HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES

"In this republican country, amid the fluctuating waves of our social life, somebody is always at the drowning-point"--The House of the Seven Gables

On Friday I went to Barbara Frum Library and borrowed Nathaniel Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables, which I'm reading for the second time for the Classic Book Club.  It's a mid-19th century novel about the then-contemporary descendants of a 17th century Massachusetts patriarch who accused a man of witchcraft to acquire his land and was seen to leave a curse on the family. (I've also read the Classics Illustrated comic book version, though this book isn't really suited to that treatment--too much talk.)

I liked the book the first time, and I'm liking it even more now.  It deals with profound themes of moral responsibility and class and family identity. The story is set in the context of changing times in a way that reminds me of our earlier novel Silas Marner, which was published around the same time.  I want to read some more of Hawthorne's short stories!

Saturday I went to the Ontario Science Centre to see the Imax movie about pandas with Bev. The bus got into a huge traffic snarl just before getting there, and the last mile took twenty minutes!  It turned out that the movie was sold out, but I did get to see the place for the first time since that big Titanic exhibit donkey's years ago. (It was a really cool place when I was twelve or thirteen.) I looked all over for Bev and finally found her at the Tim Horton's near the entrance.  

Bev is sensitive to noise and crowds--so am I, to a lesser extent--so I found a quiet place where we could converse in the area with the lockers where the school groups come in.  It was the first time we've met in months--she was in hip surgery--and her new hairdo makes her younger.  After a while we took the special TTC minibus to Lime restaurant and had dinner there with a friend of hers called Sandy. (I had curried rice.)

My blogs have a new reader! Nikki left Facebook for Google Plus and actually commented on one of my diary posts from 15 years ago. Thanks for the attention, Nikki.

History by the years

When I was little we had the Newsweek publication Milestones of History, a six-part series on historical milestones. (We still have it.) The last volume ended with the moon landing of 1969, so I got to thinking about how you'd record historical milestones in later years, one to each year.

1970:  Peace in Nigeria (Nigeria's military government defeats Ibo rebels, ending a bloody civil war.)

1971:  Independence for Bangladesh (The Pakistani  government attempts brutal suppression of a rebellion in its eastern half, but gets thwarted by Indian intervention.)

1972:  The Watergate burglary (A "third-rate" burglary at Democratic presidential campaign headquarters leads to a White House cover-up, and eventually to President Nixon's unprecedented resignation.)

1973:  The energy crisis (American support of Israel in the Yom Kippur War leads to an OPEC embargo, high oil prices and a challenge to the western economic model.)

1974:  The Carnation Revolution (Portugal's longstanding fascist government is finally overthrown, leading to dissolution of the last overseas colonial empire.)

1975:  The fall of Saigon (North Vietnam conquers the south, ending thirty years of conflict and embarrassing the United States.)

1976:  Coup in Argentina (Juan Peron's widow is overthrown by a brutal military junta that forms one of the last fascist regimes.)

1977:  Change in India (Indian voters reject the Congress Party for the first time, ending Indira Gandhi's "state of emergency" and confirming the strength of their democracy.)

1978:  The Camp David Accords (Egypt signs a peace treaty with Israel, regaining the Suez Peninsula and ending the Arab nation's common front.)

1979:  Revolution in Iran (Iranians force out the Pahlavi Shah and the Ayatollah Khomeini installs an Islamist regime.)

1980:  The Four Modernizations (Deng Xiaoping takes official control of the Communist Party and introduces a "pragmatic" program of economic development.)

1981:  You're fired! (New president Ronald Reagan fires air traffic controllers en masse to break their illegal strike, starting an aggressively anti-labor phase in American capitalism.)

1982:  Israel in Lebanon (Prime Minister Menachem Begin intervenes in Lebanon's civil war, starting a messy occupation in the south.)

1983:  KAL-007 shot down (The declining Soviet government causes an international crisis by shooting down a Korean airliner that mistakenly entered Russian airspace.)

