CENTENNIAL

"What brought you to St. Louis?" "The river"--CENTENNIAL

This evening I was going to a Karaoke Meetup at Chalker's.  But when I got there it turned out they didn't have karaoke there!  Oh well, at least it got me out of the house.  On the way back I was wondering what I'd post about today, but I stopped at 2Q Video and rented the 1978 miniseries CENTENNIAL.

CENTENNIAL is a maxi-miniseries, over 20 hours long, from James Michener's meganovel about the development of a Colorado community, starting with the formation of the land millions of years ago.  It's fairly middlebrow, but I enjoyed the first episode, "Only the Rocks Live Forever."  That takes place near the end of the eighteenth century and involves the sometimes violent interactions between a fur-buying French-Canadian coureur de bois (Robert Conrad) and the local First Nations.  There's also Conrad's Scottish partner (Richard Chamberlain), who falls in love with an Arapaho hero's daughter (Barbara Carrera, who's easy on the eyes), but her father gives her to Conrad... (The title comes from an Arapaho proverb.)

The later episodes take the story through the frontier era into the twentieth century.  I got the whole set for a week, but it may take longer to see.

Another ROMwalk

After the rain let up this afternoon, the warm weather came back.  I've put away that winter blanket again.

This evening I went on another ROMwalk.  This one started at the Anglican church near King & Trinity, and went through the Corktown and Distillery areas.  It wasn't quite as big as the Annex walk, but I think there were at least fifty people.  That includes some other people from the Introvert Meetup, but I had a hard time finding them.

I'm still enjoying the videos of THIS IS TOM JONES highlights.  Every episode would have him doing a hip-shaking number to turn the staidest housewives into bobby soxers!  His guests included singers like Little Richard and Janis Joplin, with whom he'd do lively duets.

There were also comedians like Richard Pryor, who joked about birth control and religion at a time when the TV networks considered both subjects too "daring." (This was about the time when David Steinberg got THE SMOTHERS BROTHERS SHOW cancelled.) The improvisational comedy groups Ace Trucking Company and The Committee both appear, and I recognized Fred Willard and Howard Hessemann, as well as Bill Saluga doing his "You can call me Ray..." routine, which I always found annoying.

Two singers

Not much happening today.  I was hoping to see THE GREAT GATSBY in the afternoon with Bev, but that fell through for now.  And there was going to be a meeting of AFACT (Applause For A Cause Theater), but that got delayed to Sunday.  So I went out and rented a couple of videos.

One was SING YOUR SONG, a documentary about singer-activist Harry Belafonte.  He's still being active today on issues like New Orleans.  The clips they showed of his TV specials made me wish I could see them whole!  (I never knew that "There's a Hole in the Bucket" was a Belafonte song.)

The other was some episodes from Tom Jones' TV show between 1969 and 1971.  The first episode was pretty fun, though the joke about four beauties coming out of a packing case was not PC.  They had Peter Sellers in a car-salesman sketch written by Graham Chapman and John Cleese of Monty Python fame.

Through experimentation, I've figured out that half an hour is too long to let a Klondike bar thaw at room temperature. (It gets all gooey.) But at fifteen minutes it's melted enough to appeal to me.  I like half-melted ice cream.

The spuds are in the ground

"And the best part of it was that he was now the very person he wanted to be.  If he had been free to choose, he would have chosen to be no one else.  Because now he knew that there were thousands and thousands of forms of joy in the world, but that all were essentially one and the same, namely, the joy of being able to love"--THE NEVERENDING STORY

Today I finally got the potatoes planted in our backyard garden.  I hoed out six rows for them first, and later I watered them too.  Next year I hope to do it earlier.

In the evening I finished rereading THE NEVERENDING STORY.  It's still wonderful.  Now I'll go back to the LAPHAM'S QUARTERLY animals issue.

Someone on THE HUFFINGTON POST commented, "The president [Obama] is not a magician," and I replied, "That's the understatement of our time!"

I've started a couple of new Facebook games.  I'm trying Western Story because I liked Frontierville so much.  And I'm also trying Invincible Armada, in which you build a shipping fleet and fight pirates in the Mediterranean.

PETER PAN

This afternoon I went to the Open Doors events at the Bloor and Revue cinemas.  At both of them I got to inside the projection room and see the projectors. (The Bloor largely projects digitally these days.) And both places had free popcorn!

