Sometimes I settle down to write this blog thinking “Which aspect of my terrifically busy and successful day should I focus on?”
This is not one of those days.
This is one of … the other days.
What the heck did I do today?
I slept under two duvets last night. Should’ve thought of that weeks ago. It did make my bed a bit too hospitable though. I was still there at 10am. Then I got up but…
I must’ve done something…
I wrote an email. It hasn’t had a reply. But it’s sent. That’s a thing. It was to a lawyer. She reads them on the clock. I don’t like writing to her so I’ve been avoiding it. Now I check my spam every five seconds to see if she’s responded.
Oh and I corrected an auctioneer. I’m selling some vellum. It’s continental, fifteenth century, a page from a monastic book of chant, “Tenebrae factae sunt …” There were shadows ….
On good Friday one of the monks reads a bit of scripture then all the rest sing a response. I imagine the whole thing takes hours and sounds lovely and echoey.
This is the fifth such sung responsory for Good Friday. Sure, the auctioneer didn’t need to put all that info. But “possibly for Good Friday” doesn’t cut the mustard, frankly, especially considering that’s just remembered from when I dropped it off. So I sent them some info and a link to some dudes singing it on YouTube. You can find anything these days. Hopefully they’ll adjust the listing accordingly. If they don’t I reckon I’ll pull it and sell it myself on eBay with a better description. It likely won’t go for more than £150, but why sell it short? Especially after I went to all that work to identify it. And by “all that work” I basically just sent a photo of it to my mate Joxley who taught me how to sing and now does it for the lucky boys of Rugby College. He knew what it was immediately because he’s bloody marvelous at that sort of thing. Still, knowing who to send something to is part of the skill of research. It’s like knowing which book to look in first. I’m kind of chuffed I “out-knew” the auctioneers. In fact, if they don’t correct it, I’m gonna pull it, take the hit, and post it to Jox for Easter. He gave me an understanding of the deep bass I dropped into when my soprano voice shattered. For years I just thought I couldn’t sing anymore, and strangely Guildhall didn’t help. They were only interested in tenors. Jox helped. Glory be.
Anyway yeah. That’s it. Email to lawyers. Email about vellum. Moved some stuff around. Bath. Cup of chamomile tea.
I’ve finished the chamomile tea now. National emergency. I’m going to have to leave the house tomorrow. If I get to evening tomorrow with no chamomile tea I’ll be up all night with bloodshot eyes mumbling and howling in ancient languages. Probably snippets of the responsory for Good Friday.
Oh and on the subject of mumbling and howling, I started assembling material for Dan to cut into a showreel. My showreel as stands almost certainly loses me work. I don’t need much but I must change what I’ve got. In a world with so many actors, you need a short bit of visible shenanigans so somebody on the other side of the world can go “I like his voice. His hair is funny. Get him in.” With no showreel they might go to the guy they can see moving. With a bad showreel, they might go “Jesus, he’s still got a montage? Get me the other guy, the guy with the feet!”
So yeah. Hard email, geeky email, collating data, moving furniture, tea. It’s starting to look like a day. Even when it’s a nothing day there’s still something. I haven’t looked at the news after yesterday got dominated by it. I don’t like the news right now…
AlBarclay 