1984:  Amritsar occupation (Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi uses brute force to occupy the Sikh Golden Temple of Amritsar, and soon gets assassinated.)

1985:  One Europe (A European Council agreement leads to the signing of the Single European Act and increasing economic integration in Europe.)

1986:  Chernobyl disaster! (A nuclear accident at Chernobyl causes widespread nuclear contamination and undermines the Soviet regime.)

1987:  Intifada (A wave of Palestinian militancy challenges Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.)

1988:  Tit for Tat? (An American warship shoots down an Iranian airliner, and six months later an American airliner is blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland.)

1989:  The fall of the Berlin Wall (East Berliners break through the barrier to the west, dooming their communist regime and signalling the end of eastern Europe's Soviet dominance.)

1990:  Mandela released (South African President F.W. DeKlerk releases longtime political prisoner Nelson Mandela, leading to the end of the apartheid system and to black majority rule.)

1991:  War over Kuwait (Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's occupation of Kuwait leads to devastating war with the United States and an expanded American presence in the Middle East.)

1992:  War in Bosnia (Communist Yugoslavia breaks apart, leading to ethno-religious conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina.)

1993:  The World Wide Web (A new system revolutionizes the internet, leading to widespread use around the world.)

1994:  Genocide in Rwanda (A murder campaign by Rwanda's Hutu majority kills almost a million Tutsis.)

1995:  Canada's future (Quebec's Francophones narrowly reject a proposal to separate from Anglophone Canada.)

1996:  The BJP in power (India's militantly pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party wins its first national election.)

1997:  The last colony (The British government hands over control of Hong Kong to the Chinese government, ending over 150 years of colonial rule.)

1998:  The Good Friday Agreement (A peace agreement ends decades of warfare in Northern Ireland between the British government and Catholic rebels.)

1999:  War in Kosovo (Serb ethnic cleansing in Kosovo leads to American intervention.)

2000:  A disputed election (The American presidential election is narrow enough to cause a crisis.)

2001:  9/11 (Islamist hijackers destroy New York City's World Trade Center and damage the Pentagon, prompting American invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.)

2002:  Sri Lanka ceasefire (Two decades of civil war between Sri Lanka's Sinhalese majority and Tamil rebels finally end.)

2003:  Occupying Iraq (The United States occupies Iraq, but stability proves difficult to maintain.)

2004:  Tsunami! (An ocean wave kills 200,000 in southern Asia.)

2005:  Hurricane Katrina (A hurricane devastates the city of New Orleans, demonstrating federal government incompetence and suggesting future dangers from climate change.)

2006:  Nuclear challenges (North Korea tests a nuclear bomb, and Iran enriches uranium.)

2007:  Assassination in Pakistan (Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto returns to Pakistan during a crisis, only to be assassinated.)

2008:  Crisis on Wall Street (A financial crisis threatens large American banks and triggers an economic downturn.)

2009:  The first black president (Barack Obama takes power as the first black president of the United States and faces serious challenges.)

2010:  Oil Spill! (British Petroleum's Deepwater Horizon explodes in the Gulf of Mexico, causing the oil industry's worst spill.)

2011:  The Arab Spring (A militant reform movement in the Arab world inspires the Occupy movement in the West.)

2012:  War in Syria (A ceasefire collapses, dooming Syria to years of civil war.)

2013:  A new Chinese leader (Xi Jinping becomes China's new president, the most powerful Chinese communist since Deng Xiaoping.)

2014:  Ukranian crisis (The Russian government uses military force to effect Crimean independence from the Ukraine.)

2015:  Terrorism in Paris (Half a dozen terrorist attacks kill over 100 people in the French capital.)

2016:  President Trump (Controversial real estate tycoon Donald Trump is elected American President.)

2017:  Hurricanes! (Four hurricanes cause widespread destruction around the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, particularly in Puerto Rico.)

Male model

This is a photo Anne took of me at Starbuck's last week after we went to the fabric sale.

Tuesday I had another editing session with Miriam.  She's really grateful. (She's paid me with $120 worth of Chapters gift cards, so I don't have to report it as income to the ODSP people!) Later  we had  Indian food with John and his family.

