Lunching with Sweeney Todd

Only twelve hours have passed since yesterday’s shoot and I arrive to the Brooklyn brownstone in Fort Greene to find the kitchen transformed into a French café.  I pass the set builders and art directors as they sleepily grab a cup o' jo and head to their respective hacienda’s for a few hours of much needed sleep.  The scenes scheduled for today are between Charles Thornton played wonderfully by Keith Herron and Vincent Morris portrayed with gentle aplomb by Jerry Marsini.  Mr. Morris is a business associate of Mr. Thornton.  In the first scene Charles tells Vincent that he has been appointed to the royal treasury by Queen Victoria. Hmmmm. He tells his business partner before he tells his wife.  Here is an interesting insight into the marriage between Charles and Victoria and the partnership between Charles and Vincent.  All along I have witnessed that the marriage is an arrangement with no sexual component whatsoever.  Devotion? Yes.  Platonic love?  Certainly.  Protection?  You bet.  Charles seems to be in a monogamous relationship with his business partner.  Victoria not only accepts the love affair between the two men but willingly plays the beard so that Charles can be fulfilled without the threat of scandal.  What does she get out of the union?  She can freely devote herself to reform, travel and charity without the trappings of marriage and that includes companionship, sex and children.  Everyone wins in this complex arrangement until Richard enters the scene and something within Victoria is awakened. 

I want to talk about the possible scandal that could have taken place with these characters.  In 1895 Oscar Wilde was arrested and tried for sodomy and gross indecency.  Sodomy in Britain at the time was a felony crime and punishable offense earning years in confinement with hard labor.  Oscar Wilde was an aesthete, a celebrated playwright, a philosopher and poet who came from an upper class family, his father a surgeon and knighted by the crown.  The Importance of Being Earnest, The Picture of Dorian Gray and A Woman of No Importance are some if his best loved works.  Here is a man who is rich and famous even for his time.  He has friends in high places and yet the dark side of Victorian London remands Oscar Wilde to two years hard labor in Wandsworth prison. At about the same time Paul Verlain, a symbolist poet and writer was also tried for ‘buggery’ in France and imprisoned for two years hard labor.  The famed myth that Prince Albert Victor Duke of Clarence was the killer also includes the royal family covering up the fact that the prince had ‘unnatural affections’ for men.  He was implicated along with other aristocrats in the Cleveland Street Scandal---a homosexual brothel located in the bohemian section of London in which telegraph boys were paid by wealthy clients to engage in sexual activities.  Lord Arthur Somerset had a warrant out for his arrest by the Metropolitan police and his friend Prince Albert Victor insured his escape to France to avoid prosecution for sodomy. It was common at the time for aristocrats and society to ‘slum it’ in the east end of London during the Victorian era.  Charles and Vincent indulge in a little slumming as well.  Whitechapel was rife with prostitutes of both genders.  It was the perfect hunting ground for Jack the Ripper.  Slipping in and out of a densely populated area of immense poverty and anonymous people was easy and violent crime was common.  It was where the sex trade thrived. 

Through the course of the scene Vincent suggests that Charles have an heir.  A child would prove to a court of law that Charles was a dutiful and loving husband and Vincent could be the child’s ‘uncle’.  Such a shame that even today over a hundred years later some LGBT people feel compelled to hide their true selves for fear of job-loss, abuse and prejudice. 

It is during this scene that Charles agrees that an heir would make things ‘look’ better and that he is certainly willing, but Victoria is delicate and has been advised ‘not to conceive’.  When Vincent presses further Charles tells him that she could die from pregnancy.  This information sets up the risk that Victoria takes when she knowingly conceives with Richard.

We break for lunch and a costume change and skip to the end of the movie.  In one of the last scenes Charles meets with Vincent in the same genteel café.  Charles is obviously troubled over Victoria’s emotional state.  He blames Mr. Rhys to which Vincent offers to ‘do something about him’.  Vincent is problem solving as a partner might do.  Charles explains that he will have to take Victoria to New York.  Vincent assumes he will be going as well already planning where he will stay and how they will continue to carry on with their partnership.  Charles tells him he must go alone.  He must take care of his wife.  BOOM.  The equilibrium is thrown out of balance.  Vincent asks him point blank if Charles is leaving him.  The pain on Charles’ face is palpable.  He is between a rock and a hard place.  He is betrothed to two people at once and must make decisions based on priorities.  Society dictates ‘for better, for worse’ and Charles takes his vows seriously.  After all Victoria’s presence in his life has afforded him the freedom to find his true love.  Charles asks him to wait for his return when Victoria feels better, but Vincent is unsure if waiting will prove anything different.  Charles is devoted to his wife.  Vincent is not the center of Charles’ world as he once thought.  So Vincent decides to leave the relationship.  Watching Charles sacrifice his happiness for his duty and seeing the love of his life walk away is excruciating.  Played with subtlety and nuance the actors give the scene an agonizing touch.

