Locked in

There is a sign here at the flat in edinburgh telling us not to leave the front door on "the snib". Now - I thought that might be just a britishism for "ajar" but it turns out it is a specific part of the door locking mechanism - that little piece that moves in and then latches when a door closes.

Well - we had a lot of fun with the word snib. But the joke's on us: we are somehow locked in the apartment - awaiting james braly's rescue. My big fear iis that we'd miss the show - bigger fear is that we'd miss our flights sunday.

It is scary. We are locked in.

Whisky

Talisker
Dalmore
Balvenie
Ben romach

L.I.A.M.I

Or life in a marital institution.

Tech is today here in edinburgh. We should have a pretty simple time.

The set is a chair, there are only a couple of lighting cues, we have a terrific stage manager/assistant director, Susie Schutt.

The structure - I think that's coming along. The most troubling thing for me has been making the two stories come together. James has this story of his sister dying and getting married in a hospice that weaves in and out of the individual tales about his wife. It works as a framing device only if they merge together

We had a long talk about that yesterday in which james riffed for about forty minutes about what happened between him and susan after he learned of his sister's death. He got very emotional and talked about how his sister lived and died to the fullest and always had a sense of humor and how now in his relationship there is no humor - and things just go too far - be it the susan's interest in leprechauns, placenta eating, or non-weaning of 6 and 8 year olds. And it might all be acceptable if they at least could laugh

I think he's doing a great job. And more importantly, seems to see that edinburgh is not the prize but part of the journey - and its a great place to enjoy life for a month without wife and kids.

It depends what the meaning of "it" is

Gotta watch my sloppiness here.

Told my actor/performer/storyteller james braly that I have a blog and naturally he checked it out.

I was commenting on the show we've taken to edinburgh and the performance at a sound studio in new york in which I wrote:

"Not really sure what it is but people seemed to enjoy it."

I also wrote "still having trouble with the structure".

Now - to james's mind, I think he interpreted "not really sure what it is" as if I meant "not really sure what I am doing here".

I believe I meant, not really sure what the nature of the piece is. Is it a play? A series of stories? Or did I mean, not really sure why people enjoy it, but they do.

Either way, "it" shows the trickiness of writing. I keep a candid, breezy blog - and I risk alienating people or making myself seem a little callous. In the case of the nea/tcg interview, I think "it" made me feel like I was disgruntled with bob moss.

Either way, "it" reminds me that I need to be careful with "it" and other lazy words. And reminds me of course of the beauty of bill clinton - who when confronted by the special prosecutor about the veracity of a statement he made to his staff that "there's not a sexual relationship" with monica lewinsky, he responded:

It depends on what the meaning of the word "is" is.