Saturday, Sept. 28, 2013: Day 5 on the road / Iola, Kansas

That's me flanked by Barbara Talmadge (Buster Keaton's daughter-in-law) and Melissa Talmadge Cox, Buster's granddaugther, after accompanying a screening of 'Seven Chances' (1925).

Heavy lifting today: live music for two feature films plus a good amount of impromptu fill-in. At daybreak, torrential rains as thunderstorms moved through. Worked all morning, then attended the afternoon Keaton Celebration sessions at the Bowlus Center.

First up was Kate Guyonvarch of the Chaplin Office with archive materials about Chaplin's film 'Limelight' (1952), a presentation highlighted by a clip of the scene with Keaton and Chaplin performing together.

Then came an on-stage conversation with Melissa Talmadge Cox (Buster's granddaughter) and Buster's daughter-in-law Barbara Talmadge, who played tennis on Charlie Chaplin's court and is still going strong as she closes in on 90.

Barbara tells a good story, and I hope someone sits down and thoroughly interviews her at some point. Both ladies had stories not only of Buster, but also the two "aunts," Norma Talmadge and Constance "Dutch" Talmadge.

And then I was up with music for 'Her Sister From Paris' (1925), a funny battle-of-the-sexes romantic comedy starring Dutch and Ronald Colman. It's set in Vienna, and includes a couple specific references to "The Blue Danube" waltz, so I had to get that under my fingers and ready to go.

Things fell together quite naturally, helped by the excellent condition of the Bowlus Center's 1911 Steinway grand. What a joy to skip among those keys! It really makes a difference in terms of what kind of music you can do.

The highlight for me was a sequence where a sidekick character is asked to go play a piano to cover the noise of Talmadge and Colman stealing away. He indulges in some kind of intense romantic ballad (to express his own longing for Connie), and that's what I played, even though most of the footage was devoted to the two would-be lovers.

And then, after the plot threads were tied up, I brought back the romantic ballad music for real underneath the closing scenes, which I felt lent a really effective touch. Sometimes that happens!

Near the end, I began to get that feeling that I was in fact nailing it, which is always a rush. Response was very generous, and folks afterwards had some very kind words to say about the music.

Then dinner at El Charro, a Mexican place in downtown Iola, and then back to the Bowlus for 'Seven Chances' (1925) preceded by a mixed bag of short subjects and other material.

Got laughs when Bill Shaffer announced that they'd try to keep on schedule, and I snuck in with the opening bar of Handel's 'Hallelujah' chorus. Also when Kate Guyonvarch came up to translate the French titles in the rediscovered footage from Keaton's 'Blacksmith' and I launched into the opening bars of "La Marseille."

We saw a few minutes of newly rediscovered footage of Keaton and Joe Roberts in 'The Blacksmith' that was quite good. And I had a good time doing music for Chaplin's 'One a.m.,' which I didn't realize I'd be doing and hadn't seen in years.

Also on the program: improvised music for a nice video tribute to festival co-founder Fred Krebs, who passed away last December. There was also music to go with the announcement of next year's festival, or so I thought.

For this, I plunged in with all keys blazing in my best 20th Century Fox fanfare style, only to see the on screen text announcing that there would in fact be NO Keaton Celebration next year.

What? Was this a joke? Continue the fanfare? Change to funeral music? What was going on?

I then remembered an announcement for the 50th anniversary celebration of the Bowlus Fine Arts Center for Sept. 26 & 27, 2014, and I wondered what dates the Keaton Celebration would be. Now I had my answer, and it was no joke, so I did morph the music into something a little more somber but hopeful, as organizers promise to come back in 2015.

We'll see. Not every vintage film festival has to continue forever. This same weekend, my colleagues Ben Model and Phil Carli did music for what is apparently the last "Fall Cinesation" festival in Massillon, Ohio. Rats! Never got to that one.

But these things are a lot of work, and if the same people have to keep doing it year after year, the glow eventually wears off.

The best argument for keeping the Keaton Celebration going is the reaction to 'Seven Chances,' the main event feature. Roars of laughter from a large crowd, and it somehow seems so correct that it's taking place just down the road from Buster's birthplace. People turn up wearing Buster-style porkpie hats and even in complete Buster outfits!