Later I joined the Classical Movies Meetup to see the silent version of PETER PAN (for the second time), with live piano by William O'Meara.  It's the best film I've seen of J.M. Barrie's play:  Betty Bronson is remarkable in the title role. (Silent cinema is well-suited to adult actors playing children, as Mary Pickford often did.) Next month they're showing the Buster Keaton comedy THE THREE AGES.

In addition to the feature, they showed a silent Our Gang short called DOG HEAVEN, 1890s French films by the Lumiere brothers, and footage of Remembrance Day ceremonies at the Ottawa war memorial.  They took so much time all together that I didn't get home till past 7:00.  Oh well, I think I prefer scalloped potatoes after they've gone cold. (You won't burn your mouth.)

Bev and I are trying to find a time when we can see THE GREAT GATSBY together.  I'd said I prefer the non-3D version, but that's really a minor detail for me.

KUMARE

"This is the story of the biggest lie I ever told, and the greatest truth I ever experienced"--Vikhram Gandhi

This morning I went to Doors Open with a few people from my Asperger's Meetup.  We visited City Hall, Osgoode Hall and Campbell House.  Casper was pushing a pet rabbit in a stroller, which got a lot of attention. (I was also going to see THE GREAT GATSBY with some Aspies this afternoon, but we couldn't find it in non-3D at the right time.)

This evening I saw the documentary KUMARE on DVD, for the second time. (Last year I saw it at the Bloor.) It's a film by Desi American Vikhram Gandhi about his year-long intellectual experiment posing as a guru in Phoenix, Arizona.  He acquired about fourteen followers and advised them to find their own inner guru, which seems good advice to me.

I also saw the documentary CITIZEN HEARST about William Randolph Hearst and his media empire.  Unfortunately, only the first third was about Hearst itself, the rest being about the Hearst company after his death.

Just a few days ago I finally put away my extra winter blanket, and then came this cool weather so I ended up taking it back out!

"What Do You Worka, John?'

"I have a message for all those people calling me a communist:  'communist' is spelled with a 'C'!"--David Steinberg

It's been a while since I wrote about my childhood memories.  We had a record player with quite a few children's records.  Our Golden Records and Spear Records were in 78 R.P.M., which they still had fifty years ago.  But the Peter Pan Records were 45s, which had a wider hole in the center back then.

One of our records had the song "Where Do You Worka John?" It was a duet--not for sensitive Italians--that went like this:

"Where do you worka, John?" "On the Delaware-Lackawanna!"
"What do you doa, John?" "I pusha, I pusha, I pusha!"
"What do you pusha, John?" "I pusha, I pusha da trucka!"
"Where do you pusha, John?" (together) "On the Delaware-Lackawannawannawannawan, the Delaware Lackawanna!"

I was looking it up online last night.  It's a novelty song from the 1920s, co-written by the great Harry Warren, who shared in three Best Song Oscars, and whose real name was Salvatore Guaragna.  The original song included verses like "Where do you worka, wop?" "On the Washington Monument top!" "What do you doa, wop?" "I pusha, I pusha da mop!" You can hear different versions on Youtube.

This evening I saw QUALITY BALLS, a documentary about comedian David Steinberg, at the Bloor.  It's been a while since I laughed this hard:  he's a shtick genius. (Director Barry Avrich was coming to answer questions, but he was a few minutes late so I didn't wait.)

BARRYMORE

"I don't know what I'd do without him, but I'd like to"--BARRYMORE

Today I went out to 2Q Video and rented the DVD of BARRYMORE, with Christopher Plummer in a largely one-man show as John Barrymore at the end of his days. (This was a video that got broadcast in cinemas, like Plummer's CAESAR AND CLEOPATRA, which I also saw on DVD.) It was quite a tour de force.  I'd like to know more about Ned Shelton, the playwright who encouraged him to become a great Shakespearean actor.

The other day I finished translating the Portuguese booklet about Saint Bruno of Cologne.  I learned that when the rest of western Europe was caught up in the First Crusade zeitgeist, he and his monks were unaffected and continued to cultivate their own gardens.  Maybe he WAS a saint!

I realized that my dental appointment is scheduled for the same day as our final choir concert.  I'll have to reschedule it lest I take too long to recover. (I tried to do that today, but the doctor wasn't in just then.)

I went to bed at 8:00 P.M., then woke up just before midnight.  No doubt it'll take me a while to get back to sleep!

CLEOPATRA

Cleopatra (seeing Julius Caesar force his way into her boudoir): "Oh, it's you."

