Internet trouble

Saturday at the acting class we did the "hot seat" for a couple of people who missed it the first time around, where you sit in the hot seat and the others imagine what characters we could see you playing. (As usual, I took the notes.)

The Chinese art class has been moved to Sunday afternoons, so I'll have to miss the next two.  This Sunday we were painting orchid bushes with rocks in the background.  I was pretty good with the rocks but couldn't get the orchid shape right.  Qingxin gave me a couple of brushes, but I left them behind!  Afterward I visited Giuseppe.

Sunday I night I went out and bought my tickets to the Met opera broadcasts at the Yonge & Eglinton.  I'll have to skip choir practice and see The Merry Widow on a Monday night, but the others all had seats on Saturday.  I also went to Walmart and bought a black turtleneck to replace my threadbare red one.  I realized it was the same look as Steve McQueen in Bullitt, except that it needs a shoulder holster too. (And I'd have to drive a Mustang.)

I'd have posted this a day or two ago, but our internet connection's been acting up.  I could receive email and open Facebook, but with other webpages I'd get a message saying that the server had unexpectedly dropped the connection, or asking us to reconfigure our modem.  This was frustrating because I had to cancel going to a Puzzle Meetup because it was conflicting with opera rehearsal, and I hate doing that at the last minute. (I went to the library today, went online there and cancelled.)

We invited Donald the computer expert over for dinner so he could solve the problem, but it turned out we don't need him.  I looked at our Sympatico passwords and stuff and got the modem configured.  Oh well, he doesn't come over too often.

Yesterday I went to a fruit and vegetable store near Bathurst station and bought a whole lot of different hard autumn apples, as well as the last peaches.  Moira likes those types, and so do I.

I AM STEVE MCQUEEN

"Being an actor is a gas.  Being a movie star is a pain in the ass"--Steve McQueen

Wednesday I finally got to Dr. Hassan's and got my prescription renewed.  Then I went to the Olivia Chow HQ and let Tsering talk me into dropping some more leaflets in the area south of Davisville Avenue.  But then I left the prescription pages there and only today did I get them back and get the new pills!

This evening I saw the documentary I am Steve McQueen.  There was something Peter Pannish about McQueen's persona:  when his motorcycle cleared the barbed wire in The Great Escape, it was almost like he was flying!

I read online about a gay teenager in South Dakota who says his supervisor at Taco John's made him wear a name tag saying "Gaytard." He's now suing the place, with the support of the American Civil Liberties Union.  This is about more than GLBT rights:  it's about the right of workers not to be bullied! (This is why we need labor unions.) I say that everyone should show him support by wearing a "Gaytard" label themselves, even--and especially--us straight people.  One of the comments I wrote was "Thank you, Anita Bryant."

I noticed online Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 100 best singles of 1984. (They claimed, dubiously, that this was the top year for pop music.) I resolved years ago not to let the prostitute of the counterculture get to me, but it's happened again!  This list included several singles from 1983 (Elton John's "I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues") and 1985 (Dead or Alive's "You Spin Me Round")!  This is one magazine with no excuse for sloppiness about pop music history.

The problem here is that no year has produced enough outstanding singles for a "top 100" list.  The alternatives were a list that was actually composed of 100 1984 singles, but some of the choices would have been transparently dubious; a list of the top 50 singles of 1984, which would make sense to me, but they evidently decided that the top 100 has a greater obvious appeal than the top 50; or a list of the top 100 singles of the mid-1980s, but again that wasn't as obvious as a single year.  This is what happens when a once-great magazine gets dumbed down.

(In addition, it displayed what Beatrice would call some "interesting" judgement.  Steve Perry's "Oh, Sherry" has a nice intro and not much else, while Genesis' "That's All" is less deserving of mention then the same group's "Mama" and "Illegal Alien.")

Back to opera

This evening I started rehearsing with the Toronto City Opera chorus. (I missed the first rehearsal the previous week, due to sheer carelessness.) This year we're doing Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera, which I did with the choir, and Mozart's Don Giovanni.  The opening chorus of Ballo has some nice harmony.

At yesterday's choir practice, we learned "We Need a Little Christmas" from Mame.  What an ear worm:  it was going through my head all last night!

Last night I had a problem with my computer and couldn't load my Facebook games.  Part of me was hoping the problem would be permanent!  But I solved the problem today by putting the computer into shutdown instead of sleep mode.

I'm enjoying Paris 1919.  Clemenceau sounds like a pain in the neck!  By the way, even if Churchill and Foch were eventually proved right about the evil nature of Bolshevism, their tactics were still wrong:  intervention just made things worse in Russia. (And even if the White forces had won, that wouldn't have been a bed of roses either.)

I'm really annoyed by Margaret Wente's Globe and Mail article telling the climate change protesters to "grow up." The editors dump Rick Salutin and increase this columnist to twice a week?! There are people who try to do something to solve a problem, and then there are people who put down the aforementioned people for neglecting the problem's "complexity." (What they don't do is offer a more complex solution...)

