Deer Abbey

A slightly less felicitous Burma Shave rhyme:

Shaving brush
All wet
And hairy
I’ve passed you up
For sanitary
Burma Shave

Good news and bad news on the MRI:  There is nothing wrong with my brain, except I’m getting old.  And old isn’t fixable.  So halleluia – and durn.

Yesterday afternoon I went out to the Old Log Theater to watch a rehearsal of “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” and had a brief interview with the new owner of the place about the mechanics of auditions.  This was all in aid of the novel I’m preparing to write.  Funny - and great - how "I'm writing a novel" opens many doors!  It was interesting to watch, they fuss about things I would never have thought of, such as how to get off a crowded stage without brushing against a fellow thespian, and how others in a scene can encourage the audience to follow an actor’s movement or mood or action or speech.  This was a dress rehearsal, the play opens tonight.  After, they all sat down on the stage and brought out notebooks and the director went over every single scene, reading comments he had written down – amazingly picky comments, including lots of positive feedback and some suggestions to improve a speech or movement.  I was surprised at how much emphasis is placed on movement.  It has to seem spontaneous, but can’t be clumsy or confusing - or obviously calculated.  I learned a lot I can use in the book.

I have rejoined the Society for Creative Anachronism after many years.  It’s mostly because there is a plan getting underway by a local company to make a movie of my first published novel, Murder at the War – they’re going to use the title it was changed to when it came out in paperback: Knight Fall.  The novel is set at the SCA’s biggest annual event, The Great Pennsic War.  We want to film most of it at an actual War – but maybe not the Big One, but a smaller one that takes place in Wisconsin.  Pennsic (which takes place in Pennsylvania) has doubled in size since I wrote the book and the logistics could be very complex and difficult.  Meanwhile, I'm back to being Mistress Margaret of Shaftesbury, Abbess of Deer Abbey.  Nice!