Poke!

Got my vaccination Monday. (Being over 55 can have its advantages!) There was hardly any waiting and I didn't even have to fill a form; they just asked me questions.  But I did feel woozy the next day so I couldn't contribute much to our yard work.  The next project is my taxes.

I got my replacement glasses the other week, so now I'm watching One Piece with subtitles again.  But after the superb Water Seven-Enies Lobby story, the gothic Thriller Bark story is a bit of a letdown. (Lots of scenes of them screaming and running away from zombies...)

Last week my History Meetup discussed Tibet.  I'm now reading a book about Brazil's history for next month's event.  Tonight my watch party showed William Dieterle's The Life of Emile Zola about the Dreyfus scandal. (It got better as it went along.)

I'm also reading Huckleberry Finn for the fifth or sixth time for my book club.  I still notice new things in it.  Where a conventional author would write "She gave her a terrible scolding," Mark Twain writes (through Huck's voice) "She gave her hark from the tomb"!

Last night I had an unusually clear dream where I went to a role-playing group hosted by my shrink meeting in a room in a big library, and that the library burnt to the ground because of a suicide bomber, but we managed to escape.

I've been watching a series of videos on YouTube's Primitive Survival Life channel with this Malay woman building huts and wells and things in the jungle out of bamboo and mud, apparently by herself.  It's mostly accompanied by soothing new age piano music.

Home improvement

This week we did more home improvement.  Our house is a century old and the basement is relatively shallow, so John dug up buckets of dirt which Moira and I carried out to a new tip out back. We filled it in three days, Thursday being our busiest day of all.  We got pretty sore!

I'm finally getting my glasses replaced on Monday.  There was some confusion because I thought that the order had been placed and was taking a long time, when it actually hadn't been placed at all!

Thursday was unusually warm, a suitable day for so much work.  I turned the furnace off, but when it got cooler the next day I forgot to turn it back on!

We were so busy with the work that I was a few days late getting my Cipralex anti-depressant prescription refilled. (At least I didn't have to wait a couple more days for them to confirm the refill with my shrink!) One side effect of this interruption is that my dreams get more vivid.  The other night I dreamed I was travelling in the "rumble seat" of an early car.  

Just last night I dreamed of being younger, in a slump and needing a creative spur to get writing again.  Then I dreamed of a non-existent episode of Six Feet Under with the family going to the gala opening of an upscale Los Angeles shopping mall.  I also dreamed of being in an empty apartment on the top story of a building with floor-to-ceiling windows instead of walls...

Vernal equinox

"A moment ago his wrath and despair had been so fierce that he could have desired nothing so much as to wither her by a glance; but with her actual presence there came influences which had too real an existence to be at once shaken off:  recollections of the delicate and benign power of her feminine nature, which had so often enveloped him in a religious calm; recollections of many a holy and passionate outgust of her heart, when the pure fountain had been unsealed from its depths and made visible in its transparency to his mental eye; recollections which, had Giovanni known how to estimate them, would have assured him that all this ugly mystery was but an earthly illusion, and that, whatever mist of evil might seem to have gathered over her, the real Beatrice was a heavenly angel"--"Rappaccini's Daughter"

"Bennett looked at him with the triple-ringed uninterest of the creed that lumps nine-tenths of the world under the title of 'heathen'"--Kim

Today was the first day of spring, when the sun rises due east and sets due west everywhere in the world. (The same thing happens with the autumnal equinox.) The weather's getting warmer and I've started opening my windows.

Yeah, it's been a while since my last post on this blog.  I've had my hands a bit full lately.  I was reading a book about the Protestant Reformation for my History Meetup, and it was a bit long.  Now I've started reading Patrick French's Tibet, Tibet for next month's event. (I'm already fascinated!) I also had to finish the Kipling novel Kim for my book club.  Now I've started reading Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn yet again for our next event.

In the Short Story Meetup we've finished doing Guy de Maupassant's stories, at least for now.  The other week I met Maria for the first time in months, and read his story "The Necklace" aloud to her.  She guessed the twist ending! (I think I did when I first read it.)

Now we're reading Nathaniel Hawthorne's stories.  One of the ones we discussed last week was "Rappaccini's Daughter," which I think was an intentional parody of that florid, obsessively descriptive romantic writing style of the time. (I can well believe that Vincent Price played Rappaccini in the movie Twice Told Tales!) One of the stories for next time is "The Great Stone Face," which I recall reading in school. (There was a rich guy who was called Gathergold but should have been called Scattercopper...)

Last week we were doing more home improvement.  Moira and I toted out more buckets of dirt and concrete that John had dug up in the basement, and our new back yard pile will soon be big enough for another dumpster!  We were also pouring concrete to fix a leak in the foundation, and our huge stash of sand and gravel is almost finished.

I've subscribed to the Shonen Jump archive through viz.com .  Now I'm reading the manga versions of Dragon Ball and One Piece right from the beginning! Moira and I are now watching The Wire on Crave TV (great show) in alternation with the Water Seven story in One Piece, me for the second time.  But for a while last week we were watching One Piece alone because the story's so exciting at this point!

Fanfic

"Far away, in a watery vista between the jagged edges of pale bluish houses, which have tottered up from their knees to climb the slope (a cypress indicating the way), the blurred Mount St. George is more than ever remote from its likeness on the picture postcards which since 1910, say (those straw hats, those youthful cabmen), have been courting the tourist from the sorry-go-round of their prop, among amethyst-toothed lumps of rock and the mantelpiece dreams of seashells"--Vladimir Nabokov, "Spring in Fialta"

Time passes.  Sometimes I feel lazy, but other times I feel bored, and one thing I've done about it is to dream up a fanfic. Remember the ending of Hound of the Baskervilles, where Stapleton the killer's footprints led into the bog and disappeared, leading Sherlock Holmes to conclude that he'd drowned?  But  what if Holmes was wrong... 

