Indian summer

It's been warm this week, so I'm bringing in more potatoes.  I've been wearing some old slippers in the garden, but yesterday when I came in I forgot to put my new ones back on, so I tracked dirt all over the house!  Was my face red! (That's the title of a feature in Young Miss magazine where girls wrote in and described their most embarrassing experiences.)

Thursday I saw a Halloween double bill at the Revue:  Dracula's Daughter and She Wolf of London (which was actually set in the English countryside!) I splurged and bought a Revue membership.

Saturday afternoon I saw the Met production of Wagner's Tannhauser at the Yonge & Eglinton.  I recognized the melody from the chorus early in the second act and I've been wondering where I heard it before.

Sunday night I went to the Politics Meetup where we discussed the election.  I brought a printout of my previous post showing how it would have gone with my preferred system of proportional representation.  Afterward I realized I'd made a slight error:  Manitoba and Saskatchewan should have nine Category A seats instead of ten!

At Monday night's choir practice someone brought a really good cake!  I imagine we'll be way better in the spring when we've had enough time to come together completely.

This afternoon I went to an extra choir rehearsal at Paolo's United Church on Bathurst north of Lawrence.  Too bad that I got off the Bathurst bus too early and had to wait for the next one, and was rather late! (Someone brought doughnuts.) Oksana gave me a lift home.

Post-election analysis

"I'll sit here for a while yet and smoke my cigar, just as usual.  It tastes terrible, but I know it's good and that will have to suffice for me today"--The Magic Mountain

The election disappointed me.  I was hoping that the Liberals and NDP would both fall short of a majority, and because (plausibly) neither party would accept the other as Prime Minister they'd form a coalition with the Greens and make Elizabeth May P.M. (Sort of like the coalition in that Danish show Borgen.)

I analyzed the results and determined what would have happened with the system of proportional representation I'd prefer.  Under this system, about 70% of the seats would be Category A, chosen the same way they are now; 25% Category B, allotted so that A and B together would match the proportion of the popular vote*; 5% Category C, which would normally go the party that got the highest popular vote overall, except in provinces where one party's A seats alone were greater than its proportional share of A and B seats, in which case the C seats would go to the other parties to fill out their seat shortfall*. 

I gave Ontario 4 C seats, Quebec 3, B.C. and Alberta 2 each, and every other province 1; and for B seats each province got the smallest number not smaller than one quarter of their non-C seats.  The territories would be unchanged, with one seat in the A category.

(*=or as close as possible)

Here's the actual results under "first past the post":

Province  Liberal  Conservative  NDP  Green  Bloc Quebecois

Nfld           7

PEI            4

NS           11

NB          10

PQ          40           12                   16                  10

Ont         80           33                     8

Man          7             5                     2

Sask          1           10                     3

Alta           4           29                     1

BC          17           10                    14        1

Terrs         3

________________________________________

Total      184           99                   44        1       10

Now here's the results under my system:  first the A seats, followed by the sum of B and C in brackets.

Province  Liberal  Conservative  NDP  Green  Bloc Quebecois

Nfld         4 (1)          (1)                   (1)

PEI          2 (1)          (1)

NS           7                (2)                   (2)

NB           6                (2)                   (2)

PQ          28 (3)       9 (3)              12 (7)        (2)      7 (7)

Ont         57          24 (17)              6 (13)       (4)

Man         5 (2)        4 (1)               1 (1)

Sask         1 (3)        7                    2 (1)

Alta          3 (7)      20                    1 (3)

BC          12 (4)       7 (5)             10 (1)       1 (2)

Te4rs         3

_______________________________________________

Total      128 (21)   71 (32)        32 (31)      1 (8)     7 (7)

Overall     149          103               63              9           14

The Liberals would have two-thirds of the seats in the Maritimes and Newfoundland, instead of every single one; two-fifths of the Quebec seats, instead of over half; and just under half the Ontario seats, instead of almost two-thirds.

I can dream, can't I?

THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN

"He [the coroner] opened him up and found nothing"--Madame Bovary

Friday I saw the documentary about Tab Hunter at the Bloor.  They were showing John Waters' Polyester afterward (with an appearance by Hunter), and I won a ticket to that screening by being the first to answer a trivia question. (The 1982 musical flop with him and Michelle Pfeiffer was Grease II.)

I finished Madame Bovary Thursday, and discussed it with John Snow's group on Sunday.  I've now started reading Thomas Mann's symbolic novel The Magic Mountain for my own book club.  I need to read almost twenty pages a day to finish it in time, but so far I'm struggling to do ten a day.

We now have the choir program for the Christmas concert.  And at the opera they've decided on the pieces to do at the fundraiser.  Beatrice wants us to be off-book, which will be easier for me than for the new people.

The weather is getting cooler, and I've started bringing in the potatoes from the back yard.  It looks like another good year. (I also have some patio tiles to move out of the way to allow a bigger garden next year.)

Last night I dreamed about General Patton.  Today I was reading about him on Wikipedia.  I want to see that George C. Scott movie again!

A dream

Sometimes I have complex dreams.  Last night was a doozie. (They sometimes happen when I miss my Cipralex, but I don't think that was the case here.)

I dreamed I had a baby ape for a new pet.  I think the reason for that is that I saw a trailer for the promising-looking Frederick Wiseman documentary Jackson Heights, about a district in Queens, N.Y. said to be the most racially diverse in America.  And that reminded me of Wiseman's documentary set in a Florida zoo, where they showed a baby ape being nursed.

Then I was back in Sackville, N.B.  I was enrolled in a course that was already half over and I hadn't been to any of the classes, so I wanted to withdraw from it officially. (Some people dream of sitting examinations, but that doesn't happen with me.) I promised to learn to sew so I could make costumes for my opera group.  We don't even make costumes, we rent them from Malabar!

Then I went downtown from our old home on West Avenue, and saw Bridge Street all torn up, like I see Toronto streets torn up for improvements.  I joined a tour group outside the town and went on a walking tour of the lowlands around the ridge where the remains of Fort Beausejour stand. (It's a National Historic Park.)

Remember that movie Dying Young where Julia Roberts was a caregiver for a doomed young man?  In the version I dreamed of it was Julia who was dying!  Then she got kidnapped by an eastern potentate except that it was all arranged by one of her elders so she'd never be seen again and he'd get her inheritance or something.  And suddenly the movie ended!

What do you dream about?

I'm depressed

"I'm evil because I'm a man"--Iago

It looks like Canada has regressed to the Chretien era. (He's my least favourite Prime Minister.) I could see from the first that Thomas Mulcair had erred in promising to keep the budget balanced:  people just don't care much about that.  In the case of defending the right to wear a niqab, that worked against the N.D.P. but at least they were in the right!  I just hope that American voters don't chicken out like we did.

I voted on Monday morning and beat the rush.  Our local district's voting is now at the Wychwood Barns.

At Monday night's choir practice I sat with the tenors for the first time.  A few people have left and I hope we get enough replacements.  A lot of people seemed more interested in the baseball playoff game with the Blue Jays than with the election!

Saturday morning I saw the Met production of Otello at the Yonge & Dundas.  Zeljko Lui is a great Iago!

Last night at opera rehearsal we had an acting session, which is always fun.  My group put on a scene where a lover arrives late in port just in time to see his sweetheart sailing away on a ship.  I played the captain, and imagined myself as Popeye the Sailor Man!

In one of those Facebook discussions I wrote: "Suppose that the pundits had unanimously declared Bernie Sanders the winner of last week's debate, and that the MSM had systematically ignored the consistent impression from the online polls and focus groups that Hillary Clinton had won by a large margin?  Does anyone doubt that many Clinton supporters would be screaming 'Conspiracy!'?" I just wish I'd thought quick enough to say it last week! (Call it esprit de l'escalier.)

