June 14, 2011

Younger woman: "I felt sorry for him.  He's an old man."

Michael Caine: "With an old bank account."

--Pulp

"His name was Di Nuccio.  That was the nicest thing about him"--ibid.

    Dreamed of travelling across Canada with John; taking the train to Gaspe, then proceeding on foot; seeing a horse as large as a camel; actress Jayne Mansfield.

    John and Kathrine came over and bought dinner, but it was vegan again.

    Went to a party at Boccone's for the volunteers who'd worked on the St. Paul's NDP campaign. (The provincial election is coming soon.)

    Afterward I ate a Wendy's hamburger and it immediately disagreed with me. (Serves me right!)

    Saw the DVD of Mike Hodges' Pulp.  It's a witty film noir spoof, with Michael Caine and Mickey Rooney in fine form.

June 13, 2011

    Baked rye bread.

    They're going to change our water pipes soon, so Father and I cleared space in the basement.  There was a bag of cement that had gone hard in the damp, but when I brought it upstairs and put it down, it split into pieces. (Dust galore!)

    Dinner was sausages and quinoa.

    At choir practice we rehearsed Nabucco from start to finish, including the soloists' numbers. (Paradoxically, it seemed shorter.) I flirted with Carmen, asking what music she was playing in the car on the way here.

June 12, 2011

Quint: "Here's to Swimmin' with bow-legged women!"--Jaws

    Dreamed of meeting Desiree McGraw, whom I knew at my Goodenough College stay in London in 1995.

    In the morning I went on a Walking Meetup in the Forest Hill area.

    Because I'd woken up early, I napped after getting back home.

    Dinner was beef stroganoff.

    Saw Steven Spielberg's Jaws (for the second time) at the Underground.  It's best to ignore the fact that a real shark does not lurk around a beach waiting for hunters to chase him.  Quint does a lot for the movie:  Robert Shaw plays him with just the right degree of ham.  If they were making it today, they'd show the shark a lot more and it wouldn't be as good.

June 11, 2011

    Dreamed of trying to play a saxophone; finding a coupon that entitled me to a free Volkswagen; the song "Thank Heaven for Little Girls."

    Went shopping.

    Dinner was pork steak.

    Moira and I got most of the seeds planted. (Only the potatoes are left.)

    Saw the DVD of Raoul Walsh's They Drive by Night (for the second time).  It's a realistic Warner Brothers trucking melodrama, which happily costars Humphrey Bogart.  The second half, with Ida Lupino as the boss' dangerous wife, got pretty silly.

    Saw Dion Conflict's Trailer Trash show (for the second time) at the Underground.

June 9, 2011

    Dreamed of the song of the William Butler Yeats poem "Down by the Sally Gardens."

    Visited my shrink Dr. Hassan.

    I'm ready to start planting the garden, but just don't have the energy!

    Dinner was spaghetti.

    Saw the DVD of the TV play Bang the Drum Slowly.  Compared to the movie, it did more with less.

    The city turned off our water for a short time in the evening because they're replacing the ancient pipes that connect us to the water main.

June 8, 2011

    Dreamed of the children's book Heidi; an episode of the comic strip Alley Oop with a cameo appearance by characters from other comic strips (including the Phantom) concerned about Oop's fate; getting teary-eyed.

    I now have a fifth Kingdoms of Camelot city, which I called Sandby.

    Got my hair cut, then went to the Tim Horton's doughnut shop near St. Patrick station and met some of the people in the Aspergers Meetup group.

    Dinner was chicken curry.

    Saw the DVD of Rod Serling's TV play Requiem for a Heavyweight (the version with Jack Palance).

June 7, 2011

    Dreamed of writing a test that asked how I'd organize a protest against car dependency for maximum impact; wanting to write that I'd stage the protests near places with high traffic, but writing erratically, skipping to different pages of the test paper, changing pens and crossing out many words; driving in southwestern Ontario and seeing an explosion that seemed to be an A-bomb but turned out to be a space shuttle launch; stopping in a town called Jughead; gathering large piles of leaves.

    Baked multigrain bread.

    We went to Fiesta Gardens and bought some more seeds.

    Dinner was stir-fry (using the leftover pork).

    Moira and I bought some more seeds at Canadian Tire, near St. Clair & Keele. (She wants to plant kale this year, and we finally found some kale seeds.)

    Saw the DVD of the first episode of the Kevin Brownlow series D.W. Griffiths:  Father of Film.