Sleeping Muse and Falling Rocket

 Anagrams

   In The Day of the Locust (1975), Vivien Leigh was portrayed by Morgan Brittany. In Gable and Lombard (1976), Vivien Leigh was portrayed by Morgan Brittany. In The Scarlett O'Hara War (1980), Vivien Leigh was portrayed by Morgan Brittany.

 

Samuel Beckett's favorite actors were Billie Whitelaw and Jack MacGowran. Billie Whitelaw appeared in The Omen. Jack MacGowran appeared in The Exorcist.

  The Master, a novel by Colm Toibin, is based on the life of  Henry James. The Master, a film by Paul Thomas Anderson, is based on the life of L. Ron Hubbard.  

 "My library consists half of books I remember and half of books I have forgotten..." -- Alberto Manguel So many... Books I've read, books I've partly read, books I've skimmed... There are those that have slipped away, not because they were bad, though some were. But because my memory has failed in its duty. There was a book of short stories I found in a thrift store when I was fourteen. No idea the title, no idea the author. Certainly not famous. Not great. No fragment of the text remains, but images of a desert. Of a lone man reading in a quiet, dusty house. Maybe in North Africa. Maybe not. But for a few days, in my Colorado basement, there I was. Better books before. Better books after. But that spectre remains... And there is a sadness there. The author's only book? The one he dreamed of publishing. And now forgotten. Except by me. Whose point here is that I've forgotten it.

 Isn't it about time for Peter Jackson to release a Tom Bombadil trilogy?

  Robert Newton was a lousy actor. Alec Guinness was one of the finest actors of the the Twentieth Century. Yet they are on an even plane in David Lean's Oliver Twist (1948). They both suck.

  Do they really do this when they investigate murders,  or is just on TV? And is there a yarn budget?       

Watching Antonioni's The Lady Without Camelias from 1953. A character just said "it is what it is." Sounded anachronistic,  Clearly, my problem.

  "Don't you think that I am aware that there is a woman here? I can smell her like a flower. I can taste her like sugar on my tongue. When I am twenty feet away, I can hear the fabric of her dress when she moves in her chair. Not that I've done anything about it. I've gone all day, every day...not doing...not saying...not taking the chance..."                              -- John Patrick Shanley, Joe Versus the Volcano

  I confess I was a little disappointed in this year's Nobels for Literature and for Peace, but this is the best Birthday Honours List EVER! David Suchet, Maureen Lipman, Joan Armentrading, Jeff Lynn, Brian Cox, Susan Hill, Adrian Lester...

  Always wonderful to stumble across a performance by the truly great Christopher Evan Welch, gone much too soon! Fascinating in every moment! We are blessed to have some wonderful, quiet, thought-filled performances on television and in film. The luck of those who saw him onstage... A Hamlet in Boulder. An astonishing Kaspar in Handke's play. His work with Bill Irwin! Mitch in Ivo Van Hove's Streetcar. Mercutio in Central Park. And imagining the roles denied us by his death! Clov in Endgame. Henry Carr in Travesties. Astrov in Uncle Vanya. Nick in Virginia Woolf. To see him in A Moon for the Misbegotten or as Hickey in The Iceman Cometh!  After the Fall. The Homecoming. Krapp's Last Tape. True West. He'd have been an amazing Raskolnikov! Mamet. Lear's fool. Tesman. Arturo Ui...

 Cecily and Gwendolyn, in each play...         

When you wake up at two in the morning and tear through the house, rifling through the Oxford, the Pelican, the Bevington, and the Riverside in a groggy attempt to settle a textual dispute from a dream.  ("Honey? Are  the Ardens still in a box somewhere? Oh! Shh Shh Shh! It's the middle of the night!") Ravelled. Trammeled. Sorted. And then you realize that you can't, from your wheelchair, reach the books you just left on the floor and so will have to sheepishly ask your wife to straighten things up for you in the morning. Sleep rolling. "Out, damned Scott!"

  In the early days of the National Theatre, Christopher Plummer was contracted to perform Coriolanus. Administrators for the National had seen a hugely successful production of Coriolanus in Berlin and brought the German directors to London for the project. Plummer memorized Shakespeare's text before rehearsal's began.  It became clear, however, that the Berlin production had in fact been Brecht's free-ranging and deeply Marxist adaptation. Something you would have thought would be recognized by the National folk. Plummer was there for the Shakespeare, The Germans were prepared, and only willing, to do the Brecht. Plummer, riding the crest of his stardom, refused. One can only hope he actually said "There is a world elsewhere!"