It opened. It didn't suck.

After months of work (and blood and sweat and tears and booze), "Dinner & Drinks" opened last night to a not-exactly-crowded theatre. Which is to say, we had about 15 people in the audience, which isn't quite as many as I would have liked.

But of the 15 who were their, they seemed to enjoy it. They laughed in the right places, and in some spots the laughter was huge. Finding out that there were a couple of servers in the audience, who could relate with the idea of stumbling into private conversations they probably shouldn't be stumbling into, was also entertaining, because it illustrated that, even though it was only a very tiny consideration, I got *that* part of the play accurate. And having never been a server, I'll admit that I pretty much made that part up.

Sound was a little weak. Apparently we were missing an amp, which we should be snagging tonight to improve that. Lights were a little glitchy too -- there were some dark spots that could stand to use a bit more illumination, so I might try to see if I can rearrange where the light is falling (though we're pretty limited, only working with four lights, hanging about ten feet off the ground).

The houses are looking to improve in the next few nights. With sales and comps, we should be sitting close to 40 or 50 for tonight, and Saturday is already sitting around 50. Friday might be light, but I'll be content to break the 100 ticket mark for all four days, making the show perhaps not a raging success, but hardly a failure either.

The only thing that seems a little bit disappointing at this point is the four-day run. After the amount of work that everyone put into this, it seems like we're cutting it off just when things should be starting to really rock. On the other hand, I'm still incredibly exhausted, and am eager to start my richly-deserved vacation from the land of the thespians, so maybe only running for one week was the right thing to do after all.

So, uh, yeah, it's been awhile...

Yeah, it's been awhile since I've been around these parts. Almost two months from the look of it.

Looking back, it seems my posting came to a close right around the time I was A) dealing with the cancellation of column, and B) dealing with an overwhelming series of problems on "Dinner & Drinks" -- the play I was, and am still, working on.

Which actually makes perfect sense.

The cancellation of the column was a pretty major blow, and losing that one avenue of self-expression left me feeling far less inclined to express than usual. And when the show hit a roadblock that required not only postponing the performance dates, but also recasting one of the characters, I found myself very, very quickly drowning in an almost unbearable level of stress.

Most of that is over now. The show opens in a couple of days, so most of my work is done (though I still need to finish the program work tonight, do some painting tonight, finish an article for the paper, and print the program tomorrow, after our final rehearsal), and in a little less than a week, it'll be all done, save for the trip to Kelowna for festival (and the possibility of working with someone to work the script into something more appropriate for film). At which point...I'm taking a very long break.

I've toyed with the idea of taking the next season off from the Studio Theatre, and as each do goes by, I'm more and more certain I want to. For one, I really do need a vacation, after working on a show almost constantly since last October. For another, I have two novels in varying states of completion that I'd like very much to get focused on again. Unfinished novels collecting dust aren't likely to accomplish much artistically.

Of course my mood for these last two months hasn't been fantastic either, but I doubt that would come as a surprise to anyone anymore. Sometimes I get the feeling that I've been in the gutter for so long that I'm starting to get used to the decor. Which, by the way, is a pretty sucky mindset to have.

More to come sometime after the opening of the show, when I can rant or rave, depending on how it went.

Drowning

I've been feeling for awhile -- at least a few weeks, maybe even a few months -- that I'm drowning under the stresses of having far too many things to do in nowhere near enough time. It's a horrible feeling. There are times, I swear to God, when I feel like I might die.

The problem is that my general approach to this feeling is to avoid the stresses entirely -- watch a movie or play video games, and just try to ignore the stresses that are making me feel like I'm going to die. But then, of course, these things don't get done. They're still hovering over my shoulder the next day, with even less time left in which to complete them, leaving me to feel even more like I'm going to die.

This is obviously a horrible cycle. It's a cycle I need to break.

I'm not sure exactly how to do this, except to try to focus on one thing at a time, forgetting the things that aren't quite as urgent. Prioritize and focus. Looking at too much all at once is only going to fill me with dread and avoidance.

And that's not going to help me get anything done.

Forgetting things

Today was an odd day.

Like most Wednesdays, there were numerous points throughout the day when I would find myself suddenly terrified that there was something I was forgetting.

In the shower today: Holy crap, I'm supposed to do something -- what is it?

Eating breakfast: Holy shit, I'm supposed to do something -- what is it?

Sitting at the computer: Holy shit, I'm supposed to do something -- what is it?