I started imagining a fanfic sequel in which Stapleton somehow faked his own death.  Later on, when Henry, the heir he tried to kill, married Beryl, the wife he abused, he watched from a safe distance disguised as a hobo. (Or was he a real one?) Years later during the Great War, Beryl was nursing in a military hospital and found her ex on his deathbed... 

At the Short Story Meetup we discussed three stories involving love.  They were Vladimir Nabokov's "Spring in Fialta," Junot Diaz' "The Cheater's Guide to Love" and Kelly Link's "The Great Divorce." (The last one was oddly whimsical, about a living man who'd married a ghost woman and wanted to divorce her.) Nabokov knew how to write colourful long sentences, surely a dying art today.

I've finished watching Dragon Ball GT (which is better if you're a kid who's never watched the first two series) and the Dragon Ball movies.  I'm going to resume One Piece once I get my new glasses and can read subtitles easier, but they still haven't arrived.

I've started reading a history of Reformation Europe for next month's History Meetup.

#59

Opening paragraph: "He sat, in defiance of municipal orders, astride the gun Zam-Zammah on her brick platform opposite the old Ajaib-Gher--the Wonder House, as the natives call the Lahore Museum.  Who hold Zam-Zammah, that 'fire-breathing dragon,' hold the Punjab, for the great green-bronze piece is always first of the conqueror's loot"--Kim

Colonel to General: "I apologize, Sir, for not telling you sooner that you're a degenerate, sadistic old man.  And you can go to hell before I apologize to you now or ever again!"--Paths of Glory

Today's my 59th birthday. (I was born during the big Aquarian stellium of 1962 that had some astrologers predicting the end of the world, and they say there's a smaller Aquarian stellium this month...) You know you're getting older when you buy a cheaper cake!

I finished The Handmaid's Tale in time for Thursday's book club. (I would have downstreamed the 1990 movie, but it was only priced to buy, not to rent.) Too bad only a couple of other people came.  I've started reading our next book, Rudyard Kipling's Northwest Frontier novel Kim.  I have a paper copy of it (from a Kipling collection), so I won't be reading it on the computer!

We laid some more concrete in the basement, but I'm no longer the slacker.  John bought a small spade that made scooping the gravel into buckets a lot easier, and we did a lot of scooping before the regular mixing so I had more time to do it.

We discussed some more Maupassants at the Short Story Meetup.  Unfortunately, he wrote two stories with the title "The Confession," and I read the wrong one! (I managed to read all the others, too.)

I've almost finished the book about the Hellenistic Era. (Next is a book about the Reformation!) Tonight the watch party showed Stanley Kubrick's powerfully bleak Western Front courtroom drama Paths of Glory, and there were about ten people!

Yesterday a Facebook group focused on the '70s started a fun thread where people post a single line from a song from that decade and the challenge is to guess the song.  That's right up my alley:  I posted a whole lot of lines, way more than people could guess. Stuff like "Back in the USA, back in the bad old days" (Paperlace, "The Night Chicago Died"), "We can still come through" (David Soul, "Don't Give up on Us"), "I'm gonna tell you once more before I get off the floor (ELO, "Don't Bring Me Down), "The marching band came down along Main Street" (Bo Donaldson & the Heywoods, "Billy, Don't Be a Hero"), "Like a rose under the April snow" (Barbra Streisand, "Evergreen")...

Yeah, I need a life!

UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS

On fashion magazines: "What was in them was promise.  They dealt in transformations; they suggested an endless series of possibilities, extending like the reflections in two mirrors set facing one another, stretching on, replica after replica, to the vanishing point.  They suggested one adventure after another, one wardrobe after another, one improvement after another, one man after another.  They suggested rejuvenation, pain overcome and transcended, endless love.  The real promise in them was immortality"--The Handmaid's Tale

I've subscribed to Britbox channel, for Moira as much as myself.  I've been watching reruns of Upstairs, Downstairs, the series about masters and servants in a London household that made Masterpiece Theatre almost 50 years ago.  Still love it. (I've heard that servants in those households actually didn't see much of each other, but who cares?)

My favourite character is the butler Angus Hudson (Gordon Jackson). He was always strict with the servants below him and deferential to the masters above him, but he wasn't a toady.  He really believed in the system he was part of, which is a bit sad.  He was one of those Scottish people who become more English than the regular English, like Colin Firth and the Queen Mother.

I've been watching the fourth season, the one set in the Great War when things got turned upside down.  Last night I saw the episode where Georgina volunteered for nursing and got in over her head for the first time in her life!  Also, James was moved back from the trenches to the staff after his criticism of the government's handling of the war got into the newspapers, but he wanted to be back in the front lines.  Hazel didn't want him in danger, but she ended up speaking to his colonel and getting him sent back.

There are a lot of good stories in this season, like when Hazel had an affair with a pilot who soon got killed, and she consoled Rose over the death of the latter's sweetheart as a way of dealing with her own bereavement.  Or Edward the happy-go-lucky footman joining up and suffering shell shock, and they were going to send him back anyway so he tried to desert but Hudson made him return!  I like details like Hazel receiving a telegram from James saying he'd soon return and thinking it was a cable reporting his death, or the flowers in James' convalescent room having a smell that reminded him of mustard gas.

Finally started my reading aloud of A Little Princess.  So far it's only Jacqueline and me, but great oaks from little acorns grow.

The lockdown's getting to me

"Is fashion such a serious consideration?"

"Among those who have nothing more serious to consider."

--The Age of Innocence

I told myself that I was adusting pretty well to the COVID 19-related isolation.  But lately it's been getting harder.  I've been spending a lot of time on Twitter quarrelling about British politics...

Last week I lost my glasses (that's how careless I've been getting), and I don't know how long the replacement will take.  Oh well, I don't need them so much since I'm watching the computer instead of going to the movies.

We were laying concrete in the new cellar, like last summer, and once again I couldn't quite keep up with the others and in the end they had to take up my slack because the flow couldn't be stopped.  I hope we don't have to do it again!

