Interpretations

"Maidens aspiring to godheads..." "And vice versa..."--Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

(seeing a man in a red jacket) "Who's the fire hydrant?"--Fargo

Friday night we started watching the TV version of Fargo on DVD.  It's a brilliant faux true crime comedy-drama, even better than the original movie!  It's a pretty loose reworking of the TV show, but the style and sensibility are much the same!  There's a policewoman and a weaselly salesman and a thug and a pregnant woman and a businessman to rip off, but they're each different from their movie counterparts in various ways.  Billy Bob Thornton is in great form as the thug!

Friday I finally bought new shoes at Mark's near St. Clair & Keele. I also bought a spring jacket but it was too small:  the next day I got a better-fitting one at the Walmart in Dufferin Mall.  I wanted to get a new pair of pyjamas too, but the only ones Walmart had were extra large!

Sander I went to the Play Reading Meetup, where we read Tom Stoppard's absurdist comedy Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.  Very unusual--I couldn't really get into it.

Sunday afternoon was Reading Out Loud.  The topic was translations from foreign languages, so the event's title was "Interpretations."  I read several pieces I'd translated myself, including the famous Greek passage in Xenophon's Anabasis where they come within sight of the sea; chapters 12 through 14 of Julius Caesar's account of the Gallic Wars, where he attacked the Helvetians as they were crossing the Saone River, then had unsuccessful negotiations with a Helvetian chief; and the Italian fairy tale "The Love of Three Pomegranates." And I also read the passage from Doctor Zhivago about the doomed demonstration.  

Other people were reading a Rumi poem, parts of a book by Eduardo Galeano, selections from The Divine Comedy and some Chinese and Japanese poems.  The group included five Brazilians who came to improve their English.  They had a good laugh when I told them I knew the Portuguese expression "Ola bonitinha!" which means "Hi, cutie!" I hope they come again.

Out to lunch

Paranoid rock star: "Look at him!  He's taking notes with his eyes!"--Almost Famous

Sunday afternoon the choir did a Mother's Day concert.  We sang several Italian folk songs, along with "Que Sera Sera." Rehearsal was changed from Monday night, so I went to see Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous (for the second time) at the Royal.  It was one of CHUM-FM's free screenings so there was a huge queue.  The movie's pretty funny, but a bit too predictable.  Philip Seymour Hoffman has a great cameo as legendary rock critic Lester Bangs.

Tuesday night I went to the new Learn Something New Meetup at a Starbuck's on Mt. Pleasant Road.  There was a lot of discussion of genetics. (One guy got his DNA tested!)

I've finished Claudius the God and can now concentrate on the Genghis Khan book.  He was a real revolutionary, turning Mongolia's tribal society into a nation-state all at once. (The closest parallel I can think of is Mohammed.)

Yesterday John Snow treated me to lunch at the Schnitzel Hub.  Thanks, John, the food was great!  We discussed how to arrange our book clubs to avoid conflict. (He has a new one to focus on American writing!) I've figured out a scheme in which in every month with a fifth Sunday I'll take the fifth month, and also the first Sunday of the next month but one. (That'll mean alternating between five-week books and eight-week books!) John can take the leftover first Sundays for his American book club.

Last night I went to another Coloring Meetup, this time at Spadina Road library.  Debi showed up and we shared my Doodle Art poster. (She did most of the dragon and Mother Goose!) Afterward several of us went to the Country Style Hungarian restaurant, where I had a good custard square.

Gardening season

It's warm enough for gardening now.  It's been a couple of years since we cut down the old cherry tree in our back yard, but two saplings grew from its roots in the garden, so the other day I transplanted them to the side yard.  If they live on, that means the old tree lives on!

I've started spading the garden, which now has a bigger area than last year, and today I moved a continuous line along its edge.  As well as potatoes, this year I plan to plant carrots and cabbage and such.

My nephew Alec came to Toronto for his SAT exam.  I remember going to Montreal to do my SAT when I was seventeen!  I took a train with my brother John and we stayed at a hostel.  We met a porter who supported Canada's Communist Party (not the Marxist-Leninist sect).  On the way there and back I think I was reading I, Claudius and Brave New World.

Now that my finances have been cleared up, I've submitted an online application for OSDP support over my Asperger's condition. Don't know how long before I'll get an interview.

The other day I joined a group I met through Meetup that's going to take a weekend tour of New York City at the end of July!  The base cost (before extra stuff) is $600 and some, which isn't too heavy.  I'll see if I can get a ticket to the Broadway production of An American in Paris.

Thursday night I dined at the Pickle Barrel with the Colouring Meetup, and did some colouring too.  They were pretty impressed by my Doodleart fairy tale poster. (So far I've mostly been colouring in flesh, using red, yellow, pink and orange.)

History Discussion Group

Sunday I visited my old singing teacher Giuseppe out in Scarborough. (I hadn't seen him for a while.)

Tonight was the History Discussion Group. (I had to miss the dress rehearsal for Sunday's choir concert, but I couldn't very well miss this event because I'm the organizer!) The subject was the English language, and we discussed Bill Bryson's The Mother Tongue, which I'd finished reading a day or two before.  It looks like Debi will be able to arrange the room for our first screening about three weeks from now.  

Over twenty people said they were coming, so I raised the reservation from twelve to fifteen at the last moment, but that was a mistake:  only nine people showed up! (There were a whole lot of last-minute cancellations.)

The other day I completed my online application for ODSP support.  Don't know how long before I'll get my interview.

Today was warm enough for spring cleaning.  I helped Moira clean one window by standing on a workbench and reaching the top part! (Not a huge contribution, I admit, but it's better than nothing.)

I'm in a good mood because Bernie Sanders won the Indiana primary the other day and still has a shot at winning the nomination.  The  Clintonites are in a state of denial that there's any possibility their champion could fail!  I couldn't help thinking of the Catherine Keener character on Show Me a Hero as a potential Sanders voter.

In that Facebook game I've been playing called Klondike, I decided to let the rabbits breed and breed till they overwhelm the place! (The weak link is the supply of flax for the cables to bind the stacks of hay that feed them.) I don't know how much longer I'll continue with it.

ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST

"Why did you have to kill them?  I just told you to scare them!" "People scare easier when they're dyin'"--Once Upon a Time in the West

Sunday afternoon I went to John Snow's book club where we discussed Doctor Zhivago.  John asked me to lead the discussion, which was simple for me since I take a casual approach to these things.  He was grateful enough to give me a present:  the book Why Read Moby-Dick? (Afterward we went to Booster Juice and I tried acai juice.)

Sunday night I saw The Devil's Horn at the Bloor, a documentary of the history of the saxophone.  To think that I tried to play it at one point in my youth!

Yesterday I went to a colouring session I'd found through Meetup, at the Leaside library. (Just getting to these unfamiliar places is an adventure.) I started colouring in that DoodleArt fairy tale poster.

Today I saw Sergio Leone's spaghetti western Once Upon a Time in the West at the Carlton (the last in their Wednesday western series), for at least the fifth time.  It's a western about westerns, and really fun.  Henry Fonda's cleverly cast against type as a ruthless assassin, and Claudia Cardinale does a great pout!  One of Ennio Morricone's finest musical scores.

Sometimes I come up with original thoughts when I'm dreaming.  The other night I was dreaming of that scene in Life of Brian where he tells the crowd "You're all individuals," they drone "WE ARE ALL INDIVIDUALS..." and one guy says "I'm not!" In my dream I thought of commenting, "The first schism!"

I heard that there may be a library strike next week.  I should borrow that book about the Mongol empire this week!

CAROUSEL

"Julie's going to have a baby!" "So what?... My mother had a baby once"--Carousel

Wednesday night I saw Henry King's movie of the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical Carousel at the Event Screen. (It was a combination of my History Discussion Group with Mathew's Meetup.) I'd seen it twice on video, but you really have to see it in a cinema!

