bilbored
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
I am too depressed to write. Not about life, it is interesting. Work is not. 5 more hours today lighting Gypsy and umm.. let me see, it kinda takes us back to our Summer Stock roots way back when. I wonder if I can beat the crowd and sign up for training at the new Tim's....Bill
Monday, March 28, 2005
*
I am not in love
But I'm open to persuasion.
Spring:
I could really love, really love,... love love.
....Bill
Fuck!... When I wake up - opentopersuasion...reallylove
I am not in love
But I'm open to persuasion.
Spring:
I could really love, really love,... love love.
....Bill
Fuck!... When I wake up - opentopersuasion...reallylove
Friday, March 25, 2005
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
A few months back I wrote with embarrassment that the 2004 Man Booker prize winner Alan Hollinghurst had completely fallen under my radar. I have now corrected that sin and have done penance by reading all of his novels written to date. And what a glorious penance it was too.
I started off with The Line of Beauty and tore through as quickly as his prose would allow, for his words are meant to be savoured. I have read a lot of gay themed literature by many gay authors and have honestly found that most really don’t stand up as great works, comparable with the English writers generally accepted as bench marks of quality, perhaps showing my age a bit, but I think generally of the group derisively referred to as the dead white English guys. Enough about that. Hollinghurst has all the earmarks of such a writer with the added bonus of being Gay; an additional sensibility to his well crafted writing. I am so jealous I could spit. Where else could you read about some interesting esoteric commentary on music or literature in one sentence and getting fucked in the shrubbery of a London square in the next and, it works well, as art and entertainment. At last some one who thinks like I do. He speaks of and to my generation. Yet he is still able to appeal to the likes of my 70 something mother who enjoyed the book as well as I did. On finishing his book she responded exactly the same way as I did and also as a Lesbian friend did too. A testament to the universality of his work, that so many diverse readers can come away with similar thoughts and conclusions, even if arrived at by the different paths that our dissimilar life’s experience can bring to the written word of another.
I next read the Swimming Pool Library and was astonished to find it even better than The Line of Beauty. It probably would have been a prize winner itself, had it had a little less graphic sex in it. Not that I am complaining, nor was it any way gratuitous. It did though describe certain sex acts that I might enjoy but, I would still never the less blush in the telling. Perhaps making it, a bit of a harder sell to the public at large. His other books The Folding Star and The Spell hold up equally well. In many ways they all work together as companion pieces, different enough yet complimentary in character and themes. He is a smart well educated writer who expects the same from his readers. He is scholarly yet poetic and he writes in a manner that is free of pretension. His writing seethes in an atmosphere of sensuality. Alan Hollinghurst is someone who understands his world and all of its many shades and paradoxes..
If you have not read any of Hollinghurst’s books go out and buy them all and read them, in no particular order. It is not necessary to read him in sequence. Any Gay man who has been waiting for a gay writer whose books stand first as quality writing and then as good gay writing will not be disappointed. Oh and if you’re an American friend, hurry before the Fundies and right wingers catch wind. They will surely stoke the fires with this author….Bill
I started off with The Line of Beauty and tore through as quickly as his prose would allow, for his words are meant to be savoured. I have read a lot of gay themed literature by many gay authors and have honestly found that most really don’t stand up as great works, comparable with the English writers generally accepted as bench marks of quality, perhaps showing my age a bit, but I think generally of the group derisively referred to as the dead white English guys. Enough about that. Hollinghurst has all the earmarks of such a writer with the added bonus of being Gay; an additional sensibility to his well crafted writing. I am so jealous I could spit. Where else could you read about some interesting esoteric commentary on music or literature in one sentence and getting fucked in the shrubbery of a London square in the next and, it works well, as art and entertainment. At last some one who thinks like I do. He speaks of and to my generation. Yet he is still able to appeal to the likes of my 70 something mother who enjoyed the book as well as I did. On finishing his book she responded exactly the same way as I did and also as a Lesbian friend did too. A testament to the universality of his work, that so many diverse readers can come away with similar thoughts and conclusions, even if arrived at by the different paths that our dissimilar life’s experience can bring to the written word of another.
I next read the Swimming Pool Library and was astonished to find it even better than The Line of Beauty. It probably would have been a prize winner itself, had it had a little less graphic sex in it. Not that I am complaining, nor was it any way gratuitous. It did though describe certain sex acts that I might enjoy but, I would still never the less blush in the telling. Perhaps making it, a bit of a harder sell to the public at large. His other books The Folding Star and The Spell hold up equally well. In many ways they all work together as companion pieces, different enough yet complimentary in character and themes. He is a smart well educated writer who expects the same from his readers. He is scholarly yet poetic and he writes in a manner that is free of pretension. His writing seethes in an atmosphere of sensuality. Alan Hollinghurst is someone who understands his world and all of its many shades and paradoxes..
If you have not read any of Hollinghurst’s books go out and buy them all and read them, in no particular order. It is not necessary to read him in sequence. Any Gay man who has been waiting for a gay writer whose books stand first as quality writing and then as good gay writing will not be disappointed. Oh and if you’re an American friend, hurry before the Fundies and right wingers catch wind. They will surely stoke the fires with this author….Bill
Tuesday, March 22, 2005
It has been a while since I did a post proper and I am not entirely sure this will count as one either. Consider it more along the lines of news except there are one or two things I need to leave out. Which does seem to be a problem if your writing a personal blog . A deal is a deal so nothing about a certain guy. IS THAT TANTALISING ENOUGH, I will rant about work instead. I have just come in from the theatre where I did a fast track, and up to speed as moving light operator, something I have done but on a smaller scale, than the system we have in place now. Vari-Lites for those tech savvy. I will fill in tomorrow for the boss and according to him he would like this to continue until the show is in a finished state, subject to approval from upstairs of course. Times are tough you know. What this all means is, it is beginning to hit the fan big time and the cracks in the new austerity plan are beginning to show. Fast and simple you can’t go out and buy all this new technology and expect fewer people to run it in less time and without proper training or indeed just that more time is needed to make very new sophisticated gear run smoothly. Umm chaos ensues.
Senior management are idiots, I can only be thankful that a few heads will more then likely roll this fall as another inane 5 year plan bites the dust. This will be the third time now I have seen the theatre in this exact situation and things are well on there way to unfolding pretty much like the last few times only this time the stakes are greater for those who run the place. The decisions from above not very astute.
And now something positive during this mornings level set there was a full orchestra rehearsal going on in the pit and the sound was sensational. The arrangements were very fresh and complex and the sound was rich and warm in our all wood auditorium. I have no doubt even at this early stage of rehearsal that this production of Gypsy will if anything knock your socks off musically and that alone may be worth the price of admission ….Bill
Senior management are idiots, I can only be thankful that a few heads will more then likely roll this fall as another inane 5 year plan bites the dust. This will be the third time now I have seen the theatre in this exact situation and things are well on there way to unfolding pretty much like the last few times only this time the stakes are greater for those who run the place. The decisions from above not very astute.
And now something positive during this mornings level set there was a full orchestra rehearsal going on in the pit and the sound was sensational. The arrangements were very fresh and complex and the sound was rich and warm in our all wood auditorium. I have no doubt even at this early stage of rehearsal that this production of Gypsy will if anything knock your socks off musically and that alone may be worth the price of admission ….Bill
Friday, March 18, 2005
You have been a prisoner
of a little pond.
I am the ocean
and its turbulent flood.
Come merge with me.
Leave this world of ignorance.
Be with me
I will open
the gate …
~Rumi~
....Bill
Tuesday, March 08, 2005
Friday, March 04, 2005