My Cipralex ran out, but the drugstore had to confirm refilling with my shrink, meaning a gap of several days. (My dreams have been getting more vivid again.)

Last week my History Meetup discussed New York City and the watch party showed Martin Scorcese's The Age of Innocence. (We'd shown Sergei Eisenstein's Alexander Nevsky the previous month.) I'd forgotten that was Richard E. Grant as the gossip!  Next month's subject will be Hellenistic civilization.

I've been getting behind with The Handmaid's Tale. (It isn't a barrel of laughs.) I've also been reading Scott O'Dell's children's book Island of the Blue Dolphins, because it's actually a paper book I can take on the bus, instead of an Ebook.  

The Short Story Meetup just discussed four more de Maupassant Stories: "The Necklace," "Maison Tellier," "Clare de Lune" and "Miss Harriet." (I didn't have much to say about the last one because I hadn't had time to read it!) I remember reading "The Necklace" for the first time three decades ago about the time the Berlin Wall fell, and I saw a parallel.  I'd elaborate, but that would mean spoiling the story's classic twist for those of you who haven't read it.  If you have, maybe you can guess the connection...

Dragon Ball GT took a weird turn around Episode 25.  Goku, Trunks and Pan were off on foreign planets collecting dragon balls and encountered Baby, this alien monster who can infiltrate people' bodies and take over their minds like in Invasion of the Body Snatchers.  So now Baby's gone to earth and brainwashed the whole human race!  Goku just ended up in this realm where he's in a life-sized board game. (I think Japanese TV has game shows like that...)

Yesterday's launch of Jeremy Corbyn's Peace & Justice Project gives me hope, but I couldn't help thinking of an incident in the Civil War.  General Sheridan rode forth to rally his retreating troops, who were so pleased to see him that they started shouting "Sheridan!  Sheridan!  Sheridan!..." He said, "God damn you, don't cheer me, fight!" Don't cheer Corbyn, fight Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer and everything they stand for!

So/Farewell then/2020

"A chair, a table, a lamp.  Above, on the white ceiling, a relief ornament in the shape of a wreath, and in the centre of it a blank space, plastered over, like the place in a face where the eye has been taken out.  There must have been a chandelier, once.  They've removed anything you could tie a rope to."--The Handmaid's Tale

"Who ever heard of a church without walls?"--Hawaii

Christmas and New Year's are past.  On New Year's Eve I watched Cat Ballou again--I first saw it on another New Year's Eve when I was eight or so.  Except for Lee Marvin's brilliant turn as the decrepit gunfighter, really, it's pretty lame. (Lots of "naughty" humor of the sort that would look mild in the near future...)

My watch party showed Scrooge on Christmas and Hawaii on New Year's Day.  Or I would have shown them, anyway, but I'd rented them on Apple TV and for some reason I couldn't share the screen, just the sound!  I had to watch those movies by myself.  Couldn't sit through Scrooge--I'd heard Leslie Bricusse's songs were tuneless, and they were. (The Muppets version actually had better songs!) 

Hawaii, from the James Michener novel (which I saw for the second time), was a long sit but food for thought.  It's about the first missionaries who came to Hawaii in the 1820s, many of whom ended up rich colonists as the indigenous population was decimated by diseases like measles.  The Max Von Sydow character was a non-compromiser--my mother told me her father was something like that.

How do I feel about missionaries?  Well, the missionary movement overall has a mixed record:  in some places it bears responsibility for colonial abuses and cultural genocide such as in Canada's residential schools for First Nations children.  Yet to this day a lot of them have done considerable good.  The missionaries in western China, whom I learned about researching my Ph.D. thesis, come off pretty well.

I've started reading The Handmaid's Tale for my book club. (Several chapters have the title "Night.") In the first chapters Margaret Atwood depicts her fundamentalist dystopia with a dry, almost clinical tone.  Should be interesting!

I'm such a Dragon Ball completist that I've started watching Dragon Ball GT!  I heard it wasn't very good, and it isn't.  A grownup Trunks, a Son Goku who's physically been made a child again, and an annoying girl called Pan are in a spaceship seeking Dragon Balls around the universe.  I miss the wide range of amusing characters like Bulma and Krillin and Piccolo.

Under the weather

Mr. Blind-Man: "I see clearly that this man is a heretic"--The Pilgrim's Progress

I was sick Saturday and worried that I'd got the COVID bug.  But now it looks like a false alarm.  I did get slowed down with my reading and writing this blog and such.  Once again, I've been eating huge pomelo grapefruit.

The week before last we rented a bin to get rid of the mud in our back yard. Lucky we shifted it to make room for the tip when we did, because soon after there was a cold snap and it froze so stiff that John had to loosen it with a jackhammer so we could move it!  But that turned out to be an advantage, because this way we could pick up big pieces and tote them at a faster rate than shovelling.  We filled the whole bin in one day, and a second one the day after.  Once again our timing was fortunate, as it snowed the day after.

So what have I been watching on Youtube lately?  The Lennon Sisters from The Lawrence Welk Show!  It started when someone in my music group was singing "You Belong to Me." (We were doing an online karaoke, in which I sang "Limbo Rock"). That's the song that Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters are singing in that guilty-pleasure movie The Jerk.  So I listened to it on Youtube, then the software brought up the Lennon Sisters version, and after I heard that it produced more of their songs.  I particularly liked their version of "Till the End of Time," Perry Como's first hit with a melody from Chopin's Heroic Polonaise.

I finished watching Dragon Ball Z.  I also finished the One Piece Ennies Lobby story:  some compelling episodes with the crew saying goodbye to their ship the Going Merry, and Ussop rejoining them.  Now I'm going to look at the movies and specials based on both shows.

