Robinson Crusoe

Last Tuesday I spoke to my shrink and got the meds business straightened out, and now I'm taking them again.  One of the side effects of the gap was that I had more intense dreams:  in one I was in the movie Titanic, and it was a nightmare not because the ship was going to sink but because I was in the world of movie cliches! (The working class has better parties etc.)

Thursday my book club discussed Robinson Crusoe.  I know I'm not the best person for leading discussions--my forte is planning and organizing--and I wish someone else would take the lead.

Sunday the singing group had to meet at Carolyn's house.  We tried "Donald, Where's Your Troosers?" and the round "White Coral Bells."

I've been watching the first season of Mad Men, but it doesn't hold up that well.  The stories are a bit "hit and miss," like with The Sopranos.  But Alison Brie as Trudy Campbell is very pretty! (The show had a lot of pretty actresses.)

I'm typing this with that plush Julia doll in my lap.  So sue me!

LITTLE WOMEN

"The day will come when you wish you had done a little evil to do a greater good!"--Kingdom of Heaven

Publisher: "If the main character is a girl, make sure that she is married by the end.  Or dead.  Either way"--Little Women

Thursday I saw Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven (for the second time) at the History Meetup screening.  Despite being on a smaller screen, it definitely improves with second viewing--the extra hour in the director's cut was very valuable.  I recall it had some intelligence, but this time I noticed it was very intelligent and well-cast.  Eva Green was gorgeous, though I had to wonder how the Queen of a city as sunny as Jerusalem kept her skin so pale. (She should play an 18th-century lady, like Marisa Berenson in Barry Lyndon!)

Saturday one of my Meetups was going to eat at the Mandarin Restaurant near Finch & Dufferin.  I got there, but the event had been cancelled because of snowy weather.  Oh well, I ate there anyway and it was a fun adventure getting there and back. (First time I've gone as far north on the Spadina line as Finch West--someday I'll have to visit my old York University campus again!) The Mandarin salad bar is slipping: they no longer have shredded carrots and corn.

Sunday we had lunch with Puitak and Gordon at King Noodle for the Chinese New Year's.  My singing group did that song, "Something to sing about, this land of hours." (I remember how in Grade 5 we had the Canadian geography textbook titled This Land of Hours, then we used the same textbook in Grade 8!  Just like using the same French textbook in the fifth, sixth and seventh grades...)

Tonight we finally saw Greta Gerwig's Little Women at the Scotiabank. (I had to move it from the Varsity at the last minute because the screening time there had changed.) It takes a highly unconventional, non-linear narrative approach, and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who hasn't read Louisa May Alcott's book or at least seen an earlier adaptation, unless you like confusion. It was hard for me to get into, but about an hour into it something clicked, and I was watching a wonderful movie!  It even brought me to tears at times.  

It was a handsome production, but believably so, not like some movies where the beauty of the sets and costumes distracts from the story.  There were a lot of superb moments, like when Marmee is preparing a package for a soldier fighting in the Civil War and impulsively adds her own scarf! (Some people are more good than wise...) In that mother role, Laura Dern reminded me why she's one of my favorite actresses!  I also liked Chris Cooper's cameo as the rich neighbour.

Half a dozen people came to the event. We talked about the movie afterward at a bubble tea restaurant where I ordered a pretty good kumquat lemonade with coconut pudding topping.  There were trailers for a live-action Mulan and a new version of Jane Austen's Emma, and we may go to see both of them!

