December 29, 2003

Dreamed of Jiminy Cricket in The Wizard of Oz arranging secret meetings with several characters at the same place; thinking that Ronald Reagan should have been sent to prison [I still do!]; entering a classroom with a yoga instructor dressed like a harem girl; a group of feminists marching from Sackville, N.B. to Amherst, N.S., watched by J.J. Hunsecker (the powerful gossip columnist played by Burt Lancaster in The Sweet Smell of Success); trying to figure out what actions (quickly bending backward?) would cause me to wake up instantly. (None of them worked that quickly.)

Went to the library and borrowed Mazo de la Roche's Renny's Daughter.

We went out to look at DVD players.  Father's still tired.

Headache.

Dinner was McDonald's.

December 28, 2003

"And so, very calmly, with that curious wisdom that seems to come so often to children in times of hardship..."--Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Dreamed of Kabbala-based fortunetelling using two big conjoined icosahedral dice (with twenty triangular faces each); reading a children's book about measuring time; having a huge amount of loose change to carry. (Actually, I keep it from getting too big!)

Went out to return the videos.

Donald, John and Rae came over for dinner, which was take-out Indian food.

Read Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which I first read at age ten.  Dahl makes it look easy!

December 27, 2003

Dreamed of lying in the fallen leaves in the gutter (in Sackville, N.B.), reading a book, and not leaving for years; the George M. Cohan song "I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy."

Saw the video of John Woo's A Bullet in the Head.  It's a genuine epic about three Hong Kong gangbangers who seek their fortune in wartorn South Vietnam and end up turning against each other.  It owes something to The Deer Hunter, but it's definitely a John Woo movie.  Just when you think it's ending, it goes on to another big shootout climax.  Really incredible.

John and Rae came over for dinner, which was pizza.

Finished Lonesome Dove.  I think it's a great novel.

The DVD player is broken. (It was less than three years old!)

December 26, 2003

Dreamed of the actor Victor Mature; three days of entries into this diary being crowded into one half-page column; trying to remember important events that happened in the year I was born (1962); driving along Church Street in Amherst, N.S.

Father showed me how to process book orders on the computer.

Baked rye bread.

Dinner was a ham buffet.

December 25, 2003

Dreamed of leafing through a coffee table book about ancient Greece; Father about to drive John somewhere and me suddenly fearing for our family (for no clear reason); losing my room and having to move into the Robarts Library(?).

Donald, John and the girls came over for Christmas dinner.  We had turkey, among other things.

December 24, 2003

"That's the wild for you--it's got its dangers, which is part of its beauty. 'Course the Indians have had this land forever.  To them it's precious because it's old.  To us it's exciting because it's new"

--Lonesome Dove

Vacuumed my room. (I did the attic too.)

Returned the Hollywood Canteen videos and rented some new ones at Suspect Video on Queen Street.

Dinner was steak (which I fried).

Looked at the list of 200 more used books that Father wants to add to those for sale at ABEBooks, and found half a dozen I wanted to keep.

Saw the first part of an Agatha Christie TV show Why Didn't They Ask Evans?  It was fun, but unfortunately the signal gave out halfway through the videocassette.

Saw Beeban Kidron's Antonia and Jane for the second time.  It's really, really funny!

December 23, 2003

"Lippy also talked constantly, saying nothing"--Lonesome Dove

Dreamed of waking up in London, turning on the TV and seeing that the time was 06:38.

Went to Chapters and redeemed my gift certificate.  I bought a couple of Richard Feynman books for Father, a book on the history of the English language, and a crossword puzzle magazine.

Went to the library and borrowed Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Dinner was McDonald's.

Saw the rest of the Flash Gordon serial.  The special effects were charmingly cheap.

Went out to the Fossil and Haggis for karaoke, but the place was so crowded I didn't stay.

December 22, 2003

Went to the Hollywood Canteen to rent the first half of the Flash Gordon serial. (We'd only rented the second half.) I also bought The Dick Tracy Casebook and went to Paradise Comics and bought four more Classics Illustrated Junior fairy tale comics.

Dinner was the rest of the pork.

Saw the first half of Mervyn LeRoy's A Majority of One, but couldn't sit through it.  It's about a romance between a Jewish mother from Brooklyn (a miscast Rosalind Russell) and a Japanese businessman (a badly miscast Alec Guiness). Its stage origins showed.

