Boccaccio's DECAMERON

Seward: "In my opinion--" Lincoln: "Which I always listen to..." "Or pretend to." "...with all three ears"--Lincoln

"Why did you hit me?" "Just because!"--One Piece

Wednesday night the History Meetup screened Steven Spielberg's Lincoln, which I was seeing for the second time.  Sally Field as Mrs. Lincoln reminded me of my own mother. (Debi mentioned that she's started reading these blogs.  That makes two fans!)

I've started reading our translation of Boccaccio's Decameron.  It's written in 17th Century English but still pretty readable. (Boccaccio's account of the Black Death in Florence is unforgettable!) There's something pretty modern about it.

Had lunch with John Snow at the Schnitzel Hub on Thursday.

Finished the third season of Sailor Moon, though I'm afraid Animelinkz may have missed one episode when they posted it online.  I've started the anime One Piece, which looks promising.  It's about a young man made of rubber who plans to become a pirate king.  It has something of the Dragon Ball spirit. (There's some McGuffin all the pirates are searching for, sort of like the seven Dragon Balls.)

I've moved the other big bookcase into my room and mostly filled that one too.  My bed currently has an extra mattress that was on the bed in the room that's being renovated! (It feels like the Princess and the Pea.)

The People's Vote

https://www.gocomics.com/9chickweedlane/2018/12/07

I was thinking about this People's Vote movement in Great Britain. (I'm talking about it here because there isn't enough room on Twitter.) If you ask me, they should have a plebiscite with four options:

1.  Leave the EU by the terms of the agreement the government negotiated.

2.  Reject the agreement, and leave the EU without any agreement.

3.  Reject the agreement, and don't leave the EU until a new agreement is concluded.

4.  Don't leave the EU at all.

Eleven people said they were coming to today's Reading Out Loud Meetup, but I was the only one who showed up. Someone tell me what I'm doing wrong! (If I knew of more reliable people, I'd invite them...)

Despite that, I've been in a pretty good mood the last few days due to being busier than usual.  Friday I went to an Employment & Social Services office near Church & Jarvis to submit the form that'll give me an ODSP discount on TTC fares. (For me, finding a new place in the city is always a fun adventure!) And yesterday I moved one of those big bookcases into my room and filled most of it with the books that are taking up so much space. (Which meant moving some existing furniture to make room for it.)

I've finished watching the original Dragon Ball series online.  I don't dare take up Dragon Ball Z for some time yet!

One of the comic strips I follow, 9 Chickweed Lane, did a story the other week about a character who wanted to audition to play Jack Point (the clown who loses the girl) in a local production of Gilbert & Sullivan's The Yeomen of the Guard.  That piqued my curiosity, and I went on Youtube and found an exquisite clip of a Proms performance of a famous duet from that show! (That's it above.) Unlike with other strips I can only post a link to this one.

Moving furniture

I'm now writing this in my own room!  Yesterday Moira and I were moving furniture out of what used to be my room so John can tear out the walls and stuff.  (The biggest challenge was emptying the two big bookcases and toting the books out.) So I moved the old desk into my room and set up my computer on it.

I've moved most of those books into my room and I'm thinking of bringing in those bookcases too. (There's some older furniture now in my room that can take their place in the old room.) When John's finished, Moira can move her computer into that room from the living room so she can use it in the middle of the night with no fear of disturbing Father, who's now sleeping in the living room because the sun room got cold.

I've got to the last third of the third season of Sailor Moon, and the story's improving.  The first part moved pretty slowly, with one pure heart after another turning out not to have the talismans.  Finally the talismans turned up in the hearts of the three newest sailor senshi, including the newly-arrived Sailor Pluto. (Who's minding the Gate of Time while she visits the 1990s?  And why do I ask questions like that?) And Chibi-Usa met a girl who's the "Messiah" they're all looking for, and happens to be the daughter of the mad scientist we'd only been seeing in shadow! (He resembles a grown-up version of Melvin the dweeb--see above.)

I've started playing Forge of Empires again.  That's the computer game where you take a community from prehistoric times into the 20th century by building homes and industries, conquering provinces and upgrading technologies.

