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Charles Deemer MFA, Playwriting, University of Oregon Writing faculty,
Portland State University (part-time) Retired playwright and screenwriter.
Active novelist, librettist and teacher.
cdeemer@yahoo.com.
Links:
Literary archive
Personal home page
Photo
Electronic screenwriting tutorial
Online writing classes
References
Bookstore
Highlights:
Dress Rehearsals
A memoir
Love At Ground Zero
Seven Plays
Oregon Book Award finalist
Blogs by (mostly) creative writers:
"Can We Talk About Me For A Change?"
Playwright Debra Neff Nathans
Inkygirl
Debbie Ridpath Ohi, a weblog for writers (resources)
Silliman's Blog
Ron Silliman, contemporary poetry and poetics
Maud Newton
literary links, amusements, politics, rants
Darren Barefoot
Technical and creative writing, theatre, Dublin
Rob's Writing Pains
Journey of a struggling writer.
Mad, Mad World
Cara Swann, fiction writer, journalist, "reflections on humanity, random news & my life."
Writeright
Random musings on a writer's life and times.
Flaskaland
Barbara Flaska's compilation of the best online articles about music and culture.
Write Of Way
Samantha Blackmon's written musings on writing (composition and rhetoric).
Alexander b. Craghead: blog
Writing, photography, and watercolors.
Rodney's Painted Pen
Rodney Bohen's daily commentary "on the wondrous two legged beast we fondly refer to as mankind."
His pen runneth over.
Frustrated Writer
This one named Nicole.
scribble, scribble, scribble
Journalist Dale Keiger teaches nonfiction scribbling to undergraduate and graduate students at Johns Hopkins University.
The Unofficial Dave Barry Blog
The very one.
The Hive
The official blog of science fiction / horror author Terence West.
William Gibson Blog
Famed author of Neuromancer and Johnny Mnemonic: The Screenplay.
The Word Foundry
Joe Clifford Faust's "blog of a working writer: tracking writing projects, musings on the
creative process, occasional side trips into music, media, politics, religion, etc."
A Writer's Diary
By Cynthia Harrison, who has the good sense to quote Virginia Woolf: "The truth is that writing
is the profound pleasure and being read the superficial."
Bow. James Bow.
The journal of James Bow and his writing.
Ravenlike
Michael Montoure's weblog about writing, primarily horror and speculative fiction.
Globemix
By David Henry, "a poet's weblog from Aberdeen, Scotland."
Modem Noise
By Adrian Bedford, a "fledgling Pro SF Writer, living in Perth, Australia."
boynton
"A wry writerly blog named in honour of a minor character in a minor Shirley Temple film."
Real Writers Bounce
Holly Lisle's blog, "a novelist's roadmap through the art and ordeal of finding the damned words."
2020 Hindsight
By Susan.
downWrite creative
Phil Houtz's notes on the writing life.
Vivid: pieces from a writer's notebook
Blog of Canadian poet Erin Noteboom.
The Literary Saloon
The literary weblog at the complete review.
Rabbit Blog
The rabbit writes on popular culture.
This Girl's Calendar
Momoka writes short stories.
Twists & Turns
Musings by writer Michael Gates.
Plays and Musicals -- A Writer's Introspective
A blog by John D. Nugent - Composer, Playwright, and Artistic Director of the Johnson City Independent Theatre Company
The American Sentimentalist
"Never has any people endured its own tragedy with so little sense of the tragic." Essays by Mark W. Anderson.
Screenwriting By Blog
David C. Daniel writes a screenplay online. "I've decided to publish the process as a way to push myself through it.
From concept to completion, it'll be here."
SeanAlonzo.com
Official site of occult fiction author Sean-Alonzo, exploring symbolism, alternative
history, philosophy, secret
societies and other areas of the esoteric tradition.
Crafty Screenwriting
Maunderings of Alex Epstein, tv scribe, about life, politics, and the tv show I'm co-creating.
Letters From The Home Front
The life of a writer, 21, home schooled, rural living.
Venal Scene
The blog of bite-sized plays inspired by the news (by Dan Trujillo).
'Plaint of the Playwright
Rob Matsushita, a playwright from Wisconsin, "whines a lot."
I Pity Da Fool!
Glenn's adventures in screenwriting.
Time In Tel-Aviv
Hebrew modern literature at its best, by Corinna Hasofferett.
Big Window
Robin Reagler's poetry blog.
John Baker's Blog
Author of the Sam Turner and Stone Lewis novels.
Suggest a writer's blog
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The Writing Life...
"And it came to pass that all the stars in the firmament had ceased to shine. But how was anyone to know?"