Got the latest Cinematheque schedule, for the new year.  They're having a big Yasujiro Ozu festival.  Miraculously, there are few conflicts with the opera stuff I'm doing.  There are also some Vincente Minnelli movies.

Saw some of the serial Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe, with Flash falling down an explosive pit, getting buried by an avalanche, being attacked by explosive robot soldiers, standing in the path of a death ray, and getting his spaceship shot down! Enjoyable hokum, which clearly influenced the Star Wars movies.

December 21, 2003

"'Wantin' takes too much time,' Deets said. 'I'd rather be working'"--Lonesome Dove

"Poets always hate those in power....  To them perfection is always just behind the last corner or just beyond the next"--Conan the Barbarian

Dreamed of being stuck in the sitcom Friends (which I've never watched) [and still haven't!]; accidentally dropping my shoes off a high building; a movie with Robert Mitchum walking in a full circle around my Sackville hometown; seeing the beach near our Sackville cottage, but with reefs (there were none).

Went to a comics sale at a house in North York.  I bought four, including a Conan the Barbarian.

Dinner was pizza.

Saw a movie version of Huckleberry Finn with Mickey Rooney and Rex Ingram.  It was totally different from the book, and not for the better.

Saw Island of Lost Souls, a 1930s sci-fi creepfest about a mad scientist (witty Charles Laughton) populating an island with mutants, from an H.G. Wells story.  One senses a metaphor for imperialism.

December 20, 2003

Off-color exchange: "Mata Machree, you're priceless, priceless!" "No, I've got my price"--Million Dollar Legs

Dreamed of visiting the streets of our Sackville home, and finding they'd built a synagogue on one side and a Catholic church on the other (both with huge statues); visiting our cottage near Sackville and noticing a huge number of stars in the sky; playing a computer game in which the heroine has to chase the villain and catch him really quick; saving a successfully played section so I wouldn't have to do it again. (I've sometimes done that with real computer games.)

Father and I mailed off the first seven used books we sold. (We'll make over $300!) We had a hard time finding a post office that took plastic.

Then we went to the Hollywood canteen and rented half a dozen videos.

Dinner was spaghetti.

Father showed me our system for processing orders.  I helped write a form letter to send to buyers.

Saw Million Dollar Legs with W.C. fields as the president of Klopstokia, whose daughter's boyfriend trains a national tem for the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics.  I think they were making it up as they went along.

Baked multigrain bread overnight.

December 19, 2003

Dreamed of hearing that a bunch of people were being held hostage by terrorists somewhere, and arriving there to find the group (including karaoke host Johnny Blue) with no terrorists or police around.

Went to the Palmerston library and borrowed Yoga for Dummies. (It's the silly season.)

Then I went to a nearby used record store and bought LPs by Tommy Makem and the Ink Spots and Joe Jackson's Night and Day. (That one's a classic!) I also got a Bill Cosby CD.

Whoopee!  We've already got half a dozen offers for our used books online.

We picked up Donald and went to Swiss Chalet for dinner.

December 18, 2003

Dreamed of reading the January entries in my diary; hearing the song "What a Wonderful World" in Muzak form; descending on a wire from a helicopter to the sea; a Sopranos wiseguy trying unsuccessfully to shake someone down, and referring to a perceived lesbian as "Frankenstein". (On a Sopranos episode I just saw, Christopher wrongly decided that his fiancee's friend was a lesbian.)

Saw Joel Schumacher's Veronica Guerin at the Bloor. (It cost only three dollars!) It's the true story of an investigative reporter who insisted on relentlessly pursuing Irish drug lords and was ultimately murdered. Pretty conventional storytelling, but Cate Blanchett is a great actress.  I have a special admiration for people who put principle before self-protection!

Dinner was pork roast.

Father finally managed to upload this big file to the bookselling webpage ABEBooks. [He's still in business today.]

December 17, 2003

Dreamed of a slice of homemade bread spread with whipped butter like you find in restaurant packets.

At McClelland & Stewart, I worked some more on Norman Bray.  Then I proofread Air Monopoly, a book about Air Canada in recent years.  It had an interesting chapter on the 9/11 crisis and how it affected Canada. (If you ask me, privatizing Air Canada was a mistake.)

It was the last day of my job trial.  In the late afternoon they called me out and gave me a Christmas card, which everyone had signed.  They also gave me a Chapters-Indigo gift certificate worth $20. (Someone joked that I should only spend it on M&S books.) Very considerate of them. [One signature mentioned my gimlet eye!]