Wednesday was busy for me.  First I had lunch with Miriam's group at the George Street Diner.  I had fish & chips.

Then we went to Miriam's apartment, where Anne came and took some photos of me in different outfits, including my Steve McQueen turtleneck and my corduroy jacket, and stuff like a tuxedo shirt with most of the buttons missing (but you couldn't see that), and a preppy jacket with a school crest that was actually for girls but you wouldn't notice.  Miriam put on some Noel Coward songs, and I especially liked "Room With a View" and "London Pride."

In the evening I went to the Organizers Meetup again.  We took a group photo you can see through this link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/18AUkXbw3UKLVqUuZhAQu31xCTzm_Ra-m/view

I've finally finished the history of Iran.  It occurred to me that Ayatollah Khomeini and Ronald Reagan had a lot in common!  Both were in their seventies and took a "rhetoric as policy" approach, using a simplistic appeal to traditional values to distract from their sinister, destructive agenda. Both used "evil empire"-style rhetoric against enemy nations, while employing terrorism to serve their ends. (Both also knew how to exploit racism, xenophobia and general anti-intellectualism!) Both were lucky that certain important people who might have taken them on chose deference instead.  And both left their nation a deeply harmful legacy.  They were wicked old men, like Mao Zedong starting the Cultural Revolution in his seventies.  Pray for their worthless souls. (Among later leaders, Khatami was sort of to Ahmadinejad as Obama was to Trump...)

We had unexpected guests overnight, so I couldn't get to the computer till this morning, which is why this post is late!

Editing work

I've been busy editing Miriam's memoir. (We met and discussed it on Friday afternoon.) I finished the final edit today, and we'll be talking more about it on Tuesday.

I think I'm a natural editor. When I look at that episode of Get Fuzzy, I automatically imagine how I'd edit Bucky's script:  
Mike enters room.  Mike: "Who took my food?  Whoever it is, I'll kill him!  Kill him!"

I was so busy with the editing (or just careless) that I forgot to renew the library book about Iran's history, and now I owe the Toronto Public Library $1.40. (I would have renewed it Monday at the Lillian Smith library, but the memoir group was cancelled.)

I've just got to the exciting part, about Ayatollah Khomeini.  Who was this guy--he seemed to come out of nowhere!  Back at the time The Economist (a British magazine that raises tendentiousness to an art form!) wondered if he was Iran's Savonarola, but he turned out to be more like Lenin.  People like that are scary:  they can wait till their time comes, then they're the ones with the vision--not the nice vision or even the smart vision, but the clear vision!--and the ruthless decisiveness and organizational smarts to realize it.  

(My, my, I used three exclamation marks in that paragraph!  Still the born editor...)

Yesterday I went on the delayed art walk. (Lucky the warm weather is back this time!) It started at the Artscape place on Shaw Street, which is in a nice 1914 ex-school buildings with transoms.  I've always liked transoms--I remember the Warner Brothers cartoon where Yosemite Sam is courting Granny and she ends up firing a rifle at him through a transom at the top of her door--if I remember it right. 

Afterward I went to the Singing Meetup, where we were learning Abba's "Fernando" and I had to leave a bit early.  I also stopped at the beguiling and bought a "graphic novel" history of the Klondike gold rush--like I'm not already behind in my reading...

Music clips

Time for some more music clips!

George Handel, "Zadok the Priest" from Coronation Anthem #1.  The best thing to come out of the British monarchy is the music!  This clip not only shows the words but some nice classic art.

Ludwig Van Beethoven, Florestan's Aria, Fidelio.  One of my favorite parts from Beethoven's only opera (which my group was doing last month).

Jacques Offenbach, "Valse Lente." This is one of his orchestral pieces that was adapted for the ballet "Gaite Parisienne."

Theodore Dubois, "Second Word," The Seven Last Words of Christ.  When I was in the Italian choir Coro Verdi we'd do Dubois' oratorio every Easter.  My favorite part is "Second Word," in which Jesus promises heaven to the thief dying with him.  I actually prefer it with piano accompaniment!

