New books!

Monday night I saw The King and I with the Movie Meetup group at the Event Screen (for the second time, but the first time in a cinema). I think this is what Edward Said meant by "orientalism." It's best for the Thai ballet of Uncle Tom's Cabin.  The real King Mongkut was far more enlightened than the semi-civilized clown the western world imagines.

Thursday I went on an art walk along Dundas Street.  We stopped at a Portuguese-themed boutique and I bought the children's book Coracao de Mae (mother's heart). Then we went to the Monkey's Paw bookstore.  I'd hoped to try their vending machine that sells you a random book for two dollars, but it needed restocking.  I did buy The Book of Flags, The Odd Book of Facts, Great Cities of the World and Women in the Comics.  But when I was through buying them, I couldn't find the rest of the group and missed the rest of the walk!

Later that evening I went to the revue and saw Robert Wise's boxing classic The Set-Up.  They also had a boxing-themed Three Stooges short and the Warner Brothers cartoon To Duck or Not to Duck. ("You know, there's something awfully screwy about this fight, or my name isn't Larrimore--and it isn't.")

Wednesday I went to Shopper's Drug Mart to replenish my cipralex prescription.  It turned out that it wouldn't be ready until the next day, possibly the late afternoon, so I didn't have time to pick it up then what with the art walk.  I would have got it yesterday but I was under the weather.  I finally got it today.

I've been watching Royal Heritage on Youtube.  That's a 1977 BBC documentary series in connection with the Silver Jubilee, depicting the British monarchy's history and collections. (Several of the Royals make appearances.) I remember seeing some of it back at the time, especially the part where Prince Charles goofs around with an old microscope the future George III used.

An unusual dream

Sunday was the latest ROLT.  The subject was Commonwealth literature, with the title "Common Wealth" (geddit?). Over 20 people said they were coming, and five showed up, which I'm getting used to.  I read the chapter from Jalna about Piers and Pheasant eloping, and a few selections from the foreigners issue of Lapham's Quarterly:  a Kenyan describing his schooling in the '50s and using Shakespeare sonnets to appeal to girls, a bit from an Indian novel about an "untouchable" accidentally running into a Brahmin.  Jane read the first scene from the script of Goin' Down the Road.

Tuesday I finally went to an Ontario Services place near College & Euclid and got my health card renewed. (It expired four months ago, but I hadn't got around to renewing it before.) That evening Bereaved Families of Ontario was having an open house, so I visited their new offices on Merton Street.

Thursday was the latest History Discussion Group, with Canadian history the subject.  But only Jane showed up at my house.  Yet Moira came to talk with us (Jane likes her) and things went pretty well.  I think I'll go back to the original plan of making a history book the topic of discussion.

I've finally caught up with all my Facebook groups!  I'd dropped quite a few, though I did pick up some recently.  The group on Britain in the middle ages is particularly active.

Moira's been watching Bernie Sanders on YouTube and in podcasts.  I pointed out to her a clip of him confronting Alan Greenspan which they say is going viral.

Last night I had an unusual dream.  I was living in a building a distance west of my true home, where each household had a cubicle in a rectangular grid.  Time passed ten or twenty years into the future, and I found out that THE NATION had published a review of the writing of Jorge Luis Borges written by me. (I've hardly read any of Borges!)

Spice cake

Monday night was the choir's year-end concert.  We bought Beatrice and Adolfo a Yorkdale gift certificate.  Moira didn't hate "Can You Can-Can" as much as I feared, though she thought Beatrice's rendition of "Summertime" should have been slower.  I got Giovanni to give us a lift to St. Clair Avenue afterward, but Ora also brought a guy so there were four people in the back seat and Moira had to sit on my lap!

I was tired of Moira always buying Duncan Hines chocolate cake mixes, so I suggested we try spice cake instead.  So she found me a spice cake recipe online and I ended up baking that tonight.  Unfortunately, the brown sugar had some hard lumps that couldn't be broken down.  Sometime I'm going to make goulash!

The other day I went to Rainbow Caterpillar, a children's bookstore near Corso Italia that specializes in foreign languages.  I bought a Portuguese book whose title translates "The Wolf who Wanted a Sweetheart." (I think the original was French.) They also had an Italian book of fairy tales that I may get later.

I went to see Dr. Hassan yesterday.  I was reading The Yearling on the way there and back, and managed to read over 40 pages that day.

I'm concerned about some of Hillary Clinton's supporters.  Debating with them on Facebook, I got the impression that they're seeing what they want to see in her and ignoring that a lot of people see her in less admiring terms, while dismissing Bernie Sanders as a "risk." Just like John Kerry's supporters, indeed.  And they're making an issue of Sanders' supporters being uncivil and divisive.  Yet it's not in the Democratic Party's interest for the leading candidate's shortcomings to be ignored in the name of niceness.

Facebook group shakeout

It's nice to know that John Snow reads this blog.  In fact, he reminded me that it's been a while since my last post! (Oh well, I guess I need people to spur me on...)

I've been spending a lot of time on Facebook groups.  Too much time, in fact.  So I've been leaving a lot in the last day or two.  At my peak I was in dozens!  Stuff like movie groups focusing on actors like Buster Keaton or Joan Blondell, directors like Billy Wilder or William Wilder, genres like westerns or musicals, periods like the silent era, studios like MGM and RKO...  I was also in groups focusing on America in the '20s, '30s, '40s etc.  These groups are interesting enough, but I've just been spending too much time on them.  For now, I'm keeping a few with subjects like ocean liners and Weimar Germany.  And I'm hesitant about leaving the groups with political subjects, where I sometimes get into interesting discussions.

Last weekend I saw the first part of the New York movie A History of Violence, but I just couldn't get into it.  It's one of those plots were things get worse and worse...

Sunday night I went to Lisa's Storytellers Meetup.  There was a big group of people there talking about ayahuasca-related revelations, which was all Greek to me.

The night before I made gingerbread, and I brought some to that event, as well as the next day's memoir slam and the evening dress rehearsal for next week's choir concert.  It's pretty popular everywhere. (At the memoir slam, one of the subjects was "Better beware," and I uncharacteristically drew a blank and couldn't write anything about it.)

Since finishing the translation of the Portuguese booklet about the life of St. Pedro Claver, I've started translating one more of the Spanish Mortadelo & Filemon comics.  This one's subject is rehabilitation, and looks like more tasteless fun.