Unless a renewed optimism subbed into the previous entry, after bludgeoning my way beyond one of those ubiquitous call centres to speak to a bank employee with decision-making authority and apparently even intelligence, later proves unfounded, that's all I'll log on the topic.
Except this: after several days with almost no money to hand or available -- I'll never more turn to family or friends to bail me out of partly self-inflicted fuss and hassle -- the temporary lock-down of my accounts starts to feel like an immense relief.
Not from responsibility, never from an insatiable desire to pursue my musical explorations while paying artists for their achievements, but from a near addiction to premature acquisition (my favourite P2P client for Mac OS X goes by that name too).
A long-awaited week of largely free time to delve deep into what I've already got has begun, my conscience clean even about the Factory since I left a long "handover note" telling those now faced with Africa what to expect and how to cover it during my absence. When the unpredictable happens, good luck to them!
Heck, I even washed out my coffee cup.
When home, I'll be reading other people's blogs more than I've had time for in months. This one has long been due a minor overhaul, to shift a few entries and stories, making for easier access, and if possible to optimise as best I can the use of several different servers to shorten the sometimes slow page-loading times which are a nuisance to those of the Faithful Five & ¾ living in Africa, where Net connections don't always come easy.
One thing I can't change, short of removing those titles, is an occasional slowdown due to excess demands on the 'All Consuming' booklist server, but my admiration for the sharing principles underpinning site creator Erik Benson's initiative grows the more I explore it, so if some of what I write interests you, please be patient with my friends and acquaintances.
The imminent official arrival of a northern hemisphere spring means the LP comes out of hibernation, since my hunch that if left to germinate for a while, the movie script would take on a richer life of its own at the back of my mind proved right.
For several months, I've been grateful to Donald -- a veteran who recently ceased working for the Factory -- for having lent me a couple of good books on film writing. The shorter one, Syd Field's 'Screenplay' dates back to 1987, but some of the finest movies he uses as examples are scarcely new either. The fat tome, 'Successful Script Writing' by Jurgen Wolff and Kerry Cox, is more wide-ranging than I need, but so lucidly done and helpful that I'll undoubtedly soon get a copy of my own.
Another possibility is what one anonymous Amazon UK reader calls "hokey and American, but a true gem...", Viki King's account of something I won't do with a project as ambitious as 'Sting in the Lotus' (LP for short ... perhaps I'd better find a "frequent abbreviations" spot on this front log page). She explains 'How to Write a Movie in 21 Days', which looks fine apart from its subtitle, "The Inner Movie Method." That's unlikely bait for a Brit whose log has coincided with enough "inner this" and "inner that", guts, blood, neuron, private parts and all, as regulars know to their cost, to last him a very long time.
Finally, I like the sound of Andrew Horton's 'Writing the Character-centred Screenplay,' if only because the mishaps and adventures of my mainly very sexy cast of mostly Quiet Revolutionaries, though still enduring a lock-down of their own in a growing file on the Mac, have become so outrageous and risky, chilling and tragi-comic that their resemblance to people I know well alarms me and they may need reining in.
There you go. At least three new ways to spend money.
Since I can't, I'll also be doing plenty of the best way of learning, pillaging my own wickedly large DVD library and watching how others do it.
When she's around, there are few more annoying things for the Kid than a father who will suddenly pause a film at a suspenseful moment, run it back and replay the scene for a closer look.
For the dad, little is more irritating than a cruel daughter who shares his enjoyment of the X-Files (to which we've been hopelessly addicted since batches of story are being released fortnightly in order via Francis's shop), leaps ahead of him and then bursts in on his work to try to tell him what happens in episodes he's yet to see himself.
If Manou's particularly persistent in these attempted spoilers, there's at least a code word I can use, "Complot?," which is understood to mean "Shut up, brat, this second!" if she nods "yes". This is our reference to those special episodes that give away more of the story behind the story...
I have further punishment in store should she dare break that rule. Last weekend, she was exceptionally precocious even for a soon to be 16-year-old, who has since last summer needed no further parental guidance in the most intimate of encounters as long as she and her boyfriend remain relatively sensible about it.
The wretch looked at my library, which is open source for people whom I like (within non-mailing distance, let me add), and asked purposefully, "Hey Dad, may I take 'Les Suèdoises font du Ski'?"
Since the mostly non-Swedish lasses in this ridiculous but kind-hearted gift from Francis evidently do no such thing as skiing, except by way of what passes for a plot, the answer was "No".
"Oh pleaaassse, it's for a friend. Honest, I want to tease her."
Yeah. Well, we've heard that one, haven't we? If ever I'm told, however, what happens in a "complot" episode -- and she already came perilously close last time with a reference to a younger "man with a cigarette" -- she will not only borrow that film but do so with strict orders to watch it from beginning to the inevitable and almost comically appalling orgy at the end ... with her mother.
Should she raise the spunk to do this, live to survive her mother's reaction and tell the tale, I'll reward her by regaling her with detailed accounts of what took place in real life with me, women and men I have known well, and even exactly who they are, if they're lucky enough to make fictional appearances in the LP.
Several do. Some don't yet know it.
On the "let rip" bit of this entry's title, with luck you might read more about certain other plans I have for the week later.
If you don't, you may, perhaps, presume that a non-skier has done an Uma Thurman on me.
'Kill Bill - Vol. 2' has been sitting, unwatched, up on the shelf for too long. The "Uma - Vol. Perfectly Primed Number" I have in mind is, however, a little less partial to gore.
1:53:01 AM link 
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