This musical really grows on me.  It's deeply moving, though in a '50s sort of way:  it ends with a pretty conformist message, "If people don't like you,  solve your problem by liking them!" Gordon MacRae is a perfect Billy Bigelow, which is rather surprising since he was a last-second replacement for Frank Sinatra.

Thursday I went on another art walk on Dundas West, with an emphasis on Portuguese establishments.

I finally got my taxes done the other day.  They no longer mail you forms so we had to print them off the net.  Next year I should be able to do the whole thing online.

Rereading I, Claudius increased my admiration for it, but I'm staring to admire Claudius the God even more!  Very efficient writing.

We forgot to see Broken Blossoms and I ended up returning it a day late.

COVER GIRL

Chorus girl (answering the phone): "Sure, I'll marry you.  Who are you?"--Cover Girl

Sunday afternoon was Reading Out Loud.  The subject was love, and I titled the event "Spring Is For Lovers"! The weather was so warm that I walked down to Victory Cafe!  I read a section from Doctor Zhivago where Yuri was riding between his wife and his mistress, as well as the early Yeats poem "The Cap and Bells, " and "Nora, the Maid of Killarney" by the World's Worst Poet William McGonagall.  Some other people lent me their material so I also got to read W.H. Auden's "Funeral Blues" and Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach." (I noticed, more clearly than before, that "Dover Beach" is about aging.)

Choir practice was cancelled this week, so I went to the Revue and saw Charles Vidor's Rita Hayworth-Gene Kelly musical Cover Girl.  That's the one about a chorus girl who appears on a big magazine and goes on to Broadway stardom, but what about her sweetheart?  I liked the subplot about her grandmother going through a parallel story.  Phil Silvers (playing a character called Genius) did a number about wartime rationing with the classic rhyme "I'll keep on eating artichokes until the Nazi Party chokes!" The most famous song was "Long Ago and Far Away."

Tonight I went to a Storytelling Meetup, this time at Free Times Cafe.  I talked about my eight months in London twenty years ago (which I'd written about at the memoir slam the day before) and visiting the Canadian National Exhibition back in 1975.  Most of them were telling specific stories, but I was basically just doing brief rambles.  Oh, well...

For some reason, my back feels really stiff these days.  I had to nap a couple of times this afternoon because of it.

Library videos

(I wrote this post three days ago, but posted it on the wrong blog!)

"What do you want, scorpion?"--Twentieth Century

"Where are you going?" "Where Whitey isn't allowed!"--In the Heat of the Night

I've finished Doctor Zhivago and started on two books.  One is Bill Bryson's The Mother Tongue, for the History Discussion Group. (I should finish it pretty quick.) The other is Robert Graves' I, Claudius sequel Claudius, the God, which I borrowed from the North York Centre library Thursday.  I could have got it at the closer Deer Park library, but I went here because I wanted to find "He," a Katherine Anne Porter story of mother love which I was thinking of reading at tomorrow's Reading Out Loud.  But it turned out to be a bit too long for that.

While I was at North York Centre I also borrowed some DVDs for us to look at.  One was the silent movie Broken Blossoms, but I'm not sure I can bear to see it again, it's so sad!

Another was Howard Hawks' Twentieth Century, from a play by Ben Hecht and Charles McArthur, which we saw last night, me for the second time. (Moira got too sleepy to watch it to the end.) It's a classic screwball comedy with obsessive theatre man John Barrymore scheming to get his star Carole Lombard to resume working with him.

The third, which we saw tonight (me for the second time), was Norman Jewison's Oscar winning civil rights-themed mystery In the Heat of the Night.  Rod Steiger was something else!

Friday afternoon I saw From Scotland With Love at the Bloor. (I also bought one of their stainless steel bottles!) It's a feature made from documentary footage of Scotland in the 20th century, from as long as over a century ago.  They had curling, but no golf.

The other night I dreamed of visiting Prince Edward Island, which I've dreamed of before, but this time it was the late fall!  Now the idea of travelling at that time of year has a strange attraction for me...

THE WILD BUNCH

"We all dream of being a child again, even the worst of us.  Perhaps the worst most of all"--The Wild Bunch

Saturday night I saw The Winding Stream at the Bloor.  It's a documentary about the Carter Family and their legacy.  At the end they showed a flash mob in Portland, Oregon singing "Will the Circle Be Unbroken?" Real classic music.

Mathew cancelled the Meetup this weekend where we were going to do some more colouring.  Pity!

The Carlton cinema is showing westerns on Wednesdays this month. (Missed The Good, the Bad & the Ugly last week.) This week I saw Sam Peckinpah's brutal classic The Wild Bunch for at least the fourth time.  It just gets better and better!

The graphic violence feels honest rather than exploitative.  Peckinpah has a particularly unsentimental attitude toward children, who are seen torturing scorpions at the start of the movie.  The scene where the Mexicans lose control of the machine gun may strike some people as racist:  a modern weapon in primitive hands.  And his view of women is hardly P.C.:  they tend to be whores.

Aging actors like William Holden and Robert Ryan are at their considerable best here as aging outlaws. (Ryan plays a particularly sympathetic character, despite being the gang's turncoat, and achieves redemption in the end.) Lucien Ballard's cinematography is masterful, especially the scene where the bridge blows up and the horses and riders fall into the river.

Old letters

I've been looking for my birth certificate to make an application for Ontario Disability Support Payments.  I was looking through some stuff in my room the other day and found a slew of old letters that were written to me when I was researching my Ph.D. in London in 1995.  The birth certificate search got derailed as I read all through them.

Letter writing is a dying art, alas.  Many of these letters were written by my sister Moira, including a couple from the Czech Republic where she was finishing a teaching job.  I remember how her letters had a Czech stamp showing Miroslav Ondracek, the cinematographer who shot Milos Forman movies like Amadeus.  At Goodenough College where I was staying there were some kids who collected stamps and posted envelopes you could put your used stamps in!  They got quite a few Canadian stamps from me.

I'm sure glad I saved these letters!  When I told Moira I still had  her letters she said, "Throw them away!" But she was a really good letter writer, not just funny and readable but also with very neat handwriting.  Father's letters, on the other hand, are barely legible.  There's also part of a letter from Mother, which means a lot to me since she's no longer with us.  And there are a few from friends I made in London who wrote to me afterward.

There was also a letter I wrote back in 1991.  Here's part of what I said:

"The Allies are betraying the Kurds twice:  firstly in not supporting their rebellion; and secondly in trying to force the refugees to return into Saddam Hussein's loving arms.  The problem with Americans is that they think they can bomb Iraq back into the pre-industrial age and still not 'get involved' in the region's political problems.  Some people say that by not supporting the Kurdish rebellion the United States lost her moral advantage in the region.  I disagree.  What America's cowardice proves is that this moral advantage was bogus from the beginning.  

"One thing that bothers me is American liberals hedging their opposition to the war by praising Bush for articulating America's 'moral purpose.' In fact, he was simply propagating a straightforward lie.  If we accept the argument that Kurdistan has to remain part of Iraq to protect the latter's 'territorial integrity' and the the Kurds can go jump, how much of an extension is it to apply the same rationale to Kuwait?  If anything, Kurdistan with her longstanding unique identity--and three times Kuwait's population--is even less a legitimate part of Iraq than Kuwait, which was only separated less than a century ago.

"What's remarkable is that most Americans accept so easily that it's a jungle out there and they can no longer afford moral commitments, now that Iraq is crushed and 'morals' have served their strategic purpose.  This doublethink over morals isn't limited to the American government:  I fear the general population has connived in it.  In their thinking, they way to a happy world is through Pax Americana, so anything that promotes Uncle Sam promotes the general good, and is therefore moral automatically.  

"It all comes down to Lookin' Out for Number One.  America's true purpose is obviously to protect the region's strategic status quo ante, first by reducing Iraq to rubble, then by preventing her destabilization.  Divide and conquer, in other words.  Uncle Sam's greatest nightmare is that someday the Middle East will be united by some political force that the U.S. obviously won't be able to control.