This afternoon I saw Joseph Mankiewicz' 1963 megabudget epic CLEOPATRA.  There was a big audience for the event screen.  Lots of talent but the drama is a bit bland. (At least you can see where all the money went.) The stormy relationship between Elizabeth Taylor's Cleopatra and Richard Burton's Marc Antony brings their real-life marriage to mind.  By the end I wanted to tell Burton, "Stop whining and die already!"

The best performance is Roddy McDowall's shrewd, sinister Augustus.  He was a close friend of celebrities like E.T., and arranged for his diaries to be published 100 years after his death, in the 2090s when I'd be 130.  I hope against hope that I'll live that long and find out what he says about them!

Did I mention that it's just over four hours long?  After it was finished I had to go straight to choir practice without dinner. (As it was, I literally didn't have a second to spare:  I arrived just as they were starting the first number!) So I ate afterward, but at least our run-through ended early.

About twenty years ago, when the CBC opened its new Toronto building, John bought a lot of stuff from the old building for a song, including some iron frames, which we stored in the side yard.  Today Father and I finally took them out to the sidewalk to be recycled.  My hands sure got dirty!

ON STAGE

"Cheerleaders have to date athletes.  It's the law"--FREAKS & GEEKS

Today I finished my latest PEANUTS reprint and started the third reprint volume of Leonard Starr's comic strip ON STAGE.  It's about Mary Perkins and her efforts to start and maintain a career as a Broadway actress.  It's one of the best-written strips, with sharp dialogue like "Oola's producer has the look of a man who invested all his money in 3-D glasses." (This was in 1959, five years after the original 3-D fad fizzled.  How much longer will the current revival last?) And the artwork is impressive too:  like Alex Raymond and John Cullen Murphy, Starr was a comics artist who knew how to draw pretty women!

The story I'm reading about just now has Mary coming to the Riviera to promote a movie she made that's in contention for a thinly-veiled Cannes Film Festival.  Her big publicity-hound rival is Oola LaBelle, a thinly-veiled Brigitte Bardot.  Meanwhile her photojournalist fiance Pete Fletcher is being held behind the iron curtain and she's trying to get him free, attracting a con artist's attention... (Later he did get free and marry her.)

This evening I saw the documentary SCATTER MY ASHES AT BERGDORF'S at the Bloor.  (The title comes from a NEW YORKER cartoon by Victoria Roberts, whose style clearly influenced the look of Milhous on THE SIMPSONS.) It's about Manhattan's high-class designer label store Bergdorf-Goodman's.  That store's window displays are truly stunning.  But I find something depressing about the luxury trade.  Vanity of vanities, all is vanity...

After I got home, I saw the FREAKS & GEEKS episode on Netflix where Sam becomes the team mascot with a giant Viking head so he can be close to cheerleader Cynthia, but she has a crush on the basketball star...

GUNGA DIN

"How can we start a nice little war?"--GUNGA DIN

This evening I saw George Stevens' GUNGA DIN--for maybe the third time--with the Classic Movie Meetup.  Like SUNRISE, we saw it on the video screen at the Central pub in Mirvish Village. (As I was arriving there, I could hear Vince Vaughan saying, "You're coming later than the others.  Smart move, baby!")

The movie is a hodgepodge of mostly enjoyable Hollywood kitsch.  The original director was Howard Hawks before he got sacked in mid-shoot, and there's a big element of Hawksian bromance.   The credits claim that it's "based on historical fact" about the Thuggee, which makes me suspicious:  I'll have to do some Wikipedia research.  As it was, I found myself rooting for the thugs!

In the climax, the thugs capture our heroes but don't kill them because they want them to witness their army's destruction, which screenwriters call the Penguin cliche. (The Penguin was always taking Batman prisoner on the '60s TV show but keeping him alive so the latter could see his latest climactic villainy.) Notice also that they should have done a better job of stabbing Sam Jaffe in the back.

A ROM walk

Vince Vaughan (introducing a waitress to Jon Favreau): "This is the guy behind the guy behind the guy!"--SWINGERS

This afternoon I went on one of the Royal Ontario Museum's walking tours around Toronto. (I met some people from the Introvert Meetup, including Rhonda, whom I'd met on the NEAT walk the other day.) This one was in the annex, showing the vintage architecture of certain homes and churches.  I may or may not have gone on a similar walk in past years.  In July they're doing one in Wychwood Park, which isn't far from where I live.

I've finished the ditch around the garden.  Now I've started going through the ground with a pitchfork.  Then I'll hoe it and it'll be ready for planting!  And I also got the idea to leave a pile of weeds near the compost bin so that every time we put in some compost we can add a layer of weeds over it.

