The script is in development

For quite a while I’ve been trying to come up with a story line that would go with the title, World Tango Party. I like the simple conceit behind the two meanings of Party but trying to bring them together was difficult.
I finally started making some progress when I compared the process to building sheds. Take finite individual steps and don’t worry about being organized and efficient.
I wanted to bring a lot of other factors into the mix.
…At times I have really enjoyed writing a blog and I still have a habit of writing posts if only in my head. After a certain point it became a problem to write about my real life and its real characters. I want something fictional but structured and I want to be a character with deniability who can say anything.
…I think the internet is vibrant with potential to experiment with new social structures that will respond to the economic, ecologic and political problems we face.
…I’ve watched a great film maker, Robert Altman, make a movie while performing a small part as a stenographer.

From Tag

From Tag

Altman had a team that worked with him to make movies. It was a beautiful example of planning and expertise, effort and improvisation, comradeship and control.
…Creating a project reminds me of a confidence scheme. I was listening to Randy Bachman’s music program Vinyl Tap on CBC radio. He talked about a friend who he hadn’t heard from in while. He found out he was in prison. The guy had been publishing music but operating the finances as a Ponzi scheme. Randy said, “But they put out some great music.” Am I proposing a Ponzi scheme of Tango narrative that the first movers use to ride to fame and fortune as movie stars while our compatriots who have lifted us to the stars are condemned to soldier on, tangoing their lives away? How serious about all of this am I? It will give me something to occupy my time while I’m in Buenos Aires, in between milongas. And it will give me a chance to record a complete set of me doing my Zorba the Greek imitation.
…I’ve got ideas about raising money. It’s the T-shirts. You create some really interesting project and you give it away to get exposure and you keep the rights to make T-shirts. Or pictures in rice fields. In Japan some rice fields are sown with different rices to create pictures in the fields. The results draw tourists to supplement the area’s finances. What is the reality of money?
…Over the internet the process itself can become part of the result. Working to make a movie could be interesting in and of itself. I’m intrigued by intermediate pushes: create a list twenty scenes to improvise inside the world of tango — video the improvs, create screen test videos, create small scenes from scripts with simple ping pong cutting between two videos made by people at different places, create fictional characters that resonate and live in one of the worlds of the script/ the production/ the milonga. My current favorite platform for that kind of collaboration is the Wiki. Create character pages as a lark. I must say that my desire to be an auteur stutters when I imagine reading or administering any significant number of entries.

I’ve ended up with a labyrinthian tango empire. RealityPivots has a main blog and two storage subsidiaries, Derecho and Siniestro. Now I’ve created two more, one that holds the home page of WorldTangoParty.org ( edit out 11/15/2014) and one that is Solomon’s Blog ( edit out 11/15/2014). And I’ve established a Wiki ( edit out 11/15/2014) which is another whole kettle of wax. I’m very slowly getting the new ones up and running so all I’ve got are place holders right now. If you want results, come back in five years. Ya want process, I got process out the wazoo. One page ( edit out 11/15/2014) in the Wiki is a copy of a Wikipedia page about movie production listing all the different roles. Put your name in parentheses after a role and stake a claim to another reality
So here’s the pitch, Mitch; here’s the scam, Stan.

Solomon, my twin brother, is going to be blogging about an up coming trip to Buenos Aires where he has been sent by the eminence grise behind the World Tango Party to scout locations for a movie called World Tango Party.

The movie has the following plot:
Six people are returning to Buenos Aires. A year ago they met under tragic circumstance on their way to tango on vacation. While coming into town from the airport they had an accident. There were eight passengers in the van and two, a man and woman died heroically in the crash. The remaining six ended up bonding during the aftermath.
Now they are back to make an experimental documentary about a tango milonga. They have arranged for one tango venue to have a special night for videotaping and streaming a milonga. The guests will be volunteers who have been invited and have agreed to be videotaped.

The political aspect is in the backstory — one based on rumors. The Founder of the WTP is a man on a crusade. He invented a hydrogen fuel system that was bought and suppressed by Big Oil. He’s rich and silenced but determined to create a political party that will change the status quo. His WTP movies are part of a campaign to establish the political party of the same name in the world’s consciousness.

Solomon has created a Screen Test to put forward his claim to be a character in the movie.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GS1YQXo-7eE

November 15, 2014: Reader T.C. points out that the above link is no longer operative — YouTube cancelled me out at some point. I made the switch to Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/9452678

Go forth and do likewise.