My book club discussed The Pilgrim's Progress the other day, and our next book will be The Handmaid's Tale.  Last night I saw Peter Weir's The Year of Living Dangerously, for the third time, with the Watch Party in connection with Indonesia being the History Discussion Group's subject. (The week before we showed Peter O'Toole in Lord Jim.) It's food for thought that improves with repeated viewing, and Linda Hunt's gender-bending performance was ahead of its time, though she did win an Oscar.

I'm pleased that Jeremy Corbyn's started a "Peace and Justice Movement." (They should bring it to America!) Just the other day I read a Tweeter who said "I hope this is the last Tweet I write about Corbyn....  Why doesn't he just f**** off?" Methinks thou dost protest too much.  That Tweeter has since blocked me, like I care.  These days the Corbyn-haters are looking like sore winners!

Another movie cliche I hate

Our work in the back yard is almost finished.  Last weekend we laid the pipe from the downspout and filled the space around it with rocks and put a layer of styrofoam insulation on top.  A few days ago we were mixing concrete in the basement!  And yesterday John and I combined forces to lift our biggest rocks and wheelbarrow them to the far end of the pipe zone.  We'd made another big mountain of basement dirt in the back yard and also had to move some of it to make room for the tip that'll carry it away.  And talk about muddy--it was like the Grey Cup championship game of 1950!

I just finished the book on Indonesia, and I've got to the part of The Pilgrim's Progress where they're going through Vanity Fair.  I'm also reading a book about Hayao Miyazaki and his anime creations.  I'm going to start A Little Princess in the Saturday afternoon reading-aloud Meetup event, but decided to delay it till the new year.

Last night my historical movie watch party showed the British musical Half a Sixpence, which I had to see because I liked the stage show's revival.  It was handsome but rather pedestrian. (Besides Tommy Steele in the lead, the cast included Cyril Ritchard, who was Captain Hook to Mary Martin's Peter Pan.) I just saw the thrilling climax of the One Piece Enies Lobby story, and now I'm watching the last episodes of Dragon Ball Z.

What's another movie cliche I hate? Plots that require characters to be passive at key moments!  Like in Dirty Dancing (which I liked overall despite its cheesiness). This dance teacher in a fussy Borscht Belt resort gets knocked up by a fellow staffer and has to get an abortion quick before management finds out and sacks her, but the responsible guy won't help her out because he believes in Ayn Rand.  All she has to do is say, "If they find out, I'll naturally tell them of your part and you'll get fired too!" then he'll have to do something about it.  But the plot requires Jennifer Grey to save her...

Another example is the 2002 Spider-Man movie.  In this version Peter Parker needs money for some reason I don't remember, so he enters some event where you win $200 if you can last two minutes in the ring with the Champ.  He KOs the Champ, but when he comes to get his prize the manager, who's made a fortune from the show, stiffs him on the grounds that he didn't stay in the ring for the whole two minutes!  Well, all Peter has to do is say, "I want that $200, and if you keep resisting imagine what someone who just KOed your champ can do to you..." But he doesn't, because his getting stiffed is absolutely crucial to the plot (which also requires the manager to be an extreme jerk, of course).

Life goes on

On Beth in her last days: "The feeble fingers were never idle, and one of her pleasures was to make little things for the schoolchildren daily passing to and fro--to drop a pair of mittens from her window for a pair of purple hands, a needlebook for some small mother of many dolls, penwipers for young penmen toiling through forests of pothooks, scrapbooks for picture-loving eyes, and all manner of pleasant devices, till the reluctant climbers up the ladder of learning found their way strewn with flowers, as it were, and came to regard the gentle giver as a sort of fairy godmother, who sat above there, and showered down gifts miraculously suited to their tastes and needs"--Little Women

The other day I got my hair cut again.  I told Margo, my Hungarian barber that Father had passed on, and she said she'd really liked him. "I'll light a candle for him." I hope he can hear her.

John fell and hurt his leg a few weeks ago so he hasn't been coming around as much.  I was in an accident of my own--the wheelbarrow tipped over and one of the handles caught me in the chest--and I think maybe I broke a rib.  He was here on Wednesday and we had something to talk about: I've started watching the Ennies Lobby storyline of One Piece, which he also loves.

I'm now up to Level 8 in the Royal Conservatory's music theory series!  Just the other day I learned about the alto and tenor clefs.

I finished Little Women and the Russian Revolution history, and now I'm reading John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress (for the second time) and an entertaining history of Indonesia.

The History Meetup on the Russian Revolution was a zoo, despite the much-appreciated assistance of Maria and Sergey.  But the second book club discussion of Little Women was successful.  I'm pleased that Farshad has restarted his Short Story Meetup:  on Monday we discussed some famous Gogol stories. (A fortnight ago our subject was Tolstoy's "The Forged Coupon," a revelation for me.)

I'm really appalled about Keir Starmer's witch-hunt attempts to purge Jeremy Corbyn from Britain's Labour Party! First he got him suspended for making comments on that EHRC report which the report itself says he's allowed to say.  Then, when the National Executive Committee reinstated Corbyn anyway, Starmer improperly denied him the caucus whip.  All this is arbitrary and heavy-handed, and may backfire badly. (I recall someone saying last spring when Starmer got elected leader that in one year he'd end up getting removed...)

I've bought enough Ebooks from Kobo to qualify for a free one, so I got a graphic-novel treatment of Mata Hari.

Short Story Meetup

"Mr. Tudor's uncle had married an English lady who was third cousin to a living lord, and Amy regarded the whole family with great respect, for in spite of her American birth and breeding, she possessed that reverence for titles which haunts the best of us--that unacknowledged loyalty to the early faith in kings which set the most democratic nation under the sun in a ferment at the coming of a royal yellow-haired laddie, some years ago, and which still has something to do with the love the young country bears the old, like that of a big son for an imperious little mother, who held him while she could, and let him go with a farewell scolding when he rebelled"--Little Women

Last Thursday I braved the rain and the virus and went out to Remenyi's music store.  I bought Book 5 (and 6 and 7) of the Celebrate Theory series so Carolyn wouldn't have to do it for me.  I had to get out of the house for a little while, to be honest.

