In the true spirit of the web this is just unedited stream of
consciousness in case you want to keep up with the progress of the movie.
Dearest M:
As I said, thanks for the dinner and conversation and the check (to buy my very own virtual 1937 Plymouth).
I wanted to thank you both for all the support you guys have also given me as commentary and questions about the movie. They have always made it better.
I thought for a couple of days (and will keep thinking about) Alan's question about
What is the point of that long scene, the drive thru L.A?
It was the exact right question to ask and to keep in my head for the next year or more as I work on it, tho the answer will probably change thru the process, and the scene may not be as long, after all, as 15 minutes.
The point at this point is about how beautiful life is:
There was this picture I saw once a long time ago. I thought it was a New Yorker cover celebrating spring, but I've never been able to find it (doing a lot of hunting online). Like I said: it's spring. It's a garden. There are flowers in wild profusion, trees blossoming, butterflies dancing, birds winging, pretty little white clouds in the blue blue sky. In the midst of all this riot of loveliness, we see a cat. It's doing the crouching, feral, fearful wicked-cat-stalk thing. Like there might be monsters behind that bush or dangerous prey. Well, it's possible.
That's Art and Rudy driving thru the L.A. that Mae and Sol photographed and Mae drew and taught us to love.
They're desperate fellows. But, as Art relates it, from his perspective as narrator, it's incredibly picturesque and funny.
Art was always aware of the settings he "drove thru" and always saw the details of life around him, the glamor and squalor, and relished them. Art's fully aware of the comedy of the dog's escape from the "getaway" jalopy: "Her ears are flying back, and she's got this smile on her face. She's running like the wind, barking and leaping up in the air. Her tongue is hanging out, and her tail is wagging, and she pounces down on her front paws, stops, looks at me; I get almost up to her and then she runs real fast and, oh God, I said, "Come on Bijou! Hurry! Please! Please!"
There was always a part of his brain that was standing back a little watching his tragicomedy and storing it up. To tell about it in his music.
The glorious piece of music I'm going to use is 22 minutes long. Can I create beauty and surprises and details and comedy enough for 22 minutes? Maybe. The point of the scene is that life is beautiful in each moment of sudden, objective, awareness -- when we step back from the hypnotic dream of what's personal.
Tell Alan that his question opened a whole vista of what I have to keep in mind.
P.S. Last night Hugh and I were watching a video in which this dedicated, energetic, and perfectly coiffed and outfitted, sublimely beautiful wife of this genius pianist is watching his performance from the audience. Hugh said, "That's just like you and Art Pepper." (pause) "But you were drunk." I laughed so hard I nearly choked.
Love and kisses to you both & thanks for the divine birthday. L.
8/20/07 continued
Email, Mirandi to me: April 10, 2006 (first entry) I began in February to redo the entire intro. I'm now using Art's
entry into Terminal Island Federal Pen. to introduce him as a child, man,
musician, criminal. I'm using much more of his funny/tragic narrative, now, his
description of himself and of prison life. I lucked out finding an old
television Interview of Art (I won't say where or when it was done: can of
worms, and no-one will recognize the footage) so Art is is actually onscreen
for a moment narrating, instead of only voiceover. I've also gotten permission
from Don McGlynn to use all of his footage from "Notes From a Jazz
Survivor" and have some beautiful stuff of Art performing at Pasquales:
I've synched up different music and commentary but it works perfectly as a
conclusion to the intro. I'm also getting into "Poser," which is 3d character
animation, for some stuff I needed to show. It's really possible to use it in a
poetic way, and it's kinda like live action with quotes around it, and some of
it is quite beautiful. And again, and again and again: It's funny. Because if
it isn't funny it isn't art. Lest you think I'm back at square one, just because I'm returning
to the intro. No no no. I've really got everything else for part Two -- which
is the first complete movie of three -- put together and humming nicely. I only
need one more scene after this -- well, two: 1. The one I call "the cartoon" which is all about Art
and Rudy out boosting in East L.A. with Bijou (the poodle). Those of you who've
read Straight Life know how great that scene is. I started the movie thinking
of that scene, and now I'm finally getting into it. 2. Diane getting busted and informing on Art -- which sends him to
San Quentin. Which is what opens Part Three. This is pretty simple to do with
Lisa living downstairs and all and with these great old police cars I shot
already at the History Cop Place on York. I had a great lunch with three
retired cops who told me all kinds of stories and one of whom worked the old
L.A. County Jail and who may have met Art once upon a time. Okay. That's it for today. I had major acupuncture and
chiropractic done on my shoulder today. And then I walked around Chinatown for
four hours. I'm going to take a hot bath and go to bed. May 15, 2006 I haven't worked on the movie for about two weeks. When I
left off I was redoing for the millionth time the 3D "stage set" of
"Art's neighborhood in San Pedro." Each time I've redone it,
it's been better, more beautiful and more expressionistic. But each time,
as I've finished the latest redo, I've seen something to fix, and, inevitably,
it means the layout has to be reconfigured. One of the ongoing problems
has been a lack of sharpness on close-ups of nested layers that are viewed with
different zoom values. I'm going to go to the discussion boards and put
my questions and ask for help. Meanwhile, at my little monthly creativity group, I read yet
another 3 pages of my memoir and they were just pretty ordinary pages, but the
whole group stopped and ignored the timer to talk to me about how I've got to
keep writing. I was stunned, because I've been attending the group for
over ten years, and the only time this has happened, the ignoring of the clock,
has been when people have been suicidal, and that hasn't been as often as you
might think. And everybody was telling me (in all kinds flattering
phrases) how great the memoir is. The memoir IS finished. And it's two thirds of the way
through editing, but I've been neglecting that. Neglecting it more,
lately, as the group has changed to meeting once monthly, so I only have to
come up with 8 to 12 minutes of reading only once a month. And maybe this
is a subtle way of everybody telling me they're sick of the movie. But I
know, if I only had, say, a year to live, I'd get busy finishing the memoir and
put the movie aside. ( Well, first, I'd polish up and put together the pieces
that I have...) And you'll notice I'm not saying anything about
publication -- although the group did, insistently, talk about that.
