This Afternoon In Drama

Hyperthetically

I still don't know if I'm allowed to talk about the deal that was agreed upon Friday, but really, my managers only instructed me not to go make big purchases until the check arrives.  I held off on the fro-yo machine.  Didn't even browse any local goat herds.  But I'm pretty excited about it and have the secret keeping power of a kindergartner, so let's just hypothetically present a situation.

Let's say:

That I had recently written a book for some random publishing company, and that I had pushed through the writing of it while my dad was in the hospital for his brain cancer because I was on a tight deadline.  That I'd gotten it in on time, but that the company sat on the book for awhile because my editor had been laid off during its writing.  That I'd been enormously happy with the book and thought it was one of the better things I'd ever written-- that it had maybe my favorite narrator yet.  That when a higher-up got around to checking out the book to assign it to a new editor, she read the first twenty pages and called my agent to say, "Wha?"  That she eventually read the whole thing and was, from what I understand, flabbergasted that one of her editors had ever bought it.  That she essentially, from what I understand, told my agent she didn't want to publish it and was waving it away like, "Here, here," in the way I would be were you to try to pass me a bowl of guacamole.

Okay, let's say:

That I took that news with a mix of exhaustion and amusement, since on one hand, I'm so bone tired of turning something in and getting a "Wha?"  On the other hand, I was the littlest bit tickled to have had a book given back by a major publisher, which seemed some kind of accomplishment.

And let's say:

That after the book became homeless, my managers were like, "Should we go ahead and send this out to film people anyway to see if there's interest?"  Lately things have been so shitstormy that I've been feeling pretty freewheeling, so I told them, slurring like a drunk, "Yeahhhhhh, sure, let's do zat."  I didn't expect that there was going to be much response, but my managers were wonderful about giving it the old college try.  And lo, what harkenedeth?  Within a couple days, people were calling.  People that I never would have thought would be calling, much less calling with such enthusiasm.  And by the following week, more people were calling, not only because they wanted to talk about making the film, but because they wanted to say that they loved the book.  The book that I love too.  The book that the book woman couldn't imagine people wanting to read.

This all culminated in a deal making Friday, and even though this is a hypothetical situation, I still don't know that I'm allowed to throw out some pretend names yet.  Let's just say, for fun, that it sold to the company of a certain guy, that company having a name that might share something with an Oprah property, a guy who may or may have not been involved with a certain spirit busting project.  Let's say he bought it for a studio that is the pinnacle of studios.  Let's say that another guy, a guy who has French Bulldogs too (maybe what excites me most about this coming together, that we can socialize the dogs) and who shares a last name with one of the suspects from Clue, is producing.  Let's say that I'm enormously thrilled with the outcome and think this movie is going to come out fantastically.  And let's say maybe the woman who didn't see the promise in the book was wrong.

Hold tight, Christmas, more luxury is coming your way when the check arrives.

P.F. Says...

Last Thursday we went to P.F Changs, and after Tiny Dessert (don't tell me you don't know about the Tiny Dessert, P.F.'s newest menu addition, a shot glass stuffed with cake.  At first you spend a little time talking about how they got in there like you did ships in bottles when you were young, but then you figure out that they're really just violently shoved in)...

...then the fortune cookies came.  And I opened mine, and it said:

And I asked, is that this Thursday, as in today?  Or is that next Thursday, as in what has now become today.  We all decided that it was the Thursday following the opening of the cookie because I'd been given so little warning about keeping my eyes open.  And since I'd already had my Tiny Dessert, what other opportunity could have come that night?  Brent told me to put the fortune in my pocket.

So it was this Thursday, today.  And for the most part, it went by quietly.  I had a tiny reward this morning when my dog went back to pooping normally after a mild bout of constipation.  I ran faster than the fatter girl next to me at the gym.  I watched Natalie come closer to telling Jessica that the baby she thinks is hers actually isn't (Jessica switched her dead baby with a live one while one of her alter personalities was running her normal consciousness) on One Life To Live.  I discussed a little String Theory on a walk through the neighborhood.   Everything was business as usual, until it wasn't.  Until the opportunity showed up, and suddenly, I had the most rewarding, vindicating news that I've had since I don't even know when.  

I can't talk about it yet.

So, Back To Pop Show

I was inadvertently reminded I never finished writing about this year's Pop Show by the redheaded kid, who I'm now Facebook-friended with.  This morning my sidebar featured a photo of him at a group competition in New York, wearing his finale costume, which I hope he doesn't mind me posting here:

...and I was transported straight back to the fantastic closing number, the guys in (I believe) pleather waistcoats with gold accents that remind me of a couch my parents had in my initial childhood home, the girls in Marie Antoinette type get-ups, had Marie gone dumpster diving in Liberace's dumpster after he spring cleaned himself of all the garments he could no longer fit into toward the end of his life.  Everybody had white faces, Christina Aguilera make-up application circa 2007, and black grease paint under their eyes like steampunk Tiki Barbers.  Ignore the kid on the left.

