Epiphany Delirium

Reviewing Singin’ in the Rain for school

I expect to post a copy here, so I figure I might as well give a heads up!

Did I mention I started college a while back?

So I’ve Been Hearing Little Shop of Horrors

So I’ve been hearing songs from Little Shop of Horrors (e.g. “Skid Row (Downtown)” and “Dentist”), and I must ask myself: Why haven’t I seen this live before?  I mean, I might have watched the movie a long time ago, but I only recall it like a dream— it was a long time ago.  My high school drama club performed Little Shop of Horrors, and they were amazing (with seniors taking the male and female leads), but it’s nothing like sitting in a crowded (or not so crowded?) theatre surrounded by complete strangers as people I’ve probably never heard of act out their respectable parts.

But on to the music, hmm?

It has a rock-n-roll feel to it, but it’s definitely not that genre of music…  The pieces don’t halt the plot, but they don’t always add to it, such as “Dentist”.  In that particular piece, the plot doesn’t really move (due to the music, that is), but Audrey’s boyfriend (the dentist) has characterization from the perspective of the audience, i.e., the audience didn’t know he was just a psychotic sadist before the song.  Other songs are there to tell us about the setting, e.g., “Skid Row (Downtown).”

It goes to show at least two ways a writer can utilize songs in a stage play.  You could allow the music to be on the foreground taking all the glory (such as in Rocky Horror Picture Show), allow the music drag the plot along (such as in The Nightmare Before Christmas), or let the music stand in the middle ground such as in Little Shop of Horrors.  Both Rocky and Nightmare are well received movies, but something takes a huge toll in the decision.  Like in Rocky, most fans don’t realize what’s going on in the plot (most likely due to the catchiness of the songs and the subtlety of the plot points).  While in Nightmare, most of the lyrics have a lot to do with what exactly is going on, and when you watch the movie, there is a sense of the plot slowing down.

I can listen to Little Shop’s soundtrack and not discover plot points I missed from the play and not feel like I’m being retold the story in song.

Hopefully, I’ll be around long enough to utilize these findings, haha.

So I’ve been Hearing Glee

Well, I’ve been watching and listening to Glee, and I truly am fond of the music.  Though I’ve missed some of the episodes, I listen to the music whenever wherever I can.  It leaves me with a sense of guilt; but I just need to buy some more of the CDs, and I ought to be good.

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So I’ve Been Watching Dexter

So I’ve been watching the Showtime television show called Dexter, and when I first began watching it, I was sure that I wouldn’t like it, what with the main character being a serial killer and all.  However, before the end of the first season, I found myself truly hooked by it.  It was a bit strange, to be completely honest.  The very first episode had the main character killing a pedophile, but he also talked about a mysterious “Code” that he has for killing people.

He’s a very likable character, though he kills people by night.

There are those subjects that are very awkward to agree with or to merely discuss, and the murder of killers (capital punishment) is one of those subjects.  But for some reason, Dexter presents the concept in a way that is difficult to argue against: kill a killer and save his next victim.  Full stop.

I watched the first season with the ideal that murder is wrong no matter who is being killed, but this show has given me a counterpoint that has never been presented to me before.  I mean, people have argued to me before: kill a killer because killers deserve it, which is, to me, disturbing and harsh (after all, if we can learn what went wrong in their life, if anything went wrong at all, then we can help future generations down the line, right?).  And there is a clear, significant difference between those two trains of reason, but most people focus on the latter point for an unknown cause.

I mean, the first train of thought (kill a killer to save his next victim) is completely agreeable.  There is little one could say to argue against that, I feel.  I mean, there could be the reasoning that it’s better to have someone put away to pay for their crimes, but there is a counterpoint to that.  It’s that the killer could easily squirm his or her way out of jailtime.  He or she could use the system to keep them safe.  Not to mention that “innocent until proven guilty” means that he or she could kill again before he or she goes to court.

The second train of thought (kill a killer because killers deserve it) is hypocritical and selfish, if you ask me.  I mean, there are better things that one can do to someone to get vengeance, and if you want to have vengeance, then why are you in control of what happens to someone?  We can argue that killers are anything but human, but they still belong to the Homo sapien family, so don’t act like you’re superior to them “just ‘cause”.

I’m not saying that they should be treated with respect, but I am saying that if you act like you’re better than them because they’ve killed someone, then I’d love to see your face when you realize that army men and other militants kill people and get paid to do it.

