We tried to enter the new work-year today with a positive attitude and I suppose we succeeded, at least to some degree. We took our staff out to lunch to an Indian restaurant we frequent, but which recently has changed names and owners. It is no longer the place we liked so well, but it is nonetheless a pleasant buffet experience for those who like Indian food. We closed the doors to the office, walked out, and had lunch. That's not something I'd normally do...leave the office phones unattended...but I am becoming highly adventurous and risk-tolerant in my advancing age. Actually, we left the guy who installed a new and outrageously expensive server for our LAN...he was doing a few odds & ends to finish the job. It will take until the far end of time to pay for that job, but we desperately needed it and feel safer now, with a new mirrored server and much better tape backup system requiring only one tape per night!
After a shorter-than-usual workday, my wife and I headed toward home, wondering what we might eat for dinner (though I know I could have skipped it altogether...and should have). We settled on a Cuban restaurant we've wanted to try, where my wife had ropas viejos and I had extremely flavorful beef steaks, smothered in tomato and garlic sauce. My order was tasty but too much food, so I practiced my Spanish a bit, asking our waitress for a small box to go. She corrected me, and I appreciated it, when I said "¿Tiene una cajita para ir?" Her correction was "¿una cajita para llevar?" I told her my Spanish was poor and I wanted to practice...she was gracious and smiled and said "Si."
On the way home from dinner, we stopped at a brand-new Barnes & Noble bookstore, hoping to find a Sunday paper. No luck. So, we will have to depend on the internet for news and the satellite guide for information about what's on the airwaves.
I took a couple of little breaks during the day today to read some blogs I've not visited as frequently as I'd like in recent days. It never ceases to amaze me that there is so much worth reading...and it never ceases to amaze me that there is so much with such little value. The internet is what we make it. I hope it continues to evolve more toward the New Yorker than toward The Star.
If you've happened to have read this blog much of late, you'll know that I've recorded a few bits and pieces I want to keep in my vault for future use in serious efforts to write. I think I have almost enough of a backbone to begin to construct the framework for what may become at least a potentially-publishable short story or two. I am ready to start trying to put the meat on the bones and fill in around the voids with the copious fat I've set aside. I will not record it here, at least not initially, but will put it in the hands of people who can make decisions about whether to pay me for it. It's a scary step, in some sense, but in other ways it's not. I have always written primarily for myself. That having been said, I often wonder if what satisfies me will satisfy others? Only time and luck will tell.
Through the lens of wishful thinking, I see myself explaining to a screenwriter and an actor the rationale behind certain elements of a storyline. I watch as the actor portrays a character I created and I flinch because his interpretation seems so far-removed from what I intended. But, as I listen to him and to the inflections in his voice and to the almost imperceptible movements in the muscles around his eyes, I begin to see a transformation before me. In place of the person who flowed from my brain and through my arms, down to my fingers and out along the page, I see a new character arising. This new character blends the clarity in my brain with an equally complete clarity from someone who must understand this character at least as well as I. Just as the actor did not conceive of the character I created on the page, I did not conceive of the character that will fill the screen or the stage. As I watch this unfold before me and marvel at how my character can become a new being, I begin to understand how the creation of a film or a play is a conspiracy between writer and director and actor and audience. The creation of a book may be, simply, a conspiracy between the writer and his demons, but the enjoyment of that book is always a conspiracy between the writer and the reader. It is for that reason that most books retain their superiority over the films and plays they become. The intimate relationship between writer and reader demands fidelity. The relationship between writer and film viewer or audience can never demand it; there are too many people naked and hungry in the bedroom. The channels of lust are washed with the lubricants of faithful unions.
OK. Pick the phrases above that qualify for the phrase: "These are your brains." Now, pick the phrases above that qualify for the phrase: "These are your brains on drugs." Any questions?
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