Now that I think of it, what bothers me about that Facebook group is that the organizer blamed me for writing a political comment but not the one who posted a link to a book review involving Reagan!  (I'd been warned before, so like a bad schoolteacher she couldn't see anything else but blaming me.) I'm not saying the other guy should have got all the blame, but I would have been happier if he'd been blamed too.

One less Facebook group

"And he would quickly reach for Emma's boots on the shelf over the fire, all crusted with mud--the mud of her assignations--that crumbled to dust in his fingers, and he watched it rising slowly in a ray of sunlight"--Madame Bovary

I'm in quite a few Facebook groups.  I got into trouble in a book-related one for breaking the organizer's strict rule against talking politics. (I'd got in trouble before, over an incident whose specifics I've already forgotten!) She didn't kick me out, but I've decided to leave anyway.  When I'm dead and gone, I'd rather have people saying that I talked politics too much than that I avoided the subject.

My Facebook page brings up the latest posts from all my groups and friends in the order of posting, and the bone of contention was a comment made on a post that I carelessly didn't notice was in the no-politics group. (No, I wasn't flouting the rule on purpose.) The post was an article on a Ronald Reagan biography with a headline that started, "Killing Reagan." I couldn't resist writing, "'Killing Reagan.' If only!" When another poster complained, I wrote, "Spare a thought for the people Reagan killed." I'll spare you his next post, except to give my response: "The first one who cusses loses." When the organizer got angry, I ended up writing: "Don't worry, from now on I'll just talk religion!"

You know those people who say they would have killed Hitler ahead of time to prevent him from doing all those very bad things? Well, if I'd had foresight I would have been tempted to kill Reagan to prevent his crimes.  But unlike John Hinkley, I probably would have pussied out in the end.

I'm still following the controversy over who "won" the Democratic debate.  Clinton supporters are accusing Sanders supporters of "conspiracy theory," yet they dismiss the pro-Sanders focus groups by invoking The Big Republican Conspiracy Against Hillary!  And it's disingenuous to proclaim that later polls are more reliable when they're full of respondents who didn't see the debate but heard that Mrs. Clinton won. (I'd be more impressed if they did a poll solely of people who'd watched it.)

I'm also puzzled by those who assert that the earlier polls were distorted by the Sanders camp's "enthusiasm." Isn't generating enthusiasm one measure of a successful debate performance?  I suppose that the Silent Majority is supporting HRC. (Nixon lives!)

Three movies

"...she was not in the least kind-hearted, nor readily aware of the feelings of others, typical of the offspring of most country people, whose souls, like the callused hands of their fathers, have grown a hard skin"--Madame Bovary

On Thanksgiving weekend I saw three movies.  Friday night I saw a documentary about the Black Panthers at the Bloor.  It's a shame that the F.B.I. targeted them just when they were moving away from armed confrontation to social services.  Saturday night I saw A Walk in the Woods at the Revue.  I loved Bill Bryson's book but the movie was pretty mild.  Sunday night I saw another documentary at the Bloor, this one about the Faberge jewellers.  I liked the eclectic music.

I'm on a schedule of reading fifteen pages a day of Madame Bovary so I can finish it in time for John Snow's book club.  I feel like I'm back in college! (Though I didn't take any literature courses.)

Yesterday was the first debate for the Democratic presidential candidates.  I couldn't see it because I was at opera rehearsal.  Beatrice warned everyone it was important to memorize and said, "James doesn't need to look at his book!" Well, I've done the opera before, and also did it with the choir, so it was pretty easy for me to relearn.

Actually, I wouldn't have watched the debate even if I could have.  I don't watch these political debates because I already know whom I support.  It's very interesting that the pundits all said that Hillary Clinton won, even though all the post-election polls showed Bernie Sanders winning by a wide margin! (You can argue that the internet polls were skewed by Sanders' big online following, but he even dominated the offline focus groups.) Should have known it would happen this way:  the Washington insiders naturally leaning toward the insider candidate.