But getting back to Dexter, I think it’s a good TV series with interesting characters and character relationships.  Of course, there’s Dexter, the murderer, and his sister, Deb.  I wouldn’t say that they’re unrealistic, but I don’t know any serial killers (I hope), so I couldn’t say about Dexter’s character; Deb’s character seems true, however.  Both sister and brother have a strange relationship with their father (Dexter’s adopted father and Deb’s bio dad), who was a cop and trained Dexter to “properly channel his darkness”.  I won’t go too far in these relationships to keep this as spoiler-free as I can.

The supporting characters are amazing, and there are a few actors that I recognize from time-to-time.  They generally play the serial killers Dexter goes after.

Oh, there’s definitely a Bilingual Bonus for anyone that can speak Spanish and English, as there are plenty of instances where one or two of the main characters start speaking either or.  The setting is somewhere in Florida, so I guess it makes sense?  They are in the South, after all.  Oh, and if you don’t like inner monologues, then I suggest that you don’t watch Dexter, ‘cause the writers use that writing tool like none other.

No, seriously, I think it’s one of the few gripes I have with this television series.  I mean, the inner monologues are great with getting into the head of a serial killer who tries his hardest to keep people emotionally at arm’s length, so I suppose it was an ingenious idea, but I can’t just give this show all pros and no cons.  It’s like they decided before they started writing the script that there’d be at least ten minutes of inner monologue per episode or something, because there is indeed a lot of the stuff.

But, as you can probably tell, I like this show, so I hope they don’t cancel it anytime soon.  Dexter is a thought-provoking piece with the added bonus of intriguing characters and writing mechanics.

So I’ve Been Pondering Characters

So I’ve recently been wondering about the characters in the different forms of writing.  I mean, with performing arts, the characters are limited to the actors and the technologies of the day.  Yet in novels and the writing arts in general, the characters are limited to the words and talent of the writer.  Can you imagine Cthulu on a stage?

But what brought me to this line of thought was my novel, Call It in the Air, which was originally going to be a stage play.  (Long story short: I decided it best for me to write it as a novel, as all of my experience writing is focused on stories and poems.)  Before I started this, I had never realized this due to my experience with writing.  Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t try to jump head-strong into a completely different form of writing; I had written monologues before, and I have had a bit experience writing scripts.  It took me trying to convert a stage play into a novel to see these facts with writing.

I mean, with the performing arts, there shouldn’t be a lot of physical traits that are important for the characters, as that would limit the amount of actors who could play said character.  Such as writing the play in such a way that the plot demands the female lead to be heavy set, blond with long curly hair, and very tall without heels.  Just write it so the only important trait to the plot is the blond curly hair!  Then cut out the part about it being curly!  There!  You now have a female lead that needs blond hair, and that’s easy enough with a wig or some dye.  Yes, I know that props can be found to make one appear heavier and taller, but that costs money to get and to rent, and then the issues with those items’ care comes into order… just get rid of those parts.

With the writing arts, on the other hand, though there still shouldn’t be too strange of traits (completely dependent on the setting), the author can have the female lead be heavy set, long blond curly haired, and extremely tall.  Don’t worry about an adaption into a movie or stage play.  Seriously, just ignore that possibility; not only will it distract you from writing well, but it also makes you a narcissistic ass… just a bit…

As far as any other form of the arts go… I couldn’t care less.  Seriously, if I work on a comic with someone, I’ll be working with someone, so there shouldn’t be that big of a deal.  The two or three or twelve of us can figure something out.

Well, this isn’t the last I have to say about characters and writing in general, but I believe that this is all I have to say on this topic right now.  Have a good night/day!  Y’know what?  Have a good life.

-Epif

So I’ve Been Writing an Outline

So I finally began to work on my novel’s outline.  At first, I thought I didn’t need to write an outline for this story, but after I got to point IV, I realized that I didn’t know how the fuck the events I wanted to take place were going to come about.  Seriously, everything under point II came about during this outline’s conception.

I guess I need to get my head in the game or something; I’ll try to draw up this thing over the coming days and note on this blog how it’s going.  After that, I suppose I’ll tell about how mine novel’s coming along?  I hope to write it from beginning to end within 30 days; of course, it won’t be finished within that time, but the first draft ought to be.  I may find it better to shoot to finish it in 100 days, but I must complete this outline before I make any final decisions on how I want to make this novel come about.

So I’v Been Pondering Adventure

So I’ve been pondering adventure.  Yeah, adventure, the whole kit-n-caboodle thing.  I mean, what’s the point of going on one?  Is it to move on from one’s old life and be part of something greater?  Or is it to break away from the mundane life?  There’s so much thought into this feeling of “We don’t need to know where we’re going, because it’s an adventure!” that I can’t even begin to think about it.

