Olympia was a town crawling with music. I was new to the whole punk scene. The culture shock continued; Olympia had bagels! We didn’t have bagels in Arkansas. You could order vegetarian food all over town! It was so crazy to me – a place with so many vegetarians, the restaurants made special dishes for them?
The scene was not a happy one yet we looked upon it in the cold stoical spirit of a soldier; a slight chilling pang and then a return soul and body to the enemy before us.
Look, I do not control alpinism. But maybe I was too successful. Many in the mountaineering scene – journalists, second-rate climbers, lecturers, so-called historians – had a problem with me for many years.
As much as I converse with sages and heroes, they have very little of my love and admiration. I long for rural and domestic scene, for the warbling of birds and the prattling of my children.
It is very, very difficult for a playwright to write a scene in which a young man has his first deep experience of sex with a girl whom he found immensely attractive, is fully satisfied by this event and gets up and blinds a lot of horses.
When President Teddy Roosevelt posed for the cameras astride a massive steam shovel during construction of the Panama Canal in 1906, it was more than a simple photo op. Though the scene was clearly staged, it symbolized a crucial moment in American history.
I think it’s so dope that I’m here in Chicago and contributing to the music scene that’s thriving. People are so happy Chicago’s shining that everyone is willing to say ‘I represent Chicago.’ That wasn’t always the case.
It’s a very strange experience being on set of ‘Breaking Bad;’ you never know what’s coming next for your character. I feel like I don’t even know if I’m going to live through the next scene I’m in. It’s exciting to work on.
I have a nationally distributed film whose pivotal scene is the ultrasound-guided abortion.
I think part of that is to create an environment where it’s like real life, where you don’t really know what’s going to happen to you in a certain scene.
Obviously, my life and my job in 2010 is very different from Peggy’s experience in the 1960s. I exist in a world that enjoys more equality between men and women. But I don’t take any of that into my performance. I just want to play the character as who she is as an individual – scene to scene.
In the beginning, it wasn’t even a question of deciding I’m going to do independent film and not commercial films – I wasn’t being offered any commercial films, and there wasn’t an independent scene.
I like finding stuff that I suck at and trying to get better. So I’m taking classes, getting myself comfortable in an acting scene. You’ve got to work out those ticks. For instance, standing up used to be really hard for me. I act much better if I’m sitting down.
The alliance in Jammu and Kashmir is one of the most important developments on the contemporary political scene.
I am quite familiar with Dubai and its design scene. I have been a regular visitor for more than 10 years. It is hard to name an area where hospitality, friendship, culture, ambition, and beauty are so highly regarded.
One of my favorite stories is my first kissing scene with Linda Gray.
A lot of directors are great and they are fine but you know I think that Harry really takes a special point to really engage the actors and really make it feel like a safe place for them to explore whatever it is they want to explore in whatever scene with their character.
The scene then as now was centered in New York. For the most part, I’ve kept a bit apart from that attractive and seductive city. I’ve done it by living in the country within commuting distance.
I played a paraplegic on a show called ‘Neighbours.’ Just turned up on set, sat in a wheelchair. The producer came up to me one day and said, ‘We have to cut around that entire scene because your leg was moving.’
I’m a spoilt brat. I thought I was just going to walk in and make movies. But I’d been my own boss for so long that all of a sudden to be facing a roomful of people who were niggling over every little scene… I just thought I’d go back and draw my comics and have a happy life.
We started seven years ago and finally released our first vintage in March. It’s an ’07 vintage from Walla Walla, which is my old hometown. It also happens to be a world-class wine region that’s just exploding on the scene right now.
Dave Van Ronk is not an obscure figure. He’s the biggest figure on an obscure scene, playing a kind of niche music that we knew and liked.
Sometimes I’ll go by and there are a couple of swans, the next day it’s a few ducks. I’d like to stop there every day for a year and capture how it changes, then put it all together to create an incredible image of a traditional English scene.