At my choir, Paolo got me to change from baritone-bass to tenor!  We'll see how that works out. (I can't hit that high B flat.) I was going to go on Betty-Anne's art walk tomorrow night, but there's a special choir rehearsal to make up for us being unable to get together on Thanksgiving Day.  I could play hooky, but Paolo specifically wants the people who can read music.

Busy Thursday

On Thursday I saw The Intern with Bev.  It was enjoyable in a rather predictable way.  Robert De Niro was in fine form, playing a character who half the time is just observing. (Someone said that's the acid test for an actor.) In one scene he sat at his desk on his first day on the job waiting for something to do, and Bev said she knew that feeling.

Afterward we had dinner at an Italian restaurant called Serra.  I had spaghetti bolognese. (Maybe I should have tried something more imaginative.)

Then I went to the Victory Cafe for the History Discussion Group.  We discussed Roland Wright's A History of Progress, and seven people showed up!  Unfortunately, the place was a bit too loud, and  Margo suggested the Schnitzel Hub for the next event.  She noticed that I wasn't talking much, but to me it's a good sign when a Meetup group gets less dependent on its organizer:  it's getting a life of its own!

Sunday was the Classic Book Club, where we discussed the works of Poe.  It turned out that there were two Central American women there! (One was from Costa Rica, the other from Honduras.)

Monday night choir practice was a non-starter because the room with the piano was undergoing sprinkler renovation. (It was supposed to happen about ten days ago.) But we sang "Angels We Have Heard on High" a capella and ate pizza, which I didn't stay for.

At opera rehearsal tonight we did the line "Uno scudo veramente?  Piu brav'uom non si up dar!" It reminded me of the bit in Sesame Street where thirty squares got rolled out and there was always something irregular.  Adolfo said we had to do it with urgency, and I thought of the skit where the shifty salesman in the trench coat tried to sell something to Ernie.  He's whisper, "It'll only cost you a nickel," and Ernie would shout "A nickel?!" before being shushed.  That's the spirit we need.

TRUE DETECTIVE

"Hey, are you sure you want to do this?" "Not exactly..."--True Detective

I've just been watching the HBO series True Detective, which Moira got from the library.  I don't usually care for these procedural mysteries, and the plot here is even more complicated than usual, but this one is remarkably well made.  Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey are at their best, and the direction is atmospheric and creepy. (Remind me not to move to Louisiana.)

Saturday night I went to the Karaoke Meetup at BarPlus.  There were about fifteen people in our group, so I only stayed for two songs.

Monday afternoon I went to John Snow's book club to talk about Dostoevsky's The Devils.  I hadn't read it, of course. (Not only didn't I have the time, I couldn't find the book!) John couldn't make it, unfortunately, but we had a pretty good discussion anyway.

Tuesday night at opera rehearsal the men and women rehearsed separately.  There were only half a dozen boys, including a solitary tenor.  The Elixir of Love music is coming back to me really fast:  I did it at the opera ten years and also at the choir some years back.

That night John and his family came and we had Indian food, except that I had to leave early because of the opera.  I asked Kathrine for her child recipe and she's promised to show it to me. (I want to make it with meat!)

The cool weather is here.  I should get out another duvet for my bed.

Laziness

For some reason September has made me lazy.  I haven't been going to Noah Richler's campaign office for volunteering, I've stopped baking bread and I can't think of things to write here.

Friday night I went to a fundraising event for Noah Richler at Dave's, just a few blocks from here.  I only went to make a token appearance, and left when the music started.  The next day I actually went into the office!

I finally finished A Short History of Progress.  And now I've started reading Edgar Allen Poe for the Classic Book Club.

Monday at choir practice Paolo asked me to yell like I wanted someone to come to me, so I said, "Come here, you sonuvabitch!" (That brought the house down.) And that's a word I've never used before!  All of a sudden, I'd been possessed by what Poe called "the imp of the perverse." At least I didn't say, "Get your stupid ass in here, you goddamm sonuvabitch!"