The Half-Life Conspiracy
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Thursday, April 29, 2004
Poetry in motion
Here in Portland, we have a great public transportation system, TriMet, both buses and light rail. A few years back they got the idea of posting poems by local poets on the buses. Poetry in motion!
Then they brought an art director into the project. Today, riding home, I sat opposite the latest poems on the bus. They were framed by the usual advertisements. The ads were clear and legible from where I sat -- light letters on dark backgrounds, dark letters on light backgrounds. No trouble reading the ads at all. But I couldn't read any of the poems. Some damn art director had put light peach lettering against a busy gray background that looked like a fern garden or some damn thing. Nothing could be read without standing up, getting close, and trying to decipher it. So an art director ruins a great idea by getting cute. We have prettiness instead of clarity.
A couple years ago one of my brother's poems was selected for this project. I wanted to ride a bus with his poem. I called TriMet to find out what bus one was on. No one could tell me. No one could tell me what bus any poems were on.
TriMet does transportation great. Everything else, there's lots of room for improvement.
And I wish Poetry in motion would fire the art director and hire an ad man, who knows how to make messages legible from across an aisle.
4/29/2004 08:40:20 PM |
Oh no!
Naropa nixes Kerouac scroll
University decides exhibit too costly
By Matt Sebastian, Camera Staff Writer
April 29, 2004
Jack Kerouac's scroll is on the road, but it's no longer coming to Boulder.
Naropa University officials have concluded it's too costly to host the 120-foot-long manuscript, the first draft of Kerouac's Beat Generation classic "On the Road." The scroll was slated to go on display at Naropa on May 10.
"This is Naropa's 30th anniversary year, and there couldn't have been a better method of helping celebrate that than by bringing the scroll here," Phil Powers, the school's vice president of institutional advancement, said Wednesday.
Campus officials, however, decided the university couldn't afford the $17,500 necessary to pay for 24-hour security, shipping, insurance and other expenses, such as flying the traveling exhibit's curator to Colorado to set up and take down the display.
"It really came down to whether we could — or, even, should — put our resources at risk, money that really ought to be made available for more core or essential issues at the university," Powers said. "This was the right decision, although a tough one."
The Kerouac scroll has been traveling the country since January, part of a 12-city, four-year tour devised by Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay, who, in 2001, bought the type-written scroll from the New York Public Library for $2.43 million.
The 53-year-old manuscript had been scheduled to remain at Naropa, the Beat-inspired college that's home to the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, until June 25.
"My goal all along was to have it and share it with all those who want to see it," Irsay told the Associated Press earlier this year.
Local Kerouac fans still will get a chance to glimpse the yellowing manuscript, which the author — who briefly called Denver home, and set parts of the meandering novel there — cranked out in a marathon, 21-day writing binge.
But they'll have to be patient: The exhibit isn't slated to land at the Denver Public Library until Jan. 1, 2007.
"We're still planning for that," said M. Celeste Jackson, the library's spokeswoman. "But it's a long wait."
4/29/2004 03:22:41 PM |
Kerouac scroll
Here is the tour schedule. I've been having a hell of a time trying to get info and confirmation from Naropa U, where I hope to see it.
2004
Orange County History Center Orlando, FL Jan. 10 � March 21
Naropa University Boulder, CO May 10 � June 25
Marquette University Milwaukee, WI Sept. 15 � Nov. 30
2005
University of Iowa Museum of Art Iowa City, IA Jan. 19 � March 31
Las Vegas Public Library Las Vegas, NV March 24 � May 15
Natl. Museum of American History Washington D.C. June � August
University of Texas Austin, TX Sept. 1 � Nov. 30
2006
San Francisco Public Library San Francisco, CA Jan. 14 � March 19
Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library Indianapolis, IN May 1 � July 31
Columbia College Chicago, IL TBD
2007
Denver Public Library Denver, CO TBD
Palace of the Governors Santa Fe, NM TBD
New York Public Library New York City Sept. 1 � Dec. 31
4/29/2004 01:42:34 PM |
Hyperdrama
Rec'd my first paperback copies of The Seagull Hyperdrama, officially ending a journey and fascination that began in the mid-80s. This is when I was commissioned to write "a new kind of play" that was taking L.A. by storm, setting it in Portland's magnificent Pittock Mansion. The L.A. play was Tamara. No one knew what to call this new kind of theater at the time, which was driven by a branching narrative and simultaneous scenes filling a large realistic location. Tamara called itself "a living movie" but the producers had registered the term as a trademark so no one else could use it (like the first sonneteer making "sonnet" a trade mark). I called Chateau de Mort, this first one, "simultaneous-action theater," which is a mouthful. Only later, with the appearance of the Internet and beginning hypertext literacy, would the term "hyperdrama" be used for this kind of theater.
