You can't read THAT!

Friday night we had another rehearsal.  It was decided to delay the performance till April.  Our next rehearsal won't be till November 8. (Martha is in a play in Aurora.) That'll give me some time to learn more lines.

Saturday afternoon was another ROLT event.  I chose banned and challenged books for the subject, because the week honoring banned books is this month, and called it "You can't read that!" I read the first part of Tomi Ungerer's witty children's book No Kiss for Mother; the part of Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn where he says, "All right, I'll go to hell then!"; part of J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye (which I just reread) where Holden Caulfield talked about how he was something of a coward, and where he talked about still being a virgin.  I thought of reading the chapter in Don Quixote where they burned his books, but decided it was too slow.

There was a wide range of stuff read.  Someone read from Truman Capote's In Cold Blood; someone else from Alice Walker's The Color Purple; and Jane read Maurice Sendak's In the Night Kitchen and Helen Bannerman's Little Black Sambo.  Unfortunately, Joel took offence and left while I was reading from Mark Twain.  I'll have to do a better job of preparation.

For next month I think I'll do British writing.

Hello Dollys

Moira and I made Hello Dollys the other day.  That's a dessert recipe they came up with in the 1960s to sell condensed milk. (I want to try some new recipes.) You make a base from graham cracker crumbs (with sugar and half a cup of melted butter!), like with cheesecak.  Then you add layers of chocolate chips, shredded coconut and chopped pecans, pour a whole can of sweet condense milk over it, and put it in the oven for half an hour.

I had a piece yesterday.  They weren't terrible, but once was enough for me.  In hindsight, to tell the truth, I'm more interested in making these things than in eating them.

I'm still helping Moira straighten out the locate file for all our books.  We've finished the living room, and yesterday we started on the extra books in the attic.  Sometime we're going to clear the attic shelves so we can remove the carpet, and we'll have to label the boxes so the books get put back in the right places.

Wednesday night I went on another professor walk.  I was talking to an Italian girl called Elettra and an Irish guy (deep brogue) who likes horror movies.  But we went to a restaurant that was so noisy I had to leave pretty quick.

Last night I went on another Queen St. West art walk with Betty-Anne.  We visited Yellowkorner, Gallery Catalyst, Georgia Scherman Gallery, Susan Hobbs Gallery, and Carmen's Spanish kitchen, where they had samples of little watermelon cubes garnished with basil.

Columbus Center Community Choir

At yesterday's memoir slam, the subjects were expectations and TV commercials. (The latter subject was one I'd submitted.) On the subject of expectations, I talked about how I was cautious in looking forward to things.  On TV commercials, I mentioned this '70s ad with a farmer saying "Hey, you kids get out of that Jello tree!' and an '80s ad where someone said, "You own a computer and don't have games like Pac-Man and Donkey Kong?  That's like having a stereo with no hit records!"

Last night was the first rehearsal of the new choir under Beatrice Carpino's direction.  She's made a few changes.  Giuseppe Macina seated mezzos in the front row left, sopranos in the front row right, basses and baritones (my range) in the back row left and tenors in the back row right.  Beatrice, on the other hand, seats mezzos on the left, tenors center-left, basses center-right and sopranos right.  And she starts with voice exercises. (Also, she had a cookie break in the middle!)

Our first piece was the Pachelbel Canon.  Years ago I saw a choir singing that piece at the start of the really sad movie Ordinary People. (Canada's Donald Sutherland is one of Hollywood's most underrated actors!) So I still find that piece rather depressing.

I got up to level 70 in Candy Crush Saga and level 58 in Pet Rescue Saga, and now I've quit those games again (for how long?). I've started a new Facebook game called Sunshine Bay, which involves developing a Florida port as the starting point for cruises.

IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD

"Why, if I had money I could live in a convent"--It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

This afternoon I saw Stanley Kramer's It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (for the fifth time) at the Event Screen with the Classic Movies Meetup.  They were half an hour late getting started and gave us coupons to see a free movie.  It turned out to be the shorter print.

