The last opera of the season

The weather got cool last week and I had to take my coat and scarf back out for a few days.  But now I've put them away again.

Wednesday I had to go see Dr. Hassan to get my Cipralex prescription renewed. (Why does the expiry always come sooner than I expect?) I went without it for a couple of days, and had dreams more vivid than usual.  In one I was visiting Walter White's family, not in Albuquerque where Breaking Bad took place, but in Venice Beach near Los Angeles!  I went out for a walk (in the dream) and got lost.

Thursday night I went on Betty-Anne's first art walk this year.   We went along Dundas West again.  At one place there was an art installation with a birthday theme, and coincidentally the place smelled like cake!

Friday the Fun-Loving Friends Meetup had an event at the Dutch Dreams ice cream place.  I didn't have to walk far, but it was at 5:30 on the same day that John and Kathrine were bringing falafels over. (They arrived just as I was leaving.) As a result, I had to have my dessert before my dinner--I hope that isn't against the law!  And I finished my ice cream so quickly that I got brain freeze.  I got back home before they'd even started dinner, which was convenient.

Yesterday afternoon I saw the last of the Met opera cinema casts this season:  a double bill of Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana and Leoncavallo's I Pagliacci.  It was very entertaining, especially the latter's commedia dell'arte play within a play.  They told us the operas being getting the cinemacast treatment next year, and I'm interested in Wagner's Tannhauser, Verdi's Otello and Bizet's The Pearl Fishers.

Today Moira and I went to Wychwood Barns and bought a new compost bin for $15. (Joe Mihevc's blurb had said they were free, but it was still a pretty good price.)

Another book club

Saturday I finished both Ragtime and At the Back of the North Wind.  Now I'm back to reading the foreigners issue of Lapham's Quarterly.

On Sunday I went to the book club to talk about the latter book, which was at the same place as my memoir group!  John Snow was feeling unwell, so I played host.  Just four people came, and John's decided to disband the group. (He still has the Dickens-Hardy book club.)

On the way there I noticed a big rally at Queen's Park to commemorate the centenary of the Armenian genocide.  I also notice a pro-Turkish counter-demonstration across the street from it.  One of the Turkish signs said: "Armenian hate propaganda has no place in multicultural Canada." That's why I don't like outlawing "hate speech"--it's a slippery slope.

Last week at the choir we started doing the song "Can You Can-Can" (to Offenbach's melody) from the kitschy Nicole Kidman musical Moulin Rouge.  For the first time I wondered whether I really want to be in that choir!  This week we started "Pie Jesu" from Requiem by (please don't laugh) Andrew Lloyd Webber.

My cipralex ran out so I went for a refill and I turns out I have to go to see Dr. Hassan tomorrow to renew the prescription!  And I thought it was just a short time since the last renewal.

On The Huffington Post recently there was a report about a Satanist suing the state government.  I posted, "If I had to live in Oklahoma I'd probably become a Satanist too!"  Someone responded "I'm from Oklahoma, and that is so not nice," so I wrote another post: "You Oklahomans have my sympathy, but not as much as Floridians."

Facebook groups

Sunday afternoon was the latest ROLT event.  It was about translated foreign-language writing, and I titled it "Speak white!" I read the Grimm fairy tale "The Six Servants" (someone compared it to the X-Men!) and Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale "The Shepherdess and the Sheep." These were both stories that I first encountered in the Classics Illustrated Junior series of fairy-tale comics.  I also read that long sentence from Orhan Pamuk's Istanbul and a short essay or two by Michel de Montaigne.  Someone read some unusual poems by Wyslawa Symborska, and someone else read a bit from Sun Zi's The Art of War and a chapter from Antoine de St.-Exupery's The Little Prince.

In the past few days I've discovered a lot of interesting new Facebook groups.  They're on subjects like America in the 1890s/1920s/1930s or silent cinema.  I've been spending so much time on them that there's been no time for anything else.  Yesterday I missed posting on the Captain Snark forum for the first time in over three weeks!  This also explains why it's been so long since my previous post here.

Sunday will be John Snow's book club and I still haven't finished At the Back of the North Wind.  But I'm progressing, and hope to finish it tomorrow.  I'm also getting closer to finishing Ragtime.

I've scheduled some movie events for the History Discussion Group Meetup, all on Wednesday nights.  We'll be seeing Oklahoma! and the new Far From the Madding Crowd in May and The King and I in June.  I invited John Snow's group to see the Hardy movie--we'll be talking about the book a few days later--and I'm sure Bev will want to see the June movie.  I'll be keeping my eye on the Lightbox schedule to see if they're showing any historical movies in the near future.

Working at friendship

Last weekend I was watching the penultimate season of Mad Men.  The last episode ended with Bert Cooper's ghost singing "The Best Things in Life Are Free."

