A busy weekend

Friday night I went to a Karaoke Meetup at Jingle's.  The place was small and a bit noisy, and I only stayed for one song ("Ring of Fire.")

Yesterday afternoon I went to a new Acting Meetup connected to the Fringe Theatre.  An actor called Ivan started this group so actors of different skill and experience levels can get together and play scenes.  I enjoy that sort of thing, and he intends for us to meet every Saturday!  For the first meeting he gave us brief scenes to do from recent TV shows.  I did one from Nikita where I'm talking to a techie while looking at a computer scene. (I held my sheet in front of me to stand for the screen, which made glancing at my lines less awkward.) For the other scene I was one of two tough ex-cons meeting in a bar: one of my lines was "Shitty day, whiskey neat."

This morning I went out to Chudleigh's in Milton and picked apples as part of the Born in the '60s Meetup.  Heather gave me a lift from Islington station at 9:00 so we could get there at the 10:00 opening, so I had to get up early and take the Bloor bus before the subway started.

Chudleigh's has long lines, but they know how to keep them moving pretty quick.  I bought Cortlands, Honeycrisps and some pre-picked Empires. (I'd visited Chudleigh's once before, when I was 12 and we were in Mississauga for the year.  I think we picked Red Delicious apples then.) Unfortunately, nobody else could make it.  I guess we would have done better to find a less crowded orchard where we wouldn't have had to get there early.

Non-fiction book club

"Now I'd rather be almost anyplace on the planet--always excepting Rock Springs, Wyoming--than on the Long Island Expressway at rush hour"--Roads

Yesterday afternoon I met with Heather of the ROLT Meetup at the Butler's Pantry.  She and Jane were in a quarrel, and since I listened to Jane last week it was important to talk with Heather too so she wouldn't think we were uniting against her.  I think I made a good impression.

After finishing The Ascent of Money I decided to start reading Roads.  It's a book by Larry McMurtry--one of my favorite writers--about driving along some of the less famous American highways. I enjoy his discursive style:  in the first chapter he starts out recalling dining in a revolving restaurant in Duluth, and on his way to Wichita expounds on Nelson Algren, MTM sitcoms, the "adopt a highway" program, the "women in chains" genre of '70s B-movies, serial killers on the Great Plains, and Oklahoma City's obsession with oil production.

Last night I went to the Non-fiction book club at the Rosedale library where we talked about The Ascent of Money.  Niall Ferguson's best when talking about how the financial system came to be the way it is today; on what it'll be in the future, his writing tends to beg the bigger questions.

Choir and opera

At choir Monday night we started doing "My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music, a musical for the fallout shelter era.  It's all about joy in the face of dread, most clearly in that song.  I had a big headache.

Last night at the opera we got to the Habanera. (I still don't know the date when David Roche is doing our acting class.) I mentioned to Beatrice the six styles of love and how they correspond to the leading characters in Carmen:  ludus (love as a game) is Carmen; mania (love as obsession) is Don Jose; eros (love as conventional romantic passion) is Don Escamillo; and storge (affection developing gradually out of friendship), pragma (practical considerations) and agape (self-sacrificing empathy) are all Michaela.

I recently found an interest cheque they sent me a few months ago. (I thought it was a statement.) That puts me ahead of the game financially!)

This afternoon I went to an open house at Culturelink, an institute for established Canadians to meet immigrants. (I've been considering volunteering for that.)

I just finished Niall Ferguson's The Ascent of Money.  I wonder what I should read next?

CHINATOWN

Sunday afternoon I saw Roman Polanski's Chinatown yet again, at the Event Screen with the Sunday Afternoon Movie Meetup.  It was another in the "Film 101" series introduced by Murray Pomerance. (I usually go to them, though I missed his presentation of Spielberg's Empire of the Sun last month.) What great dialogue!  When a girl on the phone asks "Are you alone?" Jack Nicholson says "Aren't we all?" That's the kind of line Nicholson worked wonders with.

Pomerance talked about the movie afterward, but I didn't stay for that part.  I actually left before the tragic ending, because I didn't want to be late getting home for dinner, and I was just in time.  Dinner was Chinese food, fittingly enough.  My fortune cookie said that I'm good-natured, practical and attached to my beliefs, which I suppose is true.

Yesterday at the memoir group the two subjects were "The best compliment I ever received" and "September." (The latter was a subject that I'd submitted.) On the former subject I mentioned how ten years ago Cynthia, my dance teacher at the Arthur Murray studio, called me a gentleman.  Selia liked the September pieces so much that she submitted the other twelve months of the year, so we'll probably be doing a lot of that.