IAMMMMW is what you call a guilty pleasure.  The author of The United Artists Story (one of four coffee-table studio histories I own) calls it "vulgar, cynical and cruel," and I can't disagree:  it's about people motivated by sheer greed and becoming mean.  But I first saw it at age ten--definitely the right age--and it has a nostalgic appeal for me.  I like actors like Phil Silvers and Terry-Thomas, though Spencer Tracy gives his worst performance.

This evening I went to the first Born in the '60s Meetup event at Sugar n Spice, a dessert place west of the Yorkdale station. (I warned them that I'd be late arriving, and I was.) I ordered a peach melba sundae and got a headache.

I've been having some odd dreams lately.  Last week I dreamed of creating a story about an American in World War II who gets drafted but sneaks off to Mexico instead. (I can see myself running away.) The other night I dreamed of bouncing on trampolines.

Last Night at the Proms

Al Pacino (eating a French fry): "I've lived on these since I was ten.  That's why I'm so good looking"--The Panic in Needle Park

Last night we returned to rehearsing the play. (I've memorized my first two lines!) Don took the measurements for our customs.  Martha found an actor called Sal, with professional experience, to play Inspector Hugh Dunnit.  Sal suggested giving the play some "tweaking."

This afternoon I saw the Last Night at the Proms concert with the Classical Music Meetup at the Yonge & Eglinton.  There was some familiar music like Wagner's Meistersinger overture and Vaughn Williams' "Ascent of the Lark." (Violinist Nigel Kennedy dresses like a hobo.) I left in the intermission:  just didn't feel motivated to stay for the second half with all the regular pieces like "Land of Hope and Glory."

This evening we looked at The Panic in Needle Park on Netflix.  That's the early Al Pacino vehicle about heroin users, written by John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion.  It's one of those spare, "gritty" New York movies from the '70s.  Pacino was lively enough, but the movie got too depressing for us.

Sorting comics

"He hated it when you called him a moron.  All morons hate it when you call them a moron"--The Catcher in the Rye

It's September, so I'm doing some spring cleaning.  We moved my tall desk from the west wall to the northwest corner, my dresser from the northwest corner to the north wall, and a bookcase from the north wall out to the hall.  The wall around the west window still needs work, and now there's nothing in the way.

In addition, I'm finally rearranging my comic-book collection.  I've put it off for years, because it means temporarily creating an even bigger mess.  But when I'm finished the space will be used more efficiently, I hope.

I saw the last episode of The Ascent of Man. (The second-last, about sex and genetics, wasn't as explicit as I'd remembered it being.) I couldn't help thinking about how science has now developed drone aircraft and "low cost" killing.  To tell the truth, I don't know what to do about Syria.  Maybe bombing will just make things worse, but maybe we should do it anyway.  Call me wishy-washy. (I saw Bashir Assad on the cover of The Economist with the headline "Hit him hard." It must be nice to think you know what's right.)

OUR NIXON

"The last six Roman emperors were fags"--Nixon in the White House tapes

I've finished the latest Lapham's Quarterly, and the new one hasn't yet been published!  I'm ahead of the game for once.

Now I've turned to two books I'm likely to read at ROLT's banned books event.  I borrowed J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye from the Spadina library.  None of the libraries have a copy of Tomi Ungerer's No Kiss for Mother, so I bought it at the World's Biggest Bookstore. (They had a couple of copies at the Bay & Bloor Indigo, but their graphic novels section was such a mess I couldn't find it there!) It's really funny.

Last night I saw Our Nixon at the Bloor.  It's a documentary made from the home movies Watergate figures Erlichman, Haldeman and Chapin filmed at the White House during the Nixon presidency, along with TV news reports and recordings from the White House tapes. (They show Phil Donahue interviewing Haldeman.  Boy, do I miss Donahue's show!)

