Two movies

Last night I saw the silent movie CHICAGO with the Classic Movies Meetup group.  We rented a room at the Central pub in Mirvish Village and saw it on a video screen.  It's a 1927 version of the story that became the Oscar-winning musical with the same title about a decade ago.  It was based on the play of the same title, which was based in turn on the real-life Beulah Annan case. (There was also a non-musical sound version called ROXIE HART in the early 1940s with Ginger Rogers in the title role, but in that version she was innocent!) It's pretty scathing satire.

This evening I saw the documentary GREENWICH VILLAGE:  MUSIC THAT DEFINED A GENERATION at the Bloor.  It's about the folk music scene that emerged from Greenwich Village dives in the 1960s and went on to, uh, define a generation.  They interviewed a lot of musicians, including Pete Seeger, a true hero of mine. (During World War II Woody Guthrie put a label on his guitar saying "This machine kills fascists"; Seeger's banjo says "This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender.") I didn't realize that the House Un-American Activities Committee still had enough pull to quietly wreck Buffy Sainte Marie's career in the United States, though she stayed a star here in Canada.

I'm going to make fettucine alfredo one of these days, but the timing is never right.  I had planned on making it today, but John and Kathrine are back from visiting Australia and came over for dinner. (They're vegans.)  The next two days I'm going out early, so if I make it either of those days, I'll have to get started earlier than usual.  It takes me about 45 minutes to make it.