Wednesday I finally met Bev.  The weather was miserable that day, and she emailed me to ask if I wanted to delay, but I insisted.  I met her at the Aroma almost across Yonge St. from Dr. Hassan's office. I mentioned that song "The Best Things in Life Are Free," and suggested that while friendship doesn't cost money, it carries a different price:  sometimes you have to work at it.  When I went to see her in that weather, I was working at our friendship. (Imagine how much work love requires!)

Yesterday I met Dr. Hassan.  I had more to talk about than usual, what with the Captain Snark forum and the History Discussion Group.  Afterward I had an egg sandwich at What a Bagel! on Eglinton Avenue West. (That's a good lunch place.)

This evening I saw the silent Mary Pickford vehicle Mistress Nell as part of the silent film festival, at the Carleton.  As Restoration actress-Royal mistress Nell Gwyn, MP got to stretch her range as a sly fox outwitting her romantic rival.

I belong to this Facebook group about the US after 1940 where someone was complaining about someone posting pornish images, so someone else posted a Marilyn Monroe swimsuit photograph and asked "Do I offend you?" Getting into the spirit I posted Picasso's "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" and Goya's clothed and naked Majas.  It turned out that one of the organizers loves art and she sent me a chat message encouraging more of this!  So I've posted Joseph Wright's painting of the bird being sacrificed in the experimental air pump, that Dutch painting of Jesus facing the High Priest, and several Renoirs.  I'm making a good impression there.

I'm now about halfway through At the Back of the North Wind.  It's an amazing children's book, which starts out as fantasy but soon takes an unexpectedly realistic turn.

Reading material

I have several books to read this spring.  I've been reading Ragtime for the History Discussion Group next month and At the Back of the Dawn Wind for John Snow's book club.  And I'm also reading the winter issue of Lapham's Quarterly. (The spring issue has arrived and it's been a quite while since I got behind with this magazine.) When I'm finished this stuff, it'll be time to read the second half of Our Mutual Friend.  Also, I'll be looking at parts of Barbara Tuchman's The Proud Tower and The Guns of August for the History Discussion Group.

Sunday I went to the Walks With Profs Meetup.  We started at the Dufferin Station and walked all the way up to Yorkdale Mall, though it turned out to be closed for Easter.  I had a good time, telling a teenager about the history of East Asia and talking about several other things.

The weather has been funny.  Thursday was so warm that I wore my spring jacket outdoors for the first time this year.  But Sunday before going on the walk I saw it snowing outside!  So I took down my winter cap from my closet and wore it on the walk.  It turned out I didn't need it:  the snow stopped pretty quick and it wasn't that cold.

This afternoon there was no memoir slam because of the holiday, so I tried to go to an intellectual-sounding Meetup group, but after I got to the hostess' apartment building I couldn't figure out how to get in touch with her so I went home.  Too bad--next week the memoir slam will resume and it'll be a while before my next opportunity to attend this group.

This evening I saw Robert Wise's movie of Rodgers & Hammerstein's The Sound of Music at the Event Screen with the Movie Meetup group.  It was about the sixth time I've seen it, but I hadn't seen it on a screen this big since I was a kid. (It suffers somewhat on TV.) I don't hate it as much as my Captain Snark post may suggest, though Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer don't have much chemistry:  I can't avoid the feeling it's his children she's marrying rather than him.  The beginning and middle are well-paced, but it drags in the last hour.  Too many reprises.  I still like that "Lonely Goatherd" number with the puppets.

History Discussion Group

"Just cash the cheques, you'll be dead someday"--Mad Men

Tuesday I was going to meet Bev for lunch at the Bobbette and Belle near her house at 1:00, but for some reason she thought it was later and arrived just after I left.  We'll try again next week.

Wednesday night I went to the first event of the History Discussion Group Meetup.  Anjelica started the group but withdrew just before the event, so I took over as organizer and hosted the meeting at Just Desserts near the Wellesley station.

Anjelica had originally planned it as a club where we'd get together to discuss a history book or a history movie. (She originally called it "History is cool!" which seemed to me to be trying too hard, like Fonzie saying "School is cool!") Venera, a Kosovar who wears a head scarf, suggested focusing on an historical subject instead.  So the next event, in May, will be on the world in 1914. (We may also get together to see historical movies.)

I've suggested some books to look at:  E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime, Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August and The Proud Tower, Rupert Brooke's poems, Orwell's "Such, Such Were the Joys," and even the comic book Corto Maltese:  The Ballad of the Salt Sea, as well as the movies Reds and The Wild Bunch.  I titled the event "The Age of Men," after a line in a Mary Poppins song.  The next event will focus on Canadian history, and I'm thinking of future subjects like the frontier, the age of revolutions (1776-1815) and the world in the two decades after 1945.

I've rented the first half of the last season of Mad Men from 2Q. (Shouldn't that be the second-last season?) It isn't getting any brighter...