I immediately became obsessed by this kind of play, which met my growing interest in the new physics. Traditional theater struck me as Newtonian; hyperdrama as quantum. And off we went. Twenty years later, I may have had more hyperdramas produced than any writer in the world. But no dramaturgical revolution began. The only hyperdrama that gained much attention was a largely improvised entertainment, Tony and Tina's Wedding. The form had been reduced to a fad.
I never considered hyperdrama a fad, and I "translated" a classic play, Chekhov's The Seagull, into hyperdrama in an effort to demonstrate the theatrical power of the new form. Whether or not this contributes to any later interest in and growth of hyperdrama will be determined after I am gone, I suspect. I did what I could. The future of hyperdrama, if any, belongs to younger writers. Besides, I have a new obsession -- opera! I can write out my last act being very old-fashioned.
I have lots of material on hyperdrama online. For the novice, I suggest the following order of reading:
This sequence provides a kind of Hyperdrama 101. Onward.
4/29/2004 07:24:32 AM |
Tuesday, April 27, 2004
Short fiction
Uploaded three new (very) short stories to my archives:
4/27/2004 01:45:54 PM |
The fickle writer
When I was a young writer and finished something and sent it out, I became immobile in anxiety and stress, waiting to hear from someone about the manuscript. About the only thing I accomplished for weeks after was drinking. I was damn good at drinking.
Well, this got old quick. I learned how to "let go" and move immediately to another project. Better yet, I learned how to work on several projects at once so I quickly could change the focus of my primary allegiance. I became a fickle writer. Write 'em and leave 'em, was my new motto.
What happens, happens. Writing is certainly more fun than waiting. So stop waiting and start writing. That's now my advice to all young writers. Onward.
4/27/2004 11:32:53 AM |
Monday, April 26, 2004
Sound & smell
I've mentioned this here before but one of the wiser things I've done in recent years is set aside my large gas-fueled, gear-driven lawn mower and replaced it with an old-fashioned manual reel type. I have a large hilly yard, which now takes about an hour to mow, but the experience -- besides being better exercise -- is aesthetically pleasing. I love the sound of push mowers. And the smell of freshly cut grass instead of gasoline fumes! I sometimes do the yard in two sessions. Yesterday I finished what I had started on Thursday. My neighbors, of course, are more typically wed to mechanized tools, so much so that instead of raking their small yards they use those monstrous loud blowers. Noise pollution is abundant in my neighborhood, I'm sorry to say. Generally the bigger and louder, the better.
4/26/2004 07:07:31 AM |
Sunday, April 25, 2004
Mangled translation
A website suggested by Paul made this translation:
The offered possibilities the not linear organization of the text have attracted the interest of dramatists experience them, than they are tries to you with the creation of iperdrammi.
The kind is not still present in the literature in Italian language (or at least in net we have not found it), while in the United States already it is attested.
One of the pioneers of the sort is Charles Deemer , inventor of teatrali works to ipertestuale structure, for fruibili in net, but also represented on the scenes.
To read a iperdramma
To read a iperdramma is like reading a whichever hypertext: it means to operate chosen and to follow just the thread of reading, selecting between the offered possibilities. All with added of the reversibility of the operated choice and the opportunity to repeat the reading in every way various time, completing the picture of the options and therefore of the wefts available that compose the complete action of the drama. Eleggendo a plot of time in time, the reader decide to consider it like the plot main, therefore to consider the protagonist of that trace like the main of the work same, that come instead "darken" from the personage and from the action preferred in a second reading. Until the construction of a complex picture, interconnected, without true protagonists or with protagonists highly relativizza you from the vicinity of other protagonists to equal merit.
It is understood therefore because Deemer in critical writing asserts that iperdramma the revolutions the traditional concept of teatrale work, reducing these last " special houses ", to single and specific case of the iperdramma.
To read a iperdramma is much impegnativo: perhaps it is similar more the solution than a police case, with an reader-inspector who interrogates the possible ones gradually indiziati in order to reconstruct the backstage of a case, than but it is not given, but it is constructed slowly pian.
