Here all Week… Monggo Dahar the Veal

I’m almost finished with my Rubik’s Screenplay. Scenes and dialogue have been extracted, relocated, and retrofitted from beginning to end. I’ve been able to work straight through the construction noise outside as well as through the agonizing nerve pain running rampant in my right shoulder blade from improper “laptop to arm height positioning.” I can’t dream of moving my arms freely and hour by hour I’m losing the ability to turn my head, but rest assured, I am able to type with a pencil that is wedged under my watch with one of the kittens supplying leverage. (Though I am allergic to cats… so it is not an altogether ideal situation.)

The deadline is coming down to the wire, and I am just finalizing the new scenes and proofreading. As usual, my main problem is that I keep reading and rereading (my eyes are the only moving parts at this point) and continue to make minor fine tunes beyond reason. So, in an effort to curb my microfocusing, I have trained the kittens to attack me if I hyperedit. I highly recommend it to those other obsessive-compulsive writers out there. It does keep one on her toes.

I am eager to get through the proofreading stage as the painstaking check of spelling, grammar, fact, and details is such a critical element. (Unfortunately, I have looked at my screenplay so much that I can’t make sense of it anymore and I am inclined to believe that I have accidentally written it in Bahasa Indonesia [with a Javanese dialect].) As far as I’m concerned, without dogged attention a work can be completely destroyed with inferior proofreading. Granted, this is not brain surgery (a topic of which I am reasonably familiar), but it reminds me of a proofreading story. I’ll share it with you now (partly because I want to share it with you and partly because I’m killing time until the kittens unhinge their fangs… oh, if I had a dime every time I said that!).

A designer I knew was creating a poster for a world-famous violinist who was coming to Philadelphia for a symphony recital. (I can’t remember the long-hair’s name, so we’ll call him Frasier Crane.) My friend spent a great deal of time designing and proofing the poster, which simply declared, “Frasier Crane will be performing a recital.” The designer also art directed the photography of Crane, who rested his violin on his shoulder and held his bow poker straight in front of his widely-grinning face. She was thrilled with the final poster when it had arrived from the printer and was overjoyed when the violinist himself called to congratulate her.
“Have you looked at the poster?” Crane asked.
“Yes, I did… it looks great!”
“Look again.” He urged.
That’s when her eyes fully focused. And there, just under his wide grin and menacingly long bow it read, “Frasier Crane will be performing a rectal.”