Saturday afternoon I started a Classic Book Club Meetup event for reading Jane Austen's Persuasion.  We're going to read four chapters every Saturday for six weeks.

Monday night Farshad resumed his Short Story Meetup online.  Remember last March when I read Tolstoy's "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" in a single day for his Meetup that night but it was cancelled because of the virus? (Of course you don't, unless you're a rare regular reader!) Yesterday I again read it in a single day beforehand, though that's a bit less of a challenge the second time.  I couldn't help being reminded of my father's death last month.

A couple of weeks ago I went to a Buy & Sell place north of St. Clair Avenue run by an Iranian-Canadian Father was friendly with, told him of Father's death and mentioned that he talked about the Iranian a lot.  I was there because my neighbour Emma tipped me off that he had a huge Dictionary of Canadian Music for sale.  I paid $20 for it--I might have haggled the price down but it felt like a shame to pay less for such a handsome volume!

Moira and I usually watch an episode of One Piece around 6:00, but I cancelled that night to make sure I'd have time to finish the novella.  We're getting really close to the end of the exciting Alabasta story, which will also be the end of the episodes on Netflix.  To see more, we'll have to go elsewhere online.

I'm also watching subtitled episodes further on, and just got into the Water 7 story, which is already getting good. (In one scene an enemy gang attacks the crew with The Everything Cannon!)

Today I washed the windows.

Last post

This'll be the last post on this blog for a while.

Fall cleaning

"Then it was that Jo, living in the darkened room, with that suffering little sister always before her eyes and that pathetic voice sounding in her ears, learned to see the beauty and the sweetness of Beth's nature, to feel how deep and tender a place she filled in all hearts, and to acknowledge the worth of Beth's unselfish ambition to live for others, and make home happy by the exercise of those simple virtues which all may possess, and which all should love and value more than talent, wealth, or beauty"--Little Women

Chichi (on her son Gohan): "Even if he saves the earth, he won't get into a good school!"--Dragon Ball Z

This weekend we've been setting the house in order.  We dismantled Father's old bed, moved it upstairs and reassembled it.  Now our dining table and old buffet are back in their old room.  I've been uprooting the grass just next to the house in case mice nest there. And John finally managed to split apart this huge rock in his basement digging and we moved the pieces outdoors together.

Unfortunately, I got so caught up in the home improvement that I completely forgot that I'd scheduled Fire Over England for my watch party screening that night! (My name is mud.) I'll just have to reschedule it for November.

Saturday morning my new History Meetup group was discussing China in the early 20th century, a discussion of great interest to me.  But right when it finished was the start of the Meetup where we're reading What Maisie Knew aloud, so I didn't have time for lunch!

I've been watching the Cell Games story of Dragon Ball Z online.  I think my new favourite character is Goku's wife Chichi, who's taken over the diva role from Bulma in the first series. (You have to feel sorry for her--she just wanted a normal family...)

The weather got warm again, so I've been able to open my windows some more!

More home improvement

"There are many Beths in the world, shy and quiet, sitting in corners till needed, and living for others so cheerfully that no one sees the sacrifices till the little cricket on the hearth stops chirping, and the sweet, sunshiny presence vanishes, leaving silence and shadow behind"--Little Women

Friday I saw the Declaration of Independence musical 1776 (for maybe the third time) in the History Meetup watch party.  Back in 1972 a movie with the Founding Fathers singing didn't "play in Peoria," but it's pretty intelligent overall.

I'm glad John's home improvement project still brings him to our house.  Now he's been doing more basement work to prepare for a new sump pump.  On the weekend we were toting more earth up to the back yard.  Today we were mixing concrete again, but we didn't do enough to get bored with it.

This evening Sergey and Maria had me over for dinner, which they say they've never done before with any friends! Afterward we got dessert at an East Asian shop called HK Sweets.  Then we played that card game like Scrabble whose name I can never remember (Quidditch or something) across the street in front of the building that was originally Montgomery's Tavern. Unfortunately, it got too cool for me. (Should have worn a sweater!)

Got my new credit card today.  I've started writing down my everyday expenditures as an experiment, but there isn't much to worry about:  my bank account has gone from some $3000 to some $5000 in recent months, what with not going out much to buy stuff.

I really like the book version of Little Women.  The chapter where Jo wouldn't forgive Amy for burning her book of stories Jo had written hit home with me, as I have a tendency to hold grudges.  Jo and her mother had a wonderful "heart to heart" conversation where the latter confessed that she'd once had her own anger problems.

THE SEARCHERS

"Down they went, feeling a trifle timid, for they seldom went down to parties, and, informal as this little gathering was, it was an event to them.  Mrs. Gardiner, a stately old lady, greeted them kindly and handed them over to the eldest of her six daughters.  Meg knew Sallie and was at her ease very soon, but Jo, who didn't care much for girls or girlish gossip, stood about, with her back carefully against the wall, and felt as much out of place as a colt in a flower garden.  Half a dozen jovial lads were talking about skates in another part of the room, and she longed to go and join them, for skating was one of the joys of her life.  She telegraphed her wish to Meg, but the eyebrows went up so alarmingly that she dared not stir.  No one came to talk to her, and one by one the group near her dwindled away till she was left alone.  She could not roam about and amuse herself, for the burned breadth [on her dress] would show, so she stared at people rather forlornly till the dancing began.  Meg was asked at once, and the tight slippers tripped about so briskly that none would have guessed the pain their wearer suffered smilingly.  Jo saw a big redheaded youth approaching her corner, and fearing he meant to engage her, she slipped into a curtained recess, intending to peep and enjoy herself in peace. Unfortunately, another bashful person had chosen the same refuge, for, as the curtain fell behind her, she found herself face to face with the 'Laurence boy'"--Little Women

Ward Bond: "I say we do it my way!  That's an order!"

