1001

Back home tonight from Canberra.  Saw the Renaissance exhibition at the National Gallery today, and thoroughly enjoyed it.  And now I’m exhausted, and I won’t get to rest properly for at least a week.  Often times I feel like I want to die, but not I feel like I’m going to die.  Urgh.

The big posts will have to come later.

On the way up from Canberra, for the three and a half hour drive, I managed to map out half the play in my head – or rather, populate it with some characters (it had no characters before), and have more than a few key moments I want to get to.  And I’ve got a metaphorical object, like in The Seagull and The Wild Duck, and I’ve got a name for it too.  How very productive of me.

0 pages on the Gross und Klein review, though.

And now, sleep, sweet sleep.  The motel bed was slightly too small for me last night, and I woke up multiple times, I think.

1000

My 1000th post tonight, and I write while sitting in a motel in Canberra, typing on a keyboard that refuses to cooperate with me, and on an internet connection that can only be described astenuous.  I had planned something much larger than this, but it will have to wait until tomorrow night, methinks, when I am back in Sydney.

Today I saw the Handwritten exhibition at the National Library of Australia, and thoroughly enjoyed myself – I plan to write something much larger about that as well.  Tomorrow I see the Renaissance exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia.

Watched Opera Australia’s DVD of their most recent La Boheme production tonight, sitting on my bed in the room of the motel, and cried at the end – manly tears, they were, manly tears.  How unfortunate for me that I started reviewing opera just after it had finished!  Like watching Travesties just after War of the Roses had finished at the STC.  Ah, the near-misses of life.

Also saw part of one of the 250 (or was it 230) known copies of the First Folio in another room of the Library.  I read the first page of The Merchant of Venice.  Rather meaninful, methinks.

Anyway, happy 1000 to me.

And I better post this before the internet decides to run away.

A Play Again

The play, whatever it’s going to be called, will be subtitled, “An Indifferent Comedy”.

That’s all I’ve worked out today.

Productive.  Yeah.

A Play

I may, I may, I may have a play.  To write, that is.  I have one line so far, and I’ve no idea if it’s the first or not, and I’ve no idea if I even will want it in the play.  The line is such:

“This is so much more than a cup, dear friends.”

Or:

“How much more than a cup this is!”

Something about artists, methinks.  How terribly cliched.

But I’ve got no idea what it is, really.  It needs some time to percolate.

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0 pages on the Gross und Klein review today.  3 reviews left to write.

I’ve managed to write the Thyestes review, and now I’m considering writing a fully-fledged play, all the while when I should be writing the Gross und Klein review.  Is this what I need to work – a large task that I can procrastinate against by writing other stuff?  Of course, now that I’ve noticed it, I may have just jinxed myself…

Timeless Classics

Saw the Sydney Omega Ensemble’s Timeless Classics today in the Utzon Room of l’Opera House.  Took mother with me – first time she’s been to l’Opera House.  I don’t know why I’ve suddenly become fond of calling it l’Opera House.

Concert was rather good, though.

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On what I was talking about yesterday, with Shakespeare/Chekhov/etc feeling like they’re not telling me a story, whereas most Australian plays do: most Australian plays, I’ve noticed, have far less characters than your typical Shakespeare/Chekhov.  I wonder if that has anything to do with it.  There’s something very restrictive about most Australian plays.

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o pages on the Gross und Klein review today.  And I’ve got four other reviews to write.  Busy busy busy.  Going to Canberra this week as well.

Babyteeth

One of the greatest ironies of life is that, just when you think you can’t take it any more, you realise you can.

No particular reason for the above – just thought of it today when I was emptying the garbage, and it seemed rather profound to me.

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Saw Babyteeth at Belvoir today.  Good, not great.  Not as good as Neighbourhood Watch which was also good, not great.  Sigh.