Because, the way I've always thought about the memoir, is that it it would be
published posthumously, and that every one would be amazed, and they'd say,
"My God, she was a genius." So I've been working on it more, and pressing myself to do more
work by posting the current work on the web. (So maybe someone (beside my
friends in the group) will say that about me being a genius while I'm alive). And I haven't worked on either the memoir or the movie for a week,
because I took some time off to have a "procedure." A deep
chemical peel. Which I survived, thank God, because I realized, going
under, that I didn't have a single hard copy of the memoir. Just a bunch
of handwritten notebooks and obscurely labeled files on my hard drive.
And my reasons for risking my life to have my wrinkles erased...
Well, I'll just quote Don Marquis: beauty gets the best of it
in this world. June 14, 2006 Working like mad again on the movie. Also working on a liner note
for the first cd for my record company (Widow's Taste: motto & logo-- Art
with a gun and the caption, "pay my woman or else"). AND I've been
scanning documents and photos for same. But so happy to be back at work in
After Effects and Final Cut. This lengthy introductory piece, including Terminal Island, and
bio background -- including jazz history, and Art's childhood is mostly done as
animation -- extremely beautiful and expressionistic. Only live performance is
Jordy (my grandson) as Art as a child. The background music is a never-before-released "Lost
Life," and it is devastating. This is the most ambitious piece -- and the
longest -- I've done and I love it. . I still have to decide what parts of the documentary (about
making the movie) I want to use. There is a great deal shot, and my feeling
right now is -- don't use too much. But I can't really work that stuff out in
my head. I have to manipulate the material, and then things fall apart, fall
together, fall into place, get re-done, restructured, started over, and so on.
Which is why everything takes forever. But when you get old, you accept your
own style even while cursing it. It sure worked out well with this latest bit,
and I had to re-do that from the ground up at least three times. And since I've
been learning by doing, I've learned a lot this time. Mainly that when you're
working in 3D you'd better put the anchor points in the center of each piece.
Next time, that's what I'll do. P.S. this last bit appears to have
taken 5 months. But I took a month off, so…. 01/11/07 Well,
well. So I've started a record company
and been completely enmeshed in choosing and writing and mastering and
printing and publicizing and on and on. In many ways I've lost touch with and
been bogged down with the movie. Hugh
asked me, "When are they going to spring you?" Meaning that I've been groveling in
that big prison scene with memories of Art's childhood and so on and on and on. I look at this blog and realize it's been an entire year, now. That scene (with the added intro) has
become a movie in itself, and I keep fixing it. Fixing the wonky parts, the draggy parts, the confusing
parts. And I keep saying I'm done
and I'm not done. But
I acknowledge it looks better and better.
And my judgments have been getting stricter and stricter. About my own and everybody else's
work. I'm not entirely thrilled by
this development, this increasing tendency to sharply judge. I
tivo-ed a documentary about fashion the other day, sat down to watch it and
turned it off in disgust -- even tho I LOVE fashion. The opening shot was of someone's face
in a ribbon-like strip across the screen, and they were talking and moving
their head, and sometimes you saw the mouth, the eyes, and it didn't matter
what they were saying (which wasn't all that great), you were just profoundly
pissed and you wanted to see the face and it seemed to go on forever, and there
was no reason at all for this black screen and this thin ribbon of meaningless
image. And then another scene
looking in a door at people talking in a conference room, and once again, the
thin ribbon, only this one vertical.
Well,
it was really clear that the filmmaker was a beginner and pretty young and will
probably improve, but I don't have the patience for that crap, anymore. I'm running out of patience, maybe
because I'm running out of time and so aware of that. I've
gone into the record business for such mixed reasons, but one is certainly to
keep Art in the public view and ears.