"You should reread Christopher Hitchens' article in January's Harper's.  He prophesied exactly what would happen to the Kurds."

I'm glad that letter got saved too.

Meetups

"I'm too hot for this old folk's home!"--Why Be Good?

On Sunday afternoon the Classic Book Club met and we talked about I, Claudius.  Malcolm has been attending so steadily that I made him assistant organizer! (He has a big video collection, including some historical movies that I might show in the History Discussion Group screenings.)

Wednesday night was the History Discussion Group, where we discussed Herodotus and ancient Egypt.  Margo was afraid I might see her as usurping my authority, but I've made her assistant organizer as well.  If it turns out Debi can't arrange the screenings at her place, Margo's apartment building has a similar place.

We got some interesting ideas going about future events.  For July, we'll read Pierre Berton's Canada and talk about it near Canada Day, maybe even at Black Creek Pioneer Village!  For August, I'll reschedule the Roaring Twenties event that didn't get off the ground in December, and Margo would like to host a 20s-themed party at her place!  I'm already thinking of movie posters and such that I could print off the internet for decorations.

Speaking of the '20s, tonight I saw the formerly "lost" silent movie Why Be Good? at the Royal with the Classic Movie Meetup, as part of the latest Toronto silent film festival. (To answer the question:  Well, being good may not be easier than being naughty, but it tends to be a lot simpler!) It starred jazz baby Colleen Moore, and silent-era star Neil Hamilton, who later played Commissioner Gordon in the '60s TV series Batman! ("Is this the end of the Dynamic Duo? Tune in tomorrow, same bat-time, same bat-channel!") Some great '20s slang like "See you in jail!" CM's speech near the end had an early feminist message about how men want women to be fun, then blame them for not being "nice girls"!

Dreamland

I've been having vivid dreams lately.  The other night I dreamed of meeting New York wit Fran Leibowitz in the local No Frills supermarket and finding her friendlier than I expected. (They were interviewing her in that Tiffany's documentary.) 

When I dream, I remember things that I've dreamed before as if they were real memories.  I have a repeating dream where I'm considering starting a new university course and wondering whether I'm up to the challenge.  In another one I've been trying to finish my Ph.D. thesis but there seems no hope.  Then I wake up and remember that I did finish it over 15 years ago.  And I often dream of being in Halifax, where I spent a lot of time in the '80s. (For someone from a small town, it was a "starter city.") The other day I was wondering, Is my dream world better than my real one?

This week I saw two movies at the Carlton Magic Lantern cinema.  They were exhibiting some paintings by Jeannie, whom I know from the Classic Movie Meetup. (She likes cats!)

Sunday I saw 45 Years, with Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay as a couple approaching their 45th anniversary.  It occurred to me that men don't understand all the things that can make women insecure. (We're just not equipped for it!)

Monday I saw the Coen Brothers' Hail, Caesar, an odd comedy about a Hollywood studio trouble-shooter in the 1950s.  It's a bit like their earlier Barton Fink.

Tuesday, with the Easter weekend over, I went to Shoppers Drug Mart and bought a ton of chocolate at a discount.  Best of all was the Ferrero Rochers, my favourite candy. (I brought some to choir practice on Wednesday.)

I'm in a good mood!

James Cagney (to his veteran brother): "You didn't get those medals by holding hands with them Germans!"--The Public Enemy

Why am I in a good mood?  Because Debi in the History Discussion Group told me that her apartment building has a common room with a DVD player that we might be able to use for screening historical movies as I planned! (Malcolm in the Classic Book Club has several DVDs we can show.) But we'll have to see how things work out, of course.

I'm also in a good mood because Bernie Sanders has been winning several state caucuses and can't yet be counted out of the race. (If the Democrats nominate Hillary Clinton, they'll be taking a big risk!)

Wednesday night we had choir practice and Paolo was pleased by my list of our past material.  That evening we tried some new folk songs, some of which I remember doing in past years.

Thursday night I saw William Wellman's The Public Enemy yet again with the Classic Movie Meetup at Eton House.  It's one of those movies I can see over and over!  Besides James Cagney and Jean Harlow, Joan Blondell has a supporting role. (She's one of my favourite '30s actresses.) That's when I met Debi, who mentioned the room.

This afternoon I went to John Snow's book club.  I didn't have time to read Camus' The Plague or the Wilde story "Birth of the Infanta," but I did finish the Mann story "Little Herr Friedemann"!

Afterward I saw the documentary Crazy About Tiffany's at the Bloor.  Luxury kind of depresses me.

Danny Boy

I mentioned that I sang "Danny Boy" at the History Discussion Group the other week.  Since this is the season of St. Patrick's Day, I got to do it a few more times.

Last week I sang it to the memoir group and they were charmed.  The room where we meet has a curved ceiling which causes echoes.  That's an obstacle to hearing conversation, but it's well suited to singing.

Saturday I sang it at the Play Readthrough Meetup, which I hadn't been to for a while, at the Annette library.  We had fun reading through J.M. Synge's Playboy of the Western World, which I saw on the stage back at age eight! (I was a bit late because the St. Clair streetcar wasn't operating, but that didn't matter.) I think I can speak with a brogue!

Sunday I sang it for the Reading Out Loud Meetup, where the topic was Irish writing.  I read the chapter in Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels where he visiting the grand academy of Lagodo (he was making fun of the Royal Society, I now realize); the section of Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes where he made good money selling a banned magazine page on birth control; the introductory verses of the first three cantos of Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queen; and W.B. Yeats' "A Prayer for My Daughter."

I've made a list of all the music the choir's done since I joined it a dozen years ago, and printing it out took a dozen pages!  (I'd saved all the scores they gave me.) I was going to give it to Paolo at Monday night's rehearsal, but it got delayed to tomorrow night!

Tonight I went to a Theology Meetup with a pastor talking about translating and codifying the Torah.  This stuff fascinates me!

Reading Doctor Zhivago, I've found myself slipping in and out of it. (I felt the same way reading a long essay by fellow Russian Joseph Brodsky.)

DOCTOR ZHIVAGO

"He invited Mama, but Mama could not go, she was indisposed.  Mama said, 'Take Lara.  You're always cautioning me, "Amalia, see to Lara." So go now and see to her.' And he saw to her all right!  Hahaha!"-- Doctor Zhivago (whoopee, a triple-iterated quotation!)

(after a handshake) "You have quite an imagination!  That's what comes from writing movies." "You have quite a grip!  That's what comes from counting cash"--In a Lonely Place

I finally finished the philanthropy issue of Lapham's Quarterly and now I've started the fashion issue.  I've also started reading Doctor Zhivago in its new translation, for John Snow's book club.  In the first chapter he introduces two important characters who aren't in the movie!

I've had mixed feelings about the movie--beautiful but a bit superficial--but the novel is starting to grow on me.  The description of the protest march is pretty vivid. (When I was reading it I missed my subway stop and had to get off at Eglinton West to return to St. Clair West!)

Sunday afternoon I was going to see the movie of South Pacific at the Event Screen, but I was an hour late! (Bloody Daylight Savings Time...) But at least I wasn't late for a Meetup event.  That evening I saw the documentary Guantanamo's Child:  Omar Khadr at the Bloor.  He clearly should have been treated as a child soldier instead of being railroaded for murder and subjected to a show trial.  His case reminds me of a classic Apocalypse Now! line: "Charging a guy with murder here was like handing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500!"

Last night I saw Nicholas Ray's In a Lonely Place (for the second time) at the Lightbox with the Movie Meetup.  It has one of Humphrey Bogart's scariest performances, and great dialogue by Andrew Solt.  Today they'd put Bogey in "anger management." Which reminds me, it's always seemed to me they should have something like anger management for people who make other people angry!