I’ve been pondering this because in about 7 days’ time, I’ll be going to some place in Colorado to visit my brother and sister-in-law, and it seems like it could be an adventure in its own right.  After all, it is an unfamiliar place, and I would only know two people in the radius of at least 20 miles (and that’s just being conservative in the estimate).  Who knows what’ll happen, and I don’t even know if they invited some people that I know.

I thought about asking them, but it would only take away from this feeling of being “special” or this feeling of having a nearly completely clean slate upon arrival.

It makes me wonder what it would be like if this were a story.  Yes, a story in a book or some other medium.  If I, being the narcissist that I am, were the main character, then something completely wretched is awaiting me in Colorado.  But if I’m a part of the secondary characters, then something less wretched is awaiting someone in my life, and I’ll probably be helpless to do anything about it because I’ll be in Colorado.

Holy shit, I hope I’m not getting myself into an opera…

Or better yet, an action movie.  It would suck to be a character in an action movie.  Are you fucking kidding me?  Too much bullshit goes on in action movies.

I wish my brain would get used to reality soon, because stories are just stories… even though “Ideas have to come from somewhere”…

So I’ve Been Writing a Stage Play

So I’ve been writing a stage play, and of course, I have little experience with them.  I had bought The Playwright’s Guidebook (by Stuart Spencer) a while after I first began.  I must say, it helps out a lot to have a how-to book, haha!

For quite the time, my stage play was being written as a novel (for a class), and now I must begin the transition from one medium to another.  And it isn’t as easy as one might suppose: in a novel, the narrator is the one explaining the perspective, yet in a stage play, the characters are showing their perspective without anyone explaining the perspective in the slightest.  For example, from my novelized stage play Call It in the Air:

The clock on the shelf was lying.  It must have been, because there was no way Jerry was up that late in the evening: so late it was early.  He had been talking with his older sister for about fifteen minutes, but the clock refused to cooperate.

The reader now knows a few things:

1. The time is sometime during the morning.
2. The main character is Jerry.
3. He has an older sister.

And we can believe that the reader infers that Jerry is a little out of his head, or that he is desperate to believe that he has not been talking on the phone for as long as he has been.

All of this is lost within the transition to stage play.  Instead, there are notes about the lighting and what the characters are wearing, and the dialogue reveals the connections between the two characters.

I don’t know why I did this to my stage play— Oh, wait, I remember.  It was for my Novel exam.  Yeah~ that did happen.  But now I find that I want it to be a stage play as originally intended.  It isn’t like I wrote a lot of the story in the novelized version, nor did the novel have only one point of view.

I keep thinking about what it should be written as, and I kind of clam up with the writing.

That being a huge problem, I think I’ll write it as a novel, because I have significantly more experience writing in a novel format than a stage play format.

Who knows, if it ever has a chance to move on, I might have it made a stage play.  It helps that I planned it to be a stage play…

So I’ve Been Sitting at My Laptop

So I am sitting here at my laptop and looking out past my window upon the bright day that is today, and I await the time I am to make leave for the airport.  Really, I have found myself the impatient man, and I hope to make it to the airport without delay, though, this being the state that it is, is likely to in fact be delayed for quite the time.

I’ve found that I am such the impatient man that I’ve gotten dressed two-‘n’-a-half hours earlier than necessary.  I don’t even understand why I would do that; why I would get dressed earlier than needed.  Perhaps it was the fact that I haven’t seen my brother in some time, or that the last time I saw him, it was hardly seeing him (yet more like glancing at him as he walked by).

I try to distract myself, to buy myself time, but all I seem to do is give myself more impatience: “Why isn’t it time yet?”, “I need to keep myself busy,” and other such things.  I can only hope that being on the plane will not cause such thoughts within me, and that I’ll have some sort of distraction that can keep one such as I busy: someone who gets inspired to write stories by how-to books.

Whether it be music or Lovecraftian stories that is to keep me company on the three hour flight or if it is to be an interesting short-lived companion that is to do the same, I do not know.  But I do hope that I won’t pass out from sheer boredom while high in the sky.

Or worse yet, I hope I don’t become severely anxious due to fear of a crash or an explosion.  Seriously, I wouldn’t be able to look in the eyes of any of my flightmates or whateverthefuck they are called.

Regardless of all of that, however, I can’t wait to find myself on the soil known to my brother as his newly found home.  I haven’t seen him in a while, so this visit ought to be interesting at least (perhaps insane at worst).

I guess that’s all that there is to say about it… for now anyway.