8. News and Let Ter

Hello again folks!

After months spent in Thailand, England, Sweden, Spain, England, Poland, England, and the Atlantic Ocean, I’m back in the states, where I’ve learned that the formula for calculating the time it takes to return to my normal routine is one week back per month away. Which is a long-winded way of justifying my slight failure (three weeks) to keep up with this quarterly newsletter schedule. Unless you didn’t notice.

If this is your first time receiving one of my emails let me explain that A. This one is EXACTLY on time because B. they come out every three months(ish), C. They contain a recommendations list of things, people, ideas, etc that I’ve recently been impressed by, and D. If you’d like out, just ask me to remove you from the list, and I will. Reluctantly.

Except next time that won’t be necessary because….

Enough of you (prior recipients) have referred friends or family to reach out about this newsletter (thanks!) that it’s no longer practical for me to send it from my personal email account. To that end, the next one (early February) will almost certainly be coming through some form of (obviously free) subscription website-y thing. The good news is that this will make anonymously unsubscribing incredibly easy. The bad news is that it will necessitate me painfully catching up with 21st century technology. Also, I’ll soon be making all previous editions available through some sort of ‘blog’ technology.

But until I catch up to the present, here’s my final primitively formatted list of cool stuff to check out. I know that last time I got a bit abstract and philosophical, so this time I’ll stay more practical and grounded. Here goes…

 

1.     Blue Delta Jeans - I am NOT an expensive clothing person, so if I hadn’t received a pair of Blue Deltas as a wrap gift for a TV show (appropriately titled Filthy Rich), I would never have become attached at the hip (happy pun!) to these light-weight and versatile jeans, nor would I have experienced the heartbreak when, after an insane amount of use (near daily on my travels) my butt finally murdered them. They easily outlasted a half dozen pairs of Levi’s and with considerably more comfort and fashion. RIP (sad pun). Onward to something happy…

2.     Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin - I imagine a Venn diagram depicting readers of contemporary literature and video game enthusiasts would have only the narrowest of G-string of overlaps, and yet this book, which seems to target both, has incredibly wide, best-selling appeal to people who aren’t on that weird butt metaphor at all. Fair warning… this is the first book that has made me cry in nearly a decade. And if only to serve as a segue into the next topic, I’ll admit that the last one that got me was Time Traveler’s Wife. Moving quickly on…

3.     Ticktime Cube - In the past I’ve shouted out the Pomodoro technique as one of my go-to productivity practices, and I’ve linked these amazing TimeCubes (now visible in every room of my house) but I recently discovered a more multi-functional version, and so far I’m loving it. It is a bit more expensive, but it’s also smaller (travel) and rechargeable (planet!)! Just like…

4.     This UV Bottle - Carrying around a reusable bottle is almost always a great idea because apparently we live on a planet. But cleaning them is often a pain. This bottle mostly eliminates that effort along with all sorts of nasty stuff in your water by purifying it with a UV lid. This can prove useful if you’re traveling through regions where the water is far from friendly. Like New Orleans. And speaking of survival…

5.     IATSE (the primary Film Crew union) - Huge huge kudos to the WGA and SAG for holding strong, turning out, and demanding what they deserved. But an ever huge huger kudos to all IATSE (and non-union) film crew members, who in most cases were hit harder financially than the striking guilds, had even less power to do anything about it, but who for the most part remained positive and supportive despite the struggle. I know it’s been exhausting, but soon we’ll be back to work, and equally exhausted for totally different reasons. So…

6.     No-Pressure Napping - For most of my life, if I lapsed into day-time unconsciousness it lasted at least two hours and wreaked havoc on my sleep schedule. And if, exhausted, I ever tried to nap, I’d get frustrated lying there awake and watching my available sleep time dwindle. But then I learned that Non-Sleep Deep Rest is nearly as restful as actual sleep, and my new nap strategy is: Set a time for 20 minutes, lie still and close my eyes. Sometimes I fall asleep. Sometimes I don’t. Either way, when the alarm goes off, I feel far more rested than I was when I lay down. Then I can hop up and go to something like…

7.     Urban Sketchers (Not the shoes (though I have nothing against the shoes)) – I’ve previously touted the value of being involved with creative social groups, so I was delighted when my Aunt Randy introduced me to these art gatherings in Gotland. In this wonderful group, strangers meet up in random places and draw whatever scenery catches their attention. It’s wonderfully communal and freeing and has, after nearly a decade, gotten me back into drawing. (Maybe it was Time Traveler’s Wife that broke me!) This group exists in many many cities, and could easily spread to anywhere that people feel drawn together (accidental pun). That said… could a shoe drawer be a Sketcher sketcher? (deliberate one) Ughhh, I know. But at least my pun addiction is partially satisfied by…

8.     NYT Connections Game - I’ve long been a daily NYT crossword player and I do love me some Wordle as well, but their newest addition to the daily games has become my favorite. Connections is a wonderfully quick thought-provoking game that challenges your brain’s powers of association. I can’t help but imagine that there may be philosophical and creative growth advantages to this little daily exercise. And speaking of randomly related things…