John Wayne: "Yes, sir.  But if you're wrong don't ever give me another!"--The Searchers

A lot happening for a single paragraph in that first quote, isn't there?

A few days ago I went to Shoppers Drug Mart to refill my Cipralex prescription. There was a 20-minute wait, so I went to the park and read Little Women for a while.  As I went back to the drugstore I realized I'd lost my face mask, so I had to hold my hat in front of my face when I went back in. (I felt like a felon!)

Thursday night my History Meetup discussed the First Nations.  In connection with that theme, our watch party showed John Ford's The Searchers last night.  I'd seen it several times before, but it's as powerful as ever!

Tuesday I went to the optometrist and chose the frames for my new glasses. (They'll be ready in a week or two.)

Moira and I went shopping for food together the other day.  I want us to do more stuff together now that we're alone.

My credit card expires at the end of this month.  They sent me a replacement, I think, but I can't find it so I called their hotline and they're sending me a new one soon.  In the meanwhile I'll have to rely on my debit card.

The last anchor

"Our ancestors planted trees;

We sit in the shade"

--Chinese proverb

My father passed away Sunday morning at age 90.  His death was fairy peaceful, and not connected to COVID-19.

When your parents die, you feel a bit like a boat that used to have two anchors: you lost the first one, and now you've lost the last, and all you can do is sail forth and steer as best you can.  Your parents are your strongest connection to that vast era before you were born, and without them it seems even more remote.

Yesterday my friends Maria and Sergey came to visit and we had lunch at the Aviv restaurant.  It's good to have friends at times like this!  And John and Kathrine brought over falafel wraps.

Our house feels big with only Moira and I living there. (It reminds me of the time when we first came there as house-buyers 27 years ago and I thought, "This place is huge--we'll never be able to afford it!") John was building a new room for Father, complete with a shower, and he was almost finished!  Maybe we'll take in a lodger or two in the future.  I went food shopping with Moira today, because it seems more important to do these things together now.

Remember that song "Ol' Rockin' Chair's Got Me"? Last week I joked about Father, "Ol' rockin' chair's got him!" but now I feel bad about it a little.

Under the weather

I've been under the weather the last few days.  I have a bit of a headache just now.

Last week my watch party showed Alexander Korda's The Private Life of Henry VIII.  Tonight we showed Stanley Kubrick's 18th-century epic Barry Lyndon.  It's the third time I've seen it, and it benefits from repeated viewing, though the second half gets lugubrious.  It's a great visual achievement. (Production design by Ken Adam, who did all those James Bond sets...)

Tuesday I got my eyes tested.  I had to register my prescription so ODSP will pay for it, but I'll come to choose the frames next week.

There was a blackout this morning, so I couldn't use this computer.  An event like that reminds me how much I've come to depend on the Internet, especially with the social isolation just now.

I finished the Skypiea story that makes up the fourth year of One Piece.  I've returned to the fourth year of Dragon Ball Z, which is getting weird.  Bulma and the sociopathic Saiyan Vegeta had a baby called Trunks, but now the grown-up Trunks has arrived from the future to help them fight these androids, and a future monster called Cell has also arrived....  I prefer the first Dragon Ball series overall, which was somewhat less focused on the fighting.

I finished my ebook of The Inconvenient Indian.  Now it's time to read Little Women.

THE INCONVENIENT INDIAN

"Feeling less hot, Dixon heard the band break into a tune he knew and liked; he had the notion that the tune was going to help out this scene and fix it permanently in his memory; he felt romantically excited.  But he'd got no business to feel that, had he?  What was he doing here, after all?  Where was it all going to lead?  Whatever it was leading towards, it was certainly leading away from the course his life had been pursuing for the last eight months, and this thought justified his excitement and filled him with reassurance and hope.  All positive change was good; standing still, growing to the spot, was always bad.  He remembered somebody once showing him a poem which ended something like 'Accepting dearth, the shadow of death.' That was right; not 'experiencing dearth,' which happened to everybody.  The one indispensable answer to an environment bristling with people and things one thought were bad was to go on finding out new ways in which one could think they were bad.  The reason why Prometheus couldn't get away from his vulture that he was keen on it, and not the other way round"--Lucky Jim

"A Blackfoot friend once told me that 'enfranchised' was French for 'screwed.' It's only funny if you're Indian.  Even then, it's not that funny"--The Inconvenient Indian

I finished Lucky Jim a few days ago and started reading Thomas King's The Inconvenient Indian for next month's History Meetup.  It's pretty perceptive.

On Youtube I found a season of the BBC Great Railway Journeys devoted to Canada.  The first episodes went between Halifax and Quebec City and there were some places I knew from my youth in the Maritimes.

For a change, my online music theory group met today, on Tuesday afternoon instead of Friday.  And my online karaoke group met on Sunday afternoon!

Quiet Passion

"Dixon was alive again.  Consciousness was upon him before he could get out of the way; not for him the slow, gracious wandering from the halls of sleep, but a summary, forcible ejection.  He lay sprawled, too wicked to move, spewed up like a broken spider-crab on the tarry shingle of the morning.  The light did him harm, but not as much as looking at things did; he resolved, having done it once, never to move his eyeballs again.  A dusty thudding in his head made the scene before him beat like a pulse.  His mouth had been used as a latrine by some small creature of the night, and then as its mausoleum.  During the night, too, he'd somehow been on a cross-country run and then been expertly beaten up by secret police.  He felt bad"--Lucky Jim

"The mother had wished to prevent the father from, as she said, 'so much as looking' at the child; the father's plea was that the mother's lightest touch was 'simply contamination.' These were the opposed principles in which Maisie was to be educated—she was to fit them together as she might. Nothing could have been more touching at first than her failure to suspect the ordeal that awaited her little unspotted soul. There were persons horrified to think what those in charge of it would combine to try to make of it: no one could conceive in advance that they would be able to make nothing ill"--What Maisie Knew

On Monday (I think) we had to carry out dozens of buckets of water that had accumulated in our new cellar so John could work on the plumbing for our new shower there.

