THE GOOD EARTH

"Everyone has some tension with his family.  But not everyone turns into Danny!"--Bloodline

I've finished the book about the Mongols and started rereading Pearl S. Buck's The Good Earth for the Classic Book Club.  What a great book it is!  I'm already a third of the way through it.

Blanche Klein let me write a guest post on her blog How Do We Spend Our Free Time at http://klein169.blogspot.ca .  I described what I did Thursday when I bought the seeds for our garden.

Friday we started watching the second season of Bloodline, which has been released on Netflix.  I'm glad Chloe Savigny turned up again!  But I'm so busy in the evenings that I'll have to watch most of it in the day by myself.

Saturday afternoon I went on an Art Walk in the Junction. (We visited a studio that teaches realistic painting.) In the evening the choir performed at Carassauga so Ronaldo drove me and several others out to the Mississauga place.  We sang in a converted hockey arena with lots of echoes and a steadily murmuring audience.  It made me appreciate our other venues!

Today I went to John Snow's book club and we discussed Gunter Grass' The Tin Drum.  I didn't have time to read it in its new translation, but I did read the Ralph Mannheim translation sixteen years ago.  We're now convening in a "heritage room" at the big United Church at the corner of Queen and Church streets.

The choir was going to sing the national anthem at Carassauga this evening, but at the last minute things got changed.  I was late learning this because I didn't read my emails in the morning. (I'll get dozens overnight and not always feel like going through them.) I ate in a hurry at Burger King just beforehand.  But at least I was wearing my choir outfit--suit and black turtleneck--to the book club, and looked pretty fancy!

DOCTOR ZHIVAGO

(on having burned the wrong village) "A village betrayed us, a village was burnt.  Point made!" "Your point, their village"--Doctor Zhivago

Saturday afternoon I went on another Art Walk.  Betty-Anne and her husband brought a load of vegan cupcakes!

I'm kicking myself!  I thought I'd scheduled the Classic Book Club event, discussing the I, Claudius sequel for Sunday at 2:00 as usual.  But it turned out I'd somehow put the time as 7:00, so two of us came in the afternoon and the other three in the evening! (But Malcolm and I did get to discuss about videos I might borrow from him to screen for the History Discussion Group.)

Saturday I bought a garden spade at Canadian Tire.  I'm now finished preparing the garden for planting!  So of course it's gonna rain tomorrow...

Tonight the History Discussion Group screened David Lean's Doctor Zhivago at Debi's place near the Distillery District, with a DVD I'd borrowed from 2Q Video, which also has the Keira Knightley miniseries! (I brought some Timbits.) It was at least the fifth time I'd seen it.  The book was a lot more complex, but of course that's inevitable.  Afterward Leon from Moldova gave me a ride home.

For some reason I can't think of much to write about just now.

A new Facebook group

Margaret Dumont: "Your Excellency!" Groucho Marx: "You're not so bad yourself!"--Duck Soup

I've started a new Facebook group!  It's called Toronto Bookshelf and it's for lovers of reading in the Toronto area and elsewhere.  One thing I intend to do is show upcoming events for all the public book clubs in the Toronto area, starting with my own.  I've started doing a Book Club of the Day feature.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/553940368099770/

Puitak came over Tuesday morning and she, Moira and I spent a couple of hours colouring my DoodleArt poster.  It was really fun!  Then we went to the Dragon Pearl Chinese buffet out near York Mills & Leslie and had lunch with Gordon.  Afterward we got a peek at a Korean supermarket next door. (Those were some big apples!)

Tuesday night the choir performed a few numbers for a private function given by our patron Tony Fusco.

Wednesday night I went to John Snow's lecture about The Pilgrim's Progress.  It was out at the Coxwell library, so getting there was an adventure.  Maybe we should read it in my book club!

Thursday night I saw Leo McCarey's Duck Soup at the Revue.  Today many people consider it the Marx Brothers' masterpiece but at the time it flopped and ended their contract with Paramount.   It's definitely "all over the place." (Afterward they went to MGM, minus Zeppo, and had a big comeback with the more conventional A Night at the Opera.) Funny how the Marx Brothers were all different while their vaudeville contemporaries the Ritz Brothers were all the same!

I'm starting to get excited about visiting New York at the end of July!  I want to see the musicals Fiddler on the Roof and An American in Paris, and our travel agent is arranging some block bookings. (Hope I have time to visit Cloisters...)

Sore throat.

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.