Not SO Horrible

Well, well, well...

There seems to be another remake I can see the merit of doing. Granted, I'm not chomping at the bit for it, nor do I even particularly want it... but at least they've picked something that makes sense rather than another slipshod watering-down of a movie that had been just fine as is.

Roger Corman's classic Little Shop of Horrors. Yeah, okay, it could be fun to see a visually stunning man-eating plant. Right?

I must admit I have not seen the original movie all the way through. Cuttings of it, yes. I have, however, seen the musical movie. And then I'd been perturbed to discover they gave it a happy ending. Seeing the Broadway revival had been a real treat (what with 6 different Audrey II [plant] puppet/contraptions - the final of which moved its giant bulbous head/mouth over the entire audience!)

I sure hope they have the ending from the non-movie musical. (Good gracious, I don't know Corman's actual ending!)

But at least this Hollywood hootennany has a modicum of sense.  Replant.

BARRIE DAY, But of course!

SHAME ON ME!

The date today DID sound familiar, I assure you.

But not until Andrea Jones sent me a "Happy Barrie Day!" on Facebook did it hit me.

Fie on me, who forgoteth to demarcate the anniversary of the man who would not stop playing games and brought the world such a joyous myth.

Hail to thee, Sir James Matthew Barrie.  Forgive my behaving like your most beloved character!

Composing a Compass

Originally the post about Gil had been meant as a quick note regarding how Life really does imitate art...

as in how I have a way of relating everything to Peter Pan...

or, really, on the same (panpipe) note, that we cannot escape storytelling, even in our own lives.

But then, given the way Life played out, it became a reminder that even though it may seem as if we can at times, we cannot truly know tomorrow.  As much as we may want to plot out or lives, the story always takes a few turns.

 

I said I’d remark on another way it reminded me of a story.  Well, here ‘tis.

In college my best friend Laughter and I knew this guy.  I won't reveal his actual real name either, but I will say that his first name is on this page and his surname is found on a compass.

There'd been something weird about Compass.  What sort of weird?  Much.  And this is coming from a guy who shouldn't be calling the kettle black.  Ask Laughter and he'll tell you the same thing (on both accounts.)

First (is this really first?) let me say that there'd been an instant attraction to Compass.  I loved him immediately.  But I also feared him.  Compass had a kind of hold on us.  What I mean is, if Compass said, "Hey Pete, let's go to the mall and play Turtles!" I would do it.  Despite spending the very last of all my money, despite knowing I shouldn't, despite not being in the mood, despite having better things (like schoolwork, perhaps) to do.  [Oh - 'Turtles' refers to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game.]  It seemed I’d do anything Compass wanted and spend lots of time with him.  It had been a magic spell.  Laughter's 'enchantment' might have been lesser than mine (I'm not sure), but the ability of Compass to get his way still applies.  Watch a movie that's seriously nothing more than a vehicle for gore at two in the morning when you have class early in the morning?  Sure.  Go out to eat after already eating in the cafeteria?  Sure.  You get the idea.  I'm not proud of it, not by a longshot.  I cannot rationalize it, it just... yeah.

So anyway, Compass's weirdness didn't merely stem from his puppeteering.  It's as if he came from another world or something.  He didn't seem to know basic things.  Using a spoon.  How to pronounce "crepe."  He would brag about his girlfriend back home who had allegedly been a model (but whose picture seemed like the kind that came with the frame.)  Realizing that most people didn't want to be discussing the ramifications of zombie guts at dinner.  To be honest, it's been 23 years now, I can't recall every single instance of oddity.  But trust me, he'd just been "off."  To the point of actually wondering if he'd just been a half-baked imaginary friend.

I managed to break the spell, but that’s another story.  I still hung out with him, but the magic fizzled.  Then Compass, quite suddenly, announced that he would be leaving.  That he'd not be coming back next school year.  In fact, he didn't even finish the term, as I recall.  Just decided to go... fueling the fire of thoughts that he'd not even been real.

Laughter and I would joke about him in the sense of being some sort of demon sent to thwart us.  A writer certainly couldn't help but think of it in terms of a book.  What if he actually were an "entity" here to teach us a lesson or something?  The idea developed... if "Compass" came back… hmm, it would make a cool novel.  Later on in life, Compass out of the blue.  And what if he'd come before?  But I knew that I didn't have the wherewithal to write such a tale.  Not yet at least.

Well, 23 years later, along came Gil.  Let me clarify here... Gil is nowhere near the magnitude of Compass.  I liked him immediately, yeah.  But the way I love him now grew with time.  And Gil doesn't have power over me.  Gil's also not bizarre like Compass.  There's things he doesn't know, but they're easily explained in that he's many years my junior.  (And he does know about spoons!)  Unlike Compass, Gil reciprocates everything from help to meals.

