SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT

"What a strong little sugar plum you are!"--Smiles of a Summer Night

Wednesday was another History Discussion Group screening at Debi's place.  I was going to borrow a DVD of Tony Richardson's 1968 version of Charge of the Light Brigade from Malcolm, but we couldn't get together, so at the last minute I changed it to Ingmar Bergman's 1950s sex comedy Smiles of a Summer Night (which I saw for the second time).

It went over pretty well.  I was thinking that the '50s was the last time when they made subtly sexy movies. (After that came the '60s, and sex got obvious, especially in the movies.) This was about the time of the summer solstice, which was appropriate enough.

So the British have taken the plunge and voted to leave the EU!  It seems a boneheaded move:  the EU will still dominate the British economy, but now Britain will have no input!  Yet if I'd been a British voter, I would have been tempted to vote Yes just to "shock the system," as they said in the 1960s. (Sort of like heaving a rock at a beehive...)

Last night I had an unusually vivid dream in which I visited Chongqing (the Chinese treaty port I wrote my Ph.D. thesis about) just before World War II, and told a Chinese girl some of the things that were about to happen!

Tonight the choir did a concert at an old folks' home near Keele and Sheppard.  When we sang "Que Sera, Sera" I did the second verse solo! (That's the one that starts, "When I grew up and fell in love...") Oksana drove me and Clotilde up there and back.  Paolo always pulls a surprise or two, and this time we sang "You Are My Sunshine," which I didn't know except for the chorus.  Gary from my memoir group has now joined!

While I was there I also arranged to take singing lessons from Alexei, another choir member.  He lives up in Richmond Hill and could come to my house on Monday afternoon, but that's the time of the memoir group, so I'll have to come to him, on another day.  He charges $30 a lesson, which is very reasonable! (Even Giuseppe charged $50!)