MR. TURNER

"When I peruse the mirror, I see a gargoyle"--Mr. Turner

I found the Kevin Brownlow documentary Hollywood on Youtube, about silent movies in America.  I'm now watching it for the third time.

Yesterday I had lunch with the Aspergers Meetup. (Evie organized it.) We went to the Old Spaghetti Factory, where I had spaghetti with the spicy meat sauce.  They have nice hot bread rolls.

Then I went to the Lightbox to see Mike Leigh's Mr. Turner.  I was supposed to see it with a Movie Meetup group, but couldn't find them.  It turned out that they were meeting in the Member's Lounge, and I'm not even a member!

The movie was vivid but a bit too long.  Timothy Spall's Turner was something of a beast. (He seemed to have Asperger's Syndrome.) They were talking about Turner in the National Gallery documentary I saw the other day.  Of course, he anticipated the French impressionists.

Dinner was Kentucky Fried Chicken.  They're trying to encourage feedback through a sweepstakes whose grand prize is a year of Free KFC!  Years ago Moira knew somebody who lived on KFC for a whole year.

NATIONAL GALLERY

Wednesday was unusually mild.  I walked to Sobey's to get another vanilla-flavored Slice Cream (wince!).  The last one I put into the freezer with the wrong side up, and the freezer wasn't cold enough so it melted somewhat into a mess.

Donald couldn't make it for Christmas dinner yesterday. (Big workload at The Globe and Mail!) But we'll save the plum pudding for when he comes.  The turkey was a bit undercooked--Father thinks they didn't drain the blood sufficiently--so we put some of it into the microwave.

Today I saw Frederick Wiseman's three-hour documentary National Gallery at its first screening at the Bloor. (I told them,  "If you screen any Wiseman films, I'm already there!") Despite having visited that London museum a lot, I was still amazed.  

I'm especially impressed by the restorers. (In one scene you can see a partly restored painting, and the before-after difference is visible.) Their job is a holy mission, the present preserving the past for the future in a never-ending Manichean struggle with time.  Even bad restorers deserve credit for trying!

I've finally quit the Facebook games Megapolis and Tribez.  They just weren't worth the time to me any more.

Lunch with Bev

Today I had lunch with Bev from my Aspergers Meetup group at the Thai restaurant Spring Rolls near Eglinton station. (I had the spicy chicken fried rice.  Later dinner was fried rice with shrimp, but I didn't mind the repetition.) We had a good time:  Bev said "We've found our..." but couldn't finish the sentence, so I suggested "...our groove," which she thought the right word.  She suggested we see that documentary about the guy who introduced yoga in America when it returns to the Bloor.

Sunday I finished Captains and the Kings.  I said to Father, "It's time for Perry King to be assassinated," a couple of seconds before he was. (I should be writing these things!) Now I'm watching another miniseries for what must be the fifth time:  Rich Man, Poor Man is my Christmas treat.  Because it's Christmas time, I've also started playing Candy Crush Saga and Pet Rescue Saga again.  I enjoy them enough that I'd be risking addiction if I played them at any other time!

I've entered the home stretch of Moby-Dick.  I just noticed that the plot doesn't really kick in until about four-fifths of the way through, when Ahab confronts Starbuck over whether to stop to fix the leaking barrels.  It's several books in one:  a few chapters even read as dialogue in a play!  I can well believe that the book's few contemporary readers couldn't make head or tail of it.

CAPTAINS AND THE KINGS

"Before you take off all my clothes, I have one thing to ask." "Yes?" "Take off yours"--sizzling romantic dialogue in Captains and the Kings

Monday night I went to a Mathematics Meetup at the Rubikloud Industries office near King station.  We talked about group theory, which I recall studying at college thirty years ago.  I won't be able to attend often, since it's on the same night as choir practice, but it's an interesting group.

Thursday night I went to see a documentary at the Bloor about people staying in Antarctica through the winter (our summer), with the Movie Meetup group.  I was careless enough to get popcorn, and got sick. (When I upgraded my Bloor membership to the silver level, they threw in about nine free popcorns.)

Thursday after seeing Dr. Hassan I went to North York Centre library and borrowed the DVD of Captains and the Kings, a 1976 miniseries that was part of NBC's Best Sellers, a spectacularly unsuccessful attempt to repeat the success of Rich Man, Poor Man.  As a young Irish immigrant becoming a big robber baron in the Civil War era, Richard Jordan is a remarkably colourless lead, though Charles Durning has some life. (Durning could have used a better agent:  he was always making movies like The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas!)

