Campaign office

Last Sunday the Classic Book Club met, and we talked about Thackeray's Vanity Fair.  We got seven or eight people, and some of them had suggestions about books to do.  Looks like we're becoming successful!

I've started doing volunteer work at the Noah Richler campaign for the NDP in St. Paul's. (I haven't seen Richler there yet.) There's quite a variety of chores On Wednesday I wrote poll numbers on folders with a marker all the way up to Poll 129.  Friday I taped leaflets onto the back of the clipboards the canvassers will be using. (We used the transparent tape to cover the whole leaflet to make it waterproof.) Saturday I wrote poll numbers again, but this time I also put maps of poll districts into the folders! (There were some Timbits.) They have a new system for data entry, and I hope I can learn it quickly.

I've almost finished the fourth season of Hell on Wheels.  The show's been getting even more unpleasant, and I respect that!  Too bad the latest episode had that tired "What becomes of men like us?" discussion.

One of my Facebook groups is about the Roman Empire.  I've started posting my amateur translation of Caesar's account of the Gallic Wars, one mini-chapter at a time.  I'm just getting up to the Battle of the Saone River.

I found another good quote in The War That Ended the Peace!  At the start of World War I a German general wrote, "If we will all perish, it's been nice."

New connection

Sunday was ROLT, the event title was "Love Is All Around," and the subject was romantic writing.  I wanted to read the ending of Nineteen Eighty-Four ("He loved Big Brother") but couldn't find the book.  All I could think of was a couple of fairy tales:  the Grimms' "Spindle, Shuttle and Needle" and a Hans Christian story about a snowman who loves a stove he sees inside a window, and after he melts it turned out that they used a dustpan from the stove to make his spine!  There were several new people there, and I hope they'll come again.

Monday night I went to a Toronto Film Society double bill with the Movie Meetup group.  The first was Charlie Chan on Broadway from a mystery series that's a guilty pleasure for me. (It's the third time I've seen that one.  Charlie Chan at the Opera and Charlie Chan's Secret are also pretty good.) Then we saw Elia Kazan's debut A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which I'd seen once before on the small screen.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is about a girl who aspires to be a writer. I once saw a movie where a mother takes her daughter's writing to an established writer who asks, "Is she one of those people who talk about writing, or one of those people who write?" I thought that scene was in this movie, but it wasn't.  Then I realized it was probably in I Remember Mama!

I recently finished the third season of Hell on Wheels on Netflix.  That was a jaw-dropping season finale, with Cullen stuck in a shotgun marriage in a Mormon compound presided over by a bishop who's actually the Norse psychopath! (He murdered the real bishop and took his place.) I'm already watching the fourth season.

Yesterday we updated our computer connection, so now we have cable TV again.  If we pay fifteen dollars more a month we can get some extra channels like BBC World and Turner Classic Movies, but we'll have to think about it. (I really don't watch TV much.)

Our internet connection was off for several hours while they worked on updating it.  Oh well, that meant more time for reading The War That Ended the Peace.  It quotes French intellectual Remy de Gourmont on the loss of Alsace and Lorraine: "Personally, I would not give the little finger of my right hand for these forgotten lands.  I need it to shake the ash off my cigarette."

Break's over

I got pretty lazy the last couple of weeks.  Not only did I stop posting on this blog, I stopped baking bread because we ran out of whole-wheat flour and I wasn't motivated enough to buy some more. (I was buying some fresh peaches and stuff today, but I forgot to get the flour!)

Last Wednesday I went to the St. Paul's nomination meeting where we nominated Noah Richler, literary critic and son of novelist Mordecai Richler.  Someone made popsicles with an orange-vanilla flavour, and I ate mine so fast that I got brain freeze!  Stephen Lewis gave a speech.  Dave Koppes, whom I know from my Aspie Meetup, was doing volunteer work there.

It was the same night that Bernie Sanders gave a podcast that 100,000 people gathered to watch.  Funny how I'm excited about Sanders' campaign but I'm afraid to get excited about the NDP prospects in the upcoming federal election.  No doubt I'll be volunteering for that campaign. (I didn't get involved with last year's provincial campaign because I couldn't find the local office, and it turns out they didn't have an office in this riding!)

Last night I saw Best of Enemies, about the Gore Vidal-William F Buckley feud, at the Lightbox.  It was pretty enjoyable.  People of the Buckley school have a lot to answer for regarding the state of the US today!

Today I completed both the Spring issue of Lapham's Quarterly and Thackeray's Vanity Fair.  It's an amazing novel!  Now I'll be turning to the summer issue (about philanthropy) and Margaret MacMillan's The War That Ended the Peace, about the world in 1914.