This afternoon I finished the latest round of leafleting, along Old Forest Hill Road and Vesta Drive.  I don't know how much more I can do with so many other things going on.  Some very lavish houses there, like Stately Wayne Manor.

Ever been tempted to write graffiti?  When I see a poster in a school saying "Why do you think they call it dope?" I want to write under it, "Because it's dope, man!" And today,  while returning from leafleting, I notice a poster on a synagogue promoting Israel national bonds showing grapes, with the caption "How do you grow grapes in the desert?  IJF was there." (Or whatever the acronym is for the bond-selling drive.) I wanted to write under it: "By bulldozing the olive grove that a Palestinian family's been tending for a century.  IDF was there." (As in Israeli defence forces.) I've chickened out, of course.  But if someone reading this goes ahead and does it, I won't feel ashamed.

The anti-climate change march

This afternoon I went on the march against climate change.  I wore the new shirt and summer hat I'd just bought at Target.  Toronto didn't have New York's numbers, but there were several thousand here.  We met in Nathan Phillips Square, then marched along University Avenue, Dundas Street and Yonge Street in a circle back to where we started. (I dropped out at Dundas Square and had lunch at Burger King.)

The speakers beforehand included the Fair Vote director and Judy Rebick, who led the crowd in the chant, "Hey hey, ho ho, dirty oil has got to go!" It's the third time I've gone on a protest march:  back in 1982 I went on a peace march here in Toronto, and in 1995 I marched in London to protest Western inaction over Bosnia. (I heard Vanessa Redgrave speaking in Trafalgar Square!) I went just in case it'll make a difference, which I'm definitely not counting on.  Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

I'd considered visiting Giuseppe afterward, but in the end I felt too tired for the long trip east.  It's odd how fatigue creeps up on me these days.  Today I got a headache first, and when I got home I had to nap before dinner.

Tonight I saw the first episode of the fourth season of Boardwalk Empire, on DVD from 2Q.  I've noticed that Chalky, the black community strongman, is played by the same actor who was Omar on The Wire.  I'd totally forgotten that Nucky lost his wife!

Thursday night the Storytelling Meetup got cancelled because the organizer was too busy with other things.  I wish she'd name an assistant organizer so we can meet without her!

I've been writing some witty posts in my Facebook groups, if I do say so myself.  In one someone asked, "If DC or Marvel wanted to make you into a superhero what would your name and powers be?" I answered, "I'd be Bigmouth, who sits home and rants." Someone has been posting sophisticated riddles in the style of Batman's Riddler, and I gave an answer, "Uh--blood, hope and Turandot." (We'll see if any comic book fans are also opera fans.) In this Aspergers group someone asked, "Are you a leader or a follower?" I answered "'Lead, follow, or get out of the way!' I'm a getoutofthewayer."

A new art group

On Tuesday I went to a new Art Meetup group at a Korean women's centre in the Annex. We were all painting trees, and I painted an apple tree whose top part went over the picture's upper edge, with the sun and some clouds in the background, and more trees on the horizon.  It got a good reception, but I was really impressed by Andrea's tree:  she has a great sense of style!  Later we did spontaneous abstracts, but that didn't suit me too well.

Wednesday afternoon at the Chinese Art Meetup we drew tulips.  I'm starting to enjoy painting more, now that I'm less intimidated by the wide range of pigments.

Today I went to Shopper's Drug Mart to replenish my Cipralex, but it turned out the prescription has expired and I'll have to get a renewal from Dr. Hassan. (Hope he's in his office this week!)

This evening I went on Betty-Anne's art walk.  It was on Dundas Street West again, and one gallery had a model village an artist created with scenery you can get at a model train shop and some fantastical residents who were cyclops or half man and half bird. (I commented that you might find Popeye in such a place.) We also went to a restaurant called Get Well that had several classic video game machines and a Soviet propaganda mural featuring Comrade Stalin.

I've finished Pere Goriot.  Definitely unsentimental.  Vautrin the crook was my favourite character and I was thrilled to find out that Balzac wrote more stories about him. (I could imagine him being played by Cesar Romero.) I'll have to read some more of The Human Comedy someday...

After the art walk I went to Indigo Books near Bay and Bloor and bought a copy of Margaret MacMillan's Paris 1919.  I'm going to read it for the Non-Fiction Book Club Meetup at the end of October.

September beginnings

It's mid-September and parts of my regular weekly routine are resuming.

Saturday afternoon my acting class resumed, Nancy being back from her work vacation on the Irish farm.  But only she, Chris and I showed up. (There should be more people next week.) We're going to be doing more scene work, and this week we did a scene from The King of Comedy with Chris in the Robert de Niro role and me as the police detective dealing with him.  I also did my monologue "The 26-Year-Old Bar Mitzvah Boy," which I'd finished memorizing the week before.  Nancy's only suggestion was putting my hands in my pockets for the first part of the monologue.