Turns out, what I was forgetting was the same thing I forget every single Wednesday -- that I'm supposed to write my column. Unfortunately, I was also forgetting that I don't have to remember to write my column anymore. So there was some kind of weird, meta-forgetting thing going on.

Of course, I'm dusting off this blog today, so in a way, this is where my column writing is going. Although, let's all hope that I'll find my way back here a bit more frequently than just once a week.

In other news, I'm now giving serious consideration to completely rewriting the end of Dinner and Drinks, only two weeks before we open. How fucking psychotic is that? Nevermind, don't answer, there isn't even a word for how psychotic that is.

My Week (or Why God Hates Me)

So, Merritt didn't entirely suck, which was a nice surprise, and all around I had a pretty decent weekend. Which should have been a sign of the horrible, horrible things to come. And would have been, if I had maintained my usually pessimistic attitude. Instead, I found myself thinking, "Hey, things are going along kind of good! How awesome is that!"

I'm a stupid, stupid man sometimes.

On Monday, driving home from work, my car dies on the highway for no apparent reason. I manage to steer it off to the side of the road, but it won't start back up again, and it's 8:00 at night and I don't really know what else to do with it, so I leave it there and walk home. The great thing about walking to my house is that the further you walk, the steeper the hills get to be. So as you get more and more tired, the hike gets more and more exhausting. It's really brilliantly designed, if you happen to be a masochist.

Tuesday, I get the car towed to Canadian Tire, where it'll sit in their parking lot until Wednesday morning, when they'll get the chance to look at it. So I'll be transportationless for one whole day. Nothing to lose sleep over.

Tuesday afternoon, I get a phone call from the Tribune. They're cancelling my column after 14 years (ten years of that time spent calling their "Weekender" or "Tribune Weekend" or whatever it's now called home). This makes me sort of sad. Actually, this makes me inredibly sad, and I spend Tuesday night getting wickedly shitfaced, essentially holding a wake for my soon-to-be-deceased column (speaking of which, if you feel like sending angry letters of protest to the editor and the publisher at the Trib, you can reach the editor at editor@wltribune.com or the publisher at lorne@wltribune.com -- I'm not suggesting that you do this, of course, but it'd probably make my heart feel a little warm if you did).

Wednesday, I'm hung over from the wake. Canadian Tire calls and tells me it's the starter, and it'll cost about $500 to repair. Ugh. But I tell them to go ahead, because, hey, I need my car. I haven't heard anything further by late afternoon, so I call back to see how things are going. Apparently they didn't have a starter in stock, so they had to order, and it'll be done on Thursday. So...another day without transport. Not a big a deal.

Thursday morning, Canadian Tire calls again. The starter's in, but the car still won't turn over. The engine is seized, and the car is, for all intents and purposes, a gigantic chunk of scrap metal. Which is awesome, because I'm still going to have to pay the $500 for the starter job that was done, essentially dumping half-a-grand into a car that is never going to move under its own power again. Because, you know, I've got fucking money to burn. This also means that I'm currently transportationless for...well, who the fuck knows at this point?

And that's my week so far. Since monday. Four days. Not even four WHOLE days yet, because, you know, Thursday is just starting.

At this rate, I'm going to probably die of a stroke tomorrow. And right at this moment, a part of me thinks that would be just fine.

Roadtripping

So, in just a couple of hours, I'll be heading to Merritt for the music fest. If you know me, this might seem odd, as I'm not big on country music. But I have media access, and I'm covering the event for ArtScene, so...you know, free vacation and all that rot.

There's a good chance I'll be moblogging parts of the trip either here over at the ArtScene blog, so if you're bored, and feel like checking up on how the event is going, you can watch for those mini-updates. If you're not bored...then I assume you're having a lovely weekend.

Cycles and epiphanies

As the years roll by and I get older, I begin to notice more and more how parts of my life run in cycles. Reading, for examples, runs on a cycle. For weeks or months at time I won't read anything except web sites and occasional newspapers. And then suddenly I'll pick up a novel and I'll be a reader for a period of weeks or months, devouring the first book I picked up, and then another, and then another, and then another, sometimes even going out of my way to buy a batch of books because I've run out of stuff to read.

And then as quickly as it started, it'll stop again -- no reading.

My writing tends to work in the same way. For a period of weeks or months I'll be desperately passionate about some new piece of writing, and I'll work on it constantly -- sometimes every night, if things are going particularly well, but at least every second or third night.