During the scene there was an extra sitting at a table nearby.  He was directed to read or make notes in a notebook so that he blended in with the café patrons.  The actor took the direction and ran with it.  I’m not sure how much of him will be seen in the final edit but when the last take rolled and the director said that the scene was done our extra revealed what he had written:

 

Got to run to the store to pick up a few things:

·      knives

·      gloves

·      stain remover

·      flowers for my mother, Mrs. The Ripper

·      butterscotch drops for me

·      top hats

·      a new walking stick for dad, Ralph the Ripper

 

Things to do:

·      go on a bloody rampage

·      buy a new horse and carriage

·      clean scalpels

·      rejoin facebook

·      look into a new therapist

·      kill a few more women

·      have my cape altered and cleaned

·      Have lunch with Sweeny Todd

 

Thank you, Louie Vitiello.

 

 

The Devil Made me do it or the Road to Perdition

Two sets have been created and recreated in the 36 hours since I last visited the Fort Greene brownstone where the Londinium crew has been working at break neck speed. In the front parlor Jules Whitby’s tinker shop has been moved from the kitchen and recreated and dressed. In the bedroom a blackbox theatre has been erected out of old black velvet theatre curtains and c-stands. A fog machine is chugging idly by ready to fill the space with smoke. In the kitchen I am introduced to Trevor Bittinger playing Dr. Stephens for the day and a dancer, Jasmin from Austria. First up is a scene where Dr. Stephens tries to conjure up the spirit of Dr. John Dee, Astrologer and alchemist extraordinaire to Queen Elizabeth herself. We’re talking 1560’s not the current century. In his psychotic effort he conjures something far more sinister and perhaps a manifestation of the dark state of his mind. The nude masked dancer appears in the mist as Dr. Stephens continues his soliloquy. The sight of it reminds me a little of “Eyes Wide Shut”, Stanley Kubrick’s last film starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. The brief idea of it is that Tom (also a doctor) pulls a Salahi and crashes a member’s only masked ball after his wife confesses that she thought about cheating on him. Once inside the mansion he is stunned to find a secret society of men whose identities are hidden by Venetian carnival masks and robes engaged in an orgy with hundreds of nude masked women. The woman he selects as concubine warns him to get out. When he is discovered she is sacrificed.

Now, obviously for budgetary reasons there is only one grand master and one nude woman in the Londinium scene. After watching this scene intercut with an incredibly provocative one between Catherine and Richard makes me think that this insane doctor has connections with the dark side and just maybe…maybe Catherine is a part of it.

Looking at it from a sociological point of view, sure. The class system in Britain at the time assured people of noble birth had an unfair advantage over everyone else. Old white men make the rules and they usually belong to a group or society or brotherhood in order to unify and achieve their common goals. In America it is the Skull and Bones, The Trilateral Commission, in Europe the Bilderberg Group, the Carlyle group, the Illuminati (Thank you Dan Brown), and of course the Freemasons. Afterall, it was the Freemasons that formed this country. I bring up the Freemasons again only because the myth surrounding the ripper murders resurfaces that the killer was a mason. But a new character in the ripper crimes seems to hold the public’s imagination. That is the rumor of Dr. William Gull, physician to the Queen. Dr. Gull was responsible for treating Prince Albert Victor when he came down with Typhoid fever. In 1973 Joseph Sickert, the illegitimate son of the artist and ripper suspect Walter Sickert, claimed that a royal cover-up involving Dr. Gull was responsible for the murders. This plotline is the basis for From Hell, the Johnny Depp film about Jack the Ripper. Apparently the Prince fell for a prostitute in the East End while taking art lessons from Walter Sickert. They had a child and were secretly married with other hookers in attendance as witnesses. Sounds outlandish already, however, the murders were supposedly perpetrated in order to get rid of all witnesses and evidence of the marriage, the baby, and the alleged wife. 1) Gull was not a Freemason according to my research. 2) He had a stroke in 1887 and was half paralyzed to the extent that he could no longer practice medicine. The murders occurred in the fall of 1888. Gull could not have physically conducted the murders. 3) The Prince was known in close circles to favor men. 4) Prince Albert Victor was also mildly retarded and most likely incapable of secretly marrying anyone. The real conspiracy around the Prince is that he had contracted syphilis in the Bahamas and Dr. Gull was treating him for venereal disease. And the joke of it all is that Joseph Sickert recanted his tall tale and said he made it up. Interesting lies become an ingredient in the elixir that myths are made of.

