I thought you might enjoy this shot that Don took of his studio. It gives the impression of a very tall window and the view outside. I love this picture.
• Yesterday, I witnessed a car pulling into my neighbor’s driveway. Two young people – teens – emerged from it and walked to the front door. There was no social distancing. They knocked on the door and someone, I assume it was one of our neighbor’s kids, opened the door, whereupon all involved hugged each other and went inside.
Are you kidding me? I was dumbfounded by this apparent lack of concern for any of the rules put into place by our Governor, by the government, or, for that matter, science and facts. I told Don and he was stunned. What is with people?
• I didn’t do any work on the dollhouse yesterday. I needed a break. Using the trim or not using the trim was discussed in some of the comments yesterday. In the case of almost every dollhouse I’ve ever seen, we’re talking gingerbread trim. Remember that my intention for this house is not that. It isn’t a Victorian house. It’s meant to be my version of a Cotswold cottage, which is why I am spending hours upon hours making stones for the exterior. I’ve done a lot of research and I rarely, if ever, see a Cotswold cottage with any decorative trim. The beauty of those cottages lies in their simplicity. Truth be told, I eliminated much of the decorative gingerbready trim on Hummingbird Cottage – my first dollhouse rehab. There is one section of the remaining trim that I’ve never been happy with but removal was too complicated and potentially damaging, so I left it.
I’m not a dollhouse historian – some builders out there make everything to period and the intricacy of their designs is incredible. I so admire them. But I do like to make my houses more real than are the standard dollhouses I see out there, which are designed, remember, for children. It’s also why I’m a stickler for scale.
Now, if I was going to do a Chautauqua-like house, and I loved those Victorian cottages and took scads of pictures of them when I was working there, then I would wholeheartedly embrace gingerbread. But it would have to be to scale and often, the trim included with a kit is not.
Anyway, I think some more stone making is in order today. Back at it!
• Reading Eight Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson and last night’s feel-good watch was Field of Dreams. I love that movie.
• Heads up: I have a book review scheduled for tomorrow.
• Yesterday, we lost the great playwright Terrence McNally due to complications from the coronavirus.
Terrence wrote the books for Ragtime, Master Class, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Love! Valor! Compassion!, The Ritz, Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, Lips Together, Teeth Apart, The Full Monty, and many others, including the book for Anastasia, which is why I have this photo of us together. He wrote about the AIDS crisis, he championed plays with gay characters. He wrote beautifully and from the heart. He won multiple Tony Awards for his work.
I am honored I had the chance to work with him, both in Hartford and on Broadway. We chatted about food, about becoming vegetarians, about when we quit smoking and about our mutual friend, Jim Parsons. In fact, he had someone take this picture of us so he could send it to Jim. He was a kind and good man.
He was a lung cancer survivor living with COPD and that he was taken by the coronavirus is so breathtakingly sad. He was 81.
Don was in a production of Lips Together, Teeth Apart right before I met him and it remains one of his favorite experiences in the theater. Terrence had a way with words that was unmatchable and his death is a tremendous loss to the American Theater.
And they can’t even dim the lights for him on Broadway.
Happy Wednesday.