I finished the book about Afghanistan history so now I can focus on finishing Lucky Jim.

Thursday my History Meetup discussed Afghanistan.  The following night the watch party showed John Huston's movie of Rudyard Kipling's Afghanistan-related story The Man Who Would Be King (which I'd read earlier in the week).  I'd seen the movie before but forgotten how good it was!  Sean Connery and Michael Caine have perfect chemistry.

Tonight I attended the Quiet Passion Literature Meetup through zoom.com . We read out loud the first pages of Henry James' What Maisie Knew.  It was fun. (We may do D.H. Lawrence or Edith Wharton next week.)

Headache!

Last Wednesday and Thursday nights I found two interesting Zoom Meetups discussing art and cinema.

Friday night I saw Anthony Mann's 1964 epic The Fall of the Roman Empire (for the second time) with my watch party. It's intelligent but often awkward. Unfortunately, the streamed version was letterboxed and at least half an hour shorter than the one I'd seen on DVD.  I couldn't help comparing it to today's America:  Livius (Stephen Boyd) was like Bernie Sanders--a bit too principled and not self-serving enough--and Emperor Commodus (Christopher Plummer) resembled Donald Trump. Nice elegiac music by Dmitri Tiomkin.

John's so clever!  He arranged a system with a plank and a lifting blanket that's made it a lot easier to move Father from his bed to his chair.  Now we've ordered a swivel he can stand on so he won't have to turn by himself.

Last weekend I had a big headache!  It must have been from the changing weather.

Anime

I recently completed the third year of One Piece.  After the Alabasta arc ended, the last dozen episodes were filler between the manga stories.  The first ones were pretty good, but the last ones were an odd story about entering a time warp and finding children who'd entered fifty years ago.

I've almost finished the third of seven years of Dragon Ball Z.  I'd have to say I prefer the first Dragon Ball overall.  The second show is focused mostly on the fighting and the story's less fast-moving.  At the climax of the Frieza arc, the planet Namek was going to blow up in five minutes but so help me, it takes over half a dozen episodes to get to the complete explosion!  I've been watching the Garlic Jr. filler arc, and that's pretty weak (besides being a sequel to a DBZ movie I haven't seen). The bad guys take over Lord Kami's sky realm and release a chemical that turns most of the world into evil brainwashed zombies...

Now I've started the last season of Sailor Moon.  This one introduces the Sailor Stars, three fetish-costumed girls with a remarkable resemblance to three guys in a boy band who go to the same high school(?) as Serena and friends. Serena's now transforming into Eternal Sailor Moon, who has white boots and a pair of wings!  Fortunately, Sailors Uranus and Neptune are back.

Last Friday I showed the Sondheim musical Pacific Overtures for the Friday night History Meetup watch party.  It improves with repeat viewings. (It opened in 1976, and it's like Sondheim's contribution to the Bicentennial: America as other people see it.)

We just saw Fear City on Netflix, a documentary about the New York Mafia in the 1970s and '80s and the efforts to destroy it through the RICO act. (They interviewed Rudolph Giuliani, whom I call Adolf Bullyani!)

Earache

"After no more than a minor swerve the misfiring vehicle of his conversation had been hauled back on to its usual course.  Dixon gave up, stiffening his legs as they reached, at last, the steps of the main building.  He pretended to himself that he'd pick up his professor round the waist, squeeze the furry grey-blue waistcoat against him to expel the breath, run heavily with him up the steps, along the corridor to the Staff Cloakroom, and plunge the too-small feet in their capless shoes into a lavatory basin, pulling the plug once, twice, and again, stuffing the mouth with toilet-paper"--Lucky Jim

This past week I've had a bit of an earache.  I still have some trouble hearing.

Tuesday we got a new bin for removing our back yard dirt and managed to fill it in a single day!

Thursday I finally got my hair cut, for the first time since the lockdown started four months ago.  My head feels lighter!

I've been following a page on Facebook that's posting episodes of Alfred Andriola's comic strip Kerry Drake from 1973. (I remember reading the Sunday episodes back then.) It's an underrated police procedural about a plainclothesman with a wife and four kids--quadruplets in the form of two pairs of identical twins, something extremely rare in real life--that's more realistic than Dick Tracy.  

This strip had some clever stories, like one about a guy whose wife miscarried in a home invasion by his co-worker, so he decides to take the law into his own hands!  And one involving Kerry's private eye brother Lefty, about a rich builder's son who falls in love with an untalented singer who in turn attracts the interest of an agent who eventually pressures her into helping him acquire evidence of the father's building substandard housing and bribing government inspectors so he can blackmail the guy...

I've finished the Arabasta story arc in the third year of One Piece.  It's so complex that I'll definitely have to see it again! (Moira and I are watching earlier episodes on Netflix, where we're at the start of the second year.) I'm also watching Dragon Ball Z, and just got to the point where Son Goku turns into a Super Saiyan!

Dog days

It finally rained yesterday.  The air felt fresher afterward.  The only problem was that today the dirt in the basement was a lot wetter and heavier--so was the the sand for the concrete.  I moved a lot of dirt in the morning, but when we mixed concrete in the afternoon I got worn out and had to quit with one more batch to gather. (I was starting to think less clearly and was afraid of getting into an accident!) Fortunately, Moira managed to take up the slack for that last batch.

Nobody showed up for my book club discussing Sister Carrie on Thursday. But a few people came to see the movie version the following day.

Last Monday, to be different, I bought some frozen juice at the supermarket.

Tonight I got about nine people (including me) for the History Meetup discussion of the Dutch Empire.

I found a Youtube channel with clips of the music on the anime One Piece.  It has some really brilliant background music by Kohei Tanaka and Shirou Hamaguchi!

