not a pre- or post-op ANYTHING.
40. Not allowed to utter the phrase “Save a Viper! Fly a pilot!” ever, ever again.
…
373. I cannot plug my laptop into Hera.
*Even if the battery is about to die.
*I cannot “borrow” her to replace my Viper battery.

374. If I see Gaeta glaring at Colonel Tigh, I cannot offer him a pen and “see what happens.”
*You can poke an(other) eye out with those things.

375. A glower from the Admiral cannot be alleviated with an offering of Metamucil.
376. The Admiral, The Vice President, and the President’s relationships cannot be explained by substituting in characters from “Dawson’s Creek.”
*Likewise regarding Lee, Dee, Kara, & Anders and the show “Passions.”
*I am not a soap star.
*I am not a porn star.
*I am not allowed to ask Anders or Apollo to costar in any video ventures.
*Captain Thrace and Major Apollo’s relationship may also not be explained by “OK, imagine if Han Solo slept with Luke Skywalker.”

377. “Awww,” is not an acceptable reaction when the President and Admiral walk into a room together.
*The same goes for Baltar and Gaeta.
*Or Tigh and Cottle.

• Why have entries in Spanish shown up in my Twitter feed? #
• School supplies are now divvied up. It’s like school really will begin tomorrow. Not like I’m counting or anything. #

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• Library books: before they’re due, they’re everywhere, under foot, cluttering up the house; when they’re due, they’re nowhere to be found. #

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I hated this movie. So, just in case you think the praise is universal: tisn’t. At 10 minutes in, I considered walking out; at 45 minutes in, I actually asked Darin if I could go meet him in the bookstore later on, and he asked me to just hold on for a little bit. Which I did. Next time: bookstore.

I disliked one of the main characters. I hated the plot. I hated the resolution. I liked bits with the cops…but they went on forever, until they’d definitely worn out their welcome. I liked Michael Cera (the tall lanky one, from Arrested Development) — that kid has quite a future ahead of him, but the rest of the movie was ugly enough to make me want to throw something at the screen. The guys who wrote this movie (who are, like the main characters, named “Seth” and “Evan”) clearly hate and/or fear women. Women solely as fuck objects evidently starts early and for some guys never, ever changes, especially when they get in a position to make a damn movie.

I told Darin that if this movie bears any relationship to the real world, I’ve moved past wanting to home school them and will probably just smother them now, to avoid the pain.

After two incredibly busy weeks, the Third Annual Foothill College New Works Festival comes to an end. I can’t believe it — I remember looking at the summer of rehearsals and going, Wow, this is going to take forever, and like every time you have that thought: Poof. It’s over.

The whole experience was fabulous. Watching the director work with the actors, seeing the actors try various things, sitting through several rehearsals of not only my show but others to see how they were coming together: priceless. Also, my critical faculties zoomed way up during the process — as I told Mary Ann during our drives to and from Foothill, I was itching to get out my red pen and edit everyone’s play, not just my own. “Give me a chance, I’ll take out five minutes from everyone’s play!” I said. (This wasn’t an option for any of us; final edits were due July 24: they were not chancing playwrights rewriting up until opening night.)

The only thing that had me really, really worried was that the show was really, really long (two and a half hours, including intermission) and my play was last. Why was mine last? Was this a comment on my play? Would the audience even stay that long to see mine? (Seriously, I can overanalyze anything.) I liked the friends who told me mine was last because you always save the best for last. I have no idea how in fact the show order was chosen, but that explanation suited me just fine.

And then, August 10, the birthday of moi, the New Works Festival opened. I discovered that I can’t see a play as if for the first time: all I could see was where the actors did something different, or missed a line. Why didn’t the audience laugh at that? Or, why did they laugh at that line, that was never funny before. I couldn’t accurately judge what the audience thought of any one play, but they sure seemed to like the evening overall. The actors had so much more energy with an actual audience there. Lines went faster, action became more electric. Theater is a participatory sport, whether or not the audience knows it.

Darin went to the show on Saturday night.

Darin’s special genius is being able to honestly assess things for what they are, point out their strengths, and analyze their weaknesses. This turns out to be a very marketable skill (as you might imagine), although a couple of times it’s really, really annoyed some people; they don’t want to hear criticism, they just want to hear how great everything is. If this is what you want, Darin is not your guy. I don’t show everything I write to Darin, because if I ask him what he thinks, he’s going to tell me. Only when I’m sure I’m ready to hear it do I ask.

When he came home from the show, he said, “I’m not sure which was the best, yours or (other play), but I liked both of them for (list of reasons here).” And you have no idea how much that critique meant to me. We discussed some of the other plays too, and he had much the same take on most of them that I did. I’m sure if I would have let him, he would have done an analysis of my play that would show me where I could strengthen it and explain a bit more, and which parts I could cut but I didn’t ask and he’s not going to volunteer (because he likes being married and he knows my process by now).

My friend Rob went with Darin Saturday and told me he really enjoyed it too, particularly mine. He even said, “You should write more of these,” which was nice to hear. And he even explained to me why mine was last: “no dull moments…
perhaps not every joke worked, but one had not time to ponder it because, hey, here’s the next one.”

So, it’s all over now. Alas. I am quite fired up to finish a full-length play and submit to a few festivals. The Foothill Playwriting class starts Sept. 26 — if you’re looking for a great writing class with a committed (and committable) bunch of writers in it, I highly recommend it.

• 15.6 miles this morning — after 6 hours of sleep. I’m going to feel it tomorrow! I’m going to need a month to recover from this summer. #

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Today I ran across this article, which notes the attempt by Nestle in Australia to copyright two images of coffee in a mug:

At stake are two images of coffee; one is a cup of black coffee in a white cup viewed from above.

The other is an image of a red coffee mug, viewed from the front.

If Nestle is successful coffee roasters, sellers and even cafes risk breaching copyright if they use images similar to Nestle’s.

And you just wanna say, Are you kidding? Of course they are not: companies are not screwing around with this stuff, because every tiny victory they win pushes the envelope for exactly how far they can go in owning every image, word, thought. Copyrighting a particular instance of coffee in a mug? Hey, have at it. (Although, that would be a trademark, wouldn’t it? Damn, I can never remember this stuff.) But to own the actual concept of coffee in a white or red mug?

Ye Gods. The sheer gall.

Tonight is the Preview, and tomorrow (MY BIRTHDAY, there’s one shopping day left) is the OPENING NIGHT. And the show looks really, really good. I saw the dress rehearsal last night and was amazed by a)how good the costumes for my play are — I laughed a couple of times just at those) and b)how some actors can still get laughs with certain lines even after we’ve all seen all of the shows about 493 times. And there are the serious plays that are still affecting, still after 493 performances. It’s all good stuff.

Remember: here’s the show info (mine is the one with both God and the devil, just in case you were wondering), and you can buy tickets online for the Foothill New Works Festival. It’s two hours of entertaining theater for a low price! Where else do you get that kind of return on your investment? Come on, you know you want to.