Another headache.

Dinner was pork chops.

December 16, 2003

Dreamed of the fifth Harry Potter book.

At McClelland & Stewart, I proofread Murder at the Winter Games in the morning.  In the afternoon, I proofread Trevor Cole's comic novel Norman Bray, In The Performance of His Life, about a washed-up actor whose life seems to be crashing down.

The temperature was warmer today.  I like it when there's snow on the ground but it's above freezing.

Dinner was KFC.

Phoned Genny and Jim to see if they'd come over this weekend. (We didn't manage to get together in August.) I had to leave a message. [I knew them from my dance lessons.]

December 15, 2003

"'Captain, what'll we do?' he asked. 'There's millions of them [grasshoppers]. What'll we do?' 'Live through it,' Call said. 'That's all we can do.'"--Lonesome Dove

Dreamed of being in a classroom; dropping all my pens on the floor and stooping down to pick them up; my female teacher irrationally getting mad at me.

Went out and finally got a new battery for my watch. (The old one was losing a minute a day.) Got some new socks too.

Dinner was steak and the rest of the lasagna.

In the last few days I've got onto dozens of meetup.com mailing lists.  But only a few of them have enough Toronto people for a meeting here. (You need five people motivated enough to vote on the location.)

Started writing my new story, which is titled "Invisible."

December 14, 2003

"'Do you consider yourself normal then?" Wilbarger asked. 'Certainly,' Augustus said. 'I never met a soul in the world as normal as me'"--Lonesome Dove

Dreamed of someone who noticed that nobody could see or hear him and turned out to be dead (should I write a story about that?) [I did!]; a nonexistent Powell-Pressburger documentary-style movie about angels (in normal clothes, without wings) looking down on the earth after the end of World War II (Powell & Pressburger made the similar Stairway to Heaven); trying to rewind the movie to hear a line again, but instead fast-forwarding to the end and being unable to rewind all the way back to that point; a long closing shot showing the whole cast with their backs to the camera in a slow zoom-out.

Saw Frank Capra's The Strong Man, a silent comedy with the infantile-looking Harry Langdon.

Also saw Bill Forsyth's movie of Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping (for the second time). A good movie about the 1950s, for a change.

It's been snowing!  I shovelled our front walkway and sidewalk.

John and Kathrine came over for dinner, which was lasagna.

Started the first lesson in my new book about learning the Dutch language. [I was interested in that for a few months, because I'd seen this Dutch nurse in my creative writing class...]

December 13, 2003

Dreamed of walking west from Sackville to a forested ridge with an earth embankment; seeing a lake below on the far side.

Father and I put up the Christmas lights on the big cedar in the front yard.

We picked up Donald and had dinner at Red Lobster.

On The Sopranos Meadow dropped a bombshell when she announced she wanted to drop out of university for a year.

Saw a video documentary about silent film star Mary Pickford.

Saw another Sopranos episode about this gang trying to disrupt First Nations disrupting Columbus Day.  Cleverly written.

December 12, 2003

W.C. Fields: "It's all over but the lynching"--Six of a Kind

Dreamed of telling a receptive comics expert all about an actual comic we had when I was young (a western adventure combining the heroes Kid Colt, the Rawhide Kid and Two-Gun Kid); doing a job trial where I was unplugging a TV set in a downtown department store and woke up one of my supervisors, who had been fast asleep; going home through a subway station so sleepily that I walked right into a post, then found I'd left my book in another place, and went back and got it.

Renewed Lonesome Dove.  I'm on schedule to finish it by New Year's.

Went to Revue Video and rented some films with Father.

Dinner was spaghetti.

Saw Leo McCarey's 1930s comedy Six of a Kind.  It was pretty thin, best for W.C. Fields.

Saw the first episode of the fourth season of The Sopranos.  It's getting pretty gloomy.

Another headache.

Baked whole wheat bread overnight.

December 11, 2003

Dreamed of being in Halifax with a group of people, looking for books in a library.

Visited Dr. Hassan.  He still hopes that Mother will come to see him. [Father came once, but Mother never did.]

Went shopping.

Dinner was McDonald's.

Saw David Lynch's low-budget debut Eraserhead (for the second time) at the Paradise.  It started 20 minutes late because the projectionist was delayed.  Lynch has a really original vision with a creepy acid-trip atmosphere.  I can well believe some people find it disturbing.  You could say it's about a geek's fear of sex.