I Wanna Bedtime Story

Yesterday I went to the Met telecast of Wagner's Meistersinger.  I was running late and skipped breakfast.  But I got a headache and had to leave early. (In hindsight, I should have come late and only seen the second half.) The opera doesn't have much action; it's more of a debate about art set to music.

This afternoon was ROLT, focusing on children's writing as usual in December.  (The event was titled I Wanna Bedtime Story.) Twenty people said they were coming, I made a reservation for eight, and five people showed up.  I read a chapter from Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer in which a romantic meeting with Becky Thatcher turns to heartbreak; a poem from Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory about how books are better than TV; a passage from near the end of the second Harry Potter book where Harry says that he and Voldemort have a lot in common, and Dumbledore replies that we're defined not by our talents but by our choices; and a chapter from Laura Ingalls Wilder's Farmer Boy (about her future husband) where the parents leave their kids alone for a week and things get out of hand.

I've started watching on Youtube a PBS documentary about Napoleon from the series Empires.  Fascinating stuff!  He hated France in his childhood, but ended up being more French than the French! (Like some Canadians become more American than the Americans.)

Vivid dreams

These days my dreams sometimes feel pretty real.  The odd thing is that they can feel so real that the inconsistencies that are a normal part of the dream world suddenly seem incomprehensible to me.  The other week in one dream I was so puzzled that I asked a stranger in the dream for help, saying, "I know longer know what's real!"

I often dream about walking up West Avenue to my Sackville home, but by the time I get there I sometimes remember that other people own the house now and I don't belong there!  In a recent dream I told someone, "I have a Ph.D., but we decided I should do Grade Five again"!

Just last night I had a dream where I was visiting the Victoria & Albert Museum of applied art in London with my friends Puitak and Gordon.  I also dreamed of Star Wars rebels being offered a political deal except they realized it was all a trick on Darth Vader's part. (Something to do with today's actual politics?)

Yesterday I went to Scotiabank and discussed segregated funds with Natalie. (There was some confusion about whether I'd been booked for an appointment with someone who wasn't there!) They don't do that on the branch level so I may go through I-trading or something like that.

Last night I went to Rose's Christmas get-together with the Non-Fiction Meetup people at Jack Astor's near the Reference Library where we usually meet.  I had a good time, telling an Iranian-Canadian called Nassy about what I'd been reading in the Classic Book Club and having an ice cream float (vanilla with cream soda) for the first time in years!

Christmas concert

Monday night was the choir's Christmas concert.  The audience was pretty big.  Then tonight we did a shorter concert at Blythwood Baptist church after joining them for Christmas dinner.  I was a few minutes from the church when I realized I'd forgotten to wear my black suit.  But Brian was also dressed casually and that made me feel better.

Sunday I visited Giuseppe again. (Part of the Bloor-Danforth line was being worked on so I took the College St. bus instead.) I showed him my art--he used to paint--and he said I have talent.

The other week I got a silver membership at the Bloor Cinema, so admission is now just $6 for me!  This afternoon I saw the documentary Hermitage Revealed, about the famous St. Petersburg art museum.  Wow!  I'll have to add that place to my bucket list.  When they made Kandinsky, they broke the mold.  And in a few weeks they'll have a documentary about London's National Gallery!

After the church concert I tried to get to the Bloor to see a documentary about the guy who introduced yoga to the west. (I don't usually see two movies on the same day, but this was its last screening for the time being.) But the subway was running slow on both lines and I clearly would have been late, so I just went home.

Impunctuality

"'I want no man on this ship,' said Starbuck, 'who is not afraid of a whale'"--Moby-Dick

These days I'm not quite as punctual as I used to be.

Saturday I was on time for the opera, at least.  I saw the latest Met production of Carmen, which was rather unsubtle, especially their handling of Zuniga. (At the end of the second act Carmen pours spirits on his head and a Gypsy is about to set him on fire as the curtain comes down.  His face is scarred when he reappears in the fourth act.)

Sunday afternoon the choir performed at a hymn sing at the United Church north of Eglinton & Bathurst.  I was late for the warmup because I couldn't find my necktie, which finally turned up under the desk.  (I would have been a bit less late if I'd waited for the bus at Eglinton West station instead of walking east to Bathurst Street, but I didn't know how long I'd have to wait.) There was also a Korean church choir singing a medley of Christmas carols in their own language.

Yesterday afternoon I was late for the memoir slam, but with a good excuse:  I stopped at Scotiabank to make an appointment with Jessica to talk about segregated funds, and had to wait a bit.  Anyway, the first subject was birthdays and I'd covered that subject when we did February.