I've finished Blood of the Celts and now it's time to start The Decameron.  I'm also reading an E-book of Esther Samson's Black Country to Red China.  She's a Eurasian who spent her first years in Shanghai, then war came and her mother returned to England with her, where she got evacuated out to a Staffordshire mining household.  Then at age 17 she returned to China as the communists were taking over and started a new life in the People's Liberation Army.  But six years later she had to return to England--don't know the details yet--and became a West Country schoolteacher, rising to the headmistress level.  Her daughter Polly became a writer and married Pink Floyd's David Gilmour, whom she's written lyrics for.  Some stories you couldn't make up!

To bed

"She's not crying because I said she was 41.  She's crying because she is 41!"--On Approval

Saturday John and Kathrine came over and we had Indian food. (The nearby Indian restaurant has a December special!  We'll have to eat it with Donald too.) We ate what was left for the next couple of days, of course.

Yesterday we put The Marriage of Figaro to bed. (Someone brought a chocolate cake.) We got to keep our wigs so Anne may photograph me in my costume after all.  Moira came to the last show.  She said that the music is great--she loved the soloists, who were mostly new--but the plot gets silly in the second half.

This evening Miriam and I went to a Toronto Film Society double bill at Innis Town Hall. They were droll, sharply written British comedies from the 1940s: Clive Brook's On Approval and the Alexander Korda production of Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband. (I saw the play at London's Old Vic about twenty years ago!)

It looks like I've finally straightened out my Prestocard account for now. (I paid $100 into it.)

Opening night!

The opera is underway.  Last Thursday we were rehearsing our stage movements again in the church gym.  Then Saturday morning we worked with the soloists. (The chorus parts were done first so we could leave early.) Monday night was the tech rehearsal at the Al Green theatre, then Tuesday was the dress rehearsal.  I got to wear my glasses with my costume, and the bright stage lights got to me.

And tonight was the opening! Someone brought some fudge, and it was addictive!  I finished the Lapham's Quarterly discovery issue, and during our long waits in the green room downstairs I've been reading Blood of the Celts for my History Meetup. (After reading the first chapter, I decided to read the rest in reverse order, first the last chapter, then second-last etc.)

Wednesday night was the History Meetup where we discussed Abraham Lincoln. Dora Keogh was crowded and noisy, so we moved to Timothy's World Coffee on Danforth and Jackman.

It looks like my new Prestocard monthly pass has registered on my online account.  But the TTC machines are still rejecting the card! (I'll have to phone them tomorrow.)

I'm now watching an online Geeknight series where two guys discuss that anime Revolutionary Girl Utena episode by episode.  Their analyses are as long as the original episodes, but fascinating.

I've given up those Facebook games Farmcliff and Golden Frontier.  I started the same company's Cloud Kingdom, but probably won't continue with it.

Ratzafratz!

George H.W. Bush, after winning the 1988 election through a nasty campaign emphasizing Willie Horton and the Pledge of Allegiance: "No hard feelings.  It was all in a generous spirit of competition." (Do the American people know when they're being insulted?)

I was late ordering the new monthly pass for my Presto card. (The opera's been distracting me...) Last night I tried to order it, but kept getting a message that my credit card needed verification.  Funny it worked OK last month.  The message also showed a toll-free number which I called and started to get somewhere, but then our service provider (the well-named Fido) cut me off!

Today I tried to call again. There was a message at the start estimating that my call would take five minutes, but I ended up waiting twenty minutes before the phone's batteries went dead! (The thing we plug the phone into to keep it charged, it turned out, had itself been unplugged from the outlet...) Tonight I tried again, but the message said I could expect a 30-minute wait. Meanwhile, I can't even open my Presto account.

I haven't been in the best mood the last couple of days.  Only two people besides me came to discuss The Wizard of Oz Sunday, though Debi brought an interesting-looking annotated edition  that I should read someday.  I was going to watch episode 138 of the subtitled Dragon Ball, but couldn't open the Anilinkz connection, so I watched the dubbed version, which isn't nearly as good! (I saw the subtitled version today.)

And the news is full of toadying to the memory of the first President Bush, one of the biggest weasels to occupy the Oval Office--and competition is strong!  My favorite GHWB quote came after an American cruiser shot down an Iranian airliner over the Persian Gulf in 1988. (Is it really a coincidence that terrorists blew up an American airliner over Scotland just six months later? But I digress.) The then-Vice President said: "I don't care what the facts are!" Think about that one a bit--Orwell lives.  

I also remember a 1989 editorial in the neoliberal British newspaper The Guardian contending that the President "seems to be more liberal than the policies he espouses." So he's just an enabler rather than a believer, see?  Scant consolation...

Oh well, the opera opens this Thursday.