This evening I saw Douglas Liman's SWINGERS--for maybe the third time--at the Event Screen.  Really funny stuff. (I doubt that Frank Sinatra expected to live long enough for his LIFESTYLE to come back into fashion!) I wonder if much of the dialogue was improvised?

FIGHT LIKE SOLDIERS, DIE LIKE CHILDREN

Romeo Dallaire on recruiting child soldiers: "It's not just a crime against humanity, it's a sin."

This evening I saw the documentary FIGHT LIKE SOLDIERS, DIE LIKE CHILDREN at the Bloor.  That cinema's within walking distance of my home, so with the warm weather I'm now walking to it!

The film's about retired general Romeo Dallaire's efforts to rescue and rehabilitate child soldiers in Africa. (He wrote a book with the same title.) He's one of the good Canadians, a hero of mine.  He realizes that ending this tragedy will take decades and has to be done one step at a time.  Director Patrick Reed appeared for a Q&A after the movie.

Someday I should read Dallaire's book SHAKE HANDS WITH THE DEVIL, about how the United Nations thwarted his efforts to prevent the Rwandan holocaust, the start of the region's continuing instability.

NEAT walk

Today I went on a NEAT walk.  It stands for Newcomers Explore & Appreciate Toronto.  These walks are organized by Culture Link, an organization to help Toronto immigrants feel at home.  I sometimes go on them because I like meeting immigrants.  This walk had immigrants from Spain, Nigeria, Pakistan and Korea.  We met at the Spadina station streetcar platform, took the streetcar to College Street, then walked to Nathan Phillips Square.

On the way home I stopped at Fiesta Gardens on Christie Street to get some more seed potatoes to plant:  we now have both Yukon Gold and Kennebec.  I'm also digging a ditch around the garden to improve its drainage.  And today I brought out our electric lawnmower and cut our grass for the first time.

This morning the internet signal was flickering so I couldn't open anything.  But in the afternoon Father fixed the problem just by turning the modem off and on again!

This evening I went to another meeting of the theatre group.  We set June 14 for the big casting call.

A big new traffic source for this blog is the European social network vk.com .  In recent days a Polish spammer left some spam comments here. (Oh well, it's better than nothing.)

New shoes

Today I finally got a new pair of shoes. (The soles on my last ones split after visiting London in September.) We went to the Wal-Mart on St. Clair west of Keele, where I got a Dr. Scholl's pair.  My shoe size is 8 1/2, which is sometimes scarce.  I also got a light summer jacket to replace the tattered green one.

Today was Moira's birthday, so John, Donald and Kathrine came over and we ate Indian food.  They also brought a new bookcase for my room, which fits into one corner just right.  I won't be running out of book space for a long while!

Gordon lost some weight recently, and sent Moira an email (through my address), telling her the titles of the diet books he was using:  stuff like THE PALEO DIET.

This evening I finally finished translating the children's history of Portugal.  Now I've started translating those booklets about the lives of the saints.  The first one is about Saint Bruno, who was born in Cologne and became a famous teacher in Rheims, educating people like Pope Urban II.  He was the pope who called a council that was supposed to discuss church reform, but he changed the subject by launching the most unsaintly First Crusade! (Sounds like a Republican.)

The US has now overtaken Russia as this blog's leading source of pageviews.

Under the weather

Puitak and Gordon invited us to lunch at the Mandarin restaurant near Eglinton station.  They'd recently visited China, including Puitak's hometown in Guangdong.  I finished lunch way earlier than the others did. (I skipped the soup.) My fortune cookie said "Expect much from yourself and little from others," which seems like good advice.

Unfortunately, the food disagreed with me.  I was sick that evening. (Maybe I should have skipped dinner.) While I usually write blog posts around midnight, I waited till the morning to write this one.

I've been reading the Fanatagraphic Books series of PEANUTS reprints.  I'm near the end of the 1960s by now.  I've noticed Sunday strips I remember reading at the time (on Saturdays, of course) from as early as 1968.  And I remember seeing some dailies from 1969.

I've found a Facebook page devoted to classic comic strips like KERRY DRAKE.

THE CONVERSATION

This afternoon I started spading the garden. (I'll have to get some more planting potatoes.) And I printed out that song score so Moira can record the accompaniment before I resume singing lessons with Giuseppe.

