Things go wrong. Even when you want nothing more than for them to go right… When this happens, do you breathe deeply and evenly, trying to get your soul and heart to flow with the capricious randomness of the world around you? Do you curse the heavens and grit your teeth and notch up your resolve? Do you nap?
Our newly purchased, super-fast computer—the very computer that will edit, add effects to, and make perfect our collective filmic vision—has crapped out. Specifically, the motherboard crapped out and now we must send it back to its maker and get it fixed. It’s under warranty, but let me tell you, when you have a shooting script sitting on the dining room table, looking at you with wide-eyed potential every time you pass, the last thing you want to do is wait while some company in Korea fixes its crapped out product.
But then there are signs that things are going to go right. Witness: in our script, one character uses and describes a certain strange and bad-smelling plant. Brandon chose which particular plant through an on-line search of strange plants that smell bad. I’d say he chose this strange plant about two weeks ago…
Two days ago, we found that selfsame strange plant growing in our tiny patch of dirt in front of our apartment. I have not seen this plant before. I did not plant it. It is a voodoo lily and it is growing in our front yard. It smells like death meets halitosis, it looks like it wants to poison you, and I will not remove this plant because I know it is a sign that even though things happen that I desperately do not want to happen, such as our motherboard taking a big dump on my sunshine, things will work out. We have voodoo on our side.