History Discussion Group

"If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse one"--Spotlight

Wednesday night I finally saw Spotlight at Canada Square. (There were only half a dozen people there!) It's a pretty intelligent look at the newspaper business.  Journalists are a bit like lawyers and soldiers:  some people would consider their work unsavoury, but society ultimately depends on them.  In her famous profile of Joe McGinnis in The New Yorker, Janet Malcolm asserted the paradox that reporters play con games to get to the truth.  Now I want to read the book it was based on.

Thursday night at the History Discussion Group we talked about mass emigration from Ireland and Ken McGoogan's Celtic Lightning.  There was a bit of confusion because we got confused with another reservation for just two people!  But we got straightened out and got the big room in back. (I'd made a reservation for ten people, and eleven showed up.) I didn't do much talking, but toward the end I sung "Danny Boy" a cappella!

Last night I saw The Revenant at Canada Square.  The photography was breathtaking!  The land was almost a character in itself.

I finished I, Claudius yesterday.  Now it's time to start getting caught up with Lapham's Quarterly:  I still haven't finished the fall issue!  John Snow mailed me a copy of Thomas Mann's short story "Little Herr Friedemann," which we'll be discussing at his next book club, so I'll have no excuse not reading it.

This afternoon one of my Movie Meetup groups had a colouring session! (Mathew rented a space near Glad Day bookstore.) I coloured a design of roses and one called "Secret Garden."

Just now I've been watching Peanuts specials on Youtube.  I like the jazzy music and the sound that indicates teachers' voices!

THE FORCE AWAKENS

"Women always figure out the truth.  Always!"--Han Solo

We've put both operas to bed.  Elixir finished Saturday night, Fledermaus Sunday afternoon.  At the last performance, before coming onstage in the second act I felt unusually sleepy.  Moira and our friend Pui-tak came to see it. 

Beatrice didn't announce what we're doing next year like she did at the final show last year.  On Thursday night the opera group is coming together to take turns with informal singing, which sounds fun, but that's the same night as my History Discussion Group!

I like the weather just now, with some snow still on the ground but the temperature above thawing. (I've come to see March as a favourite month of mine.) I've put away my winter coat and brought out my spring jacket.  This afternoon I visited the Davenport and Wychwood library branches to see if I could spot any books suitable for my Classic Book Club or my History Discussion Group.  I didn't find anything, but I really just wanted to get out of the house!

Since I have some free time now, I went to see J.J. Abrams' Star Wars sequel The Force Awakens tonight at Canada Square.  Lots of plot elements from the earlier movies getting put together in a new way.  It was competently made, but meh.  I think I'm too old for the fantasy adventure genre. (In middle age I've come to understand how my parents felt about this kind of entertainment--or didn't feel--back when I was young.) It was a bit sad to see Harrison Ford reprising Han Solo:  unlike Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher, he outgrew this kids' stuff.  I could have seen it in 3-D, but didn't bother.

Super Tuesday

In case you're wondering, I've proved well enough for the last week of the opera.  I even managed to bake the gingerbread for them to sell as I'd promised. (It sold out completely!) Before tonight's performance of Elixir, while putting on my makeup, as usual I put a kleenex over my peasant costume's neckline to keep it from being smudged.  Only tonight, I forgot to take it off and wore the kleenex onstage!  And the twist is, it actually improved the costume a bit.

After Super Tuesday, some Clintonites have been claiming that the Sanders campaign is finished.  They remind me of General Santa Anna in Texas Rising saying about Sam Houston's Texan army, "They're too stupid to realize they've lost the war!" (He says this after taking the Alamo but before being routed and captured at San Jacinto.)

Last night I finally finished Celtic Lightning and can now focus on finishing I, Claudius.  The battle scenes are tightly depicted, reflecting Robert Graves' own experience in World War I.  The depiction of Rome's war with Germany surely has a subtext about that conflict.  No doubt there's also a subtext about the uneasy British Empire between the world wars.

After really warm weather on Sunday, it got really cold again for the last few days.  I can't wait to be finished with my winter boots!

Our cable company is now offering a la carte channel subscriptions, so I'm now considering what we might pick up.  The CBC and BBC news channels are our highest priorities, and al-Jazeera and CNN International also sound interesting.  I'm also thinking of Turner Classic Movies.

Leap Day

I'm almost over my cold.  It's past its peak and is now in the final headache phase.

I'm finished with "hell week." I warned Beatrice that I might not be able to make the last week of shows, but I'm still hopeful that I can.  Sunday Moira came to see Elixir and afterward we walked home together. (The weather was nice, but today the temperature dropped sharply.)

At Thursday's opera show, I ended up putting on way too much shade and had to add a whole lot of powder to blend it.  But overall I've got pretty good at applying my own makeup.  For me the hardest part isn't being onstage but waiting in the wings.  When a task is impending it looks really big, but it doesn't seem so big once you're actually doing it!  In my spare time backstage I've been reading I, Claudius.

Moira borrowed the miniseries Texas Rising from the library, about the 1836 Texan War of Independence.  She seemed to lose interest when she found out how long it was, but I've started watching it.  It doesn't stint on brutality. (Crispin Glover, an actor who's always interested me, has a supporting role.)

At today's memoir group there were eighteen people!

I'm depressed about Hillary Clinton winning the South Carolina primary.  If she gets nominated Trump will crush her for sure! (She's the sort of "establishment" figure who'll be convenient for him to run against.) The online people who keep denouncing Bernie Sanders with talk of "free stuff" and "unicorns" remind me of Joseph's brothers saying, "Here cometh the dreamer.  Let us slay him, then we shall see what happens to his dreams!"

Hell week

Sunday was my Reading Out Loud Meetup.  The topic was poetry, and there were a dozen people, the largest group I've ever had!  I read Sandberg's "Chicago" (in my Scots version), a children's poem "If No One Ever Marries Me," Walter Scott's "Breathes There a Man," and the poem about the Tay Bridge disaster by the World's Worst Poet William McGonagall.  Someone recited John Donne poems from memory!  If the Victory Cafe gets torn down along with Honest Ed's we'll have to find a new place, and someone suggested a room you can book at the Starbuck's near Christie & Davenport.

This is "hell week" for my opera group.  Two dress rehearsals followed by four shows, all in six days.  And I'm not completely over my cold.  I didn't have buckles for my shoes since I missed Wednesday's Elixir of Love rehearsal, so Beatrice got Gerald to give me his. (He's playing Dulcamara and his pants go down to his shoes, unlike the chorus men who are wearing knee socks.)

Monday night I wasn't up to choir practice.  Which is just as well because I had a ticket to see the cinema broadcast of the Met production of Bizet's The Pearl Fishers.  That's the opera where Jurga and Nadir were best friends until Leila came between them, but now they're best friends again, except that Jurga's become the headman of a Sri Lankan fishing village that brings in Leila as a virgin whose job is to sing calmness to the sea, while Nadir's come there in amorous pursuit of Leila, and he seduces her and there's a big storm and the village is going to execute them and Jurga's especially homicidal because of his own jealousy, but Leila gives him the pearl pendant he gave her when she hid him from a lynch mob, so Jurga sets the village on fire as a distraction so he can free the two of them in repayment of his debt, but he stays behind to take their fate onto himself.  Of course, the two highlights are in the first act:  the Jurga-Nadir duet and Nadir's aria.  It has a lot in common with Delibes' Lakme.

We need a new doorbell.  It just beeps like a truck in reverse, not nearly enough to wake you from sleep.  Monday night I forgot my house key and when I got home I rang the bell twenty times but Father was sound asleep and I had to break a window to wake him up!  Tonight he left the door unlocked for me.

Opera costumes

Scarface (shooting in mime): "Do it first, do it by yourself, and keep doing it!"