I find it really awkward to do a scene where I’m supposed to seem like I’m in love.
I’m sentimental about many things: the lumpy feel of a baby’s unused feet, the metallic smell of the air before the first snow, the last scene in ‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’ But Valentine’s Day leaves me cold.
One of the things that I tell beginning writers is this: If you describe a landscape, or a cityscape, or a seascape, always be sure to put a human figure somewhere in the scene. Why? Because readers are human beings, mostly interested in human beings. People are humanists. Most of them are humanists, that is.
I first came on the scene during the Johnson years and that crowd was out all the time enjoying themselves. Nixon wasn’t particularly social but a lot of the people in his administration were.
There’s nothing scarier than silence. A lot of horror movies lean on hits and score to try and create tension, which actually does the opposite. The best scares come from a desire to see the character overcome what they’re dealing with in the scene. If you care about the character you’ll care about the scare.
If you work in Chicago in the improv scene, anyone is happy for you if you get a job.
It’s one of those scenarios where no, I never imagined that I’d be directed in a love scene – not even a love scene because it’s kind of a hard-core sex scene because it’s kind of just purely played for this carnal venting.
If life gives you lemons, don’t settle for simply making lemonade – make a glorious scene at a lemonade stand.
I’d like to do a story about the medieval ages where in every scene you’d sort of feel that you were in the 12th century. That would be great to get that feeling.
If you cannot reconcile the difference between the elite that stay behind the scene and the right of the people, that’s going to be forever chaos. It’s time to compromise, to allow more democracy. Those who are stay behind the scenes must hand off and observe the law.
I would say my fraternity was nothing but a bunch of farm boys; we weren’t really in the whole fraternity scene, but yeah, that’s a safe assessment of who I am. I’ve lived that life, growing up in agriculture and then going off to college and joining a fraternity, livin’ that life.
From the director’s point of view, it’s infinitely easier to do violence than to do a good dramatic scene.
A lot of times when I’m writing lyrics, I just think about insecurities that I might have and turn them into a scene. Some things may be true, and some things may not.
The best preparation for acting is life – observing life and people and observing yourself. All that becomes your library. So when you have to research a part, a scene or an emotion, you go into the library and get what you need.
I’ve worked hard and accomplished what I’ve accomplished in the heavyweight scene.
In Goodfellas they have this one scene where the camera goes down some steps and walks through a kitchen into a restaurant and the critics were all over this as evidence of the genius of Scorsese and Scorsese is a genius.
It’s nice that the independent scene is taken seriously, and has been.
Woody Allen likes to do a lot of master shots. He likes to get the whole thing in one take, and so you could be going along doing a scene, and then the next to last line, all of a sudden, you stumble, and you have to go back to first base.
Every musical scene has a cycle.
I loved getting to do Promised Land with him. I mean, he’s really there for you. We did one very emotional scene in the church. He’s just a wonderful acting partner. You feel very safe with him.
If I’ve still got my pants on in the second scene, I think they’ve sent me the wrong script.
I watched a couple of really bad directors work, and I saw how they completely botched it up and missed the visual opportunities of the scene when we had put things in front of them as opportunities. Set pieces, props and so on.
The memory of that scene for me is like a frame of film forever frozen at that moment: the red carpet, the green lawn, the white house, the leaden sky. The new president and his first lady.
When it comes time to write the book itself I’ll shut the lights out, picture the scene I’m about to write then close my eyes and go at it. Yes, I can touch type.
People say: ‘Why do you want to play the straight man?’ Well, it’s because he gets to be in every scene.
The political scene is already so turgid, it doesn’t need more of that from me.
On Sept. 11, 2001, thousands of first responders heroically rushed to the scene and saved tens of thousands of lives. More than 400 of those first responders did not make it out alive. In rushing into those burning buildings, not one of them asked, ‘What God do you pray to?’ What beliefs do you hold?’
