August 10, 2011

On a bald prospective husband: "You want hair?  Marry a monkey!"--Fiddler on the Roof

    Dreamed of groups of young people sailing around the world at the same time as part of a big project; finding out that years ago someone published a paper using my research, and not caring.

    Went shopping.

    Dinner was ham.

    Saw Norman Jewison's movie of Fiddler on the Roof (for the fourth time) with the Toronto Social Group Meetup at an outdoor screening next to Roy Thomson Hall. (I should have brought a pillow!) It's a strong, worthy adaptation of the classic Broadway musical.  The scene with the ghosts still gives me the willies!  I should read Sholom Aleichem's stories. [When Motl the mousy tailor was getting up the nerve to tell Tevye he loved the latter's daughter, someone in the audience shouted "You can do it, Motl!"]

August 9, 2011

"What do you want from me?  My heart? my blood? my soul?"

"Your absence!"

--The Pick-Up Artist

    Yesterday I saw the DVD of Rolling Stones Rock & Roll Circus.  I liked Marianne Faithfull's "Something Better." (I don't think I'd ever heard "Jumpin' Jack Flash" before!)

    Dreamed of waking up early in the morning at our old home in Sackville, N.B.

    Dinner was steak.

    Saw the DVD of James Toback's The Pick-Up Artist.  Robert Downey Jr. (in his debut) had a Harlequin-like appeal, but the Molly Ringwald character didn't really make sense.

August 7, 2011

    Yesterday we saw the DVD of Blue Valentine.  A Cassavetes-style domestic drama, very depressing.

    I've started translating another of my Spanish-language Mortadelo y Filemon comic books.  This one's title is "Armas con Bicho," which translates as "critter weapons"!

    Dinner was corn.

    I was going to see a documentary at the Projection Booth, about a veteran New York Times fashion photographer.  But transit was screwed up by the Taste of the Danforth street festival, and I waited over ten minutes for the Pape bus before figuring out that it wasn't running.  I didn't want to be late, so I went home.

August 5, 2011

Elisha Cook Jr. (pulling a knife out): "The moral is, don't hire detectives!"--Born to Kill

    Dinner was tortellini.

    Saw the DVD of Robert Wise's Born to Kill, a classic sexy film noir.

    Then we saw the DVD of the TV play Days of Wine and Roses.

August 4, 2011

"I'm not rapey enough for you"--Weeds

    Dreamed of travelling in southern Cape Breton; climbing the highest local peak, with a view for miles around; visiting a notorious Russian; writing on a wall; the movie Untamed Heart.

    Baked multigrain bread.

    Dinner was steak.

    Picked up a couple of bonds at Scotiabank.

August 3, 2011

    Went shopping.

    Dreamed of recalling Father saying he didn't care for Steve McQueen (which he really did say).

    Dinner was spaghetti.

    Saw the cinemacast of Franco Zeffirelli's Met production of Puccini's opera Turandot at the Sheppard Grande with the Classical Music Meetup group.  The first two acts are pretty good, but it gets masochistic in the third. ("Pain is sweetness to me...")

August 2, 2011

"He skeeves people off, like midgets"--Weeds

    Dreamed of trying to remember what town I was born in. (It was Sackville, N.B.)

    Dinner was salmon.

    Saw the DVD of Rod Serling's 1957 TV play The Comedian.  Mickey Rooney was disturbingly well-cast as the eponymous loud-mouthed bully!