So last week I made a last minute decision to come up to NYC after reading about this opera of Dante's Divine Comedy that would be debuting at Carnegie Hall, "La commedia" by Louis Andriessen, which I saw last Thursday night with my friends Michael and David and which I loved. I don't know anything about this music, I just wanted to see it because of the poem and because the description sounded really cool. And it was this crazy thing, this journey through hell up to heaven and there was a lot of weird weird music, atonal and dissonant and eerie and sometimes, to me, stunningly beautiful and unnerving, and there was this one opera singer whose voice did not sound of this world at all, it was so high and strange, and another who was like this long long column of a woman who skulked about the stage all glamorous and odd like something out of an old German expressionist film. It was intense: at times I felt like I was being directly transported into Dante's poem, and at some points I really was almost shaking with the intensity and horror of it.
Anyway, here we be, pre and post journey:
So then I stuck around for some days mainly to meet my agent and hang out with my sister, and on Friday after a long and fruitful and lovely lunch with my agent and her assistant -- MERMAID is now officially finito and signed off on and off into production, and I have a few new projects in the works! -- my sister and I went with a few friends to see some HIP HOP ACCORDION at Pianos and to hear about our friend Michelle's travels... Michelle having recently up and spent a whole YEAR travelling the world, trekking through Asia, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, South America. She had a special affection for South Africa, where among other things she went to the best spa ever in this world, and Namibia, where she volunteered for a week at a wildlife sanctuary and fed lions and slept with some very ornery, feisty, up-to-no-good baby baboons, and I would like to do both immediately thankyou.
Saturday I went to see the newest show my brilliant friend Eric is working on, RED, about Rothko, and that is one elegant, fascinating hour and a half, all between Alfred Molina as Rothko and Eddie Redmayne as his studio assistant. At one point they prime a canvas together, working furiously together to transform the whole thing to red in, seemingly, seconds, and it is very very astonishing and balletic, and this show has gotten all rave reviews and you should see it this minute. Oh and Alfred Molina as Rothko is an amazing character: totally obnoxious and insufferable and pretentious and overbearing and yet very touching and lovable and fascinating at the same time. I don't know how many writers and/or actors could pull off such a mix, really.
That evening some friends came over and we spent many wine-drenched hours playing Mexican train DOMINOES. I know. I must admit I find games involving smooth shining clinking things very glamorous. I always thing of a scene from Lust and Caution (I think) where a whole table of Chinese (I think) ladies are sitting around a table, all elaborately adorned with long polished nails and fingers covered in rings, and all smoking long long cigarettes, playing mah jong. Clinking clinking clinking while they talk and smoke and glitter.
And then Sunday I met my friend Anthony for the Swedish film Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I have not read those books so don't know how the film compares but man, that is one awesomely mesmerizing pot boiled movie full of snowy landscapes and evilness abounding and our main girl zipping about on her motorcycle and kicking ass and staring out at everything with these black, ferocious eyes. All kinds of creepiness and violence and even old spooky Swedish doods who with horrific Nazi pasts.
And then I have been working working working, trying to nail down this next book, the one to follow Mermaid, as well as my children's book and YA idea, and it is fun but it aint easy and in the meantime, I found out yesterday that Josh Sears, who did the U.S. covers for Godmother and Mermaid, was just announced as one of the winners of the American Illustrators competition for Mermaid, with only 280 pieces chosen out of 8k. OK I guess you can admire it again. Honestly I am just madly in love with this cover:
Oh!! And lastly, my friend Barb's baby Vivienne Coco Lee was born last Wednesday!!! Look!!
I went to the hospital that day but Vivienne was locked away and so now I will finally meet her this very eve once I get back to PA and in fact I have to get ready for said leaving right this very minute and with that I shall take my leave.
The end.
Anyway, here we be, pre and post journey:
So then I stuck around for some days mainly to meet my agent and hang out with my sister, and on Friday after a long and fruitful and lovely lunch with my agent and her assistant -- MERMAID is now officially finito and signed off on and off into production, and I have a few new projects in the works! -- my sister and I went with a few friends to see some HIP HOP ACCORDION at Pianos and to hear about our friend Michelle's travels... Michelle having recently up and spent a whole YEAR travelling the world, trekking through Asia, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, South America. She had a special affection for South Africa, where among other things she went to the best spa ever in this world, and Namibia, where she volunteered for a week at a wildlife sanctuary and fed lions and slept with some very ornery, feisty, up-to-no-good baby baboons, and I would like to do both immediately thankyou.
Saturday I went to see the newest show my brilliant friend Eric is working on, RED, about Rothko, and that is one elegant, fascinating hour and a half, all between Alfred Molina as Rothko and Eddie Redmayne as his studio assistant. At one point they prime a canvas together, working furiously together to transform the whole thing to red in, seemingly, seconds, and it is very very astonishing and balletic, and this show has gotten all rave reviews and you should see it this minute. Oh and Alfred Molina as Rothko is an amazing character: totally obnoxious and insufferable and pretentious and overbearing and yet very touching and lovable and fascinating at the same time. I don't know how many writers and/or actors could pull off such a mix, really.
That evening some friends came over and we spent many wine-drenched hours playing Mexican train DOMINOES. I know. I must admit I find games involving smooth shining clinking things very glamorous. I always thing of a scene from Lust and Caution (I think) where a whole table of Chinese (I think) ladies are sitting around a table, all elaborately adorned with long polished nails and fingers covered in rings, and all smoking long long cigarettes, playing mah jong. Clinking clinking clinking while they talk and smoke and glitter.
And then Sunday I met my friend Anthony for the Swedish film Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I have not read those books so don't know how the film compares but man, that is one awesomely mesmerizing pot boiled movie full of snowy landscapes and evilness abounding and our main girl zipping about on her motorcycle and kicking ass and staring out at everything with these black, ferocious eyes. All kinds of creepiness and violence and even old spooky Swedish doods who with horrific Nazi pasts.
And then I have been working working working, trying to nail down this next book, the one to follow Mermaid, as well as my children's book and YA idea, and it is fun but it aint easy and in the meantime, I found out yesterday that Josh Sears, who did the U.S. covers for Godmother and Mermaid, was just announced as one of the winners of the American Illustrators competition for Mermaid, with only 280 pieces chosen out of 8k. OK I guess you can admire it again. Honestly I am just madly in love with this cover:
Oh!! And lastly, my friend Barb's baby Vivienne Coco Lee was born last Wednesday!!! Look!!
I went to the hospital that day but Vivienne was locked away and so now I will finally meet her this very eve once I get back to PA and in fact I have to get ready for said leaving right this very minute and with that I shall take my leave.
The end.
posted by Carolyn Turgeon at
10:48 AM
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