Richard Rodgers, Waltz from Carousel.  This is really brilliant opening music!  I like the way it conveys that pain is part of love.

Johnny Horton, "Ole Slew Foot." He did a country version of this song, but I prefer the rockabilly version! (I first heard it introducing a Bear Family Records DVD.)

Paddy Reilly, "The Mountains of Morne." Nice Percy French song, nicely arranged and sung.

Joe Jackson, "Steppin' Out," Night and Day.  I loved this whole album when I was twenty, and these lyrics really got to me: "We are young but getting old before our time/We'll leave the TV and the radio behind..."

Tracey Ullman, "They Don't Know." She shows her immense comic talents in the video for her version of Kirsty McColl's song. (I wish there were more three-wheeled cars like that one!)

Elvis Costello, "This Town." His ridiculing of Donald Trump seems prophetic now. (Though I can do without the "knee in the junk" cliche...)

Oh say can you see

Oh dear, I uploaded this post on the wrong blog.  And I  put the whole thing on A-command but forgot to copy it before deleting it, so I'll have to do it again from memory!

Demon weather last weekend!  The streetcars were off on St. Clair Avenue, and when I tried to shovel the sidewalk it was just too icy.  But I did manage to get out three times.

On Saturday night I went to a new Singing Meetup at the church just west of Spadina station.  We did a song "Shalala Lala" and danced to this salsa song that I remember us dancing to when I was taking lessons at the Arthur Murray studio fifteen years ago.

Sunday afternoon I hosted the Reading Out Loud Meetup.  The topic was American writing, so I titled the event "Oh say can you see." Only two other people braved the weather and showed up, but that was enough for me! (I considered cancelling the event, but I'm glad I didn't.) I read some Washington Irving, poems about the Revolutionary War and the Civil War ("The Little Black-Eyed Rebel" and "Kentucky Belle") and the Huckleberry Finn chapter "Was Solomon Wise?" I think I did Jim's accent pretty well.

In the evening I joined Anne and Miriam to watch a poetry slam at the Drake Hotel.  But the place was too loud for me and I left early.

Monday afternoon's memoir group got cancelled because of the weather.

Suzanne suggested I move my Meetups back to the quieter Robarts Library food court, and I've done so. (I'd only moved out of there to please a couple of wet blankets in the first place.)

Empire

I still feel sluggish.  I've had a big headache today--must be the warmer weather.

Sunday was the Classic Book Club, where we discussed Muriel Spark's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, except that there was only Malcolm and me. (He's a true reliable!) I'll have to do better in the future.

I've discovered a new Facebook game called Empire.  It's the old "build a medieval fort and attack other forts" strategy game.  I do have a weakness for those games where you construct buildings and train soldiers and you have to keep an eye on your money and supplies of wood and stone and food.  I called my castle "Trouble" because I couldn't think of anything else. (I wish I'd at least called it "Castle Trouble"!) I've also discovered the website http://medium.com

I'm still eating the post-Easter chocolate.  Just a couple of pieces are left.

I've finally finished my backlog of unread emails!  But the inbox still has quite a few that are ready for the trash.

LIFE SCIENCE LIBRARY

I've been getting slack with my posting lately.  I got three days behind posting my diary from fifteen years ago, but now I'm caught up again.  And lately I haven't had as much inspiration here.  But maybe it's just a temporary slump!

The other day I was looking at a few volumes from our Life Science Library series from the '60s.  We had all fifteen volumes of the original Life Nature Library series but only got seven of the 25 in this one, yet the latter interested me somewhat more:  "Machines," "The Body," "Man and Space." (The last was written by Arthur C. Clarke!)

Wednesday night was the History Meetup, where we discussed Napoleon.

Yesterday I went to the Bay in Yorkdale Mall and bought a pair of pajamas. (Maybe there are better places for buying pajamas, but that'll do for now.) I can't help noticing that such malls have become dominated by up-market chains like Tiffany's--makes me nostalgic for their more eclectic age.