Opera rehearsal started Tuesday night.  We did the opening chorus of The Elixir of Love, which I'm pretty familiar with. (We're also doing Die Fledermaus.) Starting this year we're going to do eight performances instead of twelve, which means an extra week to rehearse.

Today I finally started moving those heavy patio stones to expand the garden. (Too lazy to get far, of course.) There's a whole layer of weeds that's spread over them.  I should dig up the potatoes sometime soon.

There's a girl in Waterloo called Nikki who asked me to order a plush Super Mario Brothers toy for her on Amazon. (She can't do it herself because she doesn't have a credit card.) But I couldn't open my Amazon account, having forgotten the password.

Last Night at the Proms

Saturday I went to the Last Night at the Proms telecast at the Yonge & Eglinton.  Once again, I just stayed for the first half. (The second half's kinda predictable anyhow.) I really went there to meet Mary and John D. from the Music Meetup, whom I haven't seen lately.  I'm impressed that pianists like Benjamin Grosvenor manage to memorize whole concerti!

You know you're getting old when you go to the cinema and see posters for sequels to movies you've already forgotten!

Sunday was the latest ROLT, and the topic was banned and challenged books, since September is Banned Books Month. (The event's title was "Think of the Children!") There were eleven people, about our best turnout ever!  I read the passage from Of Mice and Men where Lennie ends up killing the skanky woman, and the opening pages of W.O. Mitchell's Who Has Seen the Wind?  (One guy said it read the Steinbeck passage "beautifully"!) I would have read the opening pages of Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich--it's not only been banned by the Soviets, but challenged in Canadian schools because of words like "shit-barrel"--but there were enough other people reading for a full event.

On Monday Paolo had the choir trying parts of "Joy to the World" and "Angels We Have Heard on High." He's moved us into the Villa Colombo hall where they have banquets, and introduced some new voice exercises like "tritrutritrutri," where you make an expression like the Phantom of the Opera when his mask's just been pulled off.

I thought tonight was going to be the first night of opera rehearsal, but when I went down there the place was empty!  First night is next week, of course.

New choir director

The Columbus Centre Community Choir has a new director, Paolo Busata.  We met him last Tuesday at a meet & greet, and had a full rehearsal last night.  We learned the first parts of "O Canada" and "Time to Say Goodbye." He's introduced some new voice exercises.

The Saturday before last I went to John Snow's book club.  The place at the Lillian Smith library somehow got double-booked, so they went to some coffee shop.  Unfortunately, I was late getting there and didn't know where they'd gone!  But I met up with Gabriella, who was also late, and we went to a Second Cup and had our own mini-meeting.  I wouldn't have been worth much at the main meeting anyhow since I hadn't read any of Stendhal's RED AND BLACK.

Sunday night I went to the Politics Meetup for the first time, at Scallywag's.  They had a political trivia quiz and I finished second. (We needed a tie-breaking bonus round.)

Last week I went to the Electric Caterpillar bookstore and bought a book of Italian folktales.  I'm now translating the Turinese story "The Canary Prince," about a princess locked up in a tower who sees a prince on the ground, but they're too far apart for talking and can only gaze at each other and wave their hankies. (Oh well, I like to think she had a voice like Fran Drescher while he had a voice like Robin Leach!) Then a fairy gives her a book where she can turn the pages one way to turn him into a bird who can fly up to her windowsill, then turn them the other way to change him back.  But her evil stepmother puts some pins in the cushion he lands on...

I also got a book about a hundred famous Italians.  But that book's language is less simple, better suited for Moira. (She's been reading a novel in Italian!)

HELL ON WHEELS

Have you ever watched a show that stretched credibility on occasion but you largely believed it anyway?  Then one episode there was a plot turn that just had zero credibility, and suddenly every plot turn seemed unbelievable? (Call it jumping the shark.) Something like that happens in the fourth season of Hell on Wheels.