Read 40 pages of Lonesome Dove.  What a great novel!

Found the webpage meetup.com, where you can get info about meetings of local groups sharing a wide range of interests.

December 10, 2003

Dreamed of walking along Sackville treetops; the cartoon where Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam were both trying to climb to a mountain top; walking along a trail in the woods and trying to outrun a flash flood; meeting sexy Italian actress Laura Antonelli. [The photo is a still from Malizia.]

In the morning I attended a McClelland & Stewart sales conference at the Intercontinental Hotel.  Some of the books they're releasing in the spring sound interesting, including a memoir by an intensive care nurse.  I talked to Douglas Gibson about his article on Barry Broadfoot and his book Ten Lost Years, which I'd read in the newspaper last weekend. (I loved that book!) They let us stay for lunch.

In the afternoon I returned to the M&S offices and did some more proofreading on Legal Legacy.

Dinner was takeout Chinese food.

Big headache.

Printed out the October entries of this diary.

December 9, 2003

Dreamed of driving into Canterbury past land being planted with potatoes and excavated gravesites; being homeschooled with a group of people at someone's house.

At McClelland & Stewart, first I worked on preparing rejection envelopes for mailing (some authors enclosed envelopes that were too small for returning their manuscripts!) and filing away some more stuff from the slush pile.  Then I proofread Legal Legacy, a scholarly book about legal issues involving First Nations, including making sure that the end notes were synchronized.  I also proofread a couple of prefatory pages from a new edition of Survival, Margaret Atwood's guide to Canadian literature.

At lunchtime, I ordered ginger pineapple juice.  Really spicy!

Chapter 46 of Lonesome Dove is beautifully written. (It's about Captain Call's silent grief over letting a woman fall in love with him, then walking away from her.

Dinner was salmon.

December 8, 2003

"'If I'd have wanted civilization I'd have stayed in Tennessee and wrote poetry for a living,' Augustus said. 'Me and you done our work too well.  We killed off most of the people that made this country interesting to begin with'"--Lonesome Dove

Father wrote me a cheque for $2500! (It's the season for giving.)

Went to the dance studio to see if I can get a ticket for their Christmas party next week, but supplies are limited and I'll have to wait and see.

Dinner was roast chicken and the rest of the lasagna.

Saw F.W. Murnau's Faust at the Cinematheque (for the second time). A crazy silent masterpiece, though I had to wonder how close it was to the book.

December 7, 2003

Dreamed of ancient reruns of the British comedy show The Two Ronnies;  seeing a report about someone duped by a TV reporter; a magazine article on "hanging judge" Parker of Fort Smith, Colorado. (The real Judge Parker was actually in Fort Smith, Arkansas, where a few chapters of Lonesome Dove take place.)

Saw F.W. Murnau's silent classic Sunrise at the Cinematheque (for the second time). The story is rather conservative for my taste. [I first saw it at the Royal Festival Hall in London back in 1995, with a live orchestra!]

Another headache, likely due to the weather.

John and Rae came over for dinner, which was lasagna and pizza.

Saw the National Film Board documentary The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam at the Paradise, about a famous Sino-Western magician-acrobat.  Very interesting

December 6, 2003

Jailbird: "My boyfriend cut himself with a knife I was holding"--Flamingo Road

Dreamed of skulking in the basement of a hospital; reflecting on how stupid Rolling Stone magazine is; waking up in the middle of the night and wanting to get to the place where I left my sweater.

Went to Loblaw's and got some strawberries and chocolate for the party.

The parents found a cute little book for my niece Sarah titled Come Back, Amelia Bedelia.

Baked cheese bread.

Saw Michael Curtiz' Flamingo Road at the Cinematheque. [They were screening it as one of the movies that Rainer Werner Fassbinder claimed inspiration from.] It's a pretty campy melodrama with Joan Crawford and Sydney Greenstreet.

Dinner was pork chops. (I was late because the streetcar was delayed.)

Went to the opera chorus' end-term party, where my strawberries disappeared.  Someone did a pretty good voice imitation of our director Giuseppe. [I think it was Kareen's husband.] They showed pictures taken at the fundraiser, but I didn't seem to be in any.

December 5, 2003

Dreamed of returning to the Sackville house from P.E.I. in a van with a large group of people, including Donald; being about to leave the Sackville house for the last time [the last time was actually back in 1996]; seeing part of a romantic comedy from the late 1950s or early 1960s with Debbie Reynolds on TV; trying to figure out the title; a movie about a man masquerading as a woman.