So it hadn't been until the sudden event of Gil leaving that I remembered Compass.  The parallels all became clear.  An amazingly friendly and playful guy comes out of nowhere for whom the attraction is great and strong.  Gil could convince me to do anything, but not ANYTHING, having learned my lesson with Compass.  He's gotten me to watch things out of my nature - and I've enjoyed them.  Gil loves playing video games and I'll happily watch or play.   He has his marvelous backstories.  Also, Laughter is quite fond of him.  Maybe it doesn't seem all that clear, but it did (and does) to me.  I see each manifestation of Compass to be different, but reminiscent, a guide tailored to the stage of Life in which he appears.

 

Thus, "Compass" had shown up again, in a way.  Naturally it got me thinking about him.  And the to-be-written novel.  Are my experiences with Gil to serve as inspiration for another section of the book?  Am I going to now write the book?  Not likely sooner than later.  I have PLENTY to work on already.  Besides, who’s to say Compass won’t show up again?  I’d rather the tale be self-contained with no sequel.  ;)  But I'm talking about it because I learned something else from all of this: Sometimes a novel takes a lifetime to be able to write.

That's pretty darn profound to me.  I guess up til now-ish I figured a story, when set down to be writ, would just spring to life with a little help from the characters.  As I always say, they've lived the tale and they relate it to us.  So the idea that one’s own lifetime is required to play out before a particular tale can truly be told – without the focus being a chronicle of one’s life – intriguing to say the least.

*Love referred to is Plantonic.

Send Off for Sendak

Another great has passed on today...

Maurice Sendak's page has gone blank.

His most famous work, Where the Wild Things Are, is actually one of the first books I ever cherished. I don't think my mother understood the fascination.  (But that might be par for the course. Both with that particular book and my favorites in general.)

Mr. Sendak's ability to tap into the collective and primal psyche is a force to be reckoned with, that's for certain. Like Barrie, he semed to walk on the border of childhood and adulthood - utilizing that marvelous and mysterious grey area to the fullest. In fact, I seem to recall Mr. Sendak saying that he doesn't write for children or adults. That's the way I like it. And the way I, too, function.

Farewell, Maurice Sendak!

Thanks for the inspiration, stories, illustrations and just in general - sharing your wild imagination.

Immortalized on the Game Again!

Good gravy!  I truly am running out of ways to say:
1) It happened again.
2) Is it just that I am prone to looking for it... or does someone at Jeopardy! love the boy on the island as well?

The category "The Immortals," I must say, did not actually make me think of Pan.  But there, hiding first off under the $200 spot he showed up.

It's interesting that they did classify him as an Immortal.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it isn't correct.  Just that it's never (ha!) directly stated that Pan is immortal.  Only by the context and clues of the story as it unfolds can we make that claim.  Gotta love irrefutable inference, am I right?

Know What? Never, Actually...

If you're a follower of my posts here, it's likely that you've read about my friend Gil.

I met Gil last June.  Since then he's become one of my favorite people.  We've been through a lot and are great friends - to the tune of hanging out as many as four or more days a week.  We have much in common and make each other laugh.  The truth is I'm quite a bit older than him.  And not just a little, really quite a lot.  But it didn't put any stops in our friendship.  I've got a Peter Pan complex, remember?  I act his age most of the time (not meant in any bad sense) anyway.  [Most people mis-guess my age by as much as 15 years!]  In fact, the age difference worked out well, for he'd been able to put me in touch with "current" ideas, culture and lingo and by the same token I've "taught" him a bunch of "old school" things.  But usually, the gap straight up didn't matter a whit.   Just an all around great buddy, my best friend here in the city [as opposed to Laughter, my true best friend - who, by the way, is also very fond of Gil.]  So you can imagine how devastated I'd been when it came to pass that he'd be moving away!

Yep, an opportunity arose out of the blue, and he decided to jump on it.  It wouldn't be any small move, either, but of the distance and life-changing variety.  I'm here in Chicago and his plans would take him to Baltimore.  Those plans?  A sweet job [which would also involve trips to South America] and otherwise being just an hour or so from his home turf.  Which meant not only would he be doing something he figured he would love, but also being that much closer to HIS actual best friend, not to mention other members of his family.  Truly happy for him, I had to let that outweigh my sadness.  And it did, but being bummed would creep in from time to time.  And time seemed quite short.  For he'd be leaving in just two weeks [from when the opportunity arose]!  We'd been looking forward to a fantastic Summer of fun.