Monday was a holiday, so there was no memoir group or choir practice.  I went to the Revue and saw Howard Hawks' original Scarface (for the third time) with the Classical Movie Meetup group.  It's very entertaining, though I can see why Italian-Americans disliked their often broad depiction here. (I noticed the repeated murder-related imagery involving the letter "X.") And it's way better than Al Pacino's garish remake.  The main thing I remember from that is Pacino complaining that his wife Michelle Pfeiffer never ate--and MP is pretty skinny!

The opera costumes arrived from Malabar Tuesday morning, and I came to help move them and try mine on. (Father was out with our Metropass, so I walked there and back.) I had to finish in a hurry so the stage manager could lock the dressing rooms and return the key to the caretaker, so of course I ended up leaving my glasses inside!  But I got them back in the evening.

I've come down with a bit of a cold, so I had to miss Wednesday night's rehearsal.  I'm concentrating on getting better so I won't miss the dress rehearsals and performances next week!  I've taken to eating pomelos, which are like mega-grapefruit.  I haven't been getting out much, though I did visit my psychiatrist Thursday and had lunch with my friend Pam on Friday, both of which were planned some time earlier.

The family relations in I, Claudius are pretty complicated.  I found a Julio-Claudian family tree on Wikipedia and posted it on the Classic Book Club Meetup message board.

In one of my Facebook groups there's a thread asking what celebrities you've had a crush on.  I've posted pictures of Laura Dern and Francesca Annis.  I also started another thread by posting a picture of Princess Grace's granddaughter Charlotte Casiraghi and saying "Isn't she gorgeous?" (Yes, those pics are at the top of this post.)

CAROL

"Just when you think things can't get worse, you run out of cigarettes"--Carol

Tuesday I borrowed Robert Graves' I, Claudius from the Palmerston library.  I'd forgotten how good it was!  In the preface he mentioned a criticism by an airman called T.E. Shaw, who I realized was actually Lawrence of Arabia! (He joined the RAF under a new name.)

Wednesday night we were rehearsing Die Fledermaus again.  This time I remembered to remove the chaise, but the other guy forgot, so I pushed it off by myself. (A bit of noise, but the show must go on!)

Thursday night at the Bloor I saw the Janis Joplin documentary Janis:  Little Girl Blue.  If I could bring one singer back from the dead, it would be her or maybe Cass Elliot.

Friday I rented the DVD of Roberto Rossellini's Stromboli.  That's the one where Rossellini got his married star Ingrid Bergman pregnant, leading to one of the great Hollywood scandals:  studio head Howard Hughes leaked her secret to get his movie some cheap publicity, the rat!  The movie's about IB marrying an Italian soldier to get out of her refugee camp and coming to live in a fishing village on a volcanic island and hating it.  It isn't as good as the later Rossellini-Bergman movies Europa 51 and Voyage to Italy:  it's one of those movies that stops instead of ending. (Luchino Visconti did better with a similar setting in La Terra Trema.) But there's clearly some talent at work, and there's always the Ingrid Bergman face that the camera adored.  I liked the scene where her husband dragged her to church after she was seen "flirting" with another man and everyone turned and looked at her.  It reminded me of when a kid arrived late at my class and school and the teacher made us all look at her!

Tonight I saw Todd Haynes' Carol at the Revue.  It's a sparely powerful, spellbinding lesbian romance, from a Patricia Highsmith novel.  Haynes used a similar 1950s setting for Far From Heaven, but I didn't care as much for that one:  for all its handsomeness, it was a movie about '50s movies.  This time his style is calm and moving, proof that less is often more.

Real brass-monkey weather today.  After finishing the movie I walked to the Dundas West station instead of waiting for the streetcar because I can't stand still in such cold weather!  I normally walk to the station from the Revue anyway.

History Discussion Group

"Long ago I learned that you can't save people from themselves.  Either they figure it out on their own or they don't"--Chloe Sevigny in Bloodline

Tuesday I finished A Distant Mirror and started reading Ken McGooghan's Celtic Lightning for next month's History Discussion Group.  That same day, when we were rehearsing Die Fledermaus, I totally forgot that I was one of the two people who were supposed to remove the chaise just before the "Du und Du" waltz, which brought everything to a stop.  Was my face red!

Thursday night was the History Discussion Group Meetup.  There were nine people there, but few of them had read A Distant Mirror. Yet we had a pretty good time.  I managed to sell one of them a ticket to my opera! (Moira's also bought two.  I'll have to peddle them at my Reading Out Loud Meetup too.)

Friday was my fifty-fourth birthday.  Moira bought me a nice fleece sweater and Father's going to get me a hoodie.  Puitak and Gordon brought over lunch.  We went over to Loblaw's and bought a birthday cake of the strawberry shortcake type.  The following day John and Margaret came over and Kathrine made me a vegan chocolate cake! (Two cakes are better than one.)

Saturday I finished Bloodline.  It's a terrific family melodrama.  And I just found out they're making a second season!

Right now they're having a digital film festival at Scotiabank Cinema.  I was hoping to see Mel Gibson in The Road Warrior, which I haven't seen since it first came out, but I had a headache and felt under the weather.

At the memoir group today there were seventeen people!  I've been meeting some interesting people there.  The library is closed next week due to the holiday, so I took home the can of subject cards again to remove duplicates (and contribute a few more).

BLOODLINE

"Don't make this about us!" "I'm making it about you"--Bloodline

We're halfway through Bloodline.  It's a complex, impressive family melodrama, and it's getting pretty dark.   Chloe Sevigny is making the most of her supporting role.  I'll want to see it again before long!

We're now rehearsing the opera on both Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Friday night I went to the opening of an art exhibit at the Power Plant in Harbourfront. (I'd gone there the previous Friday, not realizing I was a week early!) I liked the part where the walls and ceilings were lined with butterflies.  Could have done without the loud music.

Yesterday afternoon I went to John Snow's book club, which was discussing Yves Beauchemin's Quebec novel Alley Cat.  I hadn't read the book, but John doesn't mind.  He promoted this blog, so I may get some more readers.  TIA!

At the memoir group this afternoon there was another new girl:  Maria from Yugoslavia.  It turned out she's a friend of our opera director Beatrice.  Small world!

At tonight's choir practice we started doing Verdi's Anvil Chorus and a medley of patriotic Italian songs from World War I.  Giovanni was away, so Oksana drove me to St. Clair Avenue instead.

The weather's got pretty warm, so I stopped wearing my long johns and winter boots.

Classic Book Club

"The real king of Naples is the Queen!"--That Hamilton Woman

Friday night I went to the opening of an art exhibit at the Power Plant, only to find out that it wasn't till this Friday!

Saturday night I hoped to rent the Roberto Rossellini-Ingrid Bergman movie Stromboli from 2Q Video, but it was out.  Instead I rented Alexander Korda's That Hamilton Woman, with real-life couple Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh as Lord Nelson and his mistress Lady Emma Hamilton.  Since it was made in 1941, there was plenty of WWII subtext, emphasizing the importance of fighting Napoleon/Hitler's tyranny.  Pretty fun overall. (I liked the bit in the first scene where the gendarme socked her and hurt his knuckles!)

Sunday afternoon the Classic Book Club discussed Bambi.  Only three people came, but everyone who decided not to come changed their RSVP, and that's something. (There are usually some no-shows who don't warn you.)

Sunday night we started watching the Netflix series Bloodlines, about a black sheep who returns home to his Florida family and starts causing trouble.  It looks promising.

This afternoon at the memoir slam there was a woman from Vietnam called Deanna, who was on the last helicopter out of Saigon in 1975!  Seems people are always telling her she should write down her life story.

Tonight at choir practice we started doing the Slave's Chorus from Verdi's Nabucco.  We've done it before a lot, but this is the first time we did it Paolo's way.  I managed to sing a high B flat for the first time!

The other night I dreamed that someone convinced me to agree to make a "reality TV" show, but I changed my mind when I found out they were going to film it in my room!  I also dreamed of singing William Blake's "Jerusalem" in a choir.

