My latest dream

"His hands, moreover, were rather broad, but ended in long tapering fingernails; and he used them when he spoke (and he spoke in an almost incessant stream, although Hans Castorp could not quite comprehend what was said) in a series of exquisite gestures that reviewed his listeners' interest--the subtly nuanced, well-chosen, precise, tidy, cultured gestures of an orchestra conductor--a forefinger bent to form a circle with a thumb or a palm held out wide, but with tapering nails, to caution, to subdue, to demand attention, only to disappoint his now smiling, attentive listeners with one of his very robustly prepared, but incomprehensible phrases; or rather, he did not so much disappoint people as transform smiles into looks of delighted amazement, because the robustness, subtlety, and significance of the preparation largely compensated, even after the fact, for what he failed to say and produced a satisfying, amusing, and enriching effect all its own"--The Magic Mountain

"Are you Prince Philip?" "Oh, bugger off, you tit!" "I knew it was him!"--Spitting Image

Last night I dreamed I was visiting London to accompany a group of schoolgirls led by a Dickensian schoolmarm, then getting separated from them on the subway:  the doors closed on me before I could board the train they were already on.  Then I went to street level and wondered where to find them, then I met some French schoolgirls who knew where they were because they'd heard it through the grapevine. (I referred to my own schoolgirls as "the little monkeys," and they knew what my reference meant!) I also said that it was exactly ten years since I'd arrived in London to research my Ph.D. thesis, though it's actually over twenty.  I was admitting that the thesis was a dead end for me and wished I could get a job as a librarian in a place that specialized in history books!

Later I dreamed that I was trying to write this dream down in a book that was already largely full, in the Mount Allison University physics building where Father used to have an office, wearing a blanket in a snowstorm and having to leave our Sackville house because the federal government was forcing brownouts to reduce global emissions,. (I also dreamed of explaining what happened in Room 101 in Nineteen Eighty-Four.)

THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN

I'm two-thirds of the way through The Magic Mountain.  It's an incredible book, kind of an existential adventure story.  We had our first snow on Tuesday, and that was the time when I read the chapter "Snow," a vivid account of the hero skiing and getting lost in a blizzard.

Thomas Mann isn't afraid of long sentences: "He ridiculed the philanthropist's reluctance to shed blood, his reverence for life, claimed that such a reverence for life belonged to only the most banal rubbers-and-umbrellas bourgeois periods, but that the moment history took a more passionate turn, the moment a single idea, something that transcended mere 'security,' was at work, something suprapersonal, something greater than the individual--and since that alone was a state worthy of mankind, it was, on a higher plane, the normal state of affairs--at that moment, then individual life would always be sacrificed without further ado to that higher idea, and not only that, but individuals would also unhesitatingly and gladly risk their own lives for it."

Here's a passage from the "Snow" chapter: "Had his mind been less muddled, he would have had to admit that in terms of getting back home this was perhaps the worst thing he could have done; and indeed he told himself as much after he had taken a few sips, which produced an immediate effect, much the same effect as that caused by Kulmbach beer his first evening up here, when with a lot of loose, disreputable talk about fish sauces and the like he had offended Settembrini--Herr Lodovico, the pedagogue, who could keep madmen from letting themselves go, return them to reason with just a glance, and whose melodious little horn Hans Castorp now heard in the air around him, the signal that his oratorical teacher was now approaching at a forced march to free his troublesome pupil, life's problem child, from his mad situation and lead him home.  Which was pure nonsense of course, it was the Kulmbach beer he had drunk by mistake that made him think that.  Because firstly, Herr Settembrini did not have a little horn, but only his barrel organ, which had a folding leg so he could set it up on the cobblestones and cast a humanistic eye up at the houses as it played its familiar songs; and secondly, he knew nothing about what was going on, since he no longer lived at Berghof Sanatorium, but at Lukacek's, in his little garret with a water carafe, just above Naphtha's silken cell--and had no such right to do so on Mardi Gras night, when Hans Castorp had found himself in a position equally as mad and difficult, when he had given son crayon, his pencil, Pribislav Hippe's pencil, back to the ailing Clavdia Chachat."