Paradoxically, people with the most power seem to have the greatest insecurities, as when Nixon worried about the United States becoming "a pitiful, helpless giant." (Mother felt sorry for Nixon, though she disapproved of the Christmas Bombing.) I suppose they have nobody willing to hold their insecurity in check.    Oddly, the documentary made no mention of the invasion of Cambodia, the Nixon decision I think had the most important legacy.

This film reminded me that I want to see the 1999 Watergate comedy Dick again. (We should try the Hello Dollies recipe.)

Canadian National Exhibition

I'm not a big fan of the Canadian National Exhibition:  I'll go to it every three years or so.  I was really impressed by it the first time I went, at age thirteen, when it was near its all-time attendance peak.  But maybe I was just more easily impressed back then.

Yesterday I attended the Ex with the Out of Your Shell Meetup group.  There were about a dozen of us, but after we arrived half went off to stand in line for the super-dog show.  I was with the other half, and we visited the Arts and Crafts Building and the Scadding cabin and saw some of the air show near the lakeshore. (What's so great about air shows?  They're better than dog shows, anyway.)

Then I went my own way and headed to my real reason for coming:  the Midway rides.  I splurged and bought an "all you can eat" wristband, then went on ten rides, including stuff like the Euroslide and the Tilt-a-Whirl and the chair lift that carries you up over the midway.  But my favorite ride is the bumper cars, and I rode them twice after waiting in long lines. (I could have saved time by paying another twenty dollars for an express wristband, but that would have been excessive even for me.)

What else did I do there?  I ate spaghetti and meatballs in the Food Building.  I  saw some butter sculptures in the Farm Building.  As I was leaving I met a man who'd had breakfast at the Canadian Law Society with someone who was my spitting image, including the same jacket.  I said, "I hope you didn't lend him any money!"

FAR OUT ISN'T FAR ENOUGH

Last night I saw Far Out Isn't Far Enough at the Bloor.  It's a documentary about Tomi Ungerer, who was a well-regarded artist and writer of children's books but then turned to kinky erotica and got banned from American libraries.  The children's book reviewer at The New York Times refused to review his books.  One of his books, No Kiss for Mother, got the DUD award for the year's worst children's book!  It's quite a coincidence that I saw this just before an ROLT event devoted to banned books.  Maybe I'll read No Kiss for Mother.  

I do know that I want to reread all his books.  I remember reading books like The Three Robbers and Zeralda's Ogre in my youth.  The latter was about a child-eating ogre who gets tamed by a little girl with advanced culinary skills.  On the last page he shaved off his beard, became respectable, and married the girl when she grew up.  After seeing the movie Beauty and the Beast, which ended with the Beast overcoming his curse and becoming a normal man, Greta Garbo said "Give me back my beast!" I felt like saying, "Give me back my ogre!"

The other night I dreamed about getting on a bus to take me downtown, falling asleep and waking up only to find that the bus had taken me out into the country. (John Lennon said, "Life is what happens when you're making other plans.")

KICK-ASS 2

"My superpower is, I'm rich as shit!"--Kick-Ass 2

Yesterday I went to the Yonge & Eglinton and saw Kick-Ass 2.  Yeah I know, I was slumming.  It was pretty tasteless and predictable, as I expected.  I did like the bit at the end when he said that the world needs real heroes. (People like Chelsea Manning!) 

At the end they had a big fight between a mob of masked superheroes and a mob of masked supervillains and I was wondering how they told each other apart.  Wouldn't they end up attacking people on their own side?  At least in the Star Wars movie the Imperial soldiers wore masks while the rebels didn't.

Afterward I bought my tickets for the Last Night at the Proms concert and the Met opera broadcasts. (I'm seeing Rusalka, Prince Igor, Werther, Cosi Fan Tutte and Cenerentola.) I ended up with over a thousand Scene Points.  If I'd bought these tickets beforehand, I could have spent them on Kick-Ass 2.