Robert D’Onston Stephenson is more likely the historic suspect that our Dr. Stephens is loosely based on. He murdered his wife although he was never caught. He spent time in a lunatic asylum in London. And in an extreme case of projection identified one of the hospital’s doctors as being the killer. Even going so far as to visit Scotland Yard to tell them what he knew of the murders and the murderer. He suspected that the killings were part of a ritualistic murder rite, that the bodies had been killed at specific points in order to form a geometric symbol using the streets of the East End as a canvas. A pentagram, perhaps? Who knows. Does it stand up? By a stretch of the imagination, sure.

In the movie Dr. Stephens propositions Jules to put his motion picture camera to work for him explaining that ‘it could contribute a great deal to the field of medicine’. Jules commences collecting images for money. But when does collecting become creating? The first snuff film is born. But Jules can’t keep his trap shut even though he is being paid to follow Richard. I smell a set-up. Richard and Jules become acquainted once Richard realizes he is being ‘watched’. ‘Show me how it works’, he says and Jules more than accommodates. For a story set in the Victorian era it certainly has a contemporary moral tale to tell. Big Brother and a whole host of unknown eyes are watching us at all times. It poses the question of feeling safe or violated? What energy do our physical selves hold and how is that energy affected or disturbed by psychic manipulation. i.e. voyeurism? A lot to think about from a little blog. Dr. Stephens’ taste for unknown women or ladies of very low esteem is piqued and his tastes move from collecting images of dying whores to gathering images of one of the most prominent women in London, Victoria Thornton. Jules concedes and does it out of greed and extortion. Dr. Stephens does it for more lascivious purposes. Even Richard pinches the pieces of Victoria’s image for his own designs. I know this sounds trite but I hope it is out of love. When Dr. Stephens arrives one day to get his freak on over the images he finds that the celluloid is missing and threatens Jules with a big-assed knife. But he doesn’t kill his source because the images will stop. It’s a marriage made in hell. Richard goes to extreme measures to protect the identity and honor of his love. If their affair is made public a scandal could ruin the lives of all involved. After the dancer is filmed and dismissed Thom asks me if I might stand in as a dark figure. “What do I have to do?” I ask. I stand there and am handed a mask that looks a lot like a possessed goat. Then Thom gives me a black robe. This is still early September and it is hotter than the hinges of hell on the set.

“You’re going to wear this and just stand there. You don’t have to do anything.” Thom assures me.

“That’s the best acting tip Thom ever gave me.” Ed says cheerfully.

“Don’t you have a boom pole to collapse?” Thom replies and I can hear the beginning tone of exasperation starting to build.

“I can tell you’re getting hungry.” Ed says in a sing-song voice.

“I’m not hungry. I’m getting annoyed.” Thom replies.

“You want me to fix you a sandwich?” Ed asks sweetly.

“You can’t keep throwing food at me every time I start to lose it.” Thom continues.

“Are you losing it?” I ask concerned that I might completely melt or pass out from heat exhaustion.

“If you’re going to start in on me, I can’t work like this.” Thom says and the pack of cigarettes makes it from his pocket to his hand.

“Okay. You are not going to leave me standing in this latex for ten minutes while you smoke. So put them away and get the director so we can roll.” I say assertively.

Ed gives me a mark. I stand there sweating buckets while under black velvet and latex. The fog machine chugs and now I am blinded with smoke. ACTION! I have truly arrived at perdition.

Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

I find myself driving a van at seven in the morning transporting crew and equipment up to horse country in West Chester (New York).  Thom has once again sweet-talked me into helping out even after I told him I don’t DO early.  On the drive up I realized that this is the twenty-seventh day of the thirty day shoot.  There are only three more production days left and the whole thing will be over.  I’m not sure I’m ready for that. A kind of melancholy takes over me knowing that the fun-filled days will soon come to an end.  And then I think about real crew people and how they feel when a project is over.  My guess is that they usually (hopefully) hop from one project to another and treat it like a job.  Sometimes the jobs are good and fun and at other times a challenge with conflicting personalities and high tension.  I remember reading in a movie magazine, Moviemaker, I think, that Ang Lee goes into a light depression after each project.  And most definitely after making The Hulk.  He has directed such diverse films as Eat, Drink, Man, Woman, Sense and Sensibility, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Brokeback Mountain for which he won the academy for Best Director.  So I wonder how our director feels about this project transitioning from production to post. I’ll come back to this question in a bit.  We arrive at a friend of a friend’s farm.  It’s not a working farm but a horse farm and Whit has donned his usual black wool suit, top coat and hat.  I ask him if he’s ready to saddle up.

“Sure.  I’ve been riding since I was eight years old.” He says.  I’m a bit stunned.

“You give the impression of a slacker or a surfer.” I say.

“Yeah, I know. I don’t do either.  I’d like to surf.  But the Atlantic is too cold for me.” He adds.  Man up, I’m thinking to myself. But, alas, I have a little padding so the cold doesn’t quite affect me.

“I can tell you think I have robin’s eggs for a change purse.” He says smiling and he gives me his charming ‘stink eye’.  John, the owner of the horse walks this beautiful equine specimen out into the sunlight.  I am told she is a racking horse.  For those people interested in horses a racking horse has a very comfortable singlefoot gate.  They are like riding a Cadillac.  These horses along with their superior version, the Tennessee Walking horse, were bread for the masters on the large plantations down South before the Civil War when cotton was king.  Being in the saddle for eight to twelve hours a day surveying your business can make a body sore!  Most people who take a horse back ride usually get on a quarter horse or a mixed breed of that nature and their gate is very bumpy and extremely uncomfortable.  John tells me her name is ‘Shadow’ and she is an inky velvet black in the sunlight.  Whit mounts and takes her to the far end of the pasture along the treeline.  At the turn around he gives her a click and gentle kick and she is off so fast she’s a blur.  He rides by at a full gallop so fast that I feel like Jack the Ripper has hijacked Sea Biscuit.  Then as I am about to turn and follow I watch as Whit gets Shadow to jump the fence and run up the road.  Okay, I have to admit he has cohones.  Thom tells me the original shot was with a car mount but since the owner did not want tire tracks in his field we had to settle for sticks.  Unfortunate, as riding along side Whit on horseback with the camera would have been incredibly dramatic.  The road had too many anachronisms.

Meanwhile back at the set the art department has dressed the bedroom as Richard’s studio and the lovely Sandra DeLuca reappears in her Victorian finery as Sophie.  She has  become one of Catherine’s ‘playthings’.  Interested in Richard and particularly a portrait by him she has arrived for a sitting that could very well turn into a laying.  The chemistry between the two actors is electric and they play off of each other with great aplomb.  As Richard and Sophie are about to take the sitting to the next level the bell rings.  It is Mrs. Hopkins, Victoria’s head Governess.  She has arrived with a note---the very thing Richard has been waiting and pining for.  Suddenly he shuffles Sophie out with only a few words of consolation.  Thus begins his daylong ride to the English countryside.  As the crew sets up the dolly for the next shot I take advantage of the downtown and see if I can snag the director for a few minutes.

“Only three days left.  How do you feel?” I ask.

“I’m ready to be able to relax, that’s for sure.”  She replies. “But…I know on the last film I did, that after I recovered from the exhausting shooting schedule there is a definite post-partum feeling.”

“I’m already feeling it and I’m just a spectator.” I reply. “So how do you deal with it?”

“You know, I’m not sure.  I think that the older I get the more I have to ease myself from one transition to another.” She explains.

“That sounds mentally healthy.” I say.

“Well it was trial and error for me because on my last film I finished shooting and I was so excited about putting it together that I immediately began the editing process.  I foolishly thought that if I kept busy I wouldn’t feel the sadness that comes when something is over.” She says.

