Wheeee

Summer classes are fun! :) I'm doing well in both and we're going to Governor's Island tomorrow to learn about oysters. Should be fun! I just hope they don't expect us all to eat them because, uh, I don't. But did you know Manhattan used to be famous for its oysters? No? Well it's hard to imagine anything that spends 100% of its life imbibing water from NY Harbor these days, but they used to be some of the most sought-after oysters in the world.

I was waiting to post until I had maybe acquired some photographs from persons with cameras and could make a proper post about my Great Uncle Maury's 100th birthday, but so far I haven't managed to acquire any just from facebook stalking. Oops! So I guess right now you'll have to settle for a link to the Florida Times Union Article  about the event. Just know that he's an incredible, incredible man and one of these days I'm going to take the videos I recorded of his war stories and edit them into something useable. 

I've been really busy, but I'm trying to do a bit of work on Like a Dog in Space when I have time. It's weird that I spent most of June mooning around feeling like I didn't know where to begin on corrections and then opened it up a few days ago and realized I was basically up to a point where I just needed to start adding previously-deleted stuff back in because it's Mister Papers and when it's a 45-minute script Mister Papers needs to learn to shut up but when it's a full length he is allowed to talk as much as he wants and Mister Papers loves to talk. All the other characters in the play are pretty reticent but Mister Papers is enamored with the sound of his own voice and it makes him fun to write. There's just so much going on with his character and the concept behind him that I want to fit into the play and it's actually a struggle to reel him in, because he has this tendency to run away with every scene he's in. He's a great dramatic foil, and writing other characters is just so easy when they're in conversation with him. 

(At this point I need to probably take a deep breath and remind myself that Ivan is my protagonist.) 

I'm also wondering if I ought to go through and apply proper Russian naming conventions to my characters (patronymics, standardized nicknames, etc). I almost want to aim for a tone bordering on a folktale in terms of telling, but I'm not sure how it would go over.