And then, almost out of blue, I'll hit a period of burnout. I wouldn't touch the book if my life depended on it. I fill my free time with movies, video games, and mindless web surfing. And I'll go on like this for weeks at a time.

Inevitably, though, I'll begin to feel guilty about these time-wasters. I'll begin to feel the untouched book actually starting to die from neglect, and I'll put the games and the movies and the web down and get back to work again.

I got back to work tonight.

I tried to play some video games, but they just didn't hold any appeal to me. I sat on the sofa and I stared at the Xbox and Wii and I knew that they weren't going to provide any enjoyment. But I tried anyway. Fifteen minutes on this game, fifteen minutes on that one, but nothing. The book beckoned.

I should have seen it coming. I've been sitting on the edge of something not-so-pleasant for the last few days. Not a depression, exactly, but I haven't been terribly upbeat either. I felt, in fact, like I was on the verge of an epiphany, and it didn't feel like a terribly good one.

Epiphanies come in all shapes and sizes. And, I think, differing levels of clarity. This one was vague. I couldn't put my finger on exactly what it was, but it stirred up some memories, made me question what I'd been doing with my time lately, and made feel -- once again, because this is something I've felt quite often -- that my life is filled almost entirely with mistakes.

I felt the overwhelming need to change something significant about my life. But I didn't know exactly what.

So without any clear indicator of what needed to be changed, I wrote. Because that was something I could change, and is always something worth changing -- doing a bit more work is never a bad thing.

Unfortunately, that feeling -- the feeling that somethings significant needs to change -- remains. Which leaves me little choice but to flail around trying to figure out what it is, hoping that either the answer finally arrives, the feeling leaves me in peace.

Mourning the death of the english language...

From an email I received at work today...

"Wha Laa..."

Which I'm pretty sure is a phonetic representation of the word "Viola." Which I'm pretty sure I was familiar with by, well, at least the eighth grade.

This sort of thing makes me want to bang my head against a wall. Or eat a bullet. Or both.

Or maybe it's just that I'm having a pissy day.

It was magic!

So far, the production of "Dinner and Drinks" has been a...well, let's say interesting, experience. This is my third time in the director's chair, but the first time directing something I've actually written myself. And I have to tell you, that changes things considerably.

I've already done one polish on the script, prior to the first readthrough. And since then -- with only the one readthrough, and two rehearsals under our belt -- I've made copious notes on even more things I want to change. Things that sound awkward, things paced badly, things that aren't funny. All sorts of things.

Which is good. That's what this was all about -- using the production process as a phase of the editing process.

With only two rehearsals complete -- and with those two rehearsals focused on only two of the play's four scenes -- I'm incredibly excited about how good things are already looking. It's fun to hear the words I've written coming out of people's mouths, particularly when the work. I hate to pat my own back, but there are some pretty funny exchanges in the play, that work even better when read allowed. And seeing those moments play out on stage, when they work, is just...amazing.

But, so far, the best part came last night, when rehearsed the, er, climax to the show. There's very little dialogue, and the scene plays out against music, with changes in the music as the cue for changes in the action.

This is a scene I've had imagined in my head for probably close to two years now. Last night I saw it, for real, on stage, for the first time.

And I loved it.

I got chills.

Little hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

I am not kidding.

I know as the weeks go on, and I see the scene again and again and again, it'll lose some of this initial charm, and become just another moment on stage. But I'm hoping that some of this initial magic will be preserved -- even if I don't see it -- until we actually put the show on stage, so that, if all goes well, those in the audience might have the same sort reaction I did. That is, after all, what it's about.

Past, present, future...

Leaving work today, nursing my numerous crises, reflecting on the crises of others, I found myself thinking about the script to Dinner and Drinks, in particular its final scene.

It's a scene that, at least at first, wasn't actually supposed to be there. As originally envisioned, Dinner and Drinks was going to be three scenes, involving three different couples, and when the three scenes were done, the play would be as well.

As I wrote it, though, I discovered that these three scenes that were going to make up the play were, while occasionally funny, essentially downer stories. The people were in bad relationships, or ditching bad relationships, or refusing the start bad relationships. Once you stripped the chuckles away, you were left with some pretty messed up, unhappy, dysfunctional people.

I decided I needed the play to end on a slightly more positive note, so for the fourth scene I decided to revisit the couple from the first scene -- whose story ended on probably the most downer note of the three -- and decided to give them some semblance of a happy ending.