“Sounds pre-meditated to me---like you had an antidote.” I add.

“Naw, I think it exacerbated the emotions, the let down.” She says. “Because as an indie filmmaker you have to wear several hats.  And so sitting in a dark room by myself for days on end watching the footage and cutting it into something made me yearn for the social, physical activity of production. I fervently missed everyone so much---I missed the process.” She says.

“Yeah, but you still had access to those people, right?  They were your friends as well as collaborators.” I say.

“Sure.  I could get any one of them on the phone or have lunch but it’s not the same.  You’re deeply involved in a creative atmosphere---and I say that not to diminish the importance and gratitude I have for the people in my life.  But having lunch is different than creating something together.” She explains. “It’s greater than the sum of the individuals.”

“Point taken.” I reply.

“I was at a party not long ago and I had the opportunity to meet and chat with another director.  It was such an epiphany for me.  I thought I was just super sensitive or even unbalanced because of the rough emotions I went through after the first feature.  But this director, another woman by the way, experienced the exact thing I had experienced and so I didn’t feel alone or ashamed or inadequate as a person anymore.” She adds.

“That’s great.” I say and I’m sure my face betrayed my bewilderment.

“It’s very similar to a break up.  It really is.  My last film took six months to shoot.  I was emotionally involved for six months with all the actors and the creatives and it was such a rush---so much fun and hard work, too.  We met a lot of people and made a lot of new friends along the way.  Then when principal photography was over everything feels like it grinds to a halt.  You don’t see anyone anymore because you are busy in post trying to deliver a finished product in a timely way to pay the people back. Everyone else has scattered to other projects. So here you are watching all the memories of that wonderful six months in time. It’s like looking at old photographs of past boyfriends or ex-husbands or babies that have grown up.  You forget about the pain or the disagreements or the extreme physical fatigue and something in the human brain makes one yearn for something intangible and fleeting.”

“But it isn’t intangible. It’s fixed in the finished film.” I reply.

“True.” She says.  “And that is what makes it all worth while when you can see and share what you’ve accomplished together with the ones you love.”

“I guess what they say is true.  Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”  I add.

“Living proof.” She says and she is off to work on the scene.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Color of Money

Over the few days off from the Londinium film I promised to take Justin to Coney Island.  Our last hurrah before school starts.  It was a perfectly pleasant day until we were walking out of the park and the kid decided he wanted to ride the Cyclone.  The Cyclone is the most hair-raising ride I have ever been on in my life. The Cyclone rollercoaster is one of the last and oldest wooden coasters in the world, built in 1927 with such stomach turning spins that it is the high water mark for almost every other coaster built. The probability of being ejected from the ride by the thin steel bar is quite high and promotes the forming of phobias far and wide. I try to tell Justin he is not old enough to ride the killing machine.  As a matter of fact I would not let him ride it until he turns 21 for fear of maiming and paralysis. He plops himself down right there on the pavement and proceeds to have an old-fashioned tantrum.  I threaten him by saying, “If you don’t stop with the hissy fit then there will be no cartoons for a looooong time.”  Now, I am not and have never been a proponent of spanking but the kid pushed enough buttons on my anger elevator that I was one red curly hair from corporal punishment.  Even in drunken belligerence I have enough sense to resist fisticuffs.  Exhausted and deeply pissed-off I requested the wife to tend to the offspring for the rest of the night while I tied one on.  I knew the next day would be light.  The schedule was filled with pick-up shots and small scenes with Whit in the artist’s studio.  Most of the scenes are of Richard in the process of painting.  Montage sequences with jib and dolly shots beautifully orchestrated as the paintings of Victoria come to life.  Since the scenes were incredibly technical I felt like I could show up towards the end of the day.  Thom said that in between set-ups the director has to step in and don her painter’s hat to work the painting(s) a bit more to show progress.  There were several canvases in various states of completion to speed up the process but it sounded a little tedious to me without an official duty so I opted for rest.

During Richard’s time the Salon, that is the official art exhibition of the Academie des Beaux-Arts in Paris, was the place to be as an artist of any worth.  Today the new painters are filmmakers and the new Salon is Cannes and Sundance, Toronto and Berlin.  I ask Whit what he thinks about it all.