At The Huffington Post I wrote a post about an Elizabeth Drew piece saying "Don't scapegoat people who don't vote.  If they don't care, they don't care." But the moderators wouldn't publish it, and Moira realized it was because they were automatically blocking posts with the expression "don't care." (So abusive!) So I rewrote it as "If they're not caring, they're not caring," and it got published.

Managing the ROLT situation

Friday I met Jane at the Butler's Pantry and we discussed the disagreements that followed the previous weekend's ROLT event. (Joel has left the group, and he was one of our most regular attendees.) We may put out a statement to try to prevent future disputes.  Heather was publicly disagreeing with Jane, and I'm going to see her on Thursday to hear her side of it.

The meeting was also an occasion for me to suggest changing the day from Saturdays to Sundays.  That's because of a new member--Betty-Anne, who organizes the Queen Street art walk--who can't make it on Saturday.  I don't know of anyone who can't make it on Sundays, and I'm sure Betty-Anne would be a valuable addition:  she used to tape audio recordings for the Canadian National Institute for the Blind. (We used to have a CNIB broom.) Fortunately, Jane had no problem with changing the day; on the contrary, she likes Betty-Anne too.  So I went to the Meetup website and changed future events to Sundays.  The only problem is that I can't change the thing on the homepage that says "This group meets every second Saturday"! People will just have to ignore it.

On Saturday night I went to Jonah's Karaoke Meetup at BarPlus.  There was a new Korean guy who sang a Korean song.  I sang "Every Breath You Take," which I've hardly ever done before.

O multigrain flour, where art thou?

Since Father stopped driving last month, it's been a while since we shopped at the No-Frills in Dufferin Mall.  But today I went there for one reason:  to find multigrain flour.  The Robin Hood people make it by combining regular flour with cracked wheat and cracked rye and flax. (How exactly do you crack wheat?) We just ran out and I couldn't find it at the huge Loblaw's near the Bathurst station.  I'd hate to have to stop baking it, because I have such a neat 12-loaf rotation system where whole wheat and multigrain (one loaf in four) alternate with white bread, cheese bread (both one in six), raisin bread and rye bread (one in three).

But I didn't need to worry.  It turned out that they were still selling multigrain flour at the No-Frills place.  Too bad you can only get it in five-kilo packages. (You can get white flour in packages of twenty kilos!) Oh well, back in Sackville, New Brunswick, you probably can't get it at all.  But there's a health food store there called Jacob's Larder where you can buy loaves of protein bread...

Moira and I have are still working together to straighten out the location files for our huge book collection.  We finally finished the living room and started working on the attic.  Monday night the computer screen fell over and the screen got cracked.  But the Apple people managed to fix it and we were back in business today.  This evening we did it differently:  I told Moira the titles and she entered the information.  I have to admit that saying the titles is the easier part of the job, but doing it once in a while is enough for me.

Toronto City Opera

Yesterday at the memoir slam our subjects were "Change of residence" and "Unusual meals." (The subject "Hemorrhoids" also got chosen, but we decided to skip it.) When I mentioned about having lived in London somebody expressed interest in hearing more from me about it.  On the subject of unusual eating, I mentioned that when I was thirteen I ate a whole can of cherry pie filling on a dare from John.

Last night at choir practice we started "The Little Drummer Boy." We're no longer doing the version with the men singing "Prum, prum..." but the one Bing Crosby and David Bowie did as a duet.  I liked prum-prumming but the new version does have nice harmony.  It's also in favor of peace on earth, like anyone admits to being against it.

This evening was the first rehearsal for the Toronto City Opera (formerly the Toronto Opera Repertoire), where we're doing Bizet's Carmen and Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte.  Beatrice has succeeded Giuseppe as artistic director, while Adolfo is still musical director.  We started learning Carmen, and this time Beatrice directed the men downstairs while Adolfo stayed upstairs with the women.  We did that opera five years ago, and the music is still familiar to me.

Last night I dreamed of a much longer version of the movie Citizen Kane, as screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz might have imagined it before director Orson Welles scaled it back to normal dimensions.  This version included a subplot about a woman involved with a pirate on the Panama Canal. (The movie has a line about the Spanish-American War: "But do you think if it hadn't been for that war of Mr. Kane's, we'd have the Panama Canal?")

You can't read THAT!

Friday night we had another rehearsal.  It was decided to delay the performance till April.  Our next rehearsal won't be till November 8. (Martha is in a play in Aurora.) That'll give me some time to learn more lines.