I feel really fortunate to have had the chance to do my own style of music at this event, and for this audience, and especially for 'Seven Chances,' and so I'm grateful to Bill Shaffer and Frank Scheide for bringing me in to help out.

At "The End," for some reason the house lights didn't come up, and I've never had so many flashbulbs go off in my face at once. But most gratifying of all were the very kind words from Barbara and Melissa, who made a point of approaching me afterwards to offer thanks for helping bring the films to life. High praise!

An afterglow followed at a nice house in Iola, followed by modest after-afterglow in the parking lot of the motel where we were staying at, featuring many very funny jokes that I will have to leave up to your imagination, or I'd have to click the "Adult Content" setting. :)

Friday, Sept. 27, 2013: Day 4 on the road / Iola, Kansas

The banner greeting those arriving in Iola, Kansas from the east on U.S. Route 54.

Got a late start, not hitting the road until 9:12 a.m. Still, got to Iola, Kansas before noon, arriving under an impressive "Keaton Celebration" banner that straddles U.S. 54 as you arrive from the east. Nice!

The Bowlus Center (home of the festival) was locked up tight, so went for lunch to the B & B Country Cafe, a favorite from last year. Place was packed, and staff was struggling with giant takeout order, but had yet another plate of fried chicken, which was the day's special and is starting to become a theme of the Great Early Fall 2013 Silent Film Accompaniment Road Trip.

At the Keaton Festival, supplied live accompaniment to 'Seeing Stars,' the Hollywood promotional short presented by Hooman Mehran, so I can say now that I've officially collaborated with him.

Amused to find the name of 'Paul Rapsis' on my stipend check. The Bowlus Center folks were most apologetic about it, and director Susan Raines even walked with me across the street to have it cashed, which was the easiest solution for them. Nice! But now here I am, in the big city of Iola with all this cash on me. Watch out!

But the real big news of the afternoon was being in the presence of actor Paul Dooley, whose long list of credits include being head writer of the original 'Electric Company' PBS show in the 1970s, which I was addicted to as a kid.

Here's me and Paul Dooley in the lobby of the Bowlus Fine Arts Center.

Dooley gave a nice presentation on Keaton, and also did a great stand-up routine that he seems to be trying out for use elsewhere. Hope I get a chance to tell him what the Electric Company means to me: I just looked at excerpts on YouTube (that amazing resource) for the first time in decades and it all came rushing back, yet another source of primary source childhood memories all locked up in bits and bytes ready to be streamed again. And he was the guy!

Skipped dinner to prepare for the evening's session, which included live accompaniment to 'Out West' (1918), the Keaton/Arbuckle short. But as I was playing prior to the start, Bill Shaffer came over and whispered in my ear (inevitably, it seems) that there was a change of program.

Instead, they'd be showing Keaton's short 'The Blacksmith' (1922) with the newly discovered footage. Okay, fine! I hadn't seen the film in years, but I actually remembered some of the structure of it (opening gag titles about the "Village Smithy," etc.) and so started getting ready mentally.

But first there were remarks from the mayor of Iola, who was welcomed with me playing "Hail to the Chief," which got a few laughs, and an award to actor James Karen, a long-time friend of the festival and of Buster himself. For a guy about to turn 90, he's in amazing shape! Sporting a beard, he resembles an older Ernest Hemingway.

And on to Buster, which came in the form of a file on a thumb drive brought over from Paris by Kate Guyonvarch. Into the laptop went the drive, and off we went. But not quite: the computer had trouble reading the file, so all we got was a jumpy series of freeze frames of Buster and then Joe Roberts chasing each other around.

I did what I could, but what can you do? They then shut it down and transferred the file to another machine right on screen in full view of the audience, giving me a chance to earn a few more cheap laughs by playing Merv Griffin's iconic "waiting" music from Jeopardy.