Went and got the second volume of The Cartoon History of the Universe. (It's that good!)

Dinner was steak.

Saw the program "How to Be Eccentric" at the Cinematheque.  It was a series of mostly instructional shorts, created by Richard Massingham for British cinema in the 1940s, covering subjects like reminding people to use handkerchiefs when they sneezed.  It was kinda droll, in an oh-so-British way.

When I went online in the afternoon, it "choked" twice, so both times I had to turn the power off without going through the shutdown process, and start again.  We'll have to replace the computer soon. (It's nine years old!)

December 4, 2003

Dreamed of being in Amherst, N.S., and wondering how to get home to Sackville, N.B.; travelling in a subway train and noticing Superman in the same car; someone suggesting that I move to California and get into the movies.

Went to the big Loblaw's and got a "holiday vanilla log."

Dinner was salmon.

Saw Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction at the Revue.  Didn't really like it when I saw it nine years ago; still don't like it now. [Two and a half hours with people I wouldn't want to spend thirty seconds with in real life!  Some great dialogue and a fun dance scene, though. The pic at the top is from the website Alternative Movie Posters.]

December 3, 2003

Woke up around 5:00 again.

At McClelland & Stewart they let me observe an editorial meeting.  Unfortunately, as the two sales people were talking I dozed off! (If any of them noticed this, they were polite enough to ignore it.)

For the rest of the day I worked on the slush pile, filing away letters offering manuscripts which had been rejected (the vast majority). It was rather sad work:  I felt like a gravedigger in Potter's Field. My back got pretty sore.  

It was a huge pile--they get about five manuscripts daily--but I managed to finish it by the end of the day!  For some reason, there were several manuscripts by people called MacDonald. I noticed that there were a lot under the name Bates, but figured out that Bates wasn't the name of the authors but of their agency.

Dinner was chicken curry.

December 2, 2003

"He was a good boy, as gentle as the gray doves that came to peck for gravel on the flats behind the barn"--Lonesome Dove

Dreamed of reading a novel version of the western movie The Naked Spur; the Rolf Harris song "Sun Arise"; waiting for a bus in a terminal in China; the actress Mariette Hartley.

At MacClelland and Stewart I proofread parts of A Wild Peculiar Joy, a new edition of Irving Layton's collected poetry.  What a curmudgeon! [He wrote a poem about Pablo Neruda, "Where Was Your Shit Detector, Pablo?"] (I'd woke up too early in the morning, so I felt sleepy in the afternoon.)

The Cartoon History of the Universe is very interesting. [So it is--I started rereading it recently!]

Dinner was spaghetti.

December 1, 2003

Dreamed of seeing Owen Wilson guest-starring in a Six Feet Under episode I missed earlier (I haven't missed any); finding treasure in an underwater shipwreck; visiting a city on the Japanese seacoast and seeing a colourful sunset; a children's adventure book (like the Freddy the Pig series) where the cow got kidnapped when they reached Quebec City; people on a ship dangling their muddy legs in the river to attract fish; trying to use a pocket calculator and causing it to start a Pac-Man game; playing a video game based on Rupert the Bear; Charlton Heston concluding his actual commentary on the DVD of William Wyler's Ben-Hur with the actual line, "I can't thank William Wyler enough, because he's dead."

Went to Dr. Hassan's office and arranged next week's appointment.  I was going to visit the comics store next door, but I forgot.

Went shopping.  We didn't have to get much.

Afterward I made a second trip to the comics store after all.  I bought the first part of Larry Gonick's

 The Cartoon History of the Universe.

Dinner was toad in the hole (sausage and mash).

November 30, 2003

"How will you kill me this time?" "I'll cut your throat"--opening lines of Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion

Dreamed of Father driving us somewhere to the west and forgetting where he was going; Father entering a mental institution; me saying, "There have been few US presidents lamer than the Bushes."

We drove down to Sunnyside Park.  On the way back they dropped me off at the Cinematheque to see Elio Petri's Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion, a "relevant" 1970 thriller about a Columbo-style "perfect murder" committed by a police chief about to be promoted.  Couldn't sit through it.

Dinner was McDonald's, along with the rest of yesterday's ribs.

Saw 11'09"01 at the Carleton.  It's a series of short films about the September 11 disaster.  A mixed bag, of course, but worthy overall. [Shouhei Imamura's film concluded, "There is no such thing as a holy war."]

