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.)

THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN

I'm two-thirds of the way through The Magic Mountain.  It's an incredible book, kind of an existential adventure story.  We had our first snow on Tuesday, and that was the time when I read the chapter "Snow," a vivid account of the hero skiing and getting lost in a blizzard.

Thomas Mann isn't afraid of long sentences: "He ridiculed the philanthropist's reluctance to shed blood, his reverence for life, claimed that such a reverence for life belonged to only the most banal rubbers-and-umbrellas bourgeois periods, but that the moment history took a more passionate turn, the moment a single idea, something that transcended mere 'security,' was at work, something suprapersonal, something greater than the individual--and since that alone was a state worthy of mankind, it was, on a higher plane, the normal state of affairs--at that moment, then individual life would always be sacrificed without further ado to that higher idea, and not only that, but individuals would also unhesitatingly and gladly risk their own lives for it."

Here's a passage from the "Snow" chapter: "Had his mind been less muddled, he would have had to admit that in terms of getting back home this was perhaps the worst thing he could have done; and indeed he told himself as much after he had taken a few sips, which produced an immediate effect, much the same effect as that caused by Kulmbach beer his first evening up here, when with a lot of loose, disreputable talk about fish sauces and the like he had offended Settembrini--Herr Lodovico, the pedagogue, who could keep madmen from letting themselves go, return them to reason with just a glance, and whose melodious little horn Hans Castorp now heard in the air around him, the signal that his oratorical teacher was now approaching at a forced march to free his troublesome pupil, life's problem child, from his mad situation and lead him home.  Which was pure nonsense of course, it was the Kulmbach beer he had drunk by mistake that made him think that.  Because firstly, Herr Settembrini did not have a little horn, but only his barrel organ, which had a folding leg so he could set it up on the cobblestones and cast a humanistic eye up at the houses as it played its familiar songs; and secondly, he knew nothing about what was going on, since he no longer lived at Berghof Sanatorium, but at Lukacek's, in his little garret with a water carafe, just above Naphtha's silken cell--and had no such right to do so on Mardi Gras night, when Hans Castorp had found himself in a position equally as mad and difficult, when he had given son crayon, his pencil, Pribislav Hippe's pencil, back to the ailing Clavdia Chachat."

Cold weather!

Thursday night I went on Betty Anne's art walk.  Our first stop was the store Elephant in the Attic, which sells a lot of miniature art prints.  I noticed some illustrations from the Random House edition of Alice in Wonderland which we had when I was young.  There's only one John Tenneil, but these had some evocative colours.

Then I went to the Revue and saw the Rue Morgue presentation of the British Vincent Price thriller Scream and Scream Again. (Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing also appear in it!) The plot was about a psycho-killer who was actually a cyborg or something.  It was introduced by his daughter Victoria, who gave an interesting talk about his singular joie de vivre.

I've been looking at songs Gary's group might sing.  There's "Day-O," "This Land Is Your Land," "Comedy Tonight," "Let It Be," "Hey Jude," "I's the B'y That Builds the Boat."

Well, the cold weather's arrived.  Time to start wearing my long johns again.  Today there were a few snow flurries!  I've started wearing my Russian-style furry hat. (Last week I dreamed of visiting Russia:  not of being there, but planning the journey.  And I've never been interested in going there before.  It must be from seeing the Russian dancers in Patton.)

Tonight I went to the Politics Meetup.  We'd planned to talk about the impending American election, but the topic was changed to terrorism because of the Paris attack.  I should learn to speak up more because the others tend to dominate the conversation too much.

Just saw an episode of Spitting Image with a fall-down hilarious sketch:  the cheesiest Wind in the Willows puppet show you can imagine, with visible hands and everything.  Some people have suggested reviving the show, but it was of its time:  people were angrier back then.  Today's viewers seem older and more indifferent.  Aside from the royals, one of the only characters still around is Robert Mugabe! (No doubt there'd be more sketches set in heaven.)

SPITTING IMAGE

Monday at the memoir slam my pen kept acting up so my handwriting looked like a little kid's!  There's a guy in the group who I thought was called Hugo but it turned out he spells his name Huggho!  Gary brought his keyboard and afterward I tried playing it as an audition for his group, but I was unused to it.  He'll come over Friday and I'll try again. (Yesterday I went to Gladstone library and found some albums with promising song scores.)

Monday night I lugged all my old scores to the choir so they can file them all. (I've accumulated quite a few over a decade!) But it turned out that they aren't collecting them till next week, so I had to take them back home, and I'll be toting them there again.

At opera practice Tuesday we were learning the Fledermaus chorus parts, which are smaller than in Elixir. (Once again, I'm benefiting from having done it before.)

Today was apparently the last warm day of the fall, so I finished moving those patio tiles and dug a ditch around the expanded garden.  There are a couple of offshoots from the cherry tree we cut down, which I should replant.

Anyone remember Spitting Image, the British satirical puppet show from the 1980s and early '90s?  I've been watching the first episodes on Youtube.  So far it's pretty thin:  Reagan and Thatcher just don't seem funny when I look at the long-term harm they did. (The best thing in it was always the songs. I remember their parody of U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," which had the line "You can change the world, but you can't change the world"!)

I've started applying myself with The Magic Mountain.  If I keep it up, I'll actually finish in time for the book club event!

One sentence!