The show is now set in the town of Cheyenne and a new territorial governor has arrived.  He's a carpetbagger out to take control of the rackets, but he also believes in law and order and is out to end the chaos in the streets. (He hangs a man for shooting a cheating gambler.) Then this gunfighter comes to town, along with his deadly enemy.  The result is a gunfight in which the first gunfighter shoots his enemy, and accidentally shoots a kid, then he shoots an innocent resident in cold blood to remove a witness.  He's about to kill a lady before he gets caught.

In the following episode the governor decides to make this gunfighter his marshal!  I could believe it if he'd just killed the other gunfighter, or even if he'd killed the kid too.  But the third killing puts him beyond the pale, and appointing him lawman is a slap in the face to the whole community.  Even a carpetbagging governor should have better sense than that!

This is the first in a long line of developments that aren't credible, but are required for the plot to reach a climactic event near the end of the season.  I won't spoil it if you haven't seen it, but I will say that attention-grabbing clearly trumped credibility.

In addition, the lesbian newspaper lady goes over to the other side and starts a sexual relationship with the governor, for reasons that weren't clear to me.  I think it's so they can go from lovers to enemies at the end of the season.

Campaign office

Last Sunday the Classic Book Club met, and we talked about Thackeray's Vanity Fair.  We got seven or eight people, and some of them had suggestions about books to do.  Looks like we're becoming successful!

I've started doing volunteer work at the Noah Richler campaign for the NDP in St. Paul's. (I haven't seen Richler there yet.) There's quite a variety of chores On Wednesday I wrote poll numbers on folders with a marker all the way up to Poll 129.  Friday I taped leaflets onto the back of the clipboards the canvassers will be using. (We used the transparent tape to cover the whole leaflet to make it waterproof.) Saturday I wrote poll numbers again, but this time I also put maps of poll districts into the folders! (There were some Timbits.) They have a new system for data entry, and I hope I can learn it quickly.

I've almost finished the fourth season of Hell on Wheels.  The show's been getting even more unpleasant, and I respect that!  Too bad the latest episode had that tired "What becomes of men like us?" discussion.

One of my Facebook groups is about the Roman Empire.  I've started posting my amateur translation of Caesar's account of the Gallic Wars, one mini-chapter at a time.  I'm just getting up to the Battle of the Saone River.

I found another good quote in The War That Ended the Peace!  At the start of World War I a German general wrote, "If we will all perish, it's been nice."

New connection

Sunday was ROLT, the event title was "Love Is All Around," and the subject was romantic writing.  I wanted to read the ending of Nineteen Eighty-Four ("He loved Big Brother") but couldn't find the book.  All I could think of was a couple of fairy tales:  the Grimms' "Spindle, Shuttle and Needle" and a Hans Christian story about a snowman who loves a stove he sees inside a window, and after he melts it turned out that they used a dustpan from the stove to make his spine!  There were several new people there, and I hope they'll come again.

Monday night I went to a Toronto Film Society double bill with the Movie Meetup group.  The first was Charlie Chan on Broadway from a mystery series that's a guilty pleasure for me. (It's the third time I've seen that one.  Charlie Chan at the Opera and Charlie Chan's Secret are also pretty good.) Then we saw Elia Kazan's debut A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which I'd seen once before on the small screen.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is about a girl who aspires to be a writer. I once saw a movie where a mother takes her daughter's writing to an established writer who asks, "Is she one of those people who talk about writing, or one of those people who write?" I thought that scene was in this movie, but it wasn't.  Then I realized it was probably in I Remember Mama!

I recently finished the third season of Hell on Wheels on Netflix.  That was a jaw-dropping season finale, with Cullen stuck in a shotgun marriage in a Mormon compound presided over by a bishop who's actually the Norse psychopath! (He murdered the real bishop and took his place.) I'm already watching the fourth season.

Yesterday we updated our computer connection, so now we have cable TV again.  If we pay fifteen dollars more a month we can get some extra channels like BBC World and Turner Classic Movies, but we'll have to think about it. (I really don't watch TV much.)