I was inspired as well, I think, by a desperate need for a happy ending in my own life, not just in general, but for a specific circumstance I was going through at the time that I was writing that play. For the record, my own happy ending didn't come, but since then, I've become increasingly convinced that happy endings are a bit of a rarity even at the best of times.

I bring all this up because, while thinking about the script today, I realized that if I were writing that same play right now, I don't think I would have ended it quite the same way.

I still believe, to some degree, much of what is contained in the final scene. That sometimes you have to fight and take chances to try to get the things that mean the most to you. And that sometimes that most important thing is love. But I don't know if I believe it quite as passionately as I once did. Which got me to realizing that, on some levels, I'm not the same person now that I was when I wrote that script.

Which got me thinking about writing in general.

Writing, if you do it properly, can give the writer an amazing ability to look back at himself. It doesn't matter if you're writing a daily journal, writing a novel, writing a play, or writing a poem -- if you're putting part of yourself into it, then you're creating a permanent record of who you were at that point in your life. The things you believed in, the things you cared about, the things you were terrified of. And you can look back at those things years later and go, "Oh, so that's who I was."

Which is sort of cool.

Phase Two is almost complete

Following yesterday's callbacks from callbacks, Dinner and Drinks is 99% cast. I just need to make a few phone calls, confirm with all the actors their availability for the performance in Kelowna in October, and make the official announcement of the cast.

Which I won't be doing quite yet. Because it's only 99%, and things are still pending, and if I made any sort of announcement I would, without a doubt, be jinxing an already fairly sufficiently jinxed production.

First readthrough is scheduled for next Wednesday, with a Wednesday and Saturday rehearsal schedule. I won't lie to you -- I picked a Wednesday rehearsal night because Wednesdays are wing at Oliver's, and the more common Tuesday / Thursday rehearsal schedule tends to miss that fine bar special.

For some, it might seem like their priorities were a bit shuffled to schedule their rehearsal time around what night had the really good special at the pub, but when a visit to a local watering hole is pretty much a given post-rehearsal (as it tends to be when I'm in the director's chair) this seems like the most obvious approach. Plus the wings at Olivers are damn fine.

So if anyone wants to come and hang out with a bunch of loud people, drinking beer, eating wings, and probably conversing about all manner of filth (two hours of rehearsing a play about sex will do a lot to diminish conversational taboos), feel free to drop by our table. We'll usually be hitting the pub around 9:00ish.

It's feeling surprisingly good to see things finally falling into place for the production. Getting the approval, getting accepted into ACToberfest, and now (almost) having a cast. Next on the agenda is a quick polish / rewrite of the script before next week, so I can have a copy of the script for everyone in the cast at Wednesday's readthrough. I keep looking at the script, and at some of the sequences that I want to fix, and then I just sigh and put the script away, because I don't really have the energy to push through with the changes.

One of my cast members had commented a few times that the script is quite "clever" and I sort of agree -- with one scene in particular. Or, at least, half a scene. The latter half of the scene, less clever, and that's one of the big trouble areas I want to try to fix before next week. It's all going along just fine, with some really nice back and forth wordplay, and then all of a sudden it's like it's on a race just to get to the end. And it just doesn't *work* when compared to the earlier part. It's not as good, it's not as funny, it's not as clever.

I can't remember for certain, but I think I may have just gotten tired of all that cleverness, because as easy as it looks on paper, actually coming up with those clever lines can be rather a lot of work. And after doing it for half the scene, I think I probably just got lazy and took the path of least resistance.

Don't take the path of least resistance. Yes, it's easier, and yes, the road less traveled probably looks a little scary. But the path of least resistance is where all the carnivorous animals are hanging out, because that's where everyone else goes, so they can be pretty sure there'll be a good meal if they hang out there for a bit.

Let's get things rolling...

Well, I'm never going to get to 500 posts if I don't start, you know, posting. So here's another one.

Casting for Dinner and Drinks just got a little bit easier, now that one of my candidates has dropped out of the running, leaving me with almost exactly enough people for the show (there is one additional candidate, who I'd have to reschedule to accommodate, but I don't think I'm going to be doing that, as a reschedule drops someone else out of the running). Now I just have to hope that everyone's schedule is free in October so we can take the show to Kelowna. If not, I have to spend some time sobbing into a frothy mug of beer, and that's never any fun.