The spectator does not o properly to theatre, but in a scenico space in all similar, indeed correspondent to a real place (for es. a great villa), where he takes to body the teatrale action. The spectator is not seated in one platea buia with the eyes tip to you on an illuminated, but itinerante stage , to the continuation of the actors. E' the spectator who elegge the weft that means to follow, with full conscience of the fact that elsewhere other history are being carried out without that it can assist to you. The cracked one of "teatrale truth" which it assists is not that a fragment of woven a more suit. Other spectators, that they follow covered various, collezionano heterogenous wefts, with points of unavoidable ceiling. Only the audience, understanding in its globality , can succeed to having sott' eye the work in its complexity in the arc of time of one show. Or only one watching that lathes more times, and every various time second covered see again the teatrale work.
The teatrale piece assumes to full load the sembianze of a brano of real life : the actors never do not exit of scene, but they continue elsewhere, where the spectator can decide to follow them. The spectator chases the life of some personages of place in place, or elegge "a fifth" (room of the villa) and assists to the "scenes" that are ollowed in this atmosphere. That one distilled and consegnatagli from the dramatist loses however the feeling to on purpose possess the key of understanding of the entire existence of the personages.
Well, at least they spelled my name right.
4/25/2004 08:29:05 PM |
Anybody speak Italian?
I stumbled upon an article in Italian that appears to be about my work in hyperdrama. There are quite a few of these on the net in several languages but what struck me about this one is that many of the links are recent, i.e. after my Teleport days. Can anyone translate this?
4/25/2004 09:15:13 AM |
Minor funk
Where did yesterday go? I think I'm still in the minor funk that sometimes follows completion of a project, in this case the opera (at least in terms of my contribution). At any rate, I accomplished nothing yesterday. Today, at least, with its eighty degree weather, I'll get some work done in the yard. And I may even write a bit, if only on the textbook. Onward?
4/25/2004 07:23:57 AM |
Saturday, April 24, 2004
High school reunions
My 50th is coming up in 2007. Since I have never been to any of them, I plan to make this one (in Pasadena, CA). The fellow putting it together sent me this amusing if shocking juxtaposition:
4/24/2004 04:32:39 AM |
Friday, April 23, 2004
Mahagonny
I really would like to see a performance of my favorite opera before I die: Brecht/Weill's Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. Might not happen: in last 15 years, according to an opera schedule website I found, it's only been done six times worldwide by the opera companies they track. I missed the bet not catching it at the Met in 1998. So I am hoping someone schedules it soon ... not through Dec, 2005, according to this website. On the (if not bright at least gray) side, no one tracked has yet to do it in the 21st century. Someone may want to be the first! Locally, however, Portland opera next season is doing Street Scene by Weill and last year I saw a good local production of Seven Deadly Sins. But Mahagonny is the one that grabs me. Schedule it, someone!
4/23/2004 04:15:32 PM |
TGIF,Sa,Su,M
Picked up an unusually light script load from students yesterday, giving me more time for myself between now and Tuesday. One of the things I do as a writing teacher is give each student a choice of two writing tracks, which I call the "tree path" or the "forest path." Trees are planners. Forests are sink-or-swimmers. Thus, in screenwriting, trees figure out the 3-act structure of their story before they start writing script pages. Forests just start writing, figuring to structure the mess during rewriting.
Typically most students elect the forest path because it looks easier. Several weeks into the course, they are so lost that they switch to tree. In the end, it comes out about fifty-fifty. Each path gives me work every other week.
My university class this term almost universally chose the tree path -- all but two students! So my reading load is very uneven week to week. So far, only two forests have switched but I expect more to soon. The forest path actually is harder than the tree path, especially in the classroom environment.
So very little to read this weekend! I managed to do some writing on my novel these past few days, which I'll keep on. Also the new libretto. Must not forget the textbook, which I am contracted to finish in August. A few other things I should attend to. This is the inside stuff -- also need to get outside for the usual yard chores. Good weather coming to do just that.
Soon I want to take time to sit down with the opera score and go through each of the MIDI files with score in hand, following along, imagining the singing, curious about the orchestration. Also to start this large pile of opera reading I have to do.
Being busy is better than its alternative, I've learned. Onward.
4/23/2004 08:11:18 AM |
Wednesday, April 21, 2004
O Brave New World ... !
... that has such opera scores in it! What can I say? Holding the bound vocal/piano score of Dark Mission is a real high. Maybe this weekend I'll play the MIDI files in order and follow along with the score. Putting one in the mail to John today. Onward.