"For Hans Castorp understood that this living body--with its mysterious symmetry of limbs, nourished by blood through a network of nerves, veins, arteries, capillaries, all oozing lymph; with its scaffold of bones, some of them tubes filled with marrow, some like blades, some like bulbs, some torqued vertebrae, but all originating in a gelatinous base that with the help of calcium salts and lime had grown firm enough to support the rest; with its joints made of tendons, cartilage, and slippery, well-oiled balls and sockets; with its more than two hundred muscles; with its central system of organs for nutrition and respiration, for registering and transmitting stimuli; with its protective membranes, serous cavities, and glands pumping secretions; with its complicated interior, a network of pipes and crevices, including openings onto the world outside--understood that this self was a living entity of a higher order, far removed from those simple organisms that breathed, fed, even thought, with just the surface of their bodies, that it was constructed, rather, out of a myriad of small organized units, which all shared a common origin, but had multiplied by constantly dividing, had adapted and combined for various functions, and had then separated to develop on their own and germinated new forms that were both the prerequisite and the effect of its growth"--The Magic Mountain

"The German army hasn't undertaken a winter offensive since Frederick the Great.  That's why I expect them to do exactly that!"--Patton

Thursday I had lunch with Pam at Butler's Pantry in Mirvish Village. (She's a mycobacteriologist, so she's read The Magic Mountain.) Afterward I went to The Beguiling, also in Mirvish Village, and bought the fourth and last volume of Shigeru Mizuki's history-memoir of Japan under Hirohito, covering 1953 to 1989.  I'm looking forward to it, but I don't dare start it till I've finished The Magic Mountain!

Yesterday I finished digging up the potatoes.  Now I can focus on expanding the garden's area. (Lucky it's supposed to get warm again next week!)

Saw Franklin J. Schaffner's Patton on Netflix tonight (for at least the third time). George C. Scott is the movie!  Patton was a madman, but that's what a nation sometimes needs.  Like India needed Gandhi, a madman for peace.

I've finally quit the online game Forge of Empires.  I'd got all the way into the modern era, but it was taking too much of my life.

SUFFRAGETTE

"'Well roared, lion,' Hans Castorp could not help thinking, as he usually did when Herr Settembrini uttered something pedagogic"--The Magic Mountain

Thursday my History Discussion Group met at Schnitzel Hub near St. Clair station. (I had goulash soup, large size.) Five people turned up, and we discussed Samuel Pepys' diary.  I've been so busy reading other stuff that I only had time to glance at a few highlights beforehand.  But that didn't matter, it was a good discussion.

Sunday was Reading Out Loud, and the topic was Canadian writing. (I titled the event "The Great White North"!) I read "L'Envoi.  The Train to Mariposa" from Leacock's Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town and the chapter in Anne of Green Gables where she tried to walk on a rooftop and ended up with a broken ankle.

This afternoon at choir practice, instead of waiting while Paolo spent time on the basses, I helped Paolo's wife Katrina assemble copies of the "O Holy Night" score into booklet format for our binders.

I've almost finished digging up the garden, but there's still one row left.  I also have quite a few patio tiles to move to expand our growing area.

This evening I saw Suffragette with the History Discussion Group at the Varsity.  It was vividly made but a bit conventional. (When the laundry supervisor put his hands on Carey Mulligan I thought, "It's time for her to attack him with her hot iron," and was not disappointed.) At least they didn't have her stand on a table with a sign saying "Votes for women" and cause all the laundry machines to stop, like Sally Field in Norma Rae (another rather conventional movie).

People I don't envy

For no reason in particular I decided to make a list of people I don't envy.

Poor people.  It's easy to be judgemental and forget their daily struggles and humiliations.

Soldiers.  Even the most successful ones have seen some ugly shit.  And they serve their country even when their government makes them do the wrong thing.

Americans.  The U.S.A. often seems a more exciting, glamorous place than Canada.  And yet Americans have a tendency to live in fear even when they don't have to!

Miners.  Mining is one thing I could never do. (I couldn't stand being in a submarine either.)

First Nations.  When the Europeans came along they basically got run over by a truck.  Possibly the worst thing we did to them was declaring them human dinosaurs a century ago.

People in prisons.  Not just the prisoners, but the people who work there.

People in the old days.  We often take for granted aspects of modern living like dentistry and flush toilets.

Royalty.  True, their lives are comfortable, but a million eyes are always on them, waiting for them to make any mistake.  Kings once had both power and responsibility; now they largely only have the responsibility that comes from symbolizing your nation.

People in the sex trade.  Our laws here (as with drugs) often have the effect of punishing the victims.

North Koreans.  The more I hear about that country, the better Canada looks.

Rock stars.  I can't imagine enjoying making music so much that I'd be willing to lose my hearing prematurely. (That goes for their roadies too!)

Suburbanites.  I lived in Mississauga for a year when I was young.

Illiterates.  A whole world is closed to them.

Indian summer

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

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

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

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

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

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

Post-election analysis

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

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

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

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

(*=or as close as possible)

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

Province  Liberal  Conservative  NDP  Green  Bloc Quebecois

Nfld           7

PEI            4

NS           11

NB          10

PQ          40           12                   16                  10

Ont         80           33                     8

Man          7             5                     2

Sask          1           10                     3

Alta           4           29                     1

BC          17           10                    14        1

Terrs         3

________________________________________

Total      184           99                   44        1       10

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

Province  Liberal  Conservative  NDP  Green  Bloc Quebecois

Nfld         4 (1)          (1)                   (1)

PEI          2 (1)          (1)

NS           7                (2)                   (2)

NB           6                (2)                   (2)

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

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

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

Sask         1 (3)        7                    2 (1)

Alta          3 (7)      20                    1 (3)

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

Te4rs         3

_______________________________________________

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

Overall     149          103               63              9           14

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

I can dream, can't I?

THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN

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

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

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

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

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

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

A dream

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

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

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

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

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

What do you dream about?

I'm depressed

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

One less Facebook group

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

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

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

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

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

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

Three movies

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

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

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

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

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

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

Busy Thursday

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

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

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

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

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

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

TRUE DETECTIVE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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