Reading out loud

Sunday's ROLT Meetup, "My heart's in the Highlands!" focused on Scottish writing.  I read a passage from early in Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped sequel David Balfour; Robert Burns' "The Soldier's Return"; "Greenland's Icy Mountains" by the World's Worst Poet William McGonnagall; and "The Hill" from Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology, except that I'd translated it into Scots dialect and retitled it "Th' Brae."

Five people came. (At one point over twenty people had said they were coming.) One of them was Rebecca, whom I'd met at a Meetup several years ago, who grew up in New Guinea as a missionary child.

Monday night at choir practice we started on our new program.  The first song we've started learning is "Firenze Sogna." I'm already trying to memorize it because Paolo would like all of us to be off-book.  At one point I managed to sing a high A!

At opera rehearsal Tuesday night we started staging Die Fledermaus.  I'm one of four guys who'll do consecutive dance twirls with our gals at the start of the "What a Night!" number.

Tonight I saw the DVD of Disney's movie of Bambi, which I last saw as a little kid.  They removed the deer character who got captured by the humans and released back into the wild without his old survival instincts, as well as the part where Bambi examines the corpse of a poacher killed in a gunfight. (The latter was too gruesome for the family audience.) The added scene where Bambi rescues Faline from the hounds doesn't jibe with the book.  But the choral music was nice.

I just ate a pomelo, which is a mega-grapefruit.

The History Discussion Group Meetup is in a couple of weeks so it's time for me to get serious about finishing A Distant Mirror!  If I do 15 or 20 pages a day that'll be enough.

GOODFELLAS

"What do you expect me to do, shoot him?" "Well, it wouldn't be a bad idea..."--Goodfellas

"And all I had to do every once in a while was tell Sandy I loved her"--ibid.

Sunday afternoon I saw Martin Scorcese's Goodfellas (for the umpteenth time) at the Event Screen with the Sunday Afternoon Movie Meetup.  It's one of my favourite movies!  While most gangster movies are tragedies, this one plays as a very black comedy.  This time I noticed the gangsters' long, pointy collars, like priests on speed.  They also had a "making of" documentary.

Afterward I went to the Politics Meetup.  But first I had time to kill so I went to the Chapters near Bay station and bought Margaret MacMillan's book about historical personalities and the 1985-86 issue of the complete reprint of Peanuts. (It wasn't so good by this time, but I'm still a bit curious.)

Monday afternoon we had fifteen people at the memoir slam even though Selia couldn't make it! (We discussed movie's we'd like to see someday, and school textbooks.) That evening choir practice got cancelled.  I hope it wasn't because of Paolo's boy being sick!

Wednesday night I saw the Ingrid Bergman documentary at the Bloor. (This time I was ready to be there at 6:15.) I hadn't known she had an affair with the war photographer Robert Capa!

This morning there was a robbery at the Starbuck's near St. Clair and Christie. (Nobody was hurt.) Last weekend there was a stabbing at St. Clair and Dufferin.

Today I went to the dentist and got a filling. (My regular cleaning will have to wait a couple more weeks.) I'm considering getting my teeth straightened, and Dr. Hrabalova suggested an orthodontist to visit.

Two movies

Last night I saw Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight at Market Square, the western about eight mostly dangerous people stuck together in a snowstorm. (I was going to see the documentary about Ingrid Bergman, but it turned out to be at 18:15, so I didn't have time to get there.) The only woman was played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, who was born on the same day as me! (February 5, 1962.) It was pretty scary and funny.  As usual with Tarantino, there were lots of references to other movies.  J.J.L.'s character had the surname Domergue, which must be a reference to Faith Domergue, Howard Hughes girlfriend and actress in film noir Where Danger Lives and scifi curio This Island Earth.  Like Django Unchained, it had a reference to the silent classic Greed. (I'd say what it was, but that would be a spoiler.)

Have I mentioned the Biddle Family before?  When I was little, my siblings and I put on Biddle Family plays, the main rule being that everyone died in the end. (We also did fairy-tale spoofs where the good guys became bad guys and vice versa.) So in my family, a "Biddle Family ending" means an ending where a lot of characters die.   Hamlet and King Lear are Shakespearean examples of Biddle Family endings.  Well, fans of Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs won't be surprised when The Hateful Eight takes a Biddle Family turn!

Today I saw Ron Howard's In the Heart of the Sea at the Kingsway in Royal York, about the ill-fated voyage of the whaling ship the Essex, which inspired Moby-Dick.  It was a conventional but grimly enjoyable sea story.

I thought the movie was going to be at 15:00, but when I got there it turned out to be at 17:00.  Oh well, better early than late.  I had time to kill so I walked all the way to the Kipling station.  Etobicoke isn't Toronto's fanciest neighbourhood, but strange vicinities are always worth a visit when they aren't crime-ridden and dangerous.  I passed by the Arthur Murray dance studio where I spent a fortune thirteen years ago, but I didn't look in the window because I was afraid I'd see someone I knew and risk reopening a closed book!

THE BIG SHORT

"Money isn't all." "Not when ya got it!"--Giant

"She says this job is making me unhappy." "It makes you happy to be unhappy!"--The Big Short

Sunday I saw George Stevens' Giant, for the fourth time, with the Classic Movie Meetup at the Lightbox. (They've been showing a series of movies with Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor.) It's Elizabeth Taylor at her best, with lots of epic Texan stuff and James Dean too!  Jeannie and Gaby like me because I share my popcorn with them.  Afterward we had dinner at the Queen Mother Cafe near Osgoode station.  I had a spicy dish from Laos called Long Son Gai.

Monday night was choir practice, but a lot of us couldn't come so we just did some voice exercises.  I'm still curious about what we're going to do next!

Today Moira and I went through my clothes and found some stuff that should be replaced. (I admit that clothes aren't so important to me.) Then I went to Amalia's Jewellers north of St. Clair and bought a new battery for my watch, after only six months of procrastination!  I also bought a new strap, with Mickey Mouse comic book panels printed on the inner side.

Tonight I saw The Big Short at Canada Square.  A surprisingly funny take on the sub-prime mortgage crisis from the perspective of people who profited through short-selling. (Short-sellers have a bad reputation for profiting from trends that ruin other people, but without them speculative bubbles would be bigger and get followed by bigger crashes.) With a good cast and sharp dialogue, it may end up electing Bernie Sanders president!

New Year's

Yesterday my choir performed at the Vaughan branch of the Villa Colombo.  We did a few of the songs from our Christmas program and several Italian folk songs that were new to me.  We were given the words, but only one or two had the melody.  Our next rehearsal is this Monday. (Paolo doesn't waste time!)

I met Rolando (the tailor who looks a bit like silent film actor Tully Marshall) at the Columbus Centre at 10:30, and he drove me and Isabella and Michelina up to Vaughan.  On the way back one of us noticed a driver who'd no doubt been celebrating too early swerving on the road!  We finally got back at 3:00, which played havoc with our lunch schedules.

Last night I was in bed at midnight but heard the fireworks going off, as usual.

That night my dreams were more vivid than usual. (My cipralex needs replenishing.) First I dreamed of singing karaoke in the Sackville house late at night, and preparing to sing the Sid Vicious version of "My Way," which I sometimes sing at real karaoke.  Then I dreamed of a film biography of a Victorian man reaching the top of the ladder and going out to manage a big business firm in the colonies.  Then I dreamed of being inside a huge, hollow ocean liner that contained a body of water with a sub-ship floating in it, and I recall the villain had a ship like that in the James Bond movie The Spy who Loved Me.  Then I dreamed of an alternative ending to Mad Men in which all the characters went on hikes along this New Brunswick route.  Then I dreamed of my family going home to Sackville from Moncton, except that we took a detour that led us to a non-existent historic fort on the far side of Saint John, causing me to suggest we stay overnight in that city.

Today I finally got back to baking bread, which I've left off for a while.