These are the outfits that closed out the show, as the redheaded kid's group, all power-player Powerhouse, sang and danced to a medley based around, from what I understood, the concept of the way fame, paranoia, illusion, and theater intermingle in the sometimes contradictory drive for individuality and public notice.   The songs, in order, were: 

• Jem's "They"-- Who made up all the rules/ We follow them like fools 
• Mozart's "Hostias" -- which I couldn't parse for you if I tried
• A splicing of Madonna's "Vogue" and "4 Minutes"-- self explanatory 
• Incubus's "Anna Molly"-- say the title as one word and it's the message in itself, sharing a vein with my beloved Brit-Brit's most recent single.
• Falco's "Rock Me Amadeus"-- As I went for Latin in high school instead of a still operational language, I had to visit german.about.com for a translation: He was Superstar/ He was popular/ He was so exalted/ Because he had flair 
• And closed down with the Foo Fighter's "The Pretender"-- Keep you in the dark/ You know they all pretend.   On a side note, the various Pop Shows over the past few years have featured so many Foo songs (earlier group Sound Sensations featured "Learn to Fly" in their airline themed medley) that I certainly hope someone's made Dave Grohl aware of the situation; he needs to get his ass in an auditorium seat ASAP. 

This finale medley was so committed, so passionate, complete with lots of dance moves that involved such insistent stomping on the floor that I felt something I've never felt while watching self-consciously stompy dance troupe Stomp, because the moves had meaning outside of the dance; the number seemed to be a metaphor for the way that high school works.  All the whispering, all the watchful gazes, all the sorting through of identity options in a search for a true self (caught right in the moment before you get to college and they tell you that the true self is a hologram).  In short, the stomping appeared to have authentic frustration behind it, and every time the performers violently jerked their limbs, as if wishing to disassociate them from their sockets-- particularly during the chorus of "The Pretender"-- I felt I was in the presence of a massive catharsis.

And it was fitting that this medley should close down the show because it was a phenomenal cap to a night of nothing but stellar numbers.  Sure, in the past years I've swooned when a soprano with a voice like a bell has dragged a sub-beta male with zero singing ability (or bodily composure) (or charisma) onto stage with her because she decided she wanted to sing a love duet senior year, and there was no way anyone was going to fuck with her dream.  I'll admit that this year, I was a little disappointed not a single soloist  inspired me to dig my nails into my boyfriend's thigh in the fun kind of horror.  Everybody was at least talented.  And then there were some who were so awe inspiring that I went right home and googled, "John Burroughs American Idol auditions" figuring that at least one of the kids had gone out into Seacrest's embrace and a valley news source had caught the local angle, but there were no mentions.  I can think of at least four kids I saw that night who could take Adam Lambert by his stupid emo bangs, Danny Gokey by his stupid fashion glasses, Scott MacIntyre by his stupid cane (look, America, you may want to patronize the mostly blind contestant, but I'm having none of it) and fling them straight off that Kodak stage.

This year, production and performance values were so high that even though the show didn't conclude with its customary explosion of confetti from canons lining the stage (what, did someone lose an eye last year?  No, that's not another MacIntyre dig), I could barely imagine how it could have been better.  Talk to Brent, and maybe he wouldn't have minded losing at least a quarter of the 3 1/2 hour running time, but when I go back and look at the program, where could you significantly trim without losing a gem?

Chip away at the beginning, and you would have missed the breaking of the fourth wall as girls wearing outfits from my adolescence came down into the pit to shake it to "Shake it."  Would have missed all-girl group the Muses singing the theme from Twilight in clownish tutus, which at first I interpreted as an exciting comment on the book series/movie ("Bella, don't look at the way I sparkle.  Don't."), but then I realized they were probably just referencing the line about making "fools of ourselves."  You would have missed the satisfaction in recognizing the choreography from summer delight So You Think You Can Dance making a reappearance to John Mayer's "Waiting on the World to Change," which for me was akin to when French Bulldogs show up in scenes with goats.  It's the thrill of compound returns.

Lose chunks more toward the middle, and you would have missed "Catworld," a medley based on cat songs, which featured the kid with the angelic voice who comes out every year and makes some kind of jokey reference to being one of the few black guys in choir (this year, singling himself out as "the black cat").  You would have missed the blonde who sang "For a Pessimist, I'm Pretty Optimistic" with such insane stage presence, flinging her hair around and stalking the floor, that I would have been ready to sign her.  If I had a record label or was somehow in the signing business.  Toward intermission you would have missed the aforementioned airliner-themed medley, brought to life with the pleather (it's popular around those parts) stewardess suits, the uniform bobbed wigs, the thrilling prop inclusion of the only thing I actually like about flying: Sky Mall magazine.

After intermission you would have missed the full on make-out kiss at the end of "No Air," a major raising of the stakes from the chaste kiss on the cheek of 2005.  The sexy ballroom dancing with the rag dolls that I mentioned in the first installment of this post.  Excellent (I'm assuming) Jew Sofia Cohen singing "Praying For Time" and bringing at least half of my row to tears with her voice, which was clear and purposeful and somehow already tinged with the underlying pain of nostalgia, and which didn't need that satin prom dress.

And before you knew it (a mere 3 1/2 hours later) you would have already been watching Powerhouse in their shiny waistcoats, their velvet corsets, belting out "The Pretender," and you wouldn't believe you had to wait all that time until next February for the privilege of such an experience again.

UPDATE: Doesn't quite capture the magic, but you'll get an idea: 

When Favorite Worlds Collide

Brent just found me a clip of two of my very favorite things in the world meeting in a unified space: goats and smooshy-faced dogs walking on their hind legs.