The night before I saw a documentary about Lon Chaney Sr. on Netflix.  I remember when I was a kid seeing a big comic book ad for Aurora's monster models series. (Donald made an Aurora model of the Lost in Space robot.) Anyway, the image of Chaney as the Phantom of the Opera caught my eye:  you could see that he wasn't just a simple monster but a creature in pain.

PEANUTS

Yesterday I went to The Beguiling and bought a new entry in the Fantagraphics series of Peanuts reprints. (I also got a few more Mad magazine paperbacks, including Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions.)

I'm now up to the mid-'70s in the Peanuts series.  It's now past the years that I read in past paperback reprints, but I remember it surprisingly well from reading it in the newspaper.  I remembered the very odd story of Sally conversing with the school building, as well as the one where Charlie Brown got so obsessed with baseball that he developed a rash like the stiches on a baseball (which his round head already resembled) and went to summer camp with a bag over his head and people called him "Mr. Sack" and elected him camp president!

Yesterday afternoon I went to the memoir slam and the two subjects were "The joys of senility" and "Forbidden fruit." On senility I talked about how I wasn't yet old, but visiting London last year my feet got sore from all the walking.  On forbidden fruit I mentioned how my parents kept me away from scary stuff, but I wasn't sure that was best for me.  I mentioned that Nick Nolte in Rich Man, Poor Man put a snake in his son's crib so he wouldn't be afraid of snakes when he was older and said, "Sometimes I wish someone had put a snake in my crib."

THE ASCENT OF MAN

Betty finished her draft of the play, and I printed it out before Friday's rehearsal, where we had our first run-through. (She liked the portentous sound with which I quoted the newspaper headline.) There's no rehearsal on Labor Day weekend, so it's time to start MEMORIZING my lines!  I improvised a line for the closing scene, and Betty likes it enough to include it.

Moira borrowed J. Bronowski's BBC series The Ascent of Man from the library, and we've been watching it again. (I remember seeing the whole thing in a Sunday afternoon presentation in the university auditorium, two episodes per Sunday, when I was twelve.) Like Kenneth Clark's Civilization, it's a very entertaining "personal view" of mankind's onward & upward progress.  I remember it in much detail. (I was thinking of renting the Danish version of The Killing from Suspect Video, but that can wait till we're finished with this.)

This afternoon I went on another Professor's Walk.  This time we met near Spadina station and took a circular route that led us to the Chinatown festival.  It was pretty noisy, especially the Falun Gong drummers. (When I got home I had a headache.) I was talking to a woman from mainland China who teaches about polymers and was interested in our house renovations.

A new blog

As previously considered, I started a new blog at memoirslam.blogspot.ca to post my memoir pieces from the Monday afternoon group.  I've already posted three or four pieces, but then I got lazy.

Yesterday I visited Dr. Hassan and told him about the group and the blog.  He seems impressed about how active I am, but it doesn't impress me.  People who work from 9:00 to 5:00, they're the ones who are active!  I've got into the habit of having lunch at the Burger King near Eglinton station after visiting my shrink. (Maybe I should break that habit.)

Last night I went to a new Karaoke Meetup organized by Lillian Zepeda.  (We went to Freezone Karaoke in Koreatown near the Christie station.)  She and I were the only people who showed up, but maybe it'll grow.

I still haven't bought any tickets for the Met opera screening next season.  I think I'm interested in Prince Igor and Rusalka and even seeing Cenerentola again, but I just don't feel motivated at the moment.

Tina Brown's Daily Beast finally got interested in the Bradley Manning case when he renamed himself Chelsea. (Typical!) I've tried to get into that site, but it's just too thin.

BLUE JASMINE

Puitak came over yesterday and brought us lunch from a Vietnamese place. (She brought me curry chicken and rice.) There was enough left over for another lunch!

In the afternoon Moira and I went to see Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine at the Varsity.  I'd accumulated enough Scene card points to get both of us in free! (I'm glad they let me share the points from my card.  You never know when there might be a snag.)