November 29, 2003

Dreamed of approaching a dance hall on Sunday morning but losing interest; that Ricky Martin song "Shake Your Bon-Bon"; shovelling the snow off the front steps of a brownstone apartment like in New York City (coincidentally, it snowed overnight); a still from a '70s disaster movie showing a cast that included Vincent Price.

Went to the Cinematheque and saw Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet (the '60s version). Enjoyable in a broad sort of way. (I'll bet it was popular with young girls.) The two leads looked about ten. [I liked Michael York's Tybalt, who reminded me of an English public school bully.]

Donald came over, as did John and the girls.  John's new girlfriend Kathrine also came. (I wish I had a girlfriend.)

Larry McMurtry is one funny writer!

November 28, 2003

Augustus Macrae: "Why, women and children and settlers are just cannon fodder for lawyers and bankers"--Lonesome Dove

Dreamed of visiting our Sackville house and noticing that they were building a subway line nearby(?); the last episode of SCTV.

Dinner was pizza.

Spent a long time on the internet.

November 27, 2003

Dreamed of being in a room in London with a guy reading in a Slavic language; reading a new issue of The Nation on the front steps of the Mount Allison University athletic centre; seeing a transcript of British and American leaders in a press conference commenting on an Israeli police pronouncement, "That's aud![sic]"; comparing it to John Wayne's True Grit line "The hogs must have dragged him!" (explaining in the courtroom why the body of an outlaw he'd been hunting turned up in a position that suggested Wayne had shot him in the back); Billy Bob Thornton playing a convict.

Slept almost till noon.

Went shopping.

Finally got around to reading the Donald Duck comic. ("From tiny minds, scary ideas grow...")

Dinner was roast chicken.

Baked multigrain bread overnight.

November 26, 2003

Dreamed of reading a drive-in cinema schedule with a movie featuring Steve Martin as a giant octopus; a tour group visiting an old castle with my dance teacher Cynthia explaining about the lavatories.

At McClelland & Stewart I spent the whole day proofreading the Screech Owls book.  I've done the bulk of Murder at the Winter Games, which is about the team coming to play in a tournament in Utah when the captain of the Hollywood team, son of a big star, gets kidnapped.  Our heroes trace the kidnappers to an underground tunnel system and figure out that they killed a guy by stabbing him in the heart with an icicle.  I ate sukiyaki for lunch in Village by the Grange.

Father spent all day driving John to a place near the Michigan border and back.  I went out and got KFC for dinner for Mother and me.

Had the last Creative Writing class.  Mr. Campbell read us two Chekhov stories.  My story, courtesy of Mother, went over pretty well.

Didn't get much sleep last night.  I felt sleepy in the afternoon.  Glad I only had to combine the job trial and the night-school class during this week.

November 25, 2003

Dreamed of driving a car along a road covered with tall grass and running over a man sleeping in the sun, who was slightly hurt; getting a mouthful from him about how I was a terrible driver (I've never learned to drive); after getting driving lessons from him and just before being picked up by my parents, saying to him, "I may learn to drive, but chances are you'll continue to be a little prick!"

In the morning there was snow on the ground.

My first day at McClelland & Stewart was very interesting. In the morning I compared the pages of On Six Continents with the galley version. (I found a couple of mistakes that the copy editor had missed!) That book's a memoir by Lieutenant-Governor James Bartleman, about his years in the foreign service.  He was all over the place in his time.  

In the afternoon I checked the table of contents and index of an anthology of poems by a poet called MoKay.  then I compared the galley to the manuscrip for a book in the Screech Owls series, juvenile novels about a hockey team who solve mysteries.

Didn't have time to go home for dinner so I ate West Indian fast food in Village by the Grange.

Went to the last opera rehearsal for this term.  In January we start rehearsals on the stage!

November 24, 2003

Dreamed of Is Harry on the Boat? (a smutty British tourism comedy series set in the Mediterranean, which I've never watched more than a few minutes of) but set in the Caribbean and starring Catherine Zeta-Jones; a movie of the novel Moby-Dick.

Woke up in the middle of the night and thought about the Middle East conflict.  I feel sheer disgust at the Bush Administration's blunders and dishonesty.  Even when they do the right thing, they do it at the wrong time, in a disastrously wrong way.  Then they fall back on self-serving soundbites like "They hate freedom!"