4/21/2004 11:17:48 AM |
This and that
Up at 3am but not for good. My rhythm often is going to bed around 10, then getting up at 3 or 4 for a bit, then crashing for another hour or two, then getting up for good. Big day! Which is to say, actual appointments of things to do. Meet with our tax guy in the early a.m. We get a good refund, so "late" isn't an issue. Then H leads a tour of the PAC (one of her too many volunteer jobs) and I go to the copy center to pick up the score. Can't wait to see it bound! It's now available for download at my archive, of which there were five yesterday, perhaps all by the composer ha ha. What a new adventure, this opera business. I like two things about it very much: it is "high brow" at a time when I am very sick of popular culture; from a writer's point of view, it seems very free in its formal possibilities (sign of ignorance?); and, best, I get to hear John's wonderful music! No doubt it is good for a composer's librettist to be a great fan. At any rate, I very much look forward to writing Varmints, our next one, and we already have many fruitful ideas for the future. One at a time. Onward.
4/21/2004 03:19:19 AM |
Tuesday, April 20, 2004
At the printers
The vocal/piano score of the opera has been delivered to the printers for its initial copies. Will be very exciting to see it tomorrow! And to stick one in the mail to John, whose work has been magnificent. And to hand one over to my pianist friend, the first "neutral" feedback on my end. Now I can get back to Varmints and catch up on reading libretti, a neglected part of my literary education. Found an interesting looking history of the libretto as well. Now that I've written one, maybe I should learn what the hell I'm doing ha ha. Of course, there sometimes are artistic advantages to "ignorance." Onward.
4/20/2004 01:19:52 PM |
Gatsby, the opera
I really dislike this libretto! It turns a brilliant novel into the cheapest fluff. Part of it is the dull moon-June rhetoric of the songs but mostly it's the attitude of the storytelling, turning the material into the cheapest, lowest common denominator romance. Maybe it's all supposed to be ironic, a great satire of musical comedy or something. Maybe the music is brilliant. But I felt like throwing the libretto across the room and obviously couldn't finish it. My education begins, ha ha. Onward.
4/20/2004 11:12:53 AM |
Monday, April 19, 2004
Hard copy
I have beside me a printout of the vocal score of the opera, all but the last scene, and it weights in at almost 200 pages. An impressive manuscript! Now waiting for the last scene -- I told John it needs to rip my heart out, ha ha. Goddamn bossy librettists anyway. Found some typos in the lyrics (apparently John retypes them rather than copying and pasting -- hmm, must ask him why) that need fixing. This week should get it to the print shop. Have a well-connected pianist in town excited about it and waiting for the score ... in June deliver it to the opera artistic director here. See if we can drum up other early requests for the score. This is all very exciting, to say the least. And folks are actually listening to the MIDI files online, hopefully a conductor or two among them. Good things happening. Onward.
4/19/2004 12:46:39 PM |
Friday, April 16, 2004
This and that
A pleasant surprise at the university yesterday. In class we sat in a big circle and each student read the first two pages of his/her script in progress. We asked ourselves, Do we want to know what happens next? In most cases we did. Moreover, the usual beginning screenwriter problems -- over-writing, format issues -- were absent. A couple scripts unnecessarily started with back story but I heard no major writing or storytelling problems, which means this may become one of my better classes. A delightful way to end another teaching year, if true.
Came home to watch the Mariners play like the Mariners for a change with solid pitching (Franklin), great defense and timely hitting, beating the Angels 6-2. Plan to see them play the Yankees in August.
Heard from our tax guy -- our refund is higher than usual, which is sweet (we prepaid more tax than necessary earlier).
Today both writing, reading and grunt work to do. But it is Friday. My weekend is Friday, Saturday. By Sunday I am looking at student scripts again, though I do most of my student reading on Monday. I hate putting it off till the day I teach, so really try to avoid doing that.
Want to make progress today on both novels and the textbook. If time is left, I'll look at the musical and the new libretto. A script to print out, maybe two.
Eagerly awaiting new music files from John. Light at the end of the tunnel and all that. It will be very exciting to have a complete vocal score. Then his next big job, the orchestration. Very curious about how he will do it. Onward.
4/16/2004 05:09:07 AM |
Thursday, April 15, 2004
The Basileus Quartet
Ta-da! The one I was thinking of, an Italian movie. Quite good! A reviewer rates it close to Amadeus and I would agree. Check it out.
4/15/2004 12:00:23 PM |
Wednesday, April 14, 2004
Bells and whistles
Check out the new Dark Mission area of my archive.
4/14/2004 02:22:23 PM |
The ? Quartet
Anybody remember the name of the film mentioned below?
4/14/2004 08:59:12 AM |
A comic thriller?
I've discovered a certain disadvantage to collaborating with this young fellow from Tennessee, Mr. John D. Nugent. Now and again -- no, with alarming frequency -- one of his melody lines lodges in my brain, and I can't get rid of the damn thing.
