FORGERY LEAGUE

Friday 16 February 2007

A new start

Last night we had one of our coffee chats, for the first time in months. There are about half a dozen of us, including everyone in the house, and we get together to talk about life and issues and philosophize a bit. And since the office where most of us work now shares a building with a coffee place, we’ve got a great place to do it. The talk last night centered mostly on “truth” and “letting go of things”, and it really was refreshing.

Among other things, I think it jarred something loose in my brain, something that had been blocking my writing on this on-again, off-again audio play podcast. It’s been percolating for months now, if not longer, and I think I’d grown very attached to a certain arrangement of the characters, a certain approach to the story and the world… and I think I’d set it up to be too big a deal, way more work than it had to be. As usual, I was trying to run before I’d even got the hang of the crawling thing.

The main viewpoint character, for example, was originally an amalgam of several cool, funny people I know. But I wanted to get her right, to make her believable / cool / funny / worthy / whatever. I couldn’t get into her head, into her life. I couldn’t get her or any of the other characters to sing.

So I tossed out all my notes for the characters, along with Aborted Episode One Draft, Version Eight. The characters and their roles have shifted several times along the way, but this was the biggest shift yet.

The premise still holds: it pretends to be a real podcast about life in Toronto, but it’s a fictionalized, slightly fantastic Toronto. And podcasts tend to be personal things, so I’m making it a lot more personal. I’ll host the thing (in character), and there’ll be more room for music and commentary on local issues.

I realize part of me was worried about seeming egotistical, since I’m already filling so many roles (writer, lead, engineer, composer, producer, director?)... but deargod, why? This isn’t a big show on stage or radio. If I think of it instead as just a fun little project, a way of learning all those different roles, a seed that can grow into something bigger, involving more people, everything snaps into place. I get to play with new voices, new aspects of characters. I don’t have to worry so much about it being “good enough” to drag other people into helping.

It’s fun again.

Saturday 6 May 2006

another musical day

On the way to meet up with my SO and a friend in Kensington, I lost my way and ran across the great Bob Snider, who was busking on Baldwin St. I snagged a copy of his CD, and he asked if there was any kind of song I wanted to hear.

On the subway I’d been revamping my plans for a series of podcast radio plays set in a mysterious, Kensington-like neighbourhood. “Anything about the neighbourhood, or the city?” I said.

“I got one,” he said, and launched into “The Street Takes You In”, a haunting, cautionary song about, well, the street. And then he sang one he’d recently completed, which I understand is called “Plum” — an altogether happier tune. (“Let’s invent a game for two where I play me and you play you / and the object is to figure out what all the rules are for. / Pin the tail on the monkey in the middle / Top Banana, second fiddle. / Loser is the one caught keeping score.”) Both wonderful. :D

Also, I got my copy of the latest Spacing magazine in the mail… looks awesome (and it’s part of the reason I was thinking about the radio plays).

So many things to think about lately. I want to take piano lessons and set up a decent little home studio, and there’s all those other musical projects I want to tackle too. So impatient.

Oh, and Christopher Eccleston may be the next Number Six. O.o (I can see it now. Number Two, secretly a disgruntled Doctor Who fan, demanding “Why did you resign?”)