Our internet connection was off for several hours while they worked on updating it.  Oh well, that meant more time for reading The War That Ended the Peace.  It quotes French intellectual Remy de Gourmont on the loss of Alsace and Lorraine: "Personally, I would not give the little finger of my right hand for these forgotten lands.  I need it to shake the ash off my cigarette."

Break's over

I got pretty lazy the last couple of weeks.  Not only did I stop posting on this blog, I stopped baking bread because we ran out of whole-wheat flour and I wasn't motivated enough to buy some more. (I was buying some fresh peaches and stuff today, but I forgot to get the flour!)

Last Wednesday I went to the St. Paul's nomination meeting where we nominated Noah Richler, literary critic and son of novelist Mordecai Richler.  Someone made popsicles with an orange-vanilla flavour, and I ate mine so fast that I got brain freeze!  Stephen Lewis gave a speech.  Dave Koppes, whom I know from my Aspie Meetup, was doing volunteer work there.

It was the same night that Bernie Sanders gave a podcast that 100,000 people gathered to watch.  Funny how I'm excited about Sanders' campaign but I'm afraid to get excited about the NDP prospects in the upcoming federal election.  No doubt I'll be volunteering for that campaign. (I didn't get involved with last year's provincial campaign because I couldn't find the local office, and it turns out they didn't have an office in this riding!)

Last night I saw Best of Enemies, about the Gore Vidal-William F Buckley feud, at the Lightbox.  It was pretty enjoyable.  People of the Buckley school have a lot to answer for regarding the state of the US today!

Today I completed both the Spring issue of Lapham's Quarterly and Thackeray's Vanity Fair.  It's an amazing novel!  Now I'll be turning to the summer issue (about philanthropy) and Margaret MacMillan's The War That Ended the Peace, about the world in 1914.

THE WOLF WHO WANTED A SWEETHEART

Last week was pretty busy.  On Tuesday I joined a Movie Meetup and saw the James Bond movie The Man With the Golden Gun (for the second time, but first time on the big screen). The last one directed by Guy Hamilton, it's one of the series' less successful entries, though it does have Christopher Lee as the villain.  My favourite part was the two Thai schoolgirls taking on a whole karate school (and wiping the floor with them, of course).

On Wednesday I went to Eton House near Pape station and saw Robert Wise's The Day the Earth Stood Still (for the second time) on a big video screen with the Life Begins at 40 Meetup.  It started the whole trend of '50s scoff movies, but as the title suggests it's a bit preachy and self-important in a way characteristic of the time. (The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit had the ad line "A movie that may very well be the very greatest!" You wish...) The Sam Jaffe character is clearly based on Albert Einstein.

On Thursday I went to another of Betty Anne's art walks.  I met a senior woman with wide round glasses like Iris Apfel, and Betty Anne said she's the Iris Apfel of Toronto!

I just finished translating the Portuguese children's book whose title translates as The Wolf Who Wanted a Sweetheart. (The author and illustrator are French, so I assume that was the original language.) It's about a wolf who's looking for love and learns to dress fancy and carry flowers and memorize love poems.  After getting nowhere, he sits down in the road to take off his painful cowboy boots, and a she-wolf runs into him and he finds love after all.  The lesson for boys:  Sit down on the sidewalk and hope a girl runs into you!

I'm almost up to the Battle of Waterloo in Vanity Fair. (I've started reading Lapham's Quarterly at lunchtime.)

ROLT

Moira went to Kingston (She's going to spend a week in Cape Cod again this year.)

Saturday I went to John Snow's new book club, where we discussed Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther.  I had to admit I couldn't get far into the book:  sensitive young characters like Werther make me impatient, partly because they remind me of when I was young and sensitive. (Another example:  Winona Ryder in the Generation X movie Reality Bites.) I want to say to them, "Welcome to the world!")

Anyway, we had a full turnout of half a dozen people.  We met in the basement of the Lillian Smith library, in the same place where we do the memoir slam.  Next month we're discussing Maurice Stendhal's The Red and the Black.  I don't have time to read it, but I'll come anyhow.