This evening I saw Francis Coppola's THE CONVERSATION (for the second time) with the Movie Meetup group.  It was a special showing at the Event Screen, presented by Murray Pomeranz.  It's a very '70s movie, all about Watergate-era paranoia.  Gene Hackman has one of those character roles where I almost forget it's him.  There's one shot of blood gushing out of a toilet that must have inspired a famous shot in Stanley Kubrick's THE SHINING.

Afterward I went to the Fox & Fiddle near St. George station for a Karaoke Meetup with Paula.  I sang Dean Martin's "Sway" and Chubby Checker's "The Limbo Rock"; she sang Prince's "Kiss" and Madonna's "Vogue." (She enjoyed FREAKS & GEEKS too!)

The other day I got an interest cheque for over $1000 and today I couldn't find it! (My room's been in some disarray with the computer being moved.) But I mentioned it to Father and it turned out not to be in my room at all, but downstairs.

THE NEVERENDING STORY

Teacher monitoring the hall: "Last one in the classroom is the first on welfare"--FREAKS & GEEKS

This afternoon I set up my new printer under my new desk and connected it to the computer.  Now I can print out my score for Bizet's "Je Crois Entendre Encore"!

Afterward I went out to the Gladstone library, where they've finished the renovations, and borrowed Michael Ende's children's book THE NEVERENDING STORY.  I read it almost thirty years ago and recall that it was really, really wonderful!  Some people have the imagination.  No doubt it helps that the translation was written by Ralph Manheim, the greatest German to English translator ever. (His version of Gunter Grass' THE TIN DRUM is a classic of translation.)

I'd seen the 1984 movie of the book, and enjoyed it enough to go to the original, but the movie didn't quite prepare me for how wonderful the book was.  It's just as well I saw the movie first; if I'd read the book first, it might have suffered in comparison.  After I finish rereading the book, I'll try to find the movie too.

At choir practice this evening, John George said he'd been meaning to tell me I'm a really good writer from what he's read here.  And Giovanni told me he'd read THE NEVERENDING STORY to his son years ago.

ROMEO+JULIET

This afternoon I saw Baz Luhrmann's ROMEO+JULIET at the Event Screen.  Never a dull moment, but Luhrmann's direction tends to the frantic:  in too many scenes the actors HAVE TO SCREAM SHAKESPEARE'S LIIIIINES!!!  But I liked Claire Danes' angel wings. (I shudder to imagine Luhrmann's take on THE GREAT GATSBY.)

John and Kathrine came over for dinner.  John brought over a desk and assembled it in my room next to my big window.  Then I decided to move my computer to this desk and turn the old desk into a bookcase.

I'm still rewatching FREAKS AND GEEKS on Netflix.  The other day I saw the episode where Sam ended up streaking through the school hallway (just when the bell rang and everyone came out of the classrooms, of course) after the other boys threw him out of the locker room without his clothes.  That's the same episode where Lindsay told Nick he should work at his dream of becoming a rock drummer but when he tried to get serious about rehearsing the rest of his group walked out.  Painfully funny!

The marriage of true minds

Today was the June ROLT Meetup, devoted to writing on love, which I called "The marriage of true minds."  There were just four of us, including me and Moira.  Joel turned up as usual, and there was a new member called Helen.  When we met Butler's Pantry was packed and so noisy that we had to move to the area out in front, but by the time we were finished it was almost empty again!

I read a section of Gabriel Garcia-Marquez' wonderful ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE, about Aureliano being in love with Remedios, Shakespeare's "marriage of true minds" sonnet, and the section of the Book of Proverbs describing a virtuous wife.  Moira read something for the first time:  some fourteenth-century poems by the Iranian poet Hafiz, translated by someone from Oklahoma, which sounded very modern.  Joel and Helen both read poems they'd written themselves.  Next month our topic will be closing passages.

There was a report on THE HUFFINGTON POST about the cause of Stonewall Jackson's death.  It gave us a chance to post about the American Civil War, which I always enjoy discussing.  The other day they had a report about the Obama administration still resisting allowing girls to take the Plan B "morning after" contraceptive without parental permission, a subject I feel strongly about.  It's an emergency medication that has to be taken within a few days, and forcing girls to get up the courage to tell their parents they've been having sex first will mean more teenage pregnancies, and that isn't even in the parents' interest!  So I've written a lot of posts about that too.

Yesterday I got almost eighty pageviews!  My readership is still increasing these days.  My biggest traffic source just now is the website linked to Current TV, the channel Al Gore started which Al-Jazeera recently bought. (The second is filmhill.com .) Russia still leads in my individual pageview readers, but Canada and the US have both surpassed Germany.

