MUSE and WRITER Dialogues #9

 
 
FADE IN
 

 A room that passes for an office. There are bookshelves on one wall, a motley assortment of carvings, signed storyboards, and framed magazine covers on the free wall space. On the far wall is a medieval-style heraldic wall display of a cockatrice and a banner in bad Latin “Pullus non Est.”  Horizontal files sit beneath the window.  The computer desk is on the wall nearest the door, facing away from the window. Beside that is a printer on a stand. In the base of that is a PC and a PS3. On the right wall hang three guitars. There would be four, except WRITER, currently sitting at the desk, is strumming one of them.

Enter the MUSE. She looks like a Greek goddess, except when she doesn’t. Right now she tends to morph between goddess and rocker chick.

WRITER: Can’t you make up your mind?

MUSE:  You’re one to talk. And why are you torturing that poor guitar?

WRITER (Holds up guitar in question): Beauty, isn’t it? A Michael Kelly Deuce
            Phoenix, semi-hollowbody. They don’t make them anymore.

MUSE: I didn’t ask what it was, I asked why you were torturing it. Are you channeling Dick Cheney?

WRITER: Don’t be silly, and I’m not “torturing it.” I’m practicing a 12-bar blues shuffle.

MUSE: Same thing, from where I stand. Didn’t George Carlin once say that white people got no business playing the blues, ever?

WRITER: If BB King, Albert King, Buddy Guy, Hubert Sumlin, “Sonnyboy” Edwards,  etc. didn’t have a problem with Stevie Ray Vaughn, why should you?

MUSE: You’re not Stevie Ray Vaughn.

WRITER: It’s your job to encourage my artistic pursuits, not throw cold water. And even SRV had to learn.

MUSE:  Speaking of which, isn’t it about time you got your butt back to work on the rewrite of The War God’s Son?

WRITER: Almost. There’s still some continuity research to do.

MUSE: You’re stalling.

WRITER: Am not. I had the final battle location way too far south. Plus I had
            assumed that Yoshiie led the final campaign alone. Not so. His father,
Yoriyoshi, was present as well. Which does, as you well know, affect the middle
section.

MUSE: Really? The old guy was pushing eighty.

WRITER: Tough old bird. But I do have to reconcile how he was seeing portents of
            victory back in Kamakura when he was supposed to be in Mutsu. The only
            primary source is 1) Rare and 2) In Japanese. Sansome only goes so far, but
            I’ll get what I need.

MUSE: Well…okay. But that’s not a proper D major, you know.

WRITER: I do know. It’s a D7. Next I’ll practice the turnaround. Want to heckle?

MUSE: I’ll pass. Just be gentle with that poor guitar, okay?

WRITER: I’ll do my best.

MUSE: You better. Otherwise we’re both wasting our time.

 
FADE OUT.