Saturday I went to the Last Night at the Proms telecast at the Yonge & Eglinton. Once again, I just stayed for the first half. (The second half's kinda predictable anyhow.) I really went there to meet Mary and John D. from the Music Meetup, whom I haven't seen lately. I'm impressed that pianists like Benjamin Grosvenor manage to memorize whole concerti!
You know you're getting old when you go to the cinema and see posters for sequels to movies you've already forgotten!
Sunday was the latest ROLT, and the topic was banned and challenged books, since September is Banned Books Month. (The event's title was "Think of the Children!") There were eleven people, about our best turnout ever! I read the passage from Of Mice and Men where Lennie ends up killing the skanky woman, and the opening pages of W.O. Mitchell's Who Has Seen the Wind? (One guy said it read the Steinbeck passage "beautifully"!) I would have read the opening pages of Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich--it's not only been banned by the Soviets, but challenged in Canadian schools because of words like "shit-barrel"--but there were enough other people reading for a full event.
On Monday Paolo had the choir trying parts of "Joy to the World" and "Angels We Have Heard on High." He's moved us into the Villa Colombo hall where they have banquets, and introduced some new voice exercises like "tritrutritrutri," where you make an expression like the Phantom of the Opera when his mask's just been pulled off.
I thought tonight was going to be the first night of opera rehearsal, but when I went down there the place was empty! First night is next week, of course.
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