Yesterday afternoon was the latest ROLT event, "Our Friends to the South," focusing on American writers.  A week before eight people said they were coming so I made a reservation for five, then the total rose to over a dozen as people RSVPed at the last moment.  But that afternoon the Bloor-Danforth subway service was interrupted and only four people made it, including two who were late. (I walked from Spadina to Bathurst station and was lucky to be on time.)

I read my acting monologue; the Robert Frost poem "America is Hard to See"; the James Thurber story "Draft Board Nights" from My Life and Hard Times; and the section of Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn where Huck witnesses a murder and a failed lynching.  Coincidentally, one of the others read from Cormac McCarthy's The Road while another read from McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses! (I'll have to read The Road sometime.)

We're still getting more people at the memoir slam.  The library publication What's On, which has previously only mentioned us in the summer issue, is now including us in the fall issue as well.

Tonight was the first choir rehearsal of the new season.  Several people were missing but will come in the next week or two.  We learned the Andrea Bocelli song "Time to Say Goodbye." We're also going to do a Christmas song from Mame!

PERE GORIOT

"Once a man knows Paris, he believes nothing of what is said there, and says nothing of what is done"--Pere Goriot

For the past week I've been reading Balzac's Pere Goriot for the Classic Book Club.  It's brilliant in a pretty cynical way.  Balzac seemed to know Paris the way Dickens knew London.

I'm now distributing Olivia Chow leaflets in Forest Hill!  Just today I did Richview Avenue (well named!), Dewbourne Avenue and Ava Road.  Even in this cooler weather, I'm still working up a sweat.

Father and I are now watching the third season of Upstairs, Downstairs on Netflix.  Hudson has a great poker face when speaking with the masters!   I think this is the season where it really got into high gear, when Hazel entered the household first as Richard's secretary then as James' wife. (She should have married Richard, of course.) If you ask me, Georgina--who first appears in the middle of this season--is a more believable character than Elizabeth.

Yesterday I went to see Dr. Hassan but his place was closed! (That's the first time that's ever happened.) I guess they couldn't phone me to cancel my appointment because we've changed our phone number.  I'll have to go arrange for a new appointment whenever I get around to it.

On the Facebook group devoted to the Batman TV series I impressed some people by posting a still of Neil Hamilton (Commissioner Gordon) in his starring role in America, D.W. Griffiths' silent epic of the Revolutionary War which he'd starred in four decades earlier.  I also posted a still of him as Nick Carraway in the now-lost silent movie of The Great Gatsby.

They're going to have another Chinese art class on Sundays.  I think my leaves are improving!

More leaflets

Wednesday I met Tsering Dolma, who's in charge of volunteers in the Olivia Chow campaign. (She was impressed that I recognized her name as Tibetan.) She talked me into doing some more leaflet drops in the area northeast of Eglinton West station.

Thursday I did Briar Hill Avenue and Old Park Road north of Elm Ridge Circle. (I miscalculated the time and was late getting home for dinner.) There's construction around Eglinton West station, in preparation for the LRT line, so I've had to take a circuitous route to the area and back.  The area has a suburban feel:  some streets lack sidewalks!

Friday I did Old Forest Hill Road and Ridge Hill Drive between Allen Road and Hilltop Road.  Sunday I did Old Park Road south to Eglinton, and Shallmar Boulevard east to Bathurst.

Wednesday afternoon at the Chinese art class we created peonies.  For the first time I painted in colours!

Since the film festival is honouring Bill Murray, Saturday night we saw him in Richard Donner's Scrooged on Netflix:  predictably uneven, but Murray had some funny moments.  Tonight I saw John Landis' Trading Places (for the second time), also on Netflix.  Some funny lines, but a pretty sloppy production.

Sunday night I saw Carl Schulz' Australian classic Careful, He Might Hear You (for the second time), which I'd found at 2Q Video.

Leaflets

This Labor Day Weekend the Olivia Chow campaign had a big leafletting drive.  I left leaflets in mailboxes or doorways in the area between Vaughan Road and the Cedarvale Ravine. (Some fancy new houses there.) 

All this took a couple of days:  Saturday afternoon I did Winona Drive, in the evening Winnett Avenue; Sunday afternoon Arlington Avenue, in the evening Rushton Road and Humewood Drive; this afternoon I finished the area along Pinewood Avenue and Connaught Circle. (I didn't quite manage to finish it on Sunday as I'd hoped.)

My feet got pretty sore, like when I was in London two years ago.  I couldn't help thinking about the leafletting I've done in past St. Pauls NDP campaigns and how I seemed to have more energy then.  When I told Father that I wasn't getting any younger, he said, "It happens to the best of us!" Coincidentally, Moira was also talking about her sore feet.

I met a few people along the way and offered most of them leaflets.  Some said they were voting for my candidate, but one said, "God, no!" And I got into a conversation with a Ford supporter at one point.  When he asked what my job was and I revealed that I'm unemployed, he said that I should ask Olivia Chow for a job.

The muggy weather didn't make it any easier.  I sweated a lot, and went through two shirts on Saturday and again on Sunday.  I've also been taking two baths a day the last couple of days.

Running short again...