Applause for a Cause

This morning I woke up with a huge headache.  It must be the weather.

This evening I went to another Applause for a Cause meeting.  Two weeks from now we'll be having our casting call.  It looks like our charity will be the Geneva Centre for autistic and Asperger's people, which both Ali (through his son) and I have been involved with.  I noticed that my character is a "confirmed bachelor" and wondered if that means he's gay. (The British magazine PRIVATE EYE uses the term in that sense.) Ali will be playing the detective and I encouraged him to use my fedora in his costume.

Both Don and Martha have worked in TV, and they were talking about what a headache that is.  Martha says some TV people are really mean, and Don says everyone at HGTV seems to be twelve. I mentioned that Moira overheard someone in the Toronto movie industry on the subway who said that a lot of the stars were jerks but spoke well of Sean Connery and Kathleen Turner.  Don mentioned that he'd witnessed the filming of SWITCHING CHANNELS 25 years ago and Turner was really bitchy all through the shoot. (She was in a bad mood because she thought her co-star was going to be Michael Caine, and they had wonderful chemistry when they rehearsed, but Caine had to do reshoots on JAWS 4 and Turner was pregnant so filming couldn't be delayed, and they had to recast Burt Reynolds in Caine's role.  When Reynolds met Turner, according to Turner's memoir, he said, "This is the first time a woman had top billing over me.") Reynolds, on the other hand, was popular with everyone on the crew other than Turner.

My feet got sore by the time I got home.  I really need a new pair of shoes!

Art walk

Today I finished spreading the compost on the garden. (It always surprises me how much it settles down with time.) Next step is spading.

This evening I went on Betty-Anne's Queen Street art walk.  We started at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, where they had a big show of photographs from David Thompson's collection. One of them had a caption in Portuguese:  it showed a steamship of 1920s Yugoslav immigrants arriving in Santos, Brazil.  There was also a Michael Snow video display which reminded me of Saul Bass titles.

Our next stop was some more photographs at the Propeller Centre. Then we saw some streetscape photos at a place whose name I can't remember. (And it wasn't on the itinerary, so I can't find it out from there.) Finally we went to the Gladstone Hotel and saw "In the Playroom," an odd display of Jonathan Hobin photographs of little kids making tableaus based on recent events, with titles like "Diana's Dead." Some of us found them tasteless.

I met several people I know from other Meetups there.

OCEAN'S ELEVEN

Frank Sinatra (propositioning estranged wife Angie Dickinson): "What's wrong with a little hey-hey?"--OCEAN'S ELEVEN

This afternoon we went out to Future Shop and bought a new Hewlett-Packard inkjet printer for my computer.  They had a lot of Canon models there, but my previous printer was a Canon and a headache.

This evening I saw Lewis Milestone's original Rat Pack version of OCEAN'S ELEVEN (for the second time) at the Event Screen.  It's overlong but has some cool dialogue. ("Happy burial, dead dog.") It may have started out as a Las Vegas heist comedy, but it's really just an excuse for Sinatra and friends to have fun together.  The best performance is from Richard Conte as the "electrician" dying of cancer ("the Big Casino"). Saul Bass' opening credits are worth seeing on the big screen.

With WILD ANIMALS I HAVE KNOWN finished, I've resumed reading the animals issue of LAPHAM'S QUARTERLY.  So far, among others, I've read selections from John Steinbeck's THE GRAPES OF WRATH (the turtle crossing the highway), Herman Melville's MOBY-DICK, T.H. White's THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING (young Arthur being transformed into a fish), William Butler Yeats' "Leda and the Swan" and a LaFontaine fable about the gnat fighting the lion.

The iceman cometh

Gregory Peck (giving Audrey Hepburn pajamas to sleep in): "Sorry, honey, but I haven't worn a night gown for years"--ROMAN HOLIDAY

When we got our new refrigerator a dozen years ago, its freezer made crushed ice from our water supply.  But a few years ago the machine malfunctioned and now we have to buy ice and put it inside to be crushed.  With the warm weather here, I looked around for ice to buy.  The corner store doesn't have it yet, and neither does the No Frills supermarket that we frequent.  But I found some at Loblaw's this afternoon.  After taking it home I smashed it with a hammer to make the pieces as small as possible before putting them in the freezer.  You have to do it right away before the pieces start to melt, because if they refreeze they'll get stuck together and become one big piece again.