THE WIRE

"He's a piece of shit!" "Everyone's a piece of shit when they get in your way.  It goes with the territory"--The Wire

We had a pretty normal, quiet Christmas.  This year instead of turkey we had scalloped potatoes and ham.  We saved our plum pudding for when Donald came over two days ago.

Yesterday we visited the lawyer near Eglinton station and made the last arrangements to create the segregated account so I can qualify for ODSP.  Father's more concerned about my future finances than I've ever been:  he's a child of the Depression.

I've been watching the third season of The Wire on DVD.  This time the focus is on street dealing and a police officer's experiment creating a zone where dealers can operate free of police interference.

I've got up to Level 103 in Candy Crush Saga!  I'm at Level 106 in Pet Rescue Saga but I don't know if it's possible to get any further.

I'm not big on New Year's resolutions, but I've switched to a skim-milk diet.

Monday was the first really cold weather, and Monday night was our first significant snowfall, so now I'm wearing my winter coat and boots.  I like the weather just now, with snow on the ground but the temperature above freezing.

In Barbara Tuchman's history of the 14th century, I was reading about town criers in Paris yesterday.  I'll bet I'd have made a good town crier, what with my loud voice!

I recently read a sick joke online that I found rather funny: "Doctor, I--I can't feel my legs!" "Of course you can't, I took off your arms!"

SPARTACUS

"If there were no gods I'd still worship them; if there were no Rome I'd still dream of her"--Spartacus

Sunday afternoon I saw the cinemacast of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker ballet again, this time with Mary of the Classical Music Meetup.  The popcorn disagreed with me:  I should lay off it for a while.

Monday I went to Paolo and Catriona's open house in North York.  I bought mixed berries for the potluck at the Loblaw's near Bathurst Street and used their self-service checkout for the first time.  (Remind me to go there when it's less busy!) Getting to those places is an adventure for me.

Last night I saw Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus, for at least the fourth time, at the Lightbox in all its 70mm glory.  I'd hoped to make it a History Discussion Group event but this was the wrong time of year.

It's one of those movies that gets even better with repeat viewings.   It's more intelligent than most of the ancient epics that were fashionable in the '50s and early '60s.  Kubrick didn't have the creative control he later became accustomed to, but he keeps things moving for the whole three hours.  What a Polish face Kirk Douglas has!  It's minor flaws seem very minor. (John Dall's delivery of the line "I don't know how I shall ever be able to repay you" makes the audience laugh.

I just finished watching the last episodes of Mad Men.  When you think about it, it's a pretty depressing show.  It ended with one of the most cynical commercials of all time:  the Coke ad with young people singing "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing"!

LEGEND (spoiler)

"We honeymooned in Greece.  The Parthenon has been standing there for 2400 years.  Reggie's promise to go straight lasted two weeks)"--Legend

Last night was the choir's last concert, this time at the Columbus Centre.  My tenor voice still isn't as strong as I'd like, and I considered returning to baritone, but I decided to stay for now. (Gary from the memoir group visited us at Monday's dress rehearsal.  He's thinking of joining the choir, but he'll have to audition.  I didn't have to audition a dozen years ago.)

Since's it's Christmas time, I've been playing Candy Crush Saga and Pet Rescue Saga.  I'd forgotten how tough Level 42 in the first game can be!

Wednesday night I saw Legend at Canada Square.  It started 45 minutes later than I expected, so I went over to Indigo Books and bought Ken McGoogan's Celtic Lightning, which the History Discussion Group will be reading soon.

Legend is about the Kray twins, notorious gangsters in Swinging London. (One was insane and ended up in Broadmoor.) Tom Hardy played both roles, with a little help from special effects, and it was pretty creepy.  I saw an earlier version, The Krays, at the Showcase before that cinema closed. (In that version they were played by twins Gary and Martin Kemp from Spandau Ballet.) The main thing I remember about the earlier version is a scene where they've been drafted into the army and their drill sergeant is giving the group his "Make any trouble and you'll wish you'd never been born!" speech, then they go up to him and beat him unconscious!

This version contained a narrative cheat, but I can't talk about it without a spoiler:

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Are you sure you want to read the spoiler?

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Don't say you weren't warned!

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The movie's narrated by Reg's wife, but it turns out that she died before the final scenes, so some of what she's describing is things she didn't live to see!

TRUMBO

"Mac, have you ever been in love?" "No, I've been a bartender all me life"--My Darling Clementine

Thursday night the choir did a concert for the old folk at Villa Colombo.  An old lady got up and started dancing so I danced with her! (We were singing an Italian song that I didn't know anyway.) The following night we did a concert at the Ashbury United Church.  I baked gingerbread for them to sell.

Saturday night we saw John Ford's My Darling Clementine, which Moira got from the library. (Can't remember how often I've seen it.) The O.K. Corrall story has been filmed many times, but never better than here.  Henry Fonda had a great square dancing scene!

Yesterday was the Reading Out Loud Meetup.  Our topic was children's writing, as usual for December.  I read a passage from L.M. Montgomery's Emily of New Moon where she met her relatives after her father's death, then another where she sent her poem to a newspaper, not realizing you mustn't write on both sides of the page.  I also read the poem "Harp Song of the Dane Women" from Kipling's Puck of Pook's Hill, and A.A. Milne's poem "King John's Christmas," which begins: "King John was not a good man.  He had his little ways..." That's a great British expression, "He had his little ways"! Bill and Hillary Clinton have their little ways too!

Last night I saw the biopic Trumbo at the Varsity.  It was pretty good:  Bryan Cranston is one of my favourite actors.  And Louis C.K. had a good role as fellow screenwriter Hurd Hatfield.  But I disagree with Trumbo's final message that McCarthyism had no heroes or villains, just victims.  The Titanic was something with just victims.  In this case, it seems to me that Dashiell Hammett was definitely a hero and Ronald Reagan definitely a villain (both as Screen Actors Guild president and later as president).

It's unusually warm today.  I'll get one last chance to wear my autumn jacket before it gets cold!

New books

"Of late, however, although the transition had been so gradual his audience had scarcely noticed, his interests had moved in a new direction, toward magical, arcane matters; and his fortnightly lectures in the dining hall--the sanatorium's main attraction, the pride of its brochure--which were always delivered from behind a cloth-covered table in an exotic, drawling accent, to an immobile audience of Berghof residents and for which he always wore a frock coat and sandals, no longer dealt with masked forms of love in action or the transformation of illness back into conscious emotion, but with the abstruse oddities of hypnotism and somnambulism, the phenomena of telepathy, prophetic dreams, and second sight, the wonders of hysteria; and as he discussed these topics, philosophic horizons expanded until suddenly his audience beheld great riddles shimmering before their eyes, riddles about the relationship between matter and the psyche, indeed, the very riddle of life itself, which so it appeared, might be more easily approached along very uncanny paths, the paths of illness, than by the direct road of health"--The Magic Mountain

On Youtube, in addition to Spitting Image, I've started watching  Longstreet, a 1971 single-season TV show with James Franciscus as a blind detective(!). I remember seeing the pilot at the time, in which his wife was killed by a bomb meant for him and he was left blind.  There was this really sad moment where he got out of his hospital bed and made a scene, his dead eyes bandaged.  Bruce Lee turns up as a martial arts teacher.  I think there's an episode where a bad guy attacks him and he turns out the lights.  Even the less popular shows from that time seem more interesting than most of today's Big Three network stuff!

With The Magic Mountain finished, I've started some new books.  One is Barbara Tuchman's 14th century history A Distant Mirror for the History Discussion Group.  Another is Felix Salten's Bambi for the Classic Book Club. (It's a lot shorter, and I should finish it pretty quick.) And I've started the fourth and last volume of Shigeru Mizuki's manga history of Shouwa Japan-cum-personal memoir, focusing on the period between 1953 and 1989.

Tonight the Nonfiction Book Club met at Jack Astor's to discuss what we're reading just now.  I brought Tuchman and the manga and that gave me enough to talk about.

