was one the best reads of the past year for me. A poet’s novel. And brilliant.

The new iTunes — usually a disorienting update, since changing the interface is also a headache. But now, with all my back catalogue of purchases sudddenly available (The Stars! Richard Butler! Tavener!), I am swayed.

I know, I’m bad. It’s been months, and busy ones. A summer to NYC and back for the edit. Working on a RUST audio documentary with a terrific radio producer and getting schooled in how much listening is unlike watching. Making repairs to the house in preparation for the move. Oh yeah, I moved. To Ithaca New York. I’m teaching at Cornell in their Performing and Media Arts department, formerly Theatre Film and Dance. What I have learned, mostly, is that Ithaca is STEEP. And yes, you can sell bat guano and people will buy it. I think it might be magical.

Also: RUST is about to open in Iowa, thanks to the tireless efforts of people like Sean Lewis, Jennifer Fawcett, Martin Andrews and the whole Working Group Team. They were there from the start. The show opens this weekend and  just got some great coverage in the Huffington Post, if only there weren’t just sloppy inaccuracies. Clearly, it’s a volume business over there.

Just back from NYC seeing the assembly of Kill Your Darlings. I felt so lucky to be in the room with the fantastic editor, Brian “Blazing Hands” Kates, and John. I’m not comfortable talking about what I saw — I don’t feel comfortable talking about my writing while it’s in process, it seems only to make one vulnerable to criticism and deflation — but I will say that the whole experience was incredible and so so so educational.

For one, is there anything more useful that dozens of takes of a smart actor just listening? It’s the old montage adage: you will write anything on the face of a person depending on what precedes them on screen.

Second, Brian Kates is brilliant. Go watch The Savages, or Killing Them Softly, now at Cannes and due out soon. He edited both.

The expressions “cutty” (when a film is overedited) and “virgin eyes” (audiences who have no relationship to the edit itself, who can watch a film and give feedback…). My eyes were virgin but now, sadly, they are not.