The Toys Of Our Trade

Okay, okay. I am the world's worst photographer and I admit it.

What I wanted to capture was a little bit of the craziness that my friend Kathleen and I have put together for the radio plays we're the Foley artists for at the Monticello Opera House, being performed this weekend.

The plays are old, actual radio play scripts from the forties and fifties, ranging from the ridiculous to the absurd and the actors stand in front of the microphones and read the scripts and drop them where they are, just as they did back in a real radio studio back in the day.
The day which, I feel I must point out, when people were obviously far more entertained by far less than they are now.



We're doing a Fibber McGee and Molly, an Our Miss Brooks, a sci-fi thing called Plan X, a bit of a news broadcast from WW II Germany (I think), a sort-of horror piece called Strange (which wouldn't scare a high-strung six year-old), and a long, melodramatic piece called Dark Journey, which we have all taken to calling Dark Endless Journey.

For these pieces, Kathleen and I get to do the sound effects. We're supposed to do them all using technology they would have had in the forties and fifties and we mostly do although we cheat a little bit here and there with prerecorded sounds for a rocket, a ray gun, a car crash.

Things like that.

But it's amazing what you can come up with without the technology. You see that fan? With that fan and a piece of paper, Kathleen can make the most convincing sound of a fighter plane you've ever heard. We've got a miniature door to open and close, an old telephone to pick up and slam down, a garbage can to kick (and boy, is that satisfying!) china to break (same there), an unidentified piece of farm equipment and a sash weight to create the sound of a safe closing, train whistles, Jello to pour for the sound of a Martian drink I can't remember the name of, wax paper to rattle, a toy piano to play, an entire cabinet built to load up with crazy, crazy stuff to open for Fibber McGee's closet, a turkey call, toy ray guns and noise-makers, frog clickers, jewelry and small brass bells to create the sound of an oriental marketplace, and a slide whistle.

I'm sure I've forgotten something.

And the knitting? That's mine. I knit on stage when I'm not producing sound effects. Kathleen usually crochets. We drink something out of coffee cups (water in our case) and pass a flask when the going gets tough. That's part of our little schtick. Really, Kathleen and I get to have the most fun because we not only get to break china and do slide whistles, we also get to do all of this with the straightest faces you can imagine, just two working women wearing hats from the forties, doing the prosaic job of creating footsteps and ray gun sounds on the radio. We come wearing our gloves, we put then away, we sit in our stools, we settle down to business.



We try very hard not to trip in our pans of cat litter which we walk in to make the sounds of trudging through the Martian sands.

I'm going to be really sad when this is all over on Saturday night. Oh, I won't mind eating dinner with my husband at a reasonable hour and I won't miss the dark drives to and from Monticello, but damn! I AM going to miss playing with my friends, cracking each other up, the different personalities, the joy of seeing it all come together, the hilariousness when it doesn't.

Which is why I'll have to try and get involved with the next production. I wouldn't mind being an "actor" again, and I'm sure I will be some day. But until then, I'm happy to be anything they'll let me be. It's addicting, this stage thing. Not so much the performances for me anyway; it's the people I get to play with. It's the fun we get to have. It's the feeling I get when I drive up to the Opera House and get out of my car and lug all my gear up the beautiful old steps to the theater and am greeted by people I've come to know and really care about. It's looking out and seeing all those seats and it's thinking about all the people who have been on both sides of that stage in the last hundred years and knowing I am, in my own little way, being part of it.

And we get applause too!

Shit. Am I lucky or what?

Weekend Round-Up

We had a record number of Trick-or-Treaters last night.
Zero.
Nada.
Zip.
None.

Not one adorable child stopped in for candy, even though we put the pumpkin out on the fence and had the porch light on and at one point, Mr. Moon even went out by the gate and waved at passing cars and yelled, "We have candy!"

It was so sad. I never even got into my flannel nightgown. I had my martinis, made a delicious dinner, Mr. Moon and I ate the dinner, we watched a bit of Antiques Roadshow, cleaned up from dinner, I ate two Reeses cups and went to bed.

I'm so boring.

But this is exciting (to me):
If you go back to my post on the Vermont Country Store catalog and read the comments, you'll see that someone named Lyman Orton, who claims to be the proprietor of The Vermont Country Store (and with a name like Lyman Orton, I tend to believe him. Her?) left not only a comment but also a small thing he (she?) wrote about hanging clothes on the line, a subject quite dear to my heart.

You just never know who's going to read this stuff.

My friend and fellow Foley artist, Kathleen, and I are having so much fun doing the sound effects for the radio show the Monticello Opera House is about to present that we had to meet with the director this afternoon because really, we're having too much fun and not actually getting our shit together.

The director, being an extremely nice person, did not say that, but I know that's the truth. During our rehearsal on Thursday night when I tried to make the sound of a fighter plane using a fan and a piece of paper but it turned out to sound far more like a fart, I laughed so hard I thought I wouldn't be able to stop. Throw in all the whispered asides I make to Kathleen which tend to be slightly wicked and it doesn't really make for a professional job being done but it sure as hell is a fun one.

Actually, I think we've almost got it now except that we're having a very difficult time making the sound of a frog. You'd think that would be easy, right? But it has to be a frog who has carnal intercourse with a turkey so it must be a seductive type of frog croak. A sexy frog croak. While at the same time, being identifiable as a frog. Which makes no sense to me because frogs do not mate with turkeys. We're using one of Mr. Moon's turkey calls for the turkey which is working fine. He tried to get me to use a different, more authentic-sounding and more difficult-to-operate call of his, but I told him that it really didn't matter because the turkey's name was Bernice and she was going to be getting it on with a frog so we're not actually too worried about authenticity. I'm not sure why the director is worried about the frog's authenticity but she seems to be.