The internet signal was off for most of today.  We even had trouble with the cable TV connection!  While waiting for it to come back, I finished translating the poem "Desiderata" into Japanese. (I've already translated it into Scots, French and Chinese.)

Classic Book Club

"Time--not the sort that train station clocks measure with a large hand that jerks forward every five minutes, bur more like the time of a very small watch whose hands move without our being able to notice, or the time grass keeps as it grows without our eyes' catching its secret growth, until the day comes when the fact in undeniable--time a line composed of elastic turning points (and here the late, ill-fated Naphtha would presumably have asked how purely elastic points can ever begin to form a line), time, then, had continued to bring forth changes in its furtive, unobservable, secret, and yet bustling way"--The Magic Mountain

Tuesday night was the last opera rehearsal before the Christmas break.  I have most of my lines memorized.

Wednesday night I saw Brooklyn.  It was pretty good:  a handsome production nicely acted.  In the middle the projection broke down and we had to wait several minutes before it started again.  I took out my book to start reading it and that brought back the movie. (Seems to work every time!)

I had to cancel the December History Discussion Group event focusing on the Roaring '20s and the Bill Bryson book One Summer.  Nobody else could come, but maybe I'll reschedule it next year.

Thursday night I missed choir practice because I went to the wrong place!  We performed in a Friday night concert at the St. Clare church near Dufferin Street, to raise money for Syrian refugees.  Then we did a mass at Villa Colombo this morning.

Friday night I finally finished The Magic Mountain, in time for the Classic Book Club this afternoon.  Nine people came, and to my surprise most of them had finished The Magic Mountain.  Someone suggested that much of the story was in Hans Castorp's head, and if I reread it again I'll probably see it in a very different way!

On Spitting Image I heard the line "I don't go to the loo.  I'm the Queen!" When Elizabeth II visited my alma mater Mt. Allison University thirty years ago, I overheard someone saying that when the Queen visits a place and uses a toilet seat, they have to destroy it afterward.

More people I don't envy

"Ever since the eccentric conclusion to his relationship with a certain personality and all the changes that conclusion had set into motion in the sanatorium; ever since Clavdia Chauchat's renewed departure from the society of those up here, including a respectful, considered farewell to her master's surviving "brother" exchanged beneath the shadow cast by the tragedy of a great failure--ever since that turning point, it had seemed to the young man as if there were something uncanny about the world and life, as if there were something peculiar, something increasingly askew and disquieting about it, as if a demon had seized power, an evil and crazed demon, who had long exercised considerable influence, but now declared his lordship with such unrestrained cantor that he could install in you secret terrors, even prompt you to think of fleeing.  The demon's name was Stupor"--The Magic Mountain

Here are some more people I don't envy:

Parents who have lost a child:  I can't imagine how traumatic that can be!  We forget how often that used to happen:  it happened to both my paternal and maternal grandparents. (The myth of Niobe shows that the Greeks understood the pain of parental bereavement.)

Blind and lame people:  For me, the worst thing about having such a handicap would be depending on other people. (Those who manage to leave fairly independent lives are greatly to be admired.)

Farmers:  Their lives are closer to nature, but their livelihood depends on the whims of weather, and throughout history they've tended to be in debt. (And those tractors are noisy!) But I do like gardening.

Orphans:  Parents are something most children take for granted, and people who've grown up with parents can't imagine what it's like to grow up without them.

Undertakers:  They deal with people at their most traumatized, which can take a huge emotional toll.  I can well believe that some of them become manipulative hawkers of unnecessary items.

Models:  That can't be a healthy way to live.

Refugees:  As a refugee, you leave behind your old life and can't be sure of finding a new one.  Many refugees end up in an excruciating limbo that can produce hardened terrorists.

Young people:  Older people often wax nostalgic about youth, forgetting how severe its difficulties can feel.

Opera fundraiser

"It is not by accident, please note, that we have chosen to associate with minds like those of Messrs. Naphtha and Settembrini, instead of surrounding ourselves with vague Peeperkorns--which leads us, in fact, to a comparison that in many respects and particularly in regard to stature can only be resolved in favour of this late arrival, just as it was resolved in Hans Castorp's own mind as he lay on his balcony and admitted that those two hyperarticulate mentors, tugging at both sides of his soul, simply shrank beside Pieter Peeperkorn, until he was inclined to call them the same name the Dutchman had called him in a fit of drunken royal banter--"little chatterboxes"--and decided it was a piece of good luck that hermetic pedagogy had also brought him into contact with such a manifest personality"--The Magic Mountain

Last Thursday was the opera fundraiser.  This year it took place at the Bickford Centre this year, with a $10 minimum admission for the first time. I baked gingerbread for it the night before. (Most of it I kept to eat at home, and we added icing!) Afterward there was a big variety of cookies and stuff for the crowd.  My favourite was the marble loaf, and the mince tarts were pretty good too.  Afterward I took home a lot of leftovers once more.

My choir octet had a rehearsal on Saturday morning for a change. (I like having a reason to get up earlier.) I brought over those leftovers and they had a few.

Sunday afternoon I went to John Snow's book club where we discussed Emile Zola's Germinal.  I hadn't read the book but John doesn't mind.  That evening I saw the Noam Chomsky documentary Requiem for the American Dream at the Bloor with the Sunday Movie Meetup.  I was familiar with his arguments but enjoyed it anyway. (I saw the Chomsky documentary Manufacturing Consent and the Toronto Film Festival over 20 years ago, and greatly enjoyed it!)

I've started a new Facebook game called Klondike.  It reminds me of Frontierville, which I greatly enjoyed five years ago.  I'm losing interest in Tribez and Castlez and may quit that game soon.

Tonight the choir did a rehearsal at that renaissance church near St. Clair & Dufferin.  I made a commitment to bake more gingerbread for them!

Last night I dreamed of being so depressed that I returned early from a vacation because I hadn't felt like doing anything!  I also dreamed of fleeing a deadly posse outside Moncton with Charlotte and Miranda from Sex & the City. (Why would I dream about them?  I've hardly ever watched the show!)

My latest dream

"His hands, moreover, were rather broad, but ended in long tapering fingernails; and he used them when he spoke (and he spoke in an almost incessant stream, although Hans Castorp could not quite comprehend what was said) in a series of exquisite gestures that reviewed his listeners' interest--the subtly nuanced, well-chosen, precise, tidy, cultured gestures of an orchestra conductor--a forefinger bent to form a circle with a thumb or a palm held out wide, but with tapering nails, to caution, to subdue, to demand attention, only to disappoint his now smiling, attentive listeners with one of his very robustly prepared, but incomprehensible phrases; or rather, he did not so much disappoint people as transform smiles into looks of delighted amazement, because the robustness, subtlety, and significance of the preparation largely compensated, even after the fact, for what he failed to say and produced a satisfying, amusing, and enriching effect all its own"--The Magic Mountain

"Are you Prince Philip?" "Oh, bugger off, you tit!" "I knew it was him!"--Spitting Image

Last night I dreamed I was visiting London to accompany a group of schoolgirls led by a Dickensian schoolmarm, then getting separated from them on the subway:  the doors closed on me before I could board the train they were already on.  Then I went to street level and wondered where to find them, then I met some French schoolgirls who knew where they were because they'd heard it through the grapevine. (I referred to my own schoolgirls as "the little monkeys," and they knew what my reference meant!) I also said that it was exactly ten years since I'd arrived in London to research my Ph.D. thesis, though it's actually over twenty.  I was admitting that the thesis was a dead end for me and wished I could get a job as a librarian in a place that specialized in history books!

Later I dreamed that I was trying to write this dream down in a book that was already largely full, in the Mount Allison University physics building where Father used to have an office, wearing a blanket in a snowstorm and having to leave our Sackville house because the federal government was forcing brownouts to reduce global emissions,. (I also dreamed of explaining what happened in Room 101 in Nineteen Eighty-Four.)