Day Fifteen – Plenty of Words, Plenty of Tea

Today was a rather peaceful, uneventful day. No musical events, no stress, no spontaneous readings in the salon. It involved plenty of writing for me: I plugged ahead on the revision for “October Suprise”–it’s taking very good shape. I’m hoping it will be done tomorrow. I also wrote more of “The Dinosaur Thief.” That first draft is now at seventy pages.

I did bring a number of things to read with me. A brought plays (“Inherit the Wind,” “Glengarry Glen Ross,” “Betrayal,” “Where we Belong,” “The West Side Waltz” and “Fool for Love.”) I brought poetry (Billy Collins’ “The Apple That Astonished Paris.”) I also brought a copy of Dennis Diderot’s philosophical musings, which is appropriate because he once stalked the rooms and hallways of this chateau. I also brought a copy of John Huston’s screenplay for ‘Treasure of the Sierra Madre.” This is one of my favorite Humphrey Bogart films–really, one of my favorite films, period. It’s one of the few films from his 40s and 50s heyday where he plays a completely irredeemable protagonist. He even told a friend “I play a real shit in this picture.”

What would make one of the biggest stars on earth want to play such an awful person at the height of his popularity? It had to be the writing. Well, it would have been for Bogart. He didn’t really care much for other actors–Lauren Bacall being the notable exception. At the commissary at Warner Brothers, if you needed to locate Bogart, you didn’t ask his costars. He was always hanging out with the writers. Huston was one of his favorites, so I wanted to read the script that got him fired up to play the horrid Fred C. Dobbs. Reading plays and screenplays is one of the best ways to learn and hone one’s craft. I knew all of these books would be ideal companions for my writing residency.

Of course, the environment in which I am reading certainly doesn’t hurt. This is my view at the pond, reading John Huston, on my fifth or sixth cup of Earl Grey. But really, who’s counting?