Cold weather!

Thursday night I went on Betty Anne's art walk.  Our first stop was the store Elephant in the Attic, which sells a lot of miniature art prints.  I noticed some illustrations from the Random House edition of Alice in Wonderland which we had when I was young.  There's only one John Tenneil, but these had some evocative colours.

Then I went to the Revue and saw the Rue Morgue presentation of the British Vincent Price thriller Scream and Scream Again. (Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing also appear in it!) The plot was about a psycho-killer who was actually a cyborg or something.  It was introduced by his daughter Victoria, who gave an interesting talk about his singular joie de vivre.

I've been looking at songs Gary's group might sing.  There's "Day-O," "This Land Is Your Land," "Comedy Tonight," "Let It Be," "Hey Jude," "I's the B'y That Builds the Boat."

Well, the cold weather's arrived.  Time to start wearing my long johns again.  Today there were a few snow flurries!  I've started wearing my Russian-style furry hat. (Last week I dreamed of visiting Russia:  not of being there, but planning the journey.  And I've never been interested in going there before.  It must be from seeing the Russian dancers in Patton.)

Tonight I went to the Politics Meetup.  We'd planned to talk about the impending American election, but the topic was changed to terrorism because of the Paris attack.  I should learn to speak up more because the others tend to dominate the conversation too much.

Just saw an episode of Spitting Image with a fall-down hilarious sketch:  the cheesiest Wind in the Willows puppet show you can imagine, with visible hands and everything.  Some people have suggested reviving the show, but it was of its time:  people were angrier back then.  Today's viewers seem older and more indifferent.  Aside from the royals, one of the only characters still around is Robert Mugabe! (No doubt there'd be more sketches set in heaven.)

SPITTING IMAGE

Monday at the memoir slam my pen kept acting up so my handwriting looked like a little kid's!  There's a guy in the group who I thought was called Hugo but it turned out he spells his name Huggho!  Gary brought his keyboard and afterward I tried playing it as an audition for his group, but I was unused to it.  He'll come over Friday and I'll try again. (Yesterday I went to Gladstone library and found some albums with promising song scores.)

Monday night I lugged all my old scores to the choir so they can file them all. (I've accumulated quite a few over a decade!) But it turned out that they aren't collecting them till next week, so I had to take them back home, and I'll be toting them there again.

At opera practice Tuesday we were learning the Fledermaus chorus parts, which are smaller than in Elixir. (Once again, I'm benefiting from having done it before.)

Today was apparently the last warm day of the fall, so I finished moving those patio tiles and dug a ditch around the expanded garden.  There are a couple of offshoots from the cherry tree we cut down, which I should replant.

Anyone remember Spitting Image, the British satirical puppet show from the 1980s and early '90s?  I've been watching the first episodes on Youtube.  So far it's pretty thin:  Reagan and Thatcher just don't seem funny when I look at the long-term harm they did. (The best thing in it was always the songs. I remember their parody of U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," which had the line "You can change the world, but you can't change the world"!)

I've started applying myself with The Magic Mountain.  If I keep it up, I'll actually finish in time for the book club event!

One sentence!

"For Hans Castorp understood that this living body--with its mysterious symmetry of limbs, nourished by blood through a network of nerves, veins, arteries, capillaries, all oozing lymph; with its scaffold of bones, some of them tubes filled with marrow, some like blades, some like bulbs, some torqued vertebrae, but all originating in a gelatinous base that with the help of calcium salts and lime had grown firm enough to support the rest; with its joints made of tendons, cartilage, and slippery, well-oiled balls and sockets; with its more than two hundred muscles; with its central system of organs for nutrition and respiration, for registering and transmitting stimuli; with its protective membranes, serous cavities, and glands pumping secretions; with its complicated interior, a network of pipes and crevices, including openings onto the world outside--understood that this self was a living entity of a higher order, far removed from those simple organisms that breathed, fed, even thought, with just the surface of their bodies, that it was constructed, rather, out of a myriad of small organized units, which all shared a common origin, but had multiplied by constantly dividing, had adapted and combined for various functions, and had then separated to develop on their own and germinated new forms that were both the prerequisite and the effect of its growth"--The Magic Mountain