“I’m an actor playing a painter and so my take on it is that films can be like moving paintings.  I mean, I watch Terence Malick’s work and it is definitely the ilk of the great masters of art.  Days of Heaven is a masterpiece of filmmaking.” He says.

“I agree.  It’s one of my favorite films of all time.” I reply. “What do you think of the films that go unnoticed that might be just as good as Days of Heaven but are not seen because the juries or curators can’t or won’t program them?” I ask.

“It’s a real shame.  People need to see cinema as art.  And art as cinema.  I don’t have a lot of experience with film festivals and I don’t want to grossly generalize because I believe there are still truly indie fests out there wanting to feed their audiences with exceptional material.” He replies.

“But…” I say.

“But we all know that Independent films are in competition with studio films.  What better way to eliminate your competition than buying up all the boutique distributors and making them adhere to Disney or Paramount rules and tastes.” He says.  “It becomes generic especially in hard times.  No one wants to take a risk on something different and it shows with the movies the studios are churning out now.”

“That only partially answers my question.” I say.  He thinks for a minute.

“When Sundance started it was exciting and it made an unknown filmmaker’s career---“

“Steven Soderbergh, Sex, Lies and Videotape!” I excitedly interject.

“Sure. It made unknown actors bankable talent.” Whit continues.

“Andy McDowell and James Spader!” I yell. 

“It was great and Redford had the vision and passion to give artists a chance.” He says. 

“Then something went really wrong---” I say.

“Yeah! I mean Sundance became a corporation---it became the very thing it was reacting against.  The studios used the festival to introduce their art films that weren’t really art because they were financed by the same machine that backs the studios and the publicists and the ad agencies and the big name talent.” Whit says. “I do want to clarify that just because big money is behind a project does not mean it is not art.  It can certainly be artistic and visionary.  I mean, I enjoy Tim Burton’s stuff.  I just feel that where there is big money there are too many cooks, i.e. producers interfering with the health of an artistic creation…and the director’s control.” Whit adds.  Well stated and I am duly impressed.  The guy can think and verbalize.

“Do you think Sundance should just come out and be a market like Berlin’s (EFM) and MIPCOM at Cannes?” I ask.

“I think that is exactly what it is and because it started as a festival with vision it has lost its luster because it has become more about buying and selling.  Don’t call a dog a cat or a goat a horse, ya know?”

“I agree.  I think Sundance is really trying to retrace its steps and recover its original mission, though.” I say.

“Yeah?  I hope you’re right.  What came out of Park City this year that was not studio backed---and I mean international studios as well.  Channel4 and the BBC and Canal+ are studios so they don’t count.” He says. 

“The Runaways.” I answer meekly and I know I am dead wrong.

“They produced Brokeback Mountain and Into the Wild.  Both Oscar contenders so they don’t count.” He says.  How does he know all this shit AND memorize lines.

“I think that Redford and his advisors and backers are really honing in on issues that they feel deeply about.  I mean, they’re producing shows about going green and how people like you and I can be custodians of the earth rather than consumers.  I think he has a program specifically to introduce native peoples and their talents to a larger audience and to enhance their visibility and opportunity.” Whit says.

“Yes, I’ve seen the show.” I respond.

“It takes money to change the habits of a generation or even generations living in a throw-away world.  We can’t do that anymore.  We have to have a conscience about what we use, what we eat, what we grow, what we wear, where and how we live and to live by what we honestly need and not feed the monster of what we ‘want’.  Instant gratification is a luxury that we cannot afford any longer.” So sayeth the reverend Whit.

“I think we got off point.” I say.

“Not really.  We’re all connected.” He says. Okay…I hear that phrased tossed around a lot these days.  Philosophically I get it.

“If you think about it storytelling is as old as humanity.  What we really want as an audience---what I want as an actor is to be taken out of myself.  The trick is how to tell a good story sans the bells and whistles.  Capitalism is great.  Don’t get me wrong.  It is the great motivating factor for invention and innovation.  Less is more.  Subtlety.  We have to pare down to the basics to get to the heart of what we’re trying to say.  Cinema and by that I mean computers, iphones, ipads, you tube, digital theatres and digital streaming are the campfire that illuminates the storytellers who enthrall an audience with ideas and emotions.” He says succinctly.

I’ll drink to that!