I want to do at least one polish on the Dinner and Drinks script before rehearsals start. There's a sequence towards the end of the second scene that has never sat well with me. Something about it seems kind of awkward and forced. Maybe I'm just being too picky, but I'm hoping I can get two people to sit down and do a reading of the whole script so I can try to zero in on what -- if anything -- is bugging me about the dialogue, so I can do a major cleanup before actors have scripts in their hands.

Oh, we're set for sponsors too -- we officially have a business sponsor for each of the four performances we'll be doing, so that's one less thing my producer needs to be working on, and one less thing I need to be stressing about. Fewer stresses are always a good thing.

In other news, I'm going to be swamped in major ArtScene work for the next three or four days. Hooray.

Slowly but surely...

"Dinner and Drinks" is -- little by little -- finally coming together. Following two auditions, there is almost a cast in place. I just need to drag a few people back for callbacks, just to double-check how my gut is telling me to cast the show, then we'll officially be able to start rehearsals, after confirming the casts' availability for a performance in Kelowna in October.

That's the other piece of exciting news in regards to the show -- we just confirmation today that we are have been selected to participate in the Actoberfest one act festival that Theatre BC will be holding for the first time his year. Festival performances will run on the hour from 4:00 pm to 11:00 pm on Friday, October 12th and 10:00 am to 11:00 pm on Saturday, October 13th.

"Dinner and Drinks" has two performance slots -- 1:00 pm on Saturday afternoon at the Black Box Theatre and 7:00 pm on Saturday evening at the Black Box Theatre.

So, you know, if you happen to be in the neighbourhood, come by and check the show out.

So far, just about every facet of bringing this show to life has seemed a little surreal. This is without a doubt one of the boldest moves I've taken with something of my own creation. Trying to mount a local production of this show would be stressful enough as it is, but the Actoberfest entry seemed too good an opportunity to pass up, so I thought, why not at least try?

So I did.

And now we're in. And now I'm not only going to be showing this thing that I wrote to the local folks who come to see it, but a festival full of theatre junkies from around the province.

Good lord, I hope they like it.

Exciting news, nonetheless. A full report on "Dinner and Drinks" casting will probably arrive next wee.

Blog post #464

Yesterdays Moblog posts provide compelling reasons for why I should never be allowed to attend Karaoke-based events. They just make me sad. And they make me hate the human race.

Yesterdays Moblog posts also provide compelling reasons for why I probably shouldn't moblog if I've been drinking.

On the bright side, those two posts helped the blog get two posts closer to the magic 500 blog post number, which I've been thinking about for awhile now (at least as far back as last year).

With approximately 36 posts to go before I reach the 500th meaningless ramble in this space, I've been wondering if I'll make it across that line before the end of the year. It's certainly conceivable -- one a week would almost be enough to do it -- but I have to concede that this space has been a little dusty lately.

My attention has been diverted. Too many other projects. Writing my ass off for the ArtScene, being in a play, prepping to direct a play, and yes, on occasion playing video games when I should probably be doing some actual work, has sort of gotten the better of my free time lately.

Not that this is an apology for that. Sometimes life happens, and some things take a back seat to old things. Like this blog. C'est la vie.

Nor is this a promise to blog more. It's a promise I'd like to make, but I'm also pretty sure that the odds of my actually following through or on the slim side, so why bother with a promise I'm not likely to keep.

Instead this is...I'm not sure what this is, really. An acknowledgement, that I realize that there hasn't been much to read here lately, and that it might go on that way -- except, of course, for the 36 more posts I hope to do before year's end, so I can celebrate the 500th post.

Which makes me wonder...what should I do in celebration of the 500th post?

No need to stress right now. It's not like it's right around the corner or anything.

Dear world (Part 2)

No, seriously, I fucking hate you.

Your friend,
Todd
---
Sent via BlackBerry on the Bell Mobility network because I am teh kewlz0rz.

Dear world...

Dear world,

I hate you,

Best regards,
Todd
---
Sent via BlackBerry on the Bell Mobility network because I am teh kewlz0rz.

It's Official

After more time spent on the edge of my seat than I'd like to admit to, I can finally announce the second secret project that I've been trying to pull together for the last few weeks. Or months maybe, it's hard to remember now.