Short stories Meetup

"I look at this life and see the arrogance and the idleness of the strong, the ignorance and bestiality of the weak, the horrible poverty everywhere, overcrowding, drunkenness, hypocrisy, falsehood. . . .  Meanwhile in all the houses, all the streets, there is peace; out of fifty thousand people who live in our town there is not one to kick against it all. Think of the people who go to the market for food: during the day they eat; at night they sleep, talk nonsense, marry, grow old, piously follow their dead to the cemetery; one never sees or hears those who suffer, and all the horror of life goes on somewhere behind the scenes. Everything is quiet, peaceful, and against it all there is only the silent protest of statistics; so many go mad, so many gallons are drunk, so many children die of starvation. . . .  And such a state of things is obviously what we want; apparently a happy man only feels so because the unhappy bear their burden in silence, but for which happiness would be impossible. It is a general hypnosis. Every happy man should have some one with a little hammer at his door to knock and remind him that there are unhappy people, and that, however happy he may be, life will sooner or later show its claws, and some misfortune will befall him ­­ illness, poverty, loss, and then no one will see or hear him, just as he now neither sees nor hears others. But there is no man with a hammer, and the happy go on living, just a little fluttered with the petty cares of every day, like an aspen ­tree in the wind ­­ and everything is all right"--Chekhov, "Gooseberries"

I've had to go without my anti-depressants for a week or two until I meet my shrink next week and we settle the paperwork.  Oddly, in the short term I'm feeling a bit happier! (The same thing happened the last time I had a significant interruption.) And I've been thinking of lots of things to write about here...

Last Friday I finished Robinson Crusoe and borrowed David K. Wyatt's Thailand:  A Short History from the Northern District library, which I'm reading for the History Meetup. Thailand's history is very complex:  the nation-state emerged gradually over centuries!  The 19th century is the period that interests me most, when it was stuck between the Chinese, British, French, Dutch and Spanish empires. (This was before the Americans seized the Philippines and replaced the Spanish in the region.) The Thais have a long history of surviving difficult neighbours--imagine having the Khmer Rouge on your border!

Last night was the first event of the Short Stories Meetup I just joined.  We met upstairs at Panera's Bakery and discussed three Chekhov stories: "In Exile," "The Black Monk" and "Rothschild's Fiddle." (I also said a bit about the same author's "Gooseberries.") We'll be doing more Chekhov next month, but I have about a million ideas about what we can do in the future...

Chekhov's big concern, it seems to me, is the human soul. ("In Exile" reminded me of my difficult school years...) One difficult thing about my meds gap is that it sometimes causes me to read slowly.  "In Exile" and "The Black Monk" I read online because I couldn't find them in the library, and both stories took me hours.  Part of the problem was from reading them online:  it's easier to focus on my reading when I have the words on paper.  I was afraid I wouldn't finish in time, but I managed to read "Rothschild's Fiddle" on the last day.  In that case, I found it in a collection of Moira's with an introduction by Civil War historian Shelby Foote, of all people.

Also yesterday, I visited my friend Bev for the first time in ages.  I brought Julia along, and she was a hit!

I lost the sheet on which I had the dues-paying History Meetup members write their name, so I guess I'll have to have an honour system instead.

Last night, I got home from the Meetup, went to bed at 9:30 or so, and slept around the clock.  I often go to sleep at 7:00 or so, but I usually wake up after a few hours and it's a long time before I get back to sleep. (No doubt going without the meds had something to do with it.) I hope I can continue this way--being awake past midnight is a sin!

History Meetup

"This frequently gave me occasion to observe, and that with wonder, that however it had pleas'd God, in his Providence, and in the government of the works of his hands, to take from so great a part of the world of his creatures, the best uses to which their faculties, and the powers of their souls are adapted; yet that he has bestow'd upon them the same powers, the same reason, the same affections, the same sentiments of kindness and obligation, the same passions and resentments of wrongs; the same sense of gratitude, sincerity, fidelity, and all the capacities of doing good, and receiving good, that he has given to us; and that when he pleases to offer to them occasions of exerting these, they are as ready, nay, more ready to apply them to the right uses for which they were bestow'd, than we are"--Robinson Crusoe

"Are there any left?" "Too many!"--The Rise of Skywalker

Yesterday, at the Yorkdale, I saw the ninth Star Wars movie, The Rise of Skywalker. (It was an afternoon screening, and hardly anyone was there.) Like the previous ones, it was competent but not really necessary.