Can't think of much to write about--this hot weather is getting to me!

A concrete plan

"What the so-called judges of the truth or morality are really inveighing against most of the time is not the discussion of mere sexual lewdness, for no work with that as a basis could possibly succeed, but the disturbing and destroying of their own little theories concerning life, which in some cases may be nothing more than a quiet acceptance of things as they are without any regard to the well-being of the future. Life for them is made up of a variety of interesting but immutable forms and any attempt either to picture any of the wretched results of modern social conditions or to assail the critical defenders of the same is naturally looked upon with contempt or aversion"--Theodore Dreiser

We got the last dirt out of the cellar on Thursday, filled the bin on Friday and got it towed away Monday.  Yesterday we got loads of sand and gravel, so today we started mixing concrete for the cellar!  We're using a small mixer that's very noisy.

Mixing concrete is three-person work.  I had the simple muscle job, producing buckets of sand and gravel from the piles.  Moira had the precision job, measuring out cement and water in the right proportion. (Each batch needs four buckets of gravel, two buckets of sand and one bucket of the cement-water mix--I think.) John did the mixing and pouring, the noisiest job.  When he was finished for the day, we had a surplus of one bucket of sand and two buckets of gravel, giving us a head start tomorrow.

Friday my watch party showed the Titanic movie A Night to Remember, which is way better than the shameless 1997 blockbuster. (I've always found David McCallum pretty cool!)

Finished Sister Carrie on Saturday.  It's honest in a bleak, impressive way.  My next novel will be Kingsley Amis' Lucky Jim.

Dirt and more dirt

"Whatever a man like Hurstwood could be in Chicago, it is very evident that he would be but an inconspicuous drop in an ocean like New York.  In Chicago, whose population still ranged about 500,000, millionaires were not numerous.  The rich had not become so conspicuously rich as to drown all moderate incomes in obscurity.  The attention of the inhabitants was not so distracted by local celebrities in the dramatic, artistic, social, and religious fields as to shut the well-positioned man from view.  In Chicago the two roads to distinction were politics and trade.  In New York the roads were any one of a half-hundred, and each had been diligently pursued by hundreds, so that celebrities were numerous.  The sea was already full of whales.  A common fish must needs disappear wholly from view--remain unseen.  In other words, Hurstwood was nothing"--Sister Carrie

Last week we got the movable bin to remove the dirt from our cellar. (It's the same size as the one we used in the winter.) We've been filling it directly from the cellar--the pile in our back yard will come later.

The earlier dirt I'd been carrying directly from the back room to the back yard. But now we have a new system where it goes out through the basement, up the steps to the yard and then to the bin. (With the last part you have to carry it through the hot sun.) John digs up the dirt, Moira carries it up to the yard--along with Kathrine on the weekend--and I take it the rest of the way.  At our best, we've been moving it pretty quick:  it helps that I can often carry two buckets at once.

We've been doing this work in the morning hours, to avoid the hottest time of day.  So I've been waking up earlier than usual--I hope I can make a habit of it!  And I haven't had time for Sailor Moon or One Piece, but I'm still watching Dragon Ball Z. (In the story I'm now watching, Bulma, Kuririn and Gohan have taken a spaceship to the Dragon Ball planet!)

Today we finally moved the first load away, and got a new bin for a second one. We started loading this one too, but the weather was drizzly and we ended up stopping lest we get into an accident. (It made me appreciate the sunny weather earlier on.)

I've finished the book about Amsterdam, so now I can concentrate on finishing Sister Carrie.

AMSTERDAM: A HISTORY OF THE WORLD'S MOST LIBERAL CITY

"The misfortune of the Hurstwood household was due to the fact that jealousy, having been born of love, did not perish with it.  Mrs. Hurstwood retained this in such form that subsequent influences could transform it into hate.  Hurstwood was still worthy, in a physical sense, of the affection his wife had once bestowed upon him, but in a social sense he fell short.  With his regard died his power to be attentive to her, and this, to a woman, is much greater than outright crime toward another.  Our self-love dictates our appreciation of the good or evil in another.  In Mrs. Hurstwood it discoloured the very hue of her husband's indifferent nature.  She saw design in deeds and phrases which sprung only from a faded appreciation of her presence"--Sister Carrie

I'm now reading Russell Shorto's Amsterdam:  A History of the World's Most Liberal City for my History Meetup.  It's an entertaining, well-written book! (Now I want to read Shorto's other books...) It's all about how 17th-century Amsterdam was the birthplace of modern liberal society, including the multinational corporation in the form of the Dutch East India Company.  Characters like Willem the Silent and Rembrandt are fascinating!

Sister Carrie is engrossing.  There's something that seems very modern about it--I can imagine the story happening in real life. (Someone said that Theodore Dreiser was a master of inarticulate characters!)

I'm now watching three anime shows concurrently!  One is Dragon Ball's sequel Dragon Ball Z.  It's started well with Son Goku dead and doing martial-arts training in the afterlife. (They're going to use the Dragon Ball wish to resurrect him when it's time for earthlings to fight the invaders from the Saiyan planet.) He has a young son Gohan whose fighting potential is so immense that former villain Piccolo (now a reluctant ally) has subjected him to boot camp in a land with dinosaurs rather than people.  Akira Toriyama has an incredible imagination!

I've also been watching the third year of One Piece set in the desert land of Arabasta. (Was Eiichiro Oda influenced by Frank Herbert's Dune?) And I've also been rewatching the first season with Moira, for the third time--it's that good!  I recently finished rewatching the third season of Sailor Moon. (Mimete was a villainess I actually felt sorry for--she had a life beyond villainy, for all the good it did her.) Now I'm watching the fourth season, but it isn't as good as the first three.  Aside from Rini's cute relationship with a winged unicorn, it's getting rather familiar. (I hear that the fifth season got really crazy!)

I've almost finished the Level 3 book of musical theory.