It was warm in the morning, then it got cold all at once.

Went to see Dr. Hassan in the afternoon.  Afterward I bought a Donald Duck comic at the nearby comics store. (They threw in a Classics Illustrated Junior comic book of the fairy tale "The Pearl Princess." I was late getting back because the TTC was slow.

Dinner was the rest of the pork roast.

Finished The Book of Merlyn and started Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove.

Saw The Weather Underground at the Carlton, a documentary about the radical group that set off bombs in the early 1970s.  I would have liked to know more about how they came to dominate a big faction of the collapsing Students for a Democratic Society.

November 23, 2003

Dreamed of sitting near Brooke Shields in a restaurant, hearing her say "I have many talents," and silently guffawing (like in the story I'm writing).

Went to the Royal Ontario Museum and saw the Beatrix Potter exhibit "Peter Rabbit's Garden." (I would have seen a movie instead, but I was late.)

John and the girls came over for dinner, which was vegetarian lasagna.

Baked rye bread overnight.

Printed out my September diary entries.

November 22, 2003

Went to the opera fundraiser in the afternoon. (It was held at the Columbus Centre.) I saved their skins by going out to buy a hundred plastic cups just beforehand.  We sang the famous sextet from Lucia and the wedding number from Don Giovanni.  There were also a lot of solos and duets and stuff.  We brought a surfeit of pastry, and afterward I was able to save most of my gingerbread and take some other stuff home. (The pie made a mess!)

Dinner was spaghetti.

Felt worn out in the evening. (All that standing at the fundraiser...)

Started reading Abraham Lincoln:  A Documentary Portrait (a collection of his letters and other writing) while waiting for the computer to boot.

November 21, 2003

"Moreover, by allowing terrorism to become our principal preoccupation, we are playing into the terrorists' hands.  They are setting our priorities"--George Soros

Dreamed of driving through Cape Breton, completing a huge jigsaw puzzle, and walking a distance up Mt. Wycocomagh (an actual hill in Cape Breton); reading in a dictionary the Chinese word for looking at your hand in the night light and seeing the outline of the bones inside(?); telling my girlfriend about it.

Went to Wychwood Library and picked up Lonesome Dove, only two days after it went on hold! (I'll have to email them a compliment.)

Baked gingerbread for tomorrow's fundraiser.

Indian summer isn't over yet. (The compost pile still has flies!)

The new Atlantic Monthly has a good George Soros essay criticizing Bush's foreign policy.

Dinner was chicken (which I fried).

Went to the dance studio again.  Cynthia was glad to see me.

November 20, 2003

"Grown-ups have developed an unpleasant habit lately, I notice, of comforting themselves for their degradation by pretending that children are childish"--The Book of Merlyn

"Let them sin....  It's good for their souls....  They can repent afterward"--Viridiana

Dreamed of seeing a movie like Purple Rain, with Ben Kingsley as a married bourgeois professor carrying out perfect murders (Burgess Meredith was one of the victims); a drama like The Emperor Jones about the black tin-pot dictator of a third world nation.

Went out to the library and read the children's books What Do You Say, Dear? and What Do You Do, Dear?  They're real classics. (I remember them from childhood.)

Started typing out my September diary entries.

Started reading The Book of Merlyn, an extra book in the Once and Future King series.

Saw two movies at the Cinematheque.  The first was Luis Bunuel's Veridiana, an often brilliant satire about a young religious woman who inherits an estate and decides to take in the local paupers.  Its style reminded me of fellow Spaniards Velazquez and Goya!

The second was Fassbinder's Despair (for the second time), based on Nabokov's novel. Nice try, but Nabokov's really unfilmable.  Yet it was a great visual achievement.

November 19, 2003

"He saw the problem before him as plain as a map.  The fantastic thing about it was that it was fought over nothing--literally nothing.  Frontiers were imaginary lines....  The imaginary lines on the earth's surface only needed to be unimagined"--The Candle in the Wind

Dreamed of making a list of actors who'd shown their pubic hair in movies, including Julianne Moore (an actual scene in Short Cuts).

Went to the library and placed a hold on the book Lonesome Dove.

Dinner was McDonald's.

Creative Writing was about short stories.  One last story for next week will be about whatever occurs to us.  I think I'll retell the story Mother told me about the man who was overheard saying to his mistress, "You look good to me, dear."

Finished The Candle in the Wind.  The last chapter is really majestic.