New Meetups

Marie Windsor's last words: "This is a bad joke, with no punch line..."--The Killing

I'm now busy with Meetups most Saturdays.  First Saturday afternoon of the month is the French Culture Meetup:  this week we're going to discuss French art, so I'll talk about Gauguin, citing the Korean children's book I finished translating. Second Saturday is Reading Out Loud in English:  last month we started with Oscar Wilde's fairy tales and this month it'll be the poems of Robert Frost.  Third Saturday (in the evening this time) is a watch party for French-language movies:  last month Eric Rohmer's "tasty talk" comedy Claire's Knee, this month Jean Renoir's Rules of the Game.  Fourth Saturday is Reading Out Loud in French:  last month it was La Fontaine's fables, this month Molier's comedy L'Ecole des Femmes.  It's so long that we'll just do the first half, and leave the second half for next month. (If the month has a fifth Saturday, as happened last week, there'll be nothing then.)

I'm still reading that short biography of Jawaharlal Nehru for next week's History Meetup.  Next month the subject will be the Mexican-American War, so today I went to North York Centre library and borrowed Peter Guardino's The Dead March.

I finished the psychology issue of Lapham's Quarterly and I've almost finished the "Rule of Law" issue.

The other week John P. and I saw Denis Villeneuve's second Dune movie.  A solid follow-up, which has me looking forward to the next one.

This month they're showing Stanley Kubrick's movies at the Yonge & Dundas, even his early Grade Z efforts Fear and Desire and Killer's Kiss.  Last night I saw his heist movie The Killing again.  It's intelligent and exciting, with Stirling Hayden a well-cast hoodlum--indeed, most of the roles were pretty well cast. (Though Colleen Gray had to say the line "I'm not pretty," which she definitely was!) Next week I plan to see Full Metal Jacket again.

I had to quit the Rise of Cultures game, because I was stuck at a point where you had to win battles and I couldn't figure out how.  But I'm still playing Sunrise Village, where I made my persona a guy named Aloysius.  With Candy Crush Saga I got stuck on Level 2165 for about a week, but I finally cracked it!

French Culture Meetup

On Saturday we met online for the first Culture Meetup.  I talked about The Count of Monte Cristo, Maria talked about Flaubert's "The Legend of St. Julian the Hospitaller," and Sylvie talked about Maupassant's "Old Boniface's Crime." Next month we'll discuss French art. (I'll talk about Gauguin.) I'll also be doing a monthly watch party for French movies!

Last week some of the people in my memoir group met for lunch at Moulins Lafayette.  And none too soon, because the place was about to close! (I liked the quiche Lorraine and Chantilly eclair.) Maria and Sergey have now joined the group too.

I've finished the book about Prussia, and my next history book will be about Nehru. (They say the Toronto library website is finally back on line!)

Today I spent some time with Maria.  I'm reading the "States of Mind" issue of Lapham's Quarterly and she mentioned St. Augustine of Hippo, and that issue had a piece written by him!

I'm now reading La Fontaine's fables, which we'll be reading aloud in my other new Meetup in a few weeks.  I tried reading some of them in the original language, which is often old-fashioned French like you see old-fashioned English in a lot of our poetry. (At one point there was an imperfect subjunctive!)

I've also started a couple of new online games: Sunrise Village and Rise of Cultures. (The miller in Sunrise Village is called Jenny Mills, a clever pun on General Mills!)

I changed my mind

Last week my History Meetup discussing the Roman Empire's fall attracted a dozen people, and I changed my mind about quitting. (Props to Maria and Sergey for encouraging me!) Next month's topic will be the Kingdom of Prussia.  I'm now reading another good history book, Sebastian Haffner's The Rise and Fall of Prussia.

In fact, I'm going to try a couple of new Meetups.  One will be on French culture, and Maria will co-organize with me.  Next week for our first event we'll each discuss a French book we liked. (I'll do The Count of Monte Cristo.) I'm also going to make another try at people coming together online and reading a text aloud.  I'll be doing both English and French texts, and start with easy stuff like children's stories. (No idea if anyone will be interested in it, but it won't add to my organizing fees.) Maria's also interested in the French reading.

My birthday was a couple of weeks ago and last week the family got together for a joint birthday party for me and Donald.  Moira baked a vegan birthday cake, but it was a bit too big and we couldn't finish it.

I finally quit the online Elvenar game after playing it for about five years.  I went back to Candy Crush Saga, where I'm at around Level 2000.  I tried to open some other games on Facebook, but they also got stuck at the "0% loaded" level!

I've gone back to watching the anime Dragon Ball Super.  I've also been watching Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, a remarkably creepy British puppet show from the 1960s that I saw a bit of when I was young.

Yesterday I had lunch with Maria, Sergey, Debi and Sylvie at What a Bagel!  We discussed my Meetup ideas.

Burnout

I've quit as organizer of the History Meetup.  Nobody came to my last monthly event, discussing the Gilded Age.  I've been doing it for a decade and I guess I'm a burnout.  I'm showing two more movies in the Friday watch party--Isadora and My Life as a Dog--and doing one more monthly event, then I'm done.

My last monthly event will be about the fall of the Roman Empire, so I've been reading Peter Heather's book on the subject. (It's pretty good!)

I've now started catching up on my long backlog of Lapham's Quarterly issues. (I'm still reading the music issue.)

A few weeks ago I saw Michael Mann's Ferrari, which was pretty effective:  Adam Driver got to show some range.  The other day I saw Noryang:  Deadly Sea, about Korean admiral Yi Sunshin's final defeat of the Japanese in 1598.  It's a sequel to Hansan:  Rising Dragon which I saw a while ago, and now I really want to see The Admiral:  Roaring Currents, about his biggest victory.  I'm a sucker for these Asian naval movies...