"There's a wall there!"

No, I haven't started running into literal walls. I hit something of a word count wall today, as I have done precisely zero writing, but seeing that it's been exactly a week since my mother and I had that "little talk" of ours and I've already written one-fifth of the new version, I think I can be forgiven.

This will be something of a random post, since I have been forbidden by executive order from discussing the Chronicles of Glenscar in the apartment for the last few days, and Krystal reads my blog. (She wants to get her mind clear so she can see how things are running for pace and world-building.)

So... how about them Steelers?

Just kidding. Let me see, let me see, news of my life...

The problem is, I really haven't been doing much other than writing, petting cats, and singing in the choir, except watching a really funny production of HMS Pinafore on PBS last night. It was from the Guthrie Theatre in (I think) Minneapolis, and I will definitely be watching for more from them.

To start with, several of the songs were reorchestrated with more modern beats, and a lot of dance was added to the show. At one point, to annoy their captain, the sailors do a full-on Broadway-style tap number, and several of them can also do tumbling tricks, so it was great fun to watch.

Some parts for Little Buttercup, the older woman character, were done as flamenco, complete at one point with a Spanish-costumed "orchestra" (some of the other actors pretending to play instruments), and oh my goodness, her red skirt with its padded bustle and her green-and-black striped stockings...

But the highlight of the night was an added scene in which nasty, smelly Dick Deadeye is dubbed "Sir Richard Posthumous-Optic" by the visiting Queen Victoria, as missing her is apparently the source of all his general misanthropy. Wow, just wow.

Krys and I had a lot of fun discussing, if this cast were to put on The Pirates of Penzance, who would play whom. Gilbert and Sullivan wrote for a fairly static cast of singers in their own time, so many of their shows are written for similar voice and body types.

And now that I have bored you all, I shall conclude with a moment from the end of Chapter 2 of A Widow in Waiting:

"It would have been nice to be able to properly swear at the donkey-brained mouth-breather who had made this necessary, but she was under a natural handicap when it came to describing his lineage. Family members were just so hard to curse."