A new working title for the Manning novel may be, Last Chance For the Human Race. Dramatic, eh? Writing it is still going swimmingly. That other novel, the first I ever wrote, The Man In The Mirror, the one I'm typing from hard copy into editable files? It's down to 20 pp. At one or two pages a day, I'll be done in 10 to 20 days. A whole 'nother George wrote that crazy thing. A murderous high school teacher? I would soon after be a sinister [according to the principal] high school teacher for one year.
Speaking of old guys still performing, I caught Kirk Douglas's one man show, "Before I Forget", on the Turner Classic Movies Channel. He was sweetly entertaining. I used to think something like that ought to be easy to do, then I saw how much cleverness goes into pacing a performance like his!
Living in a lively town like Portland, you rub elbows with talent all day long. Went to St. John's Booksellers this morning to buy a copy of Chris Luna's Brutal Glints of Moonlight, style inspired, I believe, by Jack Kerouac's school of disembodied poetics. Never visited that neighborhood before. Afterwards, I took my hour walk there and discovered Pier Park: softball fields, b-ball courts, swimming pool, walking trails, picnic shelters. It features a huge disc golf course. Suddenly a young man stepped from behind a pine to call out, "Sir?" "Yes," I said. "We're shooting a scene for Grim right now," he said. "Can you stay to the left of that basketball court so you won't be in the shot?" "Of course," I said. Two brief summers ago, Mertie had to skirt her usual lunch hour walk in a Vancouver cemetery because "Leverage" was being shot there. Add those encounters to the time we had brunch with Timothy Hutton and his girlfriend ... well ... you get the picture. Actually, we were seated at a table right next to theirs, but...?
More than a week since an entry has appeared here. Had to do with a gap when I had nothing to say, then a family visit followed by another period of nothing to say. I've been working on a plot outline for Manning, rereading everything I've written and condensing the material into synopses to help me recall important information about characters and future plot elements.
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| the Oregon Coast |
I continually fear I'll lose interest before I finish the Manning novel. Many times recently, I've begun books only to lose interest after 50 or 100 pages. Ideas come easily, but the finger numbing job of sitting down and typing has not been a happy process for my poetical psyche. I'm good for the short dash, but the long haul is difficult. I've managed to complete four novels, but it's been awhile since that happened.
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| Burroughs and Kerouac |
Went to watch Big Sur, based on novelist alcoholic Jack Kerouac's book by that name, and I wish we'd gone to the Oregon Coast this last summer. I don't know what can be said about his alcoholic take on life since it led to his own early & ugly death. I've always thought one section of Big Sur represents a true picture of Delirium tremens if you're curious about how it feels.