Babyteeth, Neighbourhood Watch, Gwen in Purgatory, and so on – they all had lots of elements of things that had happened in the past, and not just characters’ past experiences, but stuff that affected/came-to-a-head in the present of the play.  Did Shakespeare have that to anywhere near the same extent?  The difference between Shakespeare and those plays above is that Shakespeare had both cause and effect, whereas the plays above tell us the cause, and show the effect.  Kind of.  Babyteeth doesn’t really fit into that statement.

I don’t know what I’m saying.

Chekhov was much more like Shakespeare than the above in that regard.

You know what it is that I don’t like about Australian plays that I’ve seen – all the bad ones, that is (which is most)?  They all feel like they’re telling a story.  I don’t get that when I watch Shakespeare/Chekhov/Beckett/and so on.  It’s like the difference between flipping through a photo album as opposed to watching nature.  (Not that Australian plays are the only ones with this quality.)  (And Summer of the Seventeenth Doll managed not to be photo-album-ish.)

0 pages on the Gross und Klein review today.  And I meant to write some of it, and I got sidetracked.  Sigh.

An Alpine Symphony

Saw An Alpine Symphony: Music at the Peak tonight with the Sydney Symphony.  Fantastic, it was.  Fantastic.

Been reading The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami lately.  Thoroughly enjoying that too.

0 pages on the Gross und Klein review.  Le sigh.  Feel like I should be thinking about The Marriage of Figaro more too.

A most unproductive day all round, indeed.

The King’s Singers

Saw The King’s Singers tonight at l’Opera House.  Rather fantastic, they were.  Almost didn’t get a program – they were free, and meant to be on the seats, but the ushers were short, so they handed them out at the doors instead, and I seemed to miss out on mine.  I walked all the way out once I got into the very middle seat of my row and saw lots of other people with programs, asked the person at the merchandise stand about them, walked all the way back down to the middle of the row once more, and fumed.  Father managed to get one during the interval, the last program left off an usher, thank goodness.  It would have been an interesting review, you see, if I had no idea what the names of the songs they sung were.

Got the Opera Australia DVD of La Boheme today, to review.  Looking forward to it immensely.

0 pages on the Gross und Klein today.  Yeah, yeah, I know.

Yes, Prime Minster

No, I didn’t fly down to Melbourne to see the stage show.  Rather, I watched the first season of Yes, Prime Minister today.  I can’t remember if I’ve seen it before or not – I’ve definitely seen quite a lot of the show over the years, though I’m not sure if I’ve ever sat down to watch all of it systematically.

Rather enjoyed myself, I did.

Rather, rather, rather.  I’m fairly certain I don’t actually use the word ‘rather’ all that much when I’m talking to people in real life.  Rather interesting, that.  Yes, rather.

1 page on the Gross und Klein review today.

Il Divo

In response to what I wrote about the dream yesterday: when I was driving home from the Sunday Forum I was on the M4, and with all the rain it was near-impossible to see the lines on the road.  That would explain the bit about turning the corner.  As for the rest – no idea.  I like to try and piece together the inspiration for my dreams from recent memories, but I’ve failed miserably with this one.  I wonder if that means it’s more important than the others.

It’s the afternoon as I write this – around 2.40.  (I usually write my blog post just before I go to bed late at night.)  Feeling particularly suicidal today, most likely because I feel particularly unwell – my mood is often bad enough by itself without adding physical torment into the equation.

Still, I doubt I’ll do anything about it.  After all, I’m going to see Il Divo tonight.  Not that I’m a fan of theirs one way or the other (indeed, I’m barely aware of them), but the tickets were expensive, and that makes me somewhat happy, hence off I go.  At $500 for the two tickets, and a five hundred word review to write after, I’m effectively being paid a dollar a word, which is nice, sort of.

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Saw Il Divo tonight at le Opera House.  The program was $30.  Thirty dollars.  Definitely wasn’t worth it, either.  But the concert was rather good.

1 page on the Gross und Klein review today.  Which means I’ve started writing it again.  Huzzah!  Not so suicidal any more.