This evening I saw William Wyler's ROMAN HOLIDAY (for the second time) at the Yonge & Dundas Event Screen.  The story's pretty thin, but Audrey Hepburn's bonitinha as a button.  True story:  Gregory Peck was going to come first in the billing since he was the established star while Hepburn was the newcomer, but Peck himself asked to give Hepburn equal billing, because he accurately guessed that she'd win the Best Actress Oscar, and he feared looking silly if his name was ahead of hers.  Classy people!

The movie also had Eddie Albert in a supporting role.  I remember him on GREEN ACRES, which I watched faithfully, making a speech at the end of the show about what made America great, and you could take it seriously or see it as clever irony depending on your bent. (Moira says Albert got better-looking as he got older!) My favorite character was Haney (Pat Buttram), who was always trying to sell them stuff.  I think he had an invisible assistant.

Over 50 Meetup

This morning I went to a Meetup for people over 50.  Ruthie, the very friendly organizer, calls us Vavavavoomers, which makes sense:  you have to be over 50 to remember that expression! (They should call a Meetup for people over 70 "What's the story, morning glory?") Their first event was at the Scarborough restaurant Eggsact, which sounded promising, but it was too early for me to get there.

This event was at Edward Gardens, and it was also a bit too early:  I got there 15 minutes late and the others had already gone down into the ravine.  Ruthie was still up at the meeting place, because her legs are too weak for the steps. (That's what happens when you have a Meetup for people over 50!) I tried to find the others but couldn't, so I returned and hung with Ruthie until they returned.  She was telling me the history of her neighborhood, so I ended up telling her about our own house's 100-year history.

Later I finished reading WILD ANIMALS I HAVE KNOWN.  I'd shown the book to Ruthie, and she's so interested that I promised to lend it to her at our next event. (Ernest Thompson Seton was ahead of his time:  I just read that he criticized the policy of forcing First Nations children into residential schools when hardly anyone else was doing so.  Ruthie's interested in residential school history because she was doing some legal work related to that.)

And Ruthie says she's still learning the organization game, and she'll schedule events less early in the future.

Two more Meetups

Today I went to a Classical Movies Meetup at the Central in Mirvish Village.  We had a buffet lunch and saw F.W. Murnau's silent classic SUNRISE.  It's the third time I've seen it--the first was at London's Royal Festival Hall in 1995, accompanied by a live orchestra!  It's a conventional Hollywood story with stylish, atmospheric direction.

When the movie was finished, I went to the second floor at the Central for the Play Reading Meetup. (It's been a while since I went to that:  there were a couple of events that were filled up before I even read that they'd been posted!) We were reading Chekhov's UNCLE VANYA, from Michael Frayn's translation.  Unfortunately, the movie was delayed getting started and I got in late.  On top of that, I couldn't find the Frayn version:  all thirty library copies were out, and the Chapters and Indigo bookstores didn't have any.  And on top of THAT, the reading came to a long halt when some Russians in the group started talking about the play.  That may not be so bad when you've been there from the start, but when you got in late you need to get into the flow and such interruptions are frustrating.  So I left early.

On the way home I decided to take the Dufferin bus instead of the Ossington, on the assumption that Dufferin would be more regular, with less risk of a long delay.  But I ended up cooling my heels in a very long delay, until FOUR buses came at once!

Two Meetups

This morning I went to a Life Begins at Forty Meetup.  We walked east along the boardwalk at the Beaches.  The weather was great!  Over 20 people showed up.  We returned along Queen Street, stopping at the Outrigger restaurant for lunch, but I couldn't stay as long as the others because of my afternoon event.

In the afternoon I attended the Brunch and Book Club Meetup at the Camp restaurant on Jane Street.  We had lunch and discussed the Camus novel L'ETRANGER. (I ordered the French toast special.)

Afterward we all nominated a book for the next event, then voted.  I nominated WILD ANIMALS I HAVE KNOWN (the book I'm reading now) and voted for John Kennedy Toole's A CONFEDERATION OF DUNCES.  But the winner was Jonas Jonasson's Swedish novel THE 100 YEAR OLD MAN WHO CLIMBED OUT THE WINDOW AND DISAPPEARED.  At 400 pages, it sounds a bit too long for me.

Today I was reading in WILD ANIMALS I HAVE KNOWN the story about cowboys out to capture a fabled mustang.  It mentioned that one way to do so is by running them down in the right place, but another one is to walk them down, which means using a relay of horses and riders to keep a little behind them for days until they're too tired to run away.  I imagine that method applies to romance too!

