HALLOWEEN. Whooooo, spooky. Last year we had a week of Halloweeny updates leading up to Oct. 31. I enjoyed it muchly. This year… NOTHIN'. Cos I was away. But here's something to give you nightmares:

Didn't attend the “Writers on Writing” Q&A with Charlie Kaufman at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater? Neither did I. But fear not, Scott was there and somehow managed to take copious notes on what was said. Click here for a lengthy summary of the whole thing - it's an RTF, so most word processors should open the file.

Highlights for those of you too laaaazy to click:

• Charlie isn't married to Mercede Ruehl
• Asked about Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, he said of his script: “It's not as: ‘Aren't I cute'” as the movie. Meow. (I totally agree, by the way.)
• He's still working on the screenplay for the untitled horror project, and has been for about two years - currently bored with it, but he was bored with most of the other scripts as well. (Incidentally, Eternal took three years to write.)
• He mentioned that he'd just written and directed a couple of plays. Which puts another nail into the “maybe the Coens wrote ‘Anomalisa'” coffin.
• On film school: “They don't teach you a lot in film school, but you do a lot of it.”
• The LA performances of “New Ear” were recorded; one of those and/or one of the New York performances might end up for sale on a CD… but that isn't definite. (And it's why I won't be putting the MP3s online again any time soon.)
• On rejection: Charlie related an old story about an art student asking their teacher if they think the student has any talent. “The teacher tells the student: ‘That's none of your business.' What people think of your work is separate from your work. You should just focus on what you're doing. Like, I'm afraid that the script I'm working on now really sucks.” Onya, Charlie.
• He loves The Simpsons and, so he says, Spongebob Squarepants. Applied for work on the former but was rejected until a couple of years ago, when they approached him, but he knocked them back. Also claims he told his agent that he would want to write a Spongebob movie, if one ever hit the pipeline. He was never approached to write it, though.
• If a cute chick had asked the “Do you have anything to say to Mick?” question, she would've gotten Awwwws. Note to self: enlist more cute chicks in the BCK Army. Oh wait, that's been at the top of the list for years. I'm a Taurus who enjoys long walks on the beach, in case you were wondering.
• How does Charlie structure his day when writing? He mostly just sits around and doesn't do it.
• Clutch Temples: the title of yet another early script co-written with Paul Proch, which was about “Fatty Arbuckle, Atlantis, and James Joyce”. (If anyone has a copy, you know where to reach me…)

Now go download that file, cos there's more interesting nuggets where those came from. And when you're done with that, go spook the crap out of someone. Unless you're a cute femme, in which case email me!