Sunday was the latest ROLT, and the topic was humour, with the title "The titter, the howl, the belly laugh and the boffo."  I read the Stephen Leacock story "Gertrude the Governess, or Simple Seventeen" as well as "The Gettysburg Address in Eisenhower's" and Robert Benchley's versions of opera synopses.  I would have read the first chapter of Vanity Fair and Robert Frost's poem "The Code," but I wasn't up to it. 

I used to write my memoir pieces on looseleaf in the same binder as my choir music.  But starting at today's slam, I've turned to writing in a Pierre Belvedere notebook of the same sort I used to write my diary in before going online with it.

I'm finally getting serious about my schedule for finishing Vanity Fair within six weeks (which allows for one library renewal). The other day I read over thirty pages!

Salsa on St. Clair

Sunday was the Classic Book Club, where we discussed The Yearling.  There were five of us, including someone who came because she thought it was the Poetry Meetup!

On Tuesday I saw the documentary THE GREAT MUSEUM at the Bloor.  It's about the Kunsthistoriche Museum in Vienna.  Another museum for my bucket list!  Their new chandelier-like electric lights have a very clever modern design.

On Thursday I borrowed Vanity Fair from the library.  I'd been hoping to finish the fraud issue of Lapham's Quarterly before starting it, but it's 800 pages long and I want to make sure to finish it before the next book club meeting.  Judging by the first chapters, it's pretty fun.

Thursday night I went to see the French-Czech animated science fiction feature Fantastic Planet at the Revue (for the second time, but the first time in a cinema). The place was packed and I was lucky to get in!  It's original but the animation is rather basic. (They also showed an odd French animated short titled Les Escargots.)

This weekend is the Salsa on St. Clair street festival.  I went to Hillcrest Park to read Vanity Fair and escape the noise. (I've developed a fantasy of meeting a girl who's reading a book of her own there...) On the way there, I saw another house that put out its excess books for whoever wants them, and I got a copy of Ken Follet's The Pillars of the Earth! (That's a book I mean to read one of these years.  I think Dr. Hassan liked it.)

Someone online accused Bernie Sanders of trying to "hijack" the Democratic Party.  If this be hijacking, make the most of it!

New books!

Monday night I saw The King and I with the Movie Meetup group at the Event Screen (for the second time, but the first time in a cinema). I think this is what Edward Said meant by "orientalism." It's best for the Thai ballet of Uncle Tom's Cabin.  The real King Mongkut was far more enlightened than the semi-civilized clown the western world imagines.

Thursday I went on an art walk along Dundas Street.  We stopped at a Portuguese-themed boutique and I bought the children's book Coracao de Mae (mother's heart). Then we went to the Monkey's Paw bookstore.  I'd hoped to try their vending machine that sells you a random book for two dollars, but it needed restocking.  I did buy The Book of Flags, The Odd Book of Facts, Great Cities of the World and Women in the Comics.  But when I was through buying them, I couldn't find the rest of the group and missed the rest of the walk!

Later that evening I went to the revue and saw Robert Wise's boxing classic The Set-Up.  They also had a boxing-themed Three Stooges short and the Warner Brothers cartoon To Duck or Not to Duck. ("You know, there's something awfully screwy about this fight, or my name isn't Larrimore--and it isn't.")

Wednesday I went to Shopper's Drug Mart to replenish my cipralex prescription.  It turned out that it wouldn't be ready until the next day, possibly the late afternoon, so I didn't have time to pick it up then what with the art walk.  I would have got it yesterday but I was under the weather.  I finally got it today.

I've been watching Royal Heritage on Youtube.  That's a 1977 BBC documentary series in connection with the Silver Jubilee, depicting the British monarchy's history and collections. (Several of the Royals make appearances.) I remember seeing some of it back at the time, especially the part where Prince Charles goofs around with an old microscope the future George III used.