THE KILLERS

"He's only gonna see us once!"--The Killers

Tonight I saw Robert Siodmak's film noir of Hemingway's The Killers for the third time, with the Classic Movie Meetup at the Central.  First we had dinner there.  The movie can't improve on Hemingway's perfect story (which ended with the exchanged "When I think about it, it bothers me!" "So don't think about it.") But it's a clever mystery on its own terms, and improves with repeat viewing.  Ava Gardner was what you call a guilty pleasure:  she's no good for you, but who cares?  Maybe I should see the Don Siegel remake someday--which would have been America's first TV movie if its violence hadn't led to network rejection--but anything with Ronald Reagan I find distasteful.

Monday night at choir practice we started two new songs.  One was the Caruso song "O Sole Mio," the one Elvis did as "It's Now or Never." The other was "Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee," from Beethoven's Ninth, in a jazzed-up version.  It's an impressive arrangement, but I have a feeling that when we come back next week we'll have to learn it all over again.

I've finished deepening the garden ditches, and now I'm pitchforking it.  It'll soon be ready for planting!  The weather has been getting warmer, so Tuesday I bought some ice for the dispenser in the fridge. (Years ago it produced its own ice, but something went wrong with it and it never got fixed.)

I've finished writing Scots, French, Chinese and Japanese translations of three Spoon River Anthology poems (just because), and now I've posted them on my translation blog.

At Monday's memoir slam we wrote about "An affair to remember" (I discussed my York Ph.D. commencement in 2000), "My funniest situation" (I discussed some ridiculous moments I witnessed in school), and "Learning music." Afterward I borrowed the canister of subject cards, and I've been putting them in order at home.  My main concern is to remove duplicates, as there are a few subjects that I contributed twice:  that "Learning music" subject had been done last fall.  I found several duplicates, and "School field trips" had actually been entered three times!  But I've also thought of quite a few new subjects to add, such as the days of the week, except for Saturday which we've done before.