Saturday afternoon was another ROLT event.  I chose banned and challenged books for the subject, because the week honoring banned books is this month, and called it "You can't read that!" I read the first part of Tomi Ungerer's witty children's book No Kiss for Mother; the part of Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn where he says, "All right, I'll go to hell then!"; part of J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye (which I just reread) where Holden Caulfield talked about how he was something of a coward, and where he talked about still being a virgin.  I thought of reading the chapter in Don Quixote where they burned his books, but decided it was too slow.

There was a wide range of stuff read.  Someone read from Truman Capote's In Cold Blood; someone else from Alice Walker's The Color Purple; and Jane read Maurice Sendak's In the Night Kitchen and Helen Bannerman's Little Black Sambo.  Unfortunately, Joel took offence and left while I was reading from Mark Twain.  I'll have to do a better job of preparation.

For next month I think I'll do British writing.

Hello Dollys

Moira and I made Hello Dollys the other day.  That's a dessert recipe they came up with in the 1960s to sell condensed milk. (I want to try some new recipes.) You make a base from graham cracker crumbs (with sugar and half a cup of melted butter!), like with cheesecak.  Then you add layers of chocolate chips, shredded coconut and chopped pecans, pour a whole can of sweet condense milk over it, and put it in the oven for half an hour.

I had a piece yesterday.  They weren't terrible, but once was enough for me.  In hindsight, to tell the truth, I'm more interested in making these things than in eating them.

I'm still helping Moira straighten out the locate file for all our books.  We've finished the living room, and yesterday we started on the extra books in the attic.  Sometime we're going to clear the attic shelves so we can remove the carpet, and we'll have to label the boxes so the books get put back in the right places.

Wednesday night I went on another professor walk.  I was talking to an Italian girl called Elettra and an Irish guy (deep brogue) who likes horror movies.  But we went to a restaurant that was so noisy I had to leave pretty quick.

Last night I went on another Queen St. West art walk with Betty-Anne.  We visited Yellowkorner, Gallery Catalyst, Georgia Scherman Gallery, Susan Hobbs Gallery, and Carmen's Spanish kitchen, where they had samples of little watermelon cubes garnished with basil.

Columbus Center Community Choir

At yesterday's memoir slam, the subjects were expectations and TV commercials. (The latter subject was one I'd submitted.) On the subject of expectations, I talked about how I was cautious in looking forward to things.  On TV commercials, I mentioned this '70s ad with a farmer saying "Hey, you kids get out of that Jello tree!' and an '80s ad where someone said, "You own a computer and don't have games like Pac-Man and Donkey Kong?  That's like having a stereo with no hit records!"

Last night was the first rehearsal of the new choir under Beatrice Carpino's direction.  She's made a few changes.  Giuseppe Macina seated mezzos in the front row left, sopranos in the front row right, basses and baritones (my range) in the back row left and tenors in the back row right.  Beatrice, on the other hand, seats mezzos on the left, tenors center-left, basses center-right and sopranos right.  And she starts with voice exercises. (Also, she had a cookie break in the middle!)

Our first piece was the Pachelbel Canon.  Years ago I saw a choir singing that piece at the start of the really sad movie Ordinary People. (Canada's Donald Sutherland is one of Hollywood's most underrated actors!) So I still find that piece rather depressing.

I got up to level 70 in Candy Crush Saga and level 58 in Pet Rescue Saga, and now I've quit those games again (for how long?). I've started a new Facebook game called Sunshine Bay, which involves developing a Florida port as the starting point for cruises.

IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD

"Why, if I had money I could live in a convent"--It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

This afternoon I saw Stanley Kramer's It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (for the fifth time) at the Event Screen with the Classic Movies Meetup.  They were half an hour late getting started and gave us coupons to see a free movie.  It turned out to be the shorter print.

IAMMMMW is what you call a guilty pleasure.  The author of The United Artists Story (one of four coffee-table studio histories I own) calls it "vulgar, cynical and cruel," and I can't disagree:  it's about people motivated by sheer greed and becoming mean.  But I first saw it at age ten--definitely the right age--and it has a nostalgic appeal for me.  I like actors like Phil Silvers and Terry-Thomas, though Spencer Tracy gives his worst performance.

This evening I went to the first Born in the '60s Meetup event at Sugar n Spice, a dessert place west of the Yorkdale station. (I warned them that I'd be late arriving, and I was.) I ordered a peach melba sundae and got a headache.

I've been having some odd dreams lately.  Last week I dreamed of creating a story about an American in World War II who gets drafted but sneaks off to Mexico instead. (I can see myself running away.) The other night I dreamed of bouncing on trampolines.