I'm told this is a compliment to a composer. I have something else in mine. A victim like myself tracks down the composer for an antidote. When none is available, he decides to chase the composer across the concert tour, demanding his very life.
Which reminds me of a wonderful movie in a classical music setting -- it was called the something or other quartet. Can't recall. The violinist in an aging string quartet dies and is replaced by a talented young stud, causing havoc among the old guys. Great fun. Onward.
4/14/2004 08:51:47 AM |
Addition
I've added a synopsis to the Dark Mission material.
Although I've only just started the new libretto, I remember what I learned from screenwriting, that adaptations are much harder than writing original material. Nonetheless, onward.
4/14/2004 03:55:52 AM |
Tuesday, April 13, 2004
Varmints
I've started the libretto for the next Deemer/Nugent opera, based on my stage play Varmints. Onward.
4/13/2004 07:20:21 AM |
Progress
John tells me he might finish the vocal score of Dark Mission next week. Fantastic! Then he has the orchestration to do, which of course becomes the flesh of the work. But with the piano score, we can begin drumming up interest. We have one "reading" set for June, a potentially rewarding one if the work is appreciated -- we may get a May, 2005, premiere out of it. But there are lots of possibilities out there. Man, it's so much harder to put up an opera than a stage play. But I really am excited about John's music. I think we are going to get some interest in this. This is a very exciting project. Onward.
4/13/2004 07:17:55 AM |
Monday, April 12, 2004
Mary Carr Moore
John and I are not the first to write an opera based on the Whitman Massacre. Mary Carr Moore beat us to it in 1912:
After a pause of almost fifteen years, in which she abandoned composition for a time in favor of child rearing and teaching in Lemoore and then Seattle, she set to work on her four-act grand opera based on the story of the Whitman Massacre of 1847 at a time when survivors of the massacre were still living and controversy still swirled around both the missionaries and the murders. The idea of using an opera to tell something approximating recent regional history was a novel one. She commissioned a libretto from her minister-suffragist-novelist mother. Their determination to tell the story without superimposing a romantic triangle and to represent Native American participants as individuals made their project unique. Narcissa: Or, The Cost of Empire, had its premier in Seattle in 1912. Several of the principals were imported from New York for the occasion, but no experienced conductor was willing to risk conducting an opera by a woman composer; therefore Moore herself became a conductor. (She conducted revivals in San Francisco in 1925 and Los Angeles in 1945 as well.)
Its title suggests a point of view that may be much like our own. Fascinating.
4/12/2004 10:15:45 AM |
Saturday, April 10, 2004
Dark Mission
Listened to the first 11 scenes (of 18) as MIDI files, ignoring the libretto and just enjoying the music. John Nugent is a fine composer! This is first rate stuff, in my perhaps biased opinion. At any rate, it's an honor to work with such a talent.
The 11 scenes took almost exactly an hour. Just about right. Also a good spot for an intermission if one were needed.
You can listen to the MIDI files here (if you don't have time to listen to them in order, check out 2, 3B, 6, 7).
4/10/2004 06:19:44 PM |
Friday, April 09, 2004
Musical memories
All of us have musical memories of when we first heard a certain song. Here are some of mine in no particular order.
Work with me, Annie by Hank Ballard and the Midnighters. I was in Jr. High when I heard this on one of LA's black radio stations. I'd never heard such a dirty, erotic, wonderful song in my life. The sequel, Annie Had A Baby was even more forbidden. That the songs were periodically banned from airplay only made them more attractive. Naturally I bought both records (78s). In the 1980s, I met Hank Ballard and was able to tell him this story. The little man just grinned.
My Babe by Little Walter. Our Jr. High was chosen to be featured on a local radio station, which meant the student body selected its Top Ten Tunes. A write-in campaign for Little Walter circulated, and I checked him out. I bought every Little Walter record I could find immediately and to this day he remains my favorite blues artist.
That'll Be the Day by Buddy Holly and the Crickets. In high school, I often camped at Bass Lake (Calif.) with the family of a buddy. At night we tried to find rock and roll stations on the portable radio, which never came in clearly. One such night I heard Buddy Holly for the first time. It was both joyous and frustrating, hearing this wonderful new rockabilly style singer as he faded in and out on the late night radio. I also heard Little Richard's Jenny, Jenny for the first time on such a camping trip, the song fading in and out.
Dr. Brownie's Famous Cure by Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry. This risque blues was on the jukebox in a bar in Baumholder, Germany, where I was stationed in the Army. ("Tell everybody that I'm your doctor. Please put your legs up on the wall.") In the 1960s I met Brownie and told him about listening to this in Germany. He was surprised I knew it -- the song never was released in the U.S., he said. Too nasty.