We decided to make the most of our time and spent nearly all of it together, more than usual if that's even possible.  But as can be expected with expecting every moment to count, we'd grated on each other a bit.  Don't get me wrong, everything had been and is fine between us.  It's just that we needed some patches apart, too. Familiarity breeds contempt as they say... But the clock kept ticking, right?  I'll be damned, though, if I didn't seem like I'd spent an entire two weeks crammed into one!

To put a fly in the ointment, as the saying goes, my excellent and long-time friend Sunshine came to town the final weekend that Gil would be here.  I'd known about Sunshine's visit for a couple of months in advance [coming to perform in an Improv Troupe as part of the Chicago Improv Festival] and I'd been uber-excited for her to meet Gil.  So you can imagine the turmoil and churning inside knowing I'd have to deal with dividing my time between the two of them - and that circumstances would prevent Gil and her from coming face to face.

I find it's nearly impossible for me to NOT relate events in my life to the tale of Peter Pan.  So it's no surprise that I felt like him - and my favorite Lost Boy would be going off to grow up!  Not that I'd be alone on the island by a long shot.  But no one wants to see a best friend no longer be around, especially when the adventures together had been so sweet.  And so, that's ONE way that my friendship with Gil ties into the art of storytelling.  There's another, but I shall save that for a different post, as it deserves its own.  For you see, as it turns out... this tale had been far from over!

 

I'd been ultra lucky enough to be able to spend all day Friday with Sunshine beginning with breakfast, joined by NutTree (a mutual friend from college) as well as Zoey.  Sunshine and I had a magical visit full of reminiscing, running amok downtown, excellent improv theatre and laughs.   Later in the day, I got to meet her lovely, funny and enjoyable friends who would be performing with her.  They're friends of Sunshine, how could they not be utterly entertaining and wonderful folk?  Even better, Doodles came in from the suburbs on Saturday afternoon and we had a great time as well.  We met up with Sunshine, but of course (we had all gone to college together, you see), and we cheered for her in her moments of glory on the stage when performance time rolled around.  For the record, Banky and Clara came to see her show, too!  And Zoey again – oh.  She’s a long-time friend of mine, along with Sunshine and Doodles.  But I digress... I -had- been talking about Gil.  But it's not as if his leaving had been out of mind during all of this joy either.

Gil had a window open on Sunday, so off I went to spend the day with him...(missing another performance of Sunshine in the process!) which I knew just might prove to be the last time I'd see him in who knows how long.  But something happened.  To put it in a nutshell:  Gil had heard from the "other end" of things and apparently the tune of what would be happening changed.  It no longer seemed so wonderful, one might go as far to say shady.  Suddenly it did not seem like a good move (figuratively and literally) at all.  But we weren't sure.  A genuine dilemma.  Thus, we (us and his sister) had been in limbo.  Gil in a different and much more dire version of it, naturally.  He had his whole future on the line!  I’d just been dealing with the possible "loss" of a great friend.  When I left that night the decision had still not been made - as info had yet to come from the other end.  As much as I would love to have him stay, I certainly wanted the best for him.  If only what’s best had been clear...

The next day he texted me to come over in the early evening.  I’d be able to meet his mother (another Peter Pan reference!) for her plans in the city finally left a spot open.  I’d been thrilled.  I’ve talked with her on speaker-phone and heard great things about her.  So I went off, got re-tracked (by Gil, in mid-transit) and wound up at a bar/grill with them.  Needless to say, I now know why Gil's so charming - his Mom is pure delight. 

I know you’re in suspense as to how this turned out.  Just imagine how it felt for all involved, right?  Over the course of the visit there in the booth, Gil let me know what had been decided.  After all that roller coaster, full of bittersweet and emotionally charged incidents, he’s staying!  He decided to give Chicago another go and make his major life shifts here instead.  And he has!  The very next day, would you believe it, Gil landed himself a sweet job.  How great it had been to hear the joy in his voice when he called to tell me.  Way to go, Gil!

 

So there you have it...  QUITE a weekend, eh?

If there's one thing I've [re]learned over the past month, it's that if we think we know what tomorrow will bring, we're just pretending.  Or, let me say it via a lyric from my favorite band:

All that you dream of will echo surprise – and all you have to do is just believe.

Peter Pan is 100 - AGAIN!

Well, folks, another Peter Pan Centennial has arrived!

As of today, the statue of the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up has been drawing visitors to it for 100 years!

Yep, having appeared without warning (as if by magic) as per Barrie's request on this date, it's a testament to the enduring quality of the magnificent character.

Now if only it looked like Barrie's photos instead... but, I'm just being a purist again.  Not meant in any way to slight George Frampton's statue, it's a masterpiece in and of itself.  I know, I had the good fortune to see it in person from every angle.  I spent a good chunk of time there! ;)