Today I went to see my psychiatrist, but I'd forgotten that my appointment was the day before! (I'm so used to going on Thursdays that it didn't register with me that this one was on Wednesday...) I had some paperwork, but it'll have to wait a couple of weeks till my new appointment.

Also today, a doctor came to see Father so we had to make everything clean. (My eyes just aren't as sharp about noticing dust as the others in the family!)

Tonight was the first History Meetup of the new year, which I'm now doing on Thursdays. (The subject was the Crusades.) There were a dozen people paying the $5 annual dues, so I'm flush with cash just now.  I brought my Julia doll to serve as the talking stone, and she seemed popular.

I'm almost finished Robinson Crusoe.

New year

"A little after noon I found the sea very calm, and the tyde ebb'd so far out, that I could come within a quarter of a mile of the ship; and here I found a fresh renewing of my grief, for I saw evidently, that if we had kept on board, we had been all safe, that is to say, we had all got safe on shore, and I had not been so miserable as to be left entirely destitute of all comfort and company, as I now was; this forced tears from my eyes again, but as there was little relief in that, I resolv'd, if possible, to get to the ship, so I pull'd off my clothes, for the weather was hot to extremity, and took the water, but when I came to the ship, my difficulty was still greater to know how to get on board, for as she lay a ground, and high out of the water, there was nothing within my reach to lay hold of, I swam round her twice, and the second time I spy'd a small piece of a rope, which I wonder'd I did not see at first, hang down by the fore-chains so low, as that with great difficulty I got hold of it, and by the help of that rope, got up into the fore-castle of the ship, here I found that the ship was bulg'd, and had a great deal of water in her hold, but that she lay so on the side of a bank of hard sand, or rather earth, that her stern lay lifted up upon the bank, and her head low almost to the water; by this means all her quarter was free, and all that was in that part was dry; for you may be sure my first work was to search and to see what was spoil'd and what was free; and first I found that all the ship's provisions were dry and untouch'd by the water, and being very well dispos'd to eat, I went to the bread-room and fill'd my pockets with bisket, and eat it as I went about other things, for I had no time to lose; I also found some rum in the great cabin, of which I took a large dram, and which I had indeed need enough of to spirit me for what was before me: Now I wanted nothing but a boat to furnish my self with many things which I foresaw would be very necessary to me"--Robinson Crusoe (notice the continuity error?)

John got another dumpster and we've been filling it with wood, drywall and cement from the house renovation, as well as some junk we've had lying around for ages.  It's almost full!

Thursday night I was going to see Little Women with the History Meetup, but when I got there--45 minutes before the start time--it was already sold out! (It must be a big hit.) I met Aru and suggested we see Cats or A Hidden Life instead, but she'd seen both of them already!  So we went to Tim Hortons and gabbed for a while. (If we'd waited a few minutes more, a third person could have joined us...)

My father gave me $500 for Christmas.  Friday I went to Indigo Books at Eaton Centre and bought a stuffed toy:  Julia the autistic Muppet! (She'll make a good talking stone for my History Meetup.) Yesterday I went to The Beguiling and bought some comics.  I got Nonnonba, Shigeru Mizuki's graphic memoir of how yokai spirit legends influenced his childhood and the rest of his life; a book about the works of manga and anime master Hayao Miyazaki; and some Classics Illustrated comics.

I finished moving to the lists all the Tweeters with over 20,000 followers who haven't followed me back. (My lists now have about 1500 Tweeters between them!) Now I'm removing from my follow list those with the lowest re-following rates.  I'm now following less than 4600, while almost 3000 are following me.

I've started translating that new children's book about Jang Yongshil. (I'm tempted to buy the old book online!) And we've started watching Mad Men again on Netflix.  Sterling & Cooper reminds me of Never-Neverland...