"The German army hasn't undertaken a winter offensive since Frederick the Great.  That's why I expect them to do exactly that!"--Patton

Thursday I had lunch with Pam at Butler's Pantry in Mirvish Village. (She's a mycobacteriologist, so she's read The Magic Mountain.) Afterward I went to The Beguiling, also in Mirvish Village, and bought the fourth and last volume of Shigeru Mizuki's history-memoir of Japan under Hirohito, covering 1953 to 1989.  I'm looking forward to it, but I don't dare start it till I've finished The Magic Mountain!

Yesterday I finished digging up the potatoes.  Now I can focus on expanding the garden's area. (Lucky it's supposed to get warm again next week!)

Saw Franklin J. Schaffner's Patton on Netflix tonight (for at least the third time). George C. Scott is the movie!  Patton was a madman, but that's what a nation sometimes needs.  Like India needed Gandhi, a madman for peace.

I've finally quit the online game Forge of Empires.  I'd got all the way into the modern era, but it was taking too much of my life.

SUFFRAGETTE

"'Well roared, lion,' Hans Castorp could not help thinking, as he usually did when Herr Settembrini uttered something pedagogic"--The Magic Mountain

Thursday my History Discussion Group met at Schnitzel Hub near St. Clair station. (I had goulash soup, large size.) Five people turned up, and we discussed Samuel Pepys' diary.  I've been so busy reading other stuff that I only had time to glance at a few highlights beforehand.  But that didn't matter, it was a good discussion.

Sunday was Reading Out Loud, and the topic was Canadian writing. (I titled the event "The Great White North"!) I read "L'Envoi.  The Train to Mariposa" from Leacock's Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town and the chapter in Anne of Green Gables where she tried to walk on a rooftop and ended up with a broken ankle.

This afternoon at choir practice, instead of waiting while Paolo spent time on the basses, I helped Paolo's wife Katrina assemble copies of the "O Holy Night" score into booklet format for our binders.

I've almost finished digging up the garden, but there's still one row left.  I also have quite a few patio tiles to move to expand our growing area.

This evening I saw Suffragette with the History Discussion Group at the Varsity.  It was vividly made but a bit conventional. (When the laundry supervisor put his hands on Carey Mulligan I thought, "It's time for her to attack him with her hot iron," and was not disappointed.) At least they didn't have her stand on a table with a sign saying "Votes for women" and cause all the laundry machines to stop, like Sally Field in Norma Rae (another rather conventional movie).

People I don't envy

For no reason in particular I decided to make a list of people I don't envy.

Poor people.  It's easy to be judgemental and forget their daily struggles and humiliations.

Soldiers.  Even the most successful ones have seen some ugly shit.  And they serve their country even when their government makes them do the wrong thing.

Americans.  The U.S.A. often seems a more exciting, glamorous place than Canada.  And yet Americans have a tendency to live in fear even when they don't have to!

Miners.  Mining is one thing I could never do. (I couldn't stand being in a submarine either.)

First Nations.  When the Europeans came along they basically got run over by a truck.  Possibly the worst thing we did to them was declaring them human dinosaurs a century ago.

People in prisons.  Not just the prisoners, but the people who work there.

People in the old days.  We often take for granted aspects of modern living like dentistry and flush toilets.

Royalty.  True, their lives are comfortable, but a million eyes are always on them, waiting for them to make any mistake.  Kings once had both power and responsibility; now they largely only have the responsibility that comes from symbolizing your nation.

People in the sex trade.  Our laws here (as with drugs) often have the effect of punishing the victims.

North Koreans.  The more I hear about that country, the better Canada looks.

Rock stars.  I can't imagine enjoying making music so much that I'd be willing to lose my hearing prematurely. (That goes for their roadies too!)