New York Town by Ramblin' Jack Elliott. I subscribed to Sing Out! magazine in the Army. One issue had an ad for a new album of Ramblin' Jack singing Woody Guthrie, with a quote from Woody himself saying, "Jack sounds more like me than I do." I bought it, and when it arrived at the base in Germany, I became an Elliott fan immediately. This tune, with its fast rhythm and harmonica playing and guitar, became a favorite. Later I saw Jack in concert, still later spent several days with him and wrote a story on him. But I never saw him play harp. He abandoned it once Dylan arrived on the scene. Once I got my own private concert, however. I helped him with a sound check before a show in a tavern. We were the only ones there. Once he was set up, he said, "What do you want to hear?" and took my requests for the next hour. What a treat!
4/9/2004 10:07:17 AM |
Wednesday, April 07, 2004
Screenwriting v. playwriting
When the Eugene director emailed me that her theater company got the grant to tour my play, American Gadfly, she ended with the remark, "We'll do you proud."
It is inconceivable that a film director would say this to a screenwriter. Stage directors interpret the material, putting the playwright's vision first. Film directors usurp the material, putting their own vision first (hence "a film by [director]"). If a stage director does not put the playwright first, the playwright (who owns the material and leases rights to it) can withdraw the script and put it in the hands of a different director. When a screenwriter (who sells the material outright) bitches, s/he gets fired.
The tradeoff is that screenwriters, not playwrights, get rich. They have no artistic integrity or power but they have very fat bank accounts. It's as if screenwriters have struck a Faustian deal with Hollywood, selling their artistic soul for filthy lucre.
As one who has worked in both forms, I am not moved by the bitching of screenwriters that they get no respect. They sold their rights to respect. Playwrights have much more reason to bitch.
"We will do you proud." What a refreshing kind of artistic loyalty! Onward.
4/7/2004 09:18:16 AM |
Tuesday, April 06, 2004
Opening day
Moyer pitches the first ball of the season for the Mariners in about fifteen minutes. Will catch the game on radio until my class starts ... then rush home after class to see if I can make the ending of the women's basketball final. Onward.
4/6/2004 01:58:32 PM |
Monday, April 05, 2004
Coming soon
Back cover text
A play with simultaneous action based on Chekhov's The Seagull.
What are the characters in Chekhov's play The Seagull doing when they are "off stage"? This is the question addressed by hyperdrama, a recent environmental theater form that explodes conventional drama into a branching narrative in which all characters are in the performance space at all times. Into this beehive of simultaneous action, the audience is dropped like invisible voyeurs who may wander through the play as they like.
In Chekhov's play, the young writer Treplev laments about the current fashion in theater:
"As far as I'm concerned, theater today is boring and irrelevant. Look at it - the curtain rises, the lights come up, and all we see are actors strutting around, showing us how to eat and drink and wear the latest fashions, in a story the playwright has infested with a moral, something any dolt can understand, it's so obvious, and then each play repeats the same tired formula over and over again, ad nauseam....Uncle, what we need is a new kind of theater....A theater with new theatrical forms! If we can't find them, then let's have no theater at all."
Hyperdrama, with its "new theatrical forms," challenges the way stories are told on stage.
Playwright Charles Deemer has been a pioneer working in hyperdrama since the mid-1980s. He teaches screenwriting at Portland State University and is the author of several novels and Seven Plays, which was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award.
4/5/2004 11:42:43 AM |
Good news
The theater folks in Eugene got a grant to tour my play American Gadfly: the Story of Wayne Morse. Not sure for how many shows but this is very good news! Now they can take it around the state.
Meanwhile, saw the cover for The Seagull Hyperdrama, and after some font changes I think I can approve it. Coming out under the Sextant Books imprint, the biggest little publisher in Texas. Talk about an eccentric, esoteric book! Build your own adventure for Chekhov fans. Onward.
4/5/2004 10:42:48 AM |
Monday, Monday
The week is off to a great start. I turned on the computer to find another Dark Mission music file from John, a superb one at that. I can't wait to hear the entire opera start to finish. There are so many strong musical and dramatic moments -- if it hangs together, I think we'll have a work we can be proud of. I love what John is writing.
And what a weekend of March Madness! 3 semi-final games decided at the last second, the other very competitive. And Tennessee getting lucky 3 times in a row -- will Connecticut blow them out? I'm rooting for the two Conns, why not?