9.     SCRBBLED CINEMA Series – I’ve often used improvisational contests like 48 Hour Film Fests or NYC Midnight Writing Challenges to NARCAN my creative spirit out of dangerous Imposter Syndrome overdoses. And I find creative constraints similarly freeing, as evidenced by my upcoming film, Half/Lives and another one I can’t wait to tell you about! So, I’m thrilled that friend and collaborator (member of the Phony phamily) Shiree Adkins is fusing these creative methods with other incredible initiatives (diversification, representation, education) in this proposed series. I could ramble about how amazing this project is and why Shiree is the perfect person to run it, but I’d just go on ad infinitum, and a far better person to explain it is… also Shiree. So check out her gofundme and then ideally, fund-her. And if later you realize that you’ve forgotten to return to this email…

10.  ‘QC’ – This one’s a writing hack for all the non-AI wordsmiths out there. As a human screenwriter, I often find my creative momentum impeded by my irritatingly finite knowledge. And I know that if I hop online to JUST look up ONE specific fact, inevitably I’ll be waylaid by a political debate that truly needs my input. So now, instead of risking the rabbit-hole, I postpone the research and instead leave a mid-text signpost in the form of the letters QC. These handy letters, which could stand for Quality Control, and can easily be Command-Fed, are a wonderful tool to eliminate the risk of a ‘brief’ bit of googling turning into an Odyssean slog through all of the links in a former co-worker’s bloviating quarterly newsletter. And yes, I QCed that word.

11.  No One Rumbles through Freddy’s – Of course, this wouldn’t be one of those newsletters if I didn’t plug a few projects of mine, and in the last few months, three films I Script Supervised have all found their way to screens of various size. First, Brian Duffield’s No One Will Save You is as expertly executed as it is zany and I couldn’t be prouder of the final product. Second… I opted not to have internet during the cruise back to the states, but then something rocked the boat and I hopped online to discover that the massive splash was Five Nights at Freddy’s, which warrants an equally tidal, record-breaking congratulations to two power-couples, writer/director Emma Tammi & co-writer Seth Cuddeback and (in their first on-set collaboration!) super-producer Bea Sequeira & cinematographer Lyn Moncrief. Last but not least, Rumble through the Dark from the Philips Brothers, author Michael Farris Smith (his books are amazing) and producer Cleta Ellington is a fantastically gritty testament to Mississippi filmmaking. Legally, I can’t suggest which, if any, of these movies might have a sequel in the works, so you’ll just have to assume that I’ve pressured all those involved into a tri-movie mashup, which will have you totally lost unless you hurry up and see all three films ASAP. Because you don’t want to fall behind in the BSCU* (Bush-Supervised Cinematic Universe), where Continuity is gender-neutral king!

 

As I was writing this list yesterday, I was summoned to dinner and suddenly remembered that it was Thanksgiving**. Maybe I had forgotten on account of being abroad for so long, except no, that’s not true, I definitely remembered it, which is why I completely consciously decided to miss my newsletter due-date and deliberately delay it until this thematically appropriate moment. On purpose. Regardless, I’d be remiss if I didn’t supplement the above list of things I’m thankful for with the following four-course Thanks-Giving feast:

For starters, I must thank the incredible people who made me feel at home in the temples of Thailand, the clubs of Alicante and Nottingham, the bars of Barcelona and Krakow, and the Casino at sea. An entrée of extreme appreciation goes to Flamingo Queen Isla and the fantastic folks of Newbury for giving me a home away from home and being the best pub quiz-mates an American could hope for. A second serving is due to my beloved New-Orleanian family who have miraculously mitigated my sadness at this incredible trip coming to an end!

And I’m thankful that ‘thanks’ is a renewable resource because a dollop of gratitude desert is due to…

YOU! Thank you for opening this email and reading (or skipping) all the way to end.

And further preemptive thanks to those of you who reach out in the coming months to let me know what you’re thankful for! (even it’s just the impending existence of an ‘unsubscribe’ button)

            Until then, I wish you the very best turkey-hangovers, Black Friday shopping-sprees, and calm attempts to reconcile with passionate but politically ill-informed loved ones. I look forward to seeing (or better yet, WORKING WITH!) you soon!

 

Cheers!
David X. Bush*** 

 

*I also cannot confirm any familial relationship between Cocaine Bear and Freddy Fazbear. Yet.

**Those of you who don’t live in America might be unfamiliar with Thanksgiving. Or you may have heard that it has something to do with stealing land or genocide or some other critical guilt-mongering hogwash. Well, I hate to burst your fake news bubble, but that was England. Don’t believe me? Well allow me to mansplain: The USofAmerican holiday of Thanksgiving came about because in this country, we value the Self-Made Man and view ‘Thanks’ as an emasculating admission of personal inadequacy, shameful dependency and/or dumb luck. But when a certain oversensitive political party gained traction touting the pseudo-science of ‘emotional intelligence’ the government made the generous concession of a single official day on which gratitude could be vented free of judgment. It’s like The Purge but for humility. To ensure a swift return to ‘the way things ought to be’ and prevent the outbreak of a full-on Empathy pandemic, the following day was designated Capitalist Friday and the Constitution was amended to make participation in the Materialist Olympics compulsory for all citizens. And now, foreign friends, you understand why we’re number one. On that note, you’re welcome.

***Based on my email address, the Five Nights at Freddy’s end credits accidentally gave me a new middle initial. But I kinda like it.

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