Last Night at the Proms

Al Pacino (eating a French fry): "I've lived on these since I was ten.  That's why I'm so good looking"--The Panic in Needle Park

Last night we returned to rehearsing the play. (I've memorized my first two lines!) Don took the measurements for our customs.  Martha found an actor called Sal, with professional experience, to play Inspector Hugh Dunnit.  Sal suggested giving the play some "tweaking."

This afternoon I saw the Last Night at the Proms concert with the Classical Music Meetup at the Yonge & Eglinton.  There was some familiar music like Wagner's Meistersinger overture and Vaughn Williams' "Ascent of the Lark." (Violinist Nigel Kennedy dresses like a hobo.) I left in the intermission:  just didn't feel motivated to stay for the second half with all the regular pieces like "Land of Hope and Glory."

This evening we looked at The Panic in Needle Park on Netflix.  That's the early Al Pacino vehicle about heroin users, written by John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion.  It's one of those spare, "gritty" New York movies from the '70s.  Pacino was lively enough, but the movie got too depressing for us.

Sorting comics

"He hated it when you called him a moron.  All morons hate it when you call them a moron"--The Catcher in the Rye

It's September, so I'm doing some spring cleaning.  We moved my tall desk from the west wall to the northwest corner, my dresser from the northwest corner to the north wall, and a bookcase from the north wall out to the hall.  The wall around the west window still needs work, and now there's nothing in the way.

In addition, I'm finally rearranging my comic-book collection.  I've put it off for years, because it means temporarily creating an even bigger mess.  But when I'm finished the space will be used more efficiently, I hope.

I saw the last episode of The Ascent of Man. (The second-last, about sex and genetics, wasn't as explicit as I'd remembered it being.) I couldn't help thinking about how science has now developed drone aircraft and "low cost" killing.  To tell the truth, I don't know what to do about Syria.  Maybe bombing will just make things worse, but maybe we should do it anyway.  Call me wishy-washy. (I saw Bashir Assad on the cover of The Economist with the headline "Hit him hard." It must be nice to think you know what's right.)

OUR NIXON

"The last six Roman emperors were fags"--Nixon in the White House tapes

I've finished the latest Lapham's Quarterly, and the new one hasn't yet been published!  I'm ahead of the game for once.

Now I've turned to two books I'm likely to read at ROLT's banned books event.  I borrowed J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye from the Spadina library.  None of the libraries have a copy of Tomi Ungerer's No Kiss for Mother, so I bought it at the World's Biggest Bookstore. (They had a couple of copies at the Bay & Bloor Indigo, but their graphic novels section was such a mess I couldn't find it there!) It's really funny.

Last night I saw Our Nixon at the Bloor.  It's a documentary made from the home movies Watergate figures Erlichman, Haldeman and Chapin filmed at the White House during the Nixon presidency, along with TV news reports and recordings from the White House tapes. (They show Phil Donahue interviewing Haldeman.  Boy, do I miss Donahue's show!)

Paradoxically, people with the most power seem to have the greatest insecurities, as when Nixon worried about the United States becoming "a pitiful, helpless giant." (Mother felt sorry for Nixon, though she disapproved of the Christmas Bombing.) I suppose they have nobody willing to hold their insecurity in check.    Oddly, the documentary made no mention of the invasion of Cambodia, the Nixon decision I think had the most important legacy.

This film reminded me that I want to see the 1999 Watergate comedy Dick again. (We should try the Hello Dollies recipe.)

Canadian National Exhibition

I'm not a big fan of the Canadian National Exhibition:  I'll go to it every three years or so.  I was really impressed by it the first time I went, at age thirteen, when it was near its all-time attendance peak.  But maybe I was just more easily impressed back then.

Yesterday I attended the Ex with the Out of Your Shell Meetup group.  There were about a dozen of us, but after we arrived half went off to stand in line for the super-dog show.  I was with the other half, and we visited the Arts and Crafts Building and the Scadding cabin and saw some of the air show near the lakeshore. (What's so great about air shows?  They're better than dog shows, anyway.)

Then I went my own way and headed to my real reason for coming:  the Midway rides.  I splurged and bought an "all you can eat" wristband, then went on ten rides, including stuff like the Euroslide and the Tilt-a-Whirl and the chair lift that carries you up over the midway.  But my favorite ride is the bumper cars, and I rode them twice after waiting in long lines. (I could have saved time by paying another twenty dollars for an express wristband, but that would have been excessive even for me.)

What else did I do there?  I ate spaghetti and meatballs in the Food Building.  I  saw some butter sculptures in the Farm Building.  As I was leaving I met a man who'd had breakfast at the Canadian Law Society with someone who was my spitting image, including the same jacket.  I said, "I hope you didn't lend him any money!"