And baseball season starts! Have to get reintroduced to the Mariners, so many winter and spring changes. But good ol' Edgar is still there, off a strong spring. We always go up and catch a game or two ... but nervously because, in fact, every time we drive to Seattle for a game, the Mariners lose! I would love to see them win for a change.
A busy week. Several student scripts to read, the book of a musical to read to see if I will agree to be a script doctor. I think not since I'm so busy on my things but I said I would take a peek. More lawn work to do as well before it gets out of hand. You can see the grass grow daily.
Cloudy and cooler but warmer weather returning in a few days. Onward.
4/5/2004 09:38:14 AM |
Sunday, April 04, 2004
Faith in the process
I'm at the stage in Patriots (about 20,000 words in) where I am itching to rewrite. Yet I move forward because I've learned from experience that if the basic dramatic structure is sound, it's best to finish a draft before sweating the smaller stuff. Since I drafted this first as a screenplay, the story trajectory remains sound ... so I resist the ton of rewriting until later, when a draft is finished.
A different story with Kerouac's Scroll. I didn't draft this as a screenplay first, so the draft is much rougher. The challenge here is to keep the story moving during the road trip, which will have a lot of diversionary moments, storytelling and whatnot ... and since so much of this is generational, it occurred to me to bring into the lives of these two old farts someone much younger, from a different generation ... and I quickly imagined what fun it would be to pair these two with a young heavily pierced Gothic woman. They can pick her up or otherwise encounter her along the way. I still haven't decided how to handle the storytelling, whether realistically or more formally in a kind of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales model ... we'll see what happens. Onward.
4/4/2004 10:20:58 AM |
Saturday, April 03, 2004
What a day!
Up before 6 this morning, got some writing done on Kerouac's Scroll. Then read and gave feedback to three scripts from my advanced online students. Spent the morning working in the yard, getting my pond/fountain up and running for the summer, edging the yard with the weed eater prior to mowing, which I'll do tomorrow. Now I'm ready to settle back and watch some March Madness. Alas, the women's final, which interests me more than the men's, especially if it is Tennessee-Connecticut, is Tuesday night when I teach. I hope it is a late enough start so I can get home for the end.
Four projects moving forward nicely now, two novel drafts, Patriots and Kerouac's Scroll, draft of the book of a musical, Sunset, and the minor rewrite of the screenwriting textbook, Practical Screenwriting. And teaching has begun in earnest as well. Busy and well, with emphasis on the well for a change. Onward.
4/3/2004 02:29:29 PM |
Friday, April 02, 2004
Potted Head
One of the unfortunate trends I've noticed during the corporate takeover of America has been the shrinking of options in the marketplace. Marginal items, items without a large market, get discontinued. Take head cheese. It used to be easy to find head cheese in the market. No more. In fact, it's been some time since I've found a market in my neighborhood that carries it. Imagine my joy then when I found one recently, a gourmet market only a few miles from me. Today I had a head cheese sandwich on dark rye with horse radish. Yum!
The best head cheese I ever had was on the northern coast of Nova Scotia. It was called potted head -- and for a reason (see below). I had a head cheese sandwich at a picnic in a storm, sitting on rocks overlooking the sea. What a rush.
When I was in graduate school, a friend who knew of my love for head cheese left me a surprise on my front porch. It was in a cardboard box. It was a pig's head. He had just had the animal slaughtered and gave me the head as a gift so I might make my own head cheese.
I found a recipe and went at it. I couldn't find a pot large enough to hold the head, so I had to split it into several pieces. The hardest part of the process actually. You boil the head for hours and hours. My wife left the house gagging, to spend the day at her girlfriend's. To make a long story short, my head cheese was not the best I'd ever had. Not even close. But at least I could say I'd made it.
And now I understood perfectly why in Nova Scotia head cheese is called potted head. Some folks still understand what the language is for.
4/2/2004 12:38:20 PM |
Thursday, April 01, 2004
Office hours
Came to the university early today and managed to write a chapter of Patriots before my office hours officially began. Appear to be back in the rhythm of things. Feels good. 3 days of sunshine and 70 degree weather ahead, which means I can catch up on yard chores. A busy term ahead -- I have more students than usual -- but the reward of summer is ahead as well.
Also working on the screenwriting textbook, working title Practical Screenwriting, making little rewrites here and there as well as adding exercises at the end of chapters ... it's going well. I have an August 31 deadline but I think I can submit several months before that ... I'd like to be able to use it in my own class as soon as possible. They were looking at a Spring 2005 release, which means I probably couldn't use it till the following Fall. I'd like to bring it out soon enough to use it next Spring.
Up to about 97% of full energy level, I think. Onward.
4/1/2004 03:16:53 PM |
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