The movie was a pretty scathing satire, to the point of grimness.  Cate Blanchett was in rare form in the title role. (One actor, Bobby Cannavale, looked a whole lot like Colin Farrell.) They put on a commercial in the middle of the trailers, which bugged me.  I can accept commercials before trailers, but this is a step too far!

Bradley Manning got sentenced to 35 years yesterday.  I've been commenting about it a lot on The Huffington Post.  The homophobic glee of some people is getting on my nerves.  People keep calling him "the little twerp" or "the little punk." One guy wrote, "I hope he serves his full 35 years, then gets hit by a truck on the day of his release." But I still think he's a bigger hero than I've ever managed to be.

Three classic movies

"I shall hang you twice, I think"--The African Queen

"Suppose Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks divorce!"--Some Like It Hot

On selling drugs to Negroes: "They're animals anyway, let them lose their souls!"--The Godfather

Over the last few days I've seen three classic movies.  I'd seen them several times before, and saw them again with Classic Movie Meetup groups.

Saturday night I saw John Huston's The African Queen at the Fairview screening room.  It's a great romantic adventure, with Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn achieving a nice quirky chemistry.

Monday night I saw Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot at the Event Screen.  Jack Lemmon had a great scene saying "I'm engaged!" It occurred to me that it wouldn't have worked as well in color as it does in black & white.

Last night I saw Francis Coppola's The Godfather at the Revue, as part of their series of movies based on books.  During the scene where Michael visited his father in the hospital, I remembered visiting Mother in her last week.

Geoff Pevere introduced the movie and talked about it afterward.  When he asked for audience comments, I mentioned that the scene where Barzini got assassinated on the big steps resembled the ending of The Roaring Twenties where a mortally James Cagney climbed the church steps.

Yesterday I went to Dufferin Mall and a found a shoe repair place that sold me a new watch battery. (I also replaced my threadbare watch strap.)

Memoir slam

Yesterday I went to Matthew's Movies and Outings Meetup at Just Desserts near Wellesley Station.  I also saw a documentary about Mary Pickford on Netflix.

This afternoon I went to the memoir slam.  The first subject was "Trouble with customs and immigration officials." I haven't had any real trouble with them, but I wrote about my trouble getting into the Ontario health care system a year after returning from my eight months in London researching my Ph.D. thesis.  In that system applicants wait twenty minutes in a preliminary queue, then after they tell you your papers are in order you get to wait in the main queue for two hours.  

In my case, I thought my papers were in order--I had a passport to prove my citizenship--but when I came to the front of the second queue it turned out I needed more documentation to prove residency. (They were afraid I was a Canadian citizen who'd become a British resident and was now sponging off Canadian health care.) So I got more documentation and returned the next day.  But once again, they let me past the first stage only to tell me it still wasn't good enough.  This time I put up a fuss because I'd wasted so much time in queues, and luckily they relented.

The second subject was "Clocks and watches." I talked about our antique clock from Berlin, Ontario--before it became Kitchener in World War I--and how I missed owning a watch I could wind up because now they only sell battery watches. (Coincidentally, my watch battery died today.) Then I talked about how I had no trouble learning to tell time, but was a long time learning to tie my shoes, leading to a long digression.  But the others didn't mind:  when I was finished, one woman asked if I had any more to say!

I enjoy the memoir slam so much, I think I'll start a second blog of my writings there. (Maybe other members will do the same!)

Finished THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP

Yesterday I finished The Old Curiosity Shop.  Kitschy and all over the place.  The notes had a Greek quote from The Odyssey which Dick Swiveller alluded to, and I managed to translate it! (It goes something like "At once she put the drug into the wine, then he drank it.")

Last night we had another rehearsal.  There's a new actress called Sheila.  The writer finally printed out the first act, which I have a bigger role in.  I was afraid I'd have to leave early, but there was plenty of time.  It's time to get serious about memorizing my lines.