But it still didn't work, but they'll try it again Saturday night, I'm told. Well, at least I got to preview it! Afterwards, I couldn't resist following Kate Guyonvarch up the aisle just to tell her I was glad to help out, and that we should work together more often! :)

Still haven't had a chance to connect with her, and at this point it's getting to be a little like "Waiting for Guyonvarch." Still, it's nice to make her acquaintance after all the back-and-forth over the years.

A screening of Chaplin's 'A King in New York' (1957) followed, the first time I'd ever had a chance to see this film. Lots of interest in it, especially if you're interested in seeing how agile Chaplin was in his late 60s, and how sharp his pantomime and acting skills remained.

But the film itself was a mixed bag, and the washed out video image (and a weird rumbling in the audio whenever anyone spoke) didn't help. Alas, I came away from it thinking that was two hours of my life I wouldn't get back again, which is not the kind of feeling you want to get when attending a festival like this.

Well, props to the organizers for screening a film that rarely gets shown, and that fit perfectly into the celebration's theme of the "Fabulous Fifties," which were not so fabulous for Chaplin, anyway.

But then again, where else can hear rock 'n' roll with music and lyrics by Charlie Chaplin? So it was worthwhile in the "being complete" sense. Now all I have to do is sit through 'A Countess from Hong Kong' (1967) and I can say I've seen it all, with the exception of a few of the Keystones, probably.

Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2013: Day 2 on the road / Bentonville, Arkansas

The fun begins with a reception this evening!

A summer-like morning saw me head over to the campus of Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas, where major construction is underway on 17th Street. But that didn't stop the Great Early Fall 2013 Silent Film Accompaniment Road Trip.

I popped into the music department, where I borrowed the use of a piano in for a couple of hours to review material, and then hit the road for the trip to Bentonville, Ark., home of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, where I was on that evening for the opening reception of the 'Art for the Citizen' symposium.

Uneventful drive through Missouri on newly christened "Interstate 49," formerly just U.S. Route 71. If you travel this road, ignore all the signs for pecans and stop at Butler, Missouri for the donuts at Koehn's Bakery.

Due at the museum at 6 p.m., so thought I was cutting it close in getting to Bentonville at 5:30 p.m. Turned out my car clock was ahead one hour! For once I had time to spare, which was good, because the elevator where we stayed has to be the slowest in the Western Hemisphere.

Many luminaries on hand. Met Chaplin expert Hooman Mehran in the lobby, and some other university folks here for the museum's symposium.

Then over to Crystal Bridges, a brand spanking new museum funded by Wal-Mart money. (Bentonville is Ground Zero for the Walton family and Wal-Mart, which was founded here in 1950.) It's quite a place, part museum and part airline terminal, all set on a surprisingly vertical site and with water everywhere.

I found Frank Scheide from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville carrying the promised keyboard, which turned out to be a lightweight all-plastic Yamaha model that could be held under one's arm. Uh-oh!

We set it up and it turned out to be better than I expected. We couldn't get the sustain pedal to work properly, so I futzed with the thing until I found a theater organ setting that sounded effective, and that's what I used.

More luminaries, including Steven Byess, conductor of the Arkansas Philharmonic, which is doing a live score to a screening of Chaplin's 'City Lights' (1931) on Sunday after just two rehearsals. (I wish him luck with that and wish I could get back here to see it!)

Also met the charming Sara Segerlin of Crystal Bridges after much e-mail correspondence (that's her on the right) and traded glances with Kate Guyonvarch of the Chaplin office, whom I'd love to chat with more extensively if the chance arises.

Small group on hand in the museum's 'Great Hall' for opening night of the symposium, which happened to coincide with the 100th anniversary of Chaplin signing his Keystone contract. Got a chance to speak beforehand, so said that in honor of the anniversary and to pay homage to the spirit of the Little Tramp, everything I was wearing had been purchased two days ago in a Topeka thrift store.

Accompanied 'The Immigrant' as best I could. The film got a good reaction, and so afterwards, Frank asked if people would like to see one more. Yes! So we went right into 'The Adventurer,' which was a little more assured, except things got a bit frantic in the last few minutes.

Finished the night with a "Jamocha" shake from Arby's, a rare culinary treat for me.