Dinner and Drinks, a play written and directed by Todd Sullivan (that's me, by the way) will be on stage at the Limelight in August. Dates are tentatively set for August 10 and 11, and August 17 and 18. Here's the somewhat flowery synopsis I came up with a few weeks back:

"Four scenes involving three different couples, out for dinner on the same evening. The first couple struggles through the awkward aftermath of an unexpected one-night stand. The second couple, on the verge of divorce, find their attraction briefly rekindled by the most mundane of things — a post-break-up division of property. The third couple attempts to deal with the uncomfortable issue of stale bedroom activity after a few too many drinks. In the final scene, the first couple is revisited, ending the play on an upbeat note of hope, and a celebration of taking chances to achieve the things that are the most important."

This is obviously exciting for me, as a writer, to have the opportunity to actually put something I've written onto the stage, and see people go through the motions, reading the dialogue, and bringing it to life. This is also exciting for me, as a writer, because it should give me the opportunity to polish the heck out of this thing, because in seeing people delivering the lines, I'll be able to spot the lines that aren't working, that are clunky, that need to be fixed, or cut, or lengthened.

Hopefully it'll be exciting for the actors too, as they'll be able to have some input into the creation of the script. They'll be able to say, "You know, this line seems sort of awkward," and, with the playwright in the room, actually have someone there who can change it.

Of course, there'll be challenges for the actors as well -- if the script is going to be constantly modified, they'll be constantly learning new lines. But hey, we're not in this theatre thing for the glory, are we? No, we're in it for the challenge. And sometimes glory.

Given the subject matter of the play, there is of course the potential to offend, so the trick in the promotion will be to ensure that we're upfront about that subject matter, and make sure that we don't get people in the audience who aren't going to appreciate it. It's a problem I've had in the past (particularly with "Some Things You Need To Know Before The World Ends: A Final Evening with the Illuminati") when the marketing of a show didn't quite bring in the intended audience.

I've been nearly bursting at the seams waiting for this to become officially greenlit so I could make the announcement of it. That moment has finally arrived.

If you're reading this, and you want to take part, auditions will be held on May 19 at 7:00 pm and May 20 at 2:00 pm. Hope to see *someone* there.

The history of the Internet

Years ago, I started work on a book that would be, more or less, a collection of columns that I had written under the "Caught in the 'Net" banner. It was intended to be a sort-of history of the Internet, during its more popularized phase (meaning, when it broke out of the universities in the mid-90s) and was going to be titled something kind of catchy like, "The Internet: An Autobiography."

Nothing ever came of the few days of work I put into the book, because the few days of work I put into the book probably had more to do with it being therapy following the break-up with my wife than it being an actually decent idea for a book, though the memory of the idea is still bouncing around in my head, which is why my discovery of this strangely similar timeline of Internet history seemed so darn familiar.

I'm pretty sure that 90% of the stuff listed here was stuff that I covered, at one point or another, in "Caught in the 'Net" and is stuff that would have found its way into my own History of the Internet project. Thankfully, the fine folks at this site have done the work for me, in a far more concise form. And, also, in a far funnier way than my project likely would have turned out to be.

Anyone with more than five years of time spent on the Internet should give that link a quick look, for a walk down memory lane -- and a few chuckles along the way.

Some days I feel like this.

Holy busy, Batman...

So the first issue of the ArtScene -- formerly known as the secret project -- went to press yesterday, and is officially on the streets as of today.

It's not quite as beefy as I would have liked to see, but it's still a damn fine product that I'm damn proud to have worked on. I only hope we can kick as much -- if not even more -- ass with the second issue.

Work on the ArtScene has meant, somewhat strangely, that I've been doing a fairly good job of maintaining my New Year's resolution to write a whole lot more often, although I haven't been writing in many of the things I had been intending to. The novel is still stagnating and this blog is getting dusty, but I there's a fair amount of content from me in ArtScene #1, which is sort of cool, as it's something that's actually out and being read, and not something that's just sitting on my hard drive.

Secret Project #2 (the unannounced announcement from my last post) is still up in the air, and while I'm eager to spill the beans on what it is, I'm wary to until there's a 100% confirmation that it's going ahead. People who know me already know what this project is, so they don't have to feel left out. For the rest of you -- of which I suspect there might be two, maybe three -- you'll just have to wait. Sorry.

Those of you interested in keeping up with the goings-on at the ArtScene, we've cobbled together a blog dedicated to it. There's not much to look at for now, but we're going to try to keep a fairly regular flow of content their, whether it's behind-the-scenes goings on, articles that didn't make the final cut, or just random silliness, there'll hopefully be something new there every couple of days. Which is more than I can say for this space here.