Then I went to the Karaoke Meetup.  It was supposed to be at Jingle's, but it turned out they weren't having karaoke that night.  But Jonah can think on his feet, and decided to move the location to Kramer's, which was having karaoke.  I went first while he waited at Jingle's for other people who showed up there.  As a result, I got to be first in the rotation!  I sang Dean Martin's "Sway"  and The Moody Blues' "Ride My See Saw."

With the Dickens book finished, I've started reading the sea issue of Lapham's Quarterly.  Looks like it'll be entertaining! (I wonder if they'll publish an issue on death one of these quarters?)

HDTV

For the past twelve years, we've subscribed to satellite TV with its myriad channels, but recently we let it lapse.  So I went out and bought an indoor HDTV antenna at the Futureshop near Keele & St. Clair.  We now get Toronto's local stations free in all their HDTV glory, and Buffalo stations when the weather is good.  Moira was pleased, because Margaret was worrying that Father would get bored without TV.

After finishing the second-last season of Breaking Bad, we watched Ken Burns' two-part documentary The Dust Bowl on Netflix.  It made good use of first-hand accounts from people who were children at the time. (Moira's only problem with these shows is that she has trouble staying awake in the evening.)

This evening we saw Ron Howard's movie Frost/Nixon.  It was better than I expected.  Lately I've been a bit curious about the year 1974 and reading about that year's news items and hit songs. (I recall that Mother felt sorry for Nixon.)

John fixed up the new overhead light for my room. (All that was left to do was some plastering around the old light's fixture.) The new light's very convenient.

THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE

"I like cats.  They're always up to something!"--The Postman Always Rings Twice

This afternoon I went to the memoir slam.  Our two subjects were "bargains" and "looking through windows." On bargains I wrote that I've never really got into consumer culture or watching for bargains, but that Giuseppe Macina's singing lessons have good value for money.  On windows I mentioned staring out the back window when I was little, which Mother called "foxing"; looking out my window in early fall after a frosty night and seeing green grass covered in a temporary white blanket (something I miss from my New Brunswick days); looking out the window from my first Toronto home twenty years ago and seeing the old buses and streetcars at the Wychwood Barns; looking my window today and seeing a firehouse tower, and wishing I could get access to the top and see the view.  I really enjoy this group!

This evening I saw the 1948 version of The Postman Always Rings Twice at the Classic Movies Meetup at the Central. (I'd seen it on TV before, but I recorded it on video and didn't get the last ten minutes.) John Updike got it right when he wrote in The New Yorker that it isn't a great movie but has great moments.

After I got home I saw the last episode of the second-last season of Breaking Bad.  Pretty stunning.

Walking from Eglinton to Bloor

This afternoon I went on a Walking Meetup organized by Matthew.  We met near Yonge & Eglinton and walked down to Yonge & Bloor.  And we were pretty brisk:  it only took about an hour.

A dozen people came, with some nice variety. (One mother brought her son.) I was talking to a German girl wearing sandals, with a ring on one toe.  I was also talking to an Iraqi girl who's been reading Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a feminist critical of Islam.

At the end of the walk, we had lunch at Hue's Kitchen.  I ordered the butter chicken with brown rice, and the girl sitting next to me ordered the same thing.  I got served first, but I gave her the first serving and waited for the second. (Gentleman or what?)

You wouldn't expect to meet people you know by chance in a city as big as Toronto.  But that happened twice to me last week!  On Wednesday I went to a second meeting of the bereavement support group (I had a headache and had to leave early), and on the subway on the way there I met Sara, organizer of the Board Games Meetup.  It was a bit awkward because I haven't been to that group for a while.  

Then on Thursday, I went to Beguiling in Mirvish Village tp buy another volume of Fantagraphics' series of the complete comic strip Peanuts, from  1971 to 1974--I remember seeing some episodes at the time! I also got some cheap reprints of Mad magazine, including Dave Berg Looks at the U.S.A., and Dennis the Menace Rides Again. What was I talking about?  Oh yeah, just afterward I met Alex, organizer of the Life Begins at Forty Meetup.  And I reminded him I'd be attending his screening of The Postman Always Rings Twice on Monday.