I've been reducing my backlog of unread emails again.  I finished reading the unread Counterpunch reports and half just half a dozen Pocket Hits reports left.

On YouTube I've been watching clips of Christopher Hitchens being provocative, including one of him giving Bill Maher's audience the finger!  I've also seen some clips of Archie Bunker mouthing off. ("God doesn't make any mistakes.  That's how he got to be God!")

Autism awareness month

Vittorio Gassman: "Does he still think you're a dancer?" Rachel Ward: "I am a dancer!" Burt Reynolds (listening in on a wiretap): "She is a dancer!"--Sharky's Machine

Saturday I watched the Davey & Goliath Easter special on Youtube, which I recall seeing in my childhood.  That's the one where Davey loses his beloved grandmother, and for a children's TV show it's unusually honest about grief. (But is it cruel to tell children stories of resurrection?)

Sunday I watched Burt Reynolds' Sharky's Machine through the miracle of streaming.  That's the one where he's a drug cop who gets busted down to vice and uncovers government corruption and carries out 24-hour surveillance on a call girl... (The scene where he gets a couple of fingers chopped off isn't for the squeamish!) It was a bit conventional, but there's a good cast:  Bernie Casey has some bright moments as a Zen cop, and Rachel Ward was gorgeous! (She may still be, for all I know.)

Yesterday I watched Ronald Neame's movie of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie on Youtube.  Inevitably, it's somewhat simpler than the novel.

April is Autism awareness month, so today I went to a rally at Nathan Phillips Square with some Aspies who are against ABA treatment (something I know nothing about). I held up a poster saying, "Non-compliance is a social skill." That's one way to look at it...

On the way home, I stopped at Shopper's Drug Mart and spent a fortune on half-priced post-Easter chocolate.  I think my favorite is the chocolate with crispy stuff mixed in!

More comedy clips

Time for some more funny clips!

Laurel & Hardy in Saps at Sea.  This clip has the whole movie, but I downloaded it specifically for the opening scene, set in a horn factory. (No wonder Ollie needs a break!)

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x51ver

Bob Clampett, Coal Black an' de Sebben Dwarfs.  True, this black Snow White spoof from Warner Brothers is pretty racist. (A coat of arms with crossed switchblades and a pair of dice?) But I like the jazzy music and wartime references, like the Evil Queen's stock of rationed goods!  And there's a Citizen Kane reference too.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6elco9

Friz Freleng, "The Last Hungry Cat." Those cartoon geniuses at Warner Brothers put Sylvester and Tweety in a Hitchcock spoof!

Mr. Know-It-All, "How to be a Beatnik." My favorite part of Rocky & Bullwinkle is Bullwinkle as Mr. Know-It-All!

Super Chicken, "The Easter Bunny." Super Chicken was my favorite cartoon on Jay Ward's George of the Jungle series. "You knew the job was dangerous when you took it!"

All in the Family:  Archie Bunker makes a TV "editorial reply" opposing gun control. His prejudices didn't make him dangerous, they made him small!

SCTV, "Whispers of the Wolf." The always desperate Count Floyd presents an Ingmar Bergman spoof! (They also did Jerry Lewis in "Scenes From the Idiot's Marriage.") Confession:  I've never seen Persona--I keep worrying that I won't get it!

Mad TV, "Davey and the Son of Goliath." A sick parody of the religious children's cartoon! (I have a thing for sick parodies...)

Two clips from "Max Power," The Simpsons.  This show has moments of sheer genius, like in this episode, where the new TV show features a character coincidentally named Homer Simpson.  Unfortunately for the "real" Homer, between the pilot and the regular series the character undergoes some changes...

Weird Al Yankovic, "Word Crimes." The song is way better than Robin Thicke's original "Blurred Lines" and the video is way better than its vulgar original!  It also bugs me when people use "literally" just to give emphasis to hyperbole. (BTW, I'm also annoyed by the expression "One of the two or three most." Not that it's grammatically wrong, it's just sloppy style.)