I don't even know whether it will earn me money (I haven't broken even),
although Victor records in Japan is advancing me some money for licenses. So I guess I've answered my
question. I did it to make a living,
too, and it's working. But
publicizing and networking and so on -- not my cup of tea and so time
consuming. I'm
really itching to get to the Boosting with Bijou cartoon bit. 5/06/07. The Record Company is going great, second release out this month. Meanwhile, still working on the damned San Pedro bit. It is better better better than ever. And I finally caved. I showed it to some new people, and the consensus is, gotta have subtitles. Tapes of Art's voice, after literally years of work on 'em, still too hard in places to understand. So, once I get the subtitles finished, I will be done and will have a short film to show --- this with the intro. It is very beautiful. JUNE 17, 2007: Well, hooray. Back from Berkeley, got my tapes which were stored in Fantasy vaults. Concord, new owner, is moving vaults to the Valley. Meanwhile got a spectacular cd (of pirated material) from Europe of Art at Croyden Jazz fest in 81. Next release, for sure. Boosting With Bijou. The city Art and Rudy drive thru, in the old Plymouth with the dog, Bijou will be L.A. on paper. A 3D paper city made of my aunt Mae's incredible old L.A. drawings AND the snapshots she took in the late 40s and early 50s of the city -- with people, pedestrians, drunks, and cars and buildings and signs and ruins, lotsa ruins, Mae loved those ruins -- what they had been and what they were at the moment. I don't know how I'll make the 3D paper city, but I'll figure it out, and now its all I want to do, but I've gotta deal with the website and publicity for the albums and new releases -- which are beautiful and inspiring, but I can hear the paper city rustling.
Darling L:
Well, thanks for the letter and I will pass it on to Alan, too. Yes, that was exactly the right question, wasn't it. We did love our dinner at Musso's and I loved hearing about your movie and buying you a 1937 virtual Plymouth. Enjoy it. The scene will unfold as you want it to, I'm sure. I can't wait to see it develop among my mother's drawings and all those old photos. I know you will turn it all into a fairy land LA to have Art driving through. I can picture that New Yorker cover you are talking about. Yes, life is beautiful and dangerous at every turn. I love Hugh's comment. He is a very funny guy. It was great to see both of you, and I particularly enjoyed being in the main room. I felt like a celebrity.
Love,
M.
Email, Mirandi to me:
L.
AO and I consulted and we agree that it was me who asked the question. AO elaborated, but I actually asked why that particular scene was going to be so long....just thought I would mention it. No offense at all, just a minor thing.
XO
Email, Me to Mirandi:
Dear Mir: no umbrage taken. In retrospect, I think that what Alan was doing was what he always does. You asked a question which WAS the right question but kinda bald and scary. So I forgot it that part. Then Alan came in and "gentled" the question, rephrasing it into something my ego could deal with. And I remembered that part.
C'mon, Mirandi, face it, you're an Aries. Alan could negotiate world peace. Love and kisses to you both with equal gratitude extended.
8/22/07 Phone call. Me to to Mirandi's voice mail.
Hi, Mirandi. I hope you're not mad that I called you bald and scary!
You've got beautiful hair, and you're cute as a button.
I just meant….
I'm probably digging an even deeper hole here…
I meant that when I'm asked questions or given criticisms about my movie sometimes I just react by not hearing them.
When Hugh…
Hugh doesn't even ask questions.
He'd say, "It's too LONG!"
He didn't. He was cool with this. He's gotten a lot better. But sometimes he's so confrontational that I HAVE to hear him, and then I'll argue and defend. And he'll say even worse things, mean things about how people will react to it and so on. And then we'll drop it. And for the next week or so, what he said will bounce around in my head along with my defenses until I finally get tired of the internal struggle and actually begin to think about what he said. And what it actually meant. Usually, in there, there is something valid.
On a scale of one to ten, in terms of critique or suggestions, Alan is a ten, you're a 7 or 8, and Hugh is a 2.
I don't mean in terms of the validity or value of the criticism!!
I mean in terms of the delicacy of the language in which it is [Freudian slip] crouched.
[nervous laughter]
To spring at my throat..
[hysterical laughter]
'Bye.
Phone call: Mirandi to my voicemail:
Laurie, Laurie, no, it's okay! I wasn't offended! I know all that. In fact, I'm delighted you consider me a 7 or 8!
But, you know, when I asked the question it wasn't a criticism. I was just asking because I was curious. You said it was going to be 22 minutes or whatever, and I asked "Why is it going to be so long?" It wasn't a criticism of any kind. Just a question. I love you. Bye.
Oh. Okay. Nevermind.
But the big news is that I HAVE FINISHED with the Intro and Pedro sections. After a year's work. Almost 12 minutes(!) of really ambitious stuff.
All that remains to complete the whole first hour of the three part movie is the Boosting with Bijou section. I'm pretty sure, I'll use "Make a List" from the Croyden session as background.
I've been working on this section in bits and longing to get into it. It's always been, to me, the funniest, the craziest, and the most beautiful, and the most completely about L.A. Can't hardly wait.
First I've got a quick trip to NY to do some publicity for my label. Then home and work (play) for probably another year.