Any suggestions?


And today I got back in the garden and replanted some things and it felt good to get my hands in the dirt. Dammit, I WILL have a winter garden or know the reason why. And if you know where I can get beet seedlings, please let me know. I'm ready to skip the seeds and go straight to the plants. It's November, for God's sake.

Three more days until the election and that of course, is the really big news. I'm holding my breath, I'm crossing my fingers, I'm lighting candles and sending positive energy out into the world.

And lastly, I have to say that the past week has been the best one for me that I can remember having in a very, very long time. I don't know whether it was the trip to Vero or the extra walking or the radio play or WHAT, but whatever it is, it's working and my spirits are so much better and my heart is so much lighter and I feel healthy and good.

For which I am eternally grateful.

And I'm eternally grateful for this outlet, this blogification I enjoy so much and especially for the fact that darn it, people read it. Tens and tens of people. Really, really nice people. And I'd like to say that if you read this and have never commented but think maybe you'd like to, please do! As I've said before, each and every comment is like a paycheck (only without anyone having to give me actual money) and makes me feel richer than you can possibly know.

Oh! And one more thing- isn't tonight the night we set our clocks back? Let me check.

Yes! Yes it is! We get an extra hour of sleep! Although I think this means it'll be getting dark earlier.
Well, I'll deal with that as it happens.

And now it's almost time to listen to the soothing voice of Garrison Keillor.
Could life GET any better?

I think not. Not for me, anyway. Unless they offered me a job writing for the Vermont Country Store Catalog and gave me free stuff. But you can't have everything, can you? And that's all right. I got all the stuff I need.

I hope you do too.

Love....Ms. Moon

Another Day, Another Role

Well, Valentines Day was successfully navigated and no deer heads were mentioned in any context except for when I read my husband my last blog entry. He never reads my blog and I think he's quite happy to pretend that I don't have one. It makes him understandably nervous, and I believe he's afraid I'll start getting all personal and write things about him that would make him look bad to the ones and ones of people who read this.

But I thought it would be sort of romantic to read it to him and so after I got the tuna marinating in the Yucatan Citrus Grilling sauce, I opened the MacBook and read it out loud, him leaning up against the kitchen counter. I was practically in tears before I was through with the whole long thing (where is a good editor when you need one?) and except for occasionally telling one of the dogs to shut up, he was quiet and seemed to appreciate it, although I think he was more interested in the comments people had made so thanks to all of you who took the time to do that.

Then we had a nice grilled tuna and some mashed potatoes and a salad with avocado and I made a salsa of fresh mango, pineapple, red onion, garlic, lime, salt and cilantro for the tuna.

Can I just say yum?

No pretzel salad.

And so, once again, Valentines Day is over and I have to admit that yesterday while I was running around Tallahassee buying things like mangoes and pineapple, it was sort of nice to see people buying flowers and candy and picking out the fattest artichokes and the thickest steaks and it occurred to me that it's not such an awfully bad idea to have one day a year set aside to tell the person you love how you feel about them and to celebrate that together.

Love is a good thing to celebrate. Probably the best thing.

But the hearts and flowers are over for another year and tonight I'll be at the Monticello Opera House, doing the sound effects with my friend Kathleen for what they're calling Live Radio Theater.

I didn't set out to be doing sound effects and thought I'd be reading a part but due to the recent deaths we've experienced here I called the director and told her that I just didn't know when I'd be available for rehearsal but that I'd like to come and help in any way I could. Kathleen said she could use some help with the sound and so...next thing you know, I was on stage trying to make hoof beat sounds with two coconut shell halves in a tray of gravel and making jello at home, not for salad, but to create the sound of a giant amoeba being dumped into a bathtub, which is not as easy as you'd think and we're still sort of hit or miss with that one.

I'm having the time of my life and it turns out that Kathleen and I are the comedic relief and when she waps the hell out of a head of cabbage to recreate the sounds of a good, old-fashioned fist fight and cabbage is flying all over the stage and we're picking it out of our hair, it's pretty funny.

The best, though, is the avalanche which is worth the price of admission, I do believe.

Throw in the two of us making slurp sounds for the amoeba as it eats its victims and well, let's face it- we have no pride and we like it like that.

And my husband is coming to see this performance and again, I have to say that's true love because mainly what I do besides making slurp sounds is open and shut a miniature door to make door-opening-and-shutting sounds, and in-between my opening and shutting I just sit on stage and knit. And Abbott and Costello may have been hysterically funny back in the forties but times have changed. I will say that there's some real talent in the cast and oh yes! I do have a few lines. I get to read "young Dan" whoever he is, and that's fun, too.

So! Life moves on and after tonight I'll be able to add "Foley Artist" to my burgeoning resume and just like all my other skills and talents, it's one that has absolutely no use anywhere in today's job market, but at the Monticello Opera House makes me a pretty important member of the cast which is far more rewarding and fun than you can possibly imagine unless you've been there and done that.

My ex-husband's wife, the other-mother of two of my kids, has just been tapped as the Film Commissioner of the Office of Film and Entertainment which sounds like an extremely important and hopefully well-paying job and one she richly and certainly deserves because she is dedicated, hard-working and smart. Not to mention beautiful. Although she passed up on my offer to be her personal assistant (I pointed out that I can iron, answer e-mail and mix martinis), perhaps she can keep me in mind if the job of Foley Artist ever comes available.

You never know.