Suburbanites.  I lived in Mississauga for a year when I was young.

Illiterates.  A whole world is closed to them.

Indian summer

It's been warm this week, so I'm bringing in more potatoes.  I've been wearing some old slippers in the garden, but yesterday when I came in I forgot to put my new ones back on, so I tracked dirt all over the house!  Was my face red! (That's the title of a feature in Young Miss magazine where girls wrote in and described their most embarrassing experiences.)

Thursday I saw a Halloween double bill at the Revue:  Dracula's Daughter and She Wolf of London (which was actually set in the English countryside!) I splurged and bought a Revue membership.

Saturday afternoon I saw the Met production of Wagner's Tannhauser at the Yonge & Eglinton.  I recognized the melody from the chorus early in the second act and I've been wondering where I heard it before.

Sunday night I went to the Politics Meetup where we discussed the election.  I brought a printout of my previous post showing how it would have gone with my preferred system of proportional representation.  Afterward I realized I'd made a slight error:  Manitoba and Saskatchewan should have nine Category A seats instead of ten!

At Monday night's choir practice someone brought a really good cake!  I imagine we'll be way better in the spring when we've had enough time to come together completely.

This afternoon I went to an extra choir rehearsal at Paolo's United Church on Bathurst north of Lawrence.  Too bad that I got off the Bathurst bus too early and had to wait for the next one, and was rather late! (Someone brought doughnuts.) Oksana gave me a lift home.

Post-election analysis

"I'll sit here for a while yet and smoke my cigar, just as usual.  It tastes terrible, but I know it's good and that will have to suffice for me today"--The Magic Mountain

The election disappointed me.  I was hoping that the Liberals and NDP would both fall short of a majority, and because (plausibly) neither party would accept the other as Prime Minister they'd form a coalition with the Greens and make Elizabeth May P.M. (Sort of like the coalition in that Danish show Borgen.)

I analyzed the results and determined what would have happened with the system of proportional representation I'd prefer.  Under this system, about 70% of the seats would be Category A, chosen the same way they are now; 25% Category B, allotted so that A and B together would match the proportion of the popular vote*; 5% Category C, which would normally go the party that got the highest popular vote overall, except in provinces where one party's A seats alone were greater than its proportional share of A and B seats, in which case the C seats would go to the other parties to fill out their seat shortfall*. 

I gave Ontario 4 C seats, Quebec 3, B.C. and Alberta 2 each, and every other province 1; and for B seats each province got the smallest number not smaller than one quarter of their non-C seats.  The territories would be unchanged, with one seat in the A category.

(*=or as close as possible)

Here's the actual results under "first past the post":

Province  Liberal  Conservative  NDP  Green  Bloc Quebecois

Nfld           7

PEI            4

NS           11

NB          10

PQ          40           12                   16                  10

Ont         80           33                     8

Man          7             5                     2

Sask          1           10                     3

Alta           4           29                     1

BC          17           10                    14        1

Terrs         3

________________________________________

Total      184           99                   44        1       10

Now here's the results under my system:  first the A seats, followed by the sum of B and C in brackets.

Province  Liberal  Conservative  NDP  Green  Bloc Quebecois

Nfld         4 (1)          (1)                   (1)

PEI          2 (1)          (1)

NS           7                (2)                   (2)

NB           6                (2)                   (2)

PQ          28 (3)       9 (3)              12 (7)        (2)      7 (7)

Ont         57          24 (17)              6 (13)       (4)

Man         5 (2)        4 (1)               1 (1)

Sask         1 (3)        7                    2 (1)

Alta          3 (7)      20                    1 (3)

BC          12 (4)       7 (5)             10 (1)       1 (2)

Te4rs         3

_______________________________________________

Total      128 (21)   71 (32)        32 (31)      1 (8)     7 (7)

Overall     149          103               63              9           14

The Liberals would have two-thirds of the seats in the Maritimes and Newfoundland, instead of every single one; two-fifths of the Quebec seats, instead of over half; and just under half the Ontario seats, instead of almost two-thirds.

I can dream, can't I?