My first date

This evening I had dinner with Cecilia at Kramer's Bar & Grill and spent the $30 gift certificate plus another fifteen dollars. (I'm 51, but I'm new to dating.  Dr. Hassan was surprised to learn that I didn't go out on dates; he wonders how I can stand it.) I wore my green cardigan since my warm-weather jacket is getting tattered.  I ordered spaghetti and ice cream and she ordered salmon.  Cecilia, if you're reading this, I had a good time with you.  And thanks for reading my blog.

WILD ANIMALS I HAVE KNOWN is a wonderful book.  Today I read this passage:  "Meanwhile the sun had gone about his business elsewhere, taking all his gold and glory with him.  Off in the east a big black shutter came pushing up and rising higher and higher; it spread over the whole sky, shut out all light and left the world a very gloomy place indeed.  Then another mischief-maker, the wind, taking advantage of the sun's absence, came on the scene and set about brewing trouble.  The weather turned colder and colder; it seemed worse than when the ground had been covered with snow."

Writing that good makes me want to be a writer too.

Which is scarier?

"Well, a boy's best friend is his mother"--Norman Bates

This afternoon I had a dental checkup. (My dentist is Czech.) It turned out the filling in one of my molars has got old and is no longer stopping decay.  I'll have to get a new filling and there may be a root canal too. (Ouch!)

This evening I went to see Alfred Hitchcock's PSYCHO, for about the fourth time, at the Yonge & Dundas Event Screen.  It's still pretty shocking.  Murray Pomerantz from Ryerson did a Q&A session afterward.  He says he isn't interested in seeing the Anthony Hopkins movie about its making, but the book it's based on is good. (He'll be presenting Francis Coppola's THE CONVERSATION later this month.)

I saw some fliers at the cinema showing the Event Screen's May schedule, but it still hasn't been posted online! (Who's in charge?) They're showing the original OCEAN'S ELEVEN next week, and also stuff like SWINGERS and HARD CORE LOGO and ROMEO+JULIET.

Moira found me a new pair of jeans that are the right length.

On THE HUFFINGTON POST they're arguing about the Obama administration appealing the court ruling to allow girls to buy Plan B "morning after" contraception without parental consent.  I may have said this before, but IMHO it's emergency medication that should be provided on demand.  How many girls take a week to get up the courage to tell their parents they've had sex when Plan B has to be taken within a few days?  Appeasing the fundamentalists will win the Democrats few votes.

Applause for a Cause

This evening I went to a meeting of my theatre group, which we're considering naming Applause for a Cause!  The meetings are now at a new place on Lawrence Avenue, just a little east of the Lawrence West station, so I can walk there instead of waiting for a bus. (There are also wood-carving lessons given there.) I'm going to play the editor of the newspaper owned by the deceased, concerned about his refusal to publish a story about the liaison between Edward VIII and Mrs. Simpson.

Our next meeting was going to be next Wednesday, but now Friday looks more likely.  Which is good for me, since I was hoping to see ROMAN HOLIDAY with Cecilia then. (And even if she can't make it, there's also a movie trivia quiz that night.)

Last night I dreamed of a different finale to the series WEEDS, which managed to be far crazier!

I've been having a problem with headaches the last couple of days (hence my napping).  The temperature warmed up, and those changes seem to affect me.

In the afternoon I finally got started with the garden.  I put a few shovelfuls of compost on it, just so I could say I'd started.  It's funny how quickly the older compost layers can sink down in just over six months!

My jeans are too long and too hard to take up, so I'll have to get another pair.

Sleep patterns

I've had some usual sleep patterns lately.  In the afternoon I had a nap, then got up in time for dinner.  Afterward I went back to bed, then got up in mid-evening, spent some time on the computer, than went to sleep again.  Then I woke up after midnight.  For some reason translating that book of Portuguese history makes me sleepy.

In the afternoon Father and I drove to Walmart and I finally replaced my old blue jeans.  I also got some new socks and undies. (We left finding a computer printer to the weekend.  I've finished the score for the Bizet song, but my computer needs a printer.)

Today was the start of the warm weather.  I really need to get the garden started.

John and Kathrine came over for dinner and bought falafel wraps.  I like them once I've removed the tomato slices, though I prefer the ones without hot sauce.  For dessert we had grapes.

In my latest waking period, I saw the last episode of WEEDS.  It was a very unusual show. (I preferred the seasons with Elizabeth Perkins.)

When I open the Kingsbridge game, it keeps telling me to reload!