July 25, 2003

Dreamed of Popeye the Sailor.

Another headache.

Got another match at eharmony.com.  She's a technology marketer called Kathleen.  You start by asking five multiple-choice questions, so I asked her idea of a fun date, where she hopes to live, where her dream vacation would be, where she'd like to go out for Saturday evening, and her idea of an adventure.

Moira came back from Kingston.

Dinner was takeout churrasco chicken.

Went to my last dance party. Sergei taught a mambo class with the arm check, the half moon and the hand change.  Cynthia led a mambo line dance.  I brought some of my gingerbread, which was very popular, as usual.

July 24, 2003

"'Well, now,' said Fudge, fixing Marietta with what he evidently imagined was a kind and fatherly look..."--Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Dreamed of the guitar music in Talk to Her; meeting the character actor Walter Brennan; the difficult childhood of humorist S.J. Perelman; being told that actors get all their information from trade papers; saying that I knew what the famous Variety magazine headline "Stix nix hix pix" meant. (It means "Rural audiences reject movies with rural caricatures.")

Went shopping.

Got the lawn mown.  Glad I got it done before it started raining.

Baked gingerbread.

Today's Mother's birthday so we went to the Swiss Chalet restaurant.  They have a birthday special there but she wanted nothing to do with it.

Sergei taught a cha cha class with the flick (including arm movements), change steps, and mambo points.

Went to the local karaoke.  I sang "Can't Help Falling in Love," "Every Breath You Take" and "The Green, Green Grass of Home."

July 23, 2003

Dreamed of the song "Little Willie and the Hand Jive"; visiting a colony on the moon; jumping down from the (actual) balcony next to my room to our back yard [we've removed it since]; the Chava ballet sequence from Fiddler on the Roof.

Had my second-last dancing lesson.

Dinner was McDonald's.

Saw two Carl Dreyer silents.  The first was The Parson's Widow, about at 17th-century Swede who becomes a preacher, except that he has to marry his predecessor's aged widow instead of his fiancee. (A bit like Henry James, but with more humor.) The second was Master of the House, a comedy about a complaining husband who gets humbled by his mother.

I really identify with the stuff about Harry Potter being awkward with girls. (Though I wouldn't have been careless enough to give Cho Chang the impression that I had a date with Hermione.)

Another backache. (Seeing two movies in a row sometimes has that effect on me.)

Baked multigrain bread overnight.

July 22, 2003

Dreamed of comedian Richard Pryor's ex-wife and estranged son; German soldiers attacking Russian peasants.

Had lunch with Puitak.  That Sun Yat-sen book turned up after all.

Sore back.

Dinner was whole wheat spaghetti.

Read 50 pages of the Harry Potter book.

Went to karaoke in Scarborough.  Jim was there with Genny.  I sang "Up on the Roof" and "Ticket to Ride." Someone sang the Clash's "Should I Stay or Should I Go?" (That's a great song.) The Scottish host, Johnny Blue, was in a high-rolling mood.  We stayed to hear Crystal sing "Love Shack," but she came later than expected, so we didn't get to leave until 12:40, the latest I've ever stayed.  But Jim was nice enough to drive me all the way home, not just to Main Street station like he usually does.

July 21, 2003

Dreamed of being undecided whether to buy a ticket to the last screening in the Cinematheque summer season (a non-existent medieval movie about an uncrowned king); Father driving to Aulac near Sackville with me in the morning to pick up Mother; still being in bed on the ferry to Prince Edward Island when it arrived.

Had a dance lesson with Sue. I'm glad I had one more with hear before I finish.  But I wish I hadn't been so nervous.

Dinner was pork chops.

Rented the video of Elia Kazan's Gentleman's Agreement, in which Gregory Peck (who else?) investigated anti-Semitism in 1947 America.  It was liberal in a rather slow, painfully earnest way. (Peck uncovers anti-Jewish hiring practices at his own magazine, where I couldn't help noticing that everyone was white.) A bit too aware of how "controversial" the material was (for its time). [This is one movie I've totally forgotten!]

July 20, 2003

Dreamed of cutting weeds at the bases of our trees near the Sackville house and finding saucepan lids there; the song "The Cat Came Back"; going to a concert with a singer whose songs included the Marseillaise.

Saw a video of King Vidor's Hallelujah, one of the first movie musicals.  It got better as it went along.  

Saw a DVD of Fatty Arbuckle shorts co-starring Buster Keaton.  Lots of pratfalls.

Dinner was pork chops.

July 19, 2003

"He's the family's banker.  Bankers age slowly!"--Lola Montes

Dreamed of Moira and me arriving overland with a tourist group at the Egyptian city Port Said; visiting London and suffering jetlag; taking a class and writing comments on people I'd barely heard of.

We went out to Zeller's, where I got a new shirt.  Then we rented some videos at Revue.

I can't run Netscape 7.0 because they can't find NSRuntime.  It looks like I'll have to redownload it or something.

Dinner was steak.

Printed out the May diary entries and the profile.

Saw Max Ophuls' Lola Montes (for the second time) at the Cinematheque.  Ophuls had a uniquely French romantic vision.  Silly but lavish.

Fixed Netscape.

Big headache.

July 18, 2003

Dreamed of being in Sackville's one-room library (before they built a bigger one in the 1980s); being in the novel How Things Got That Way, about a dysfunctional family, including a brother on drugs and a sister serving as a varnished table leg; John recognizing the story; Haroun Tazieff, the real-life geologist who entered active volcano craters [I read about him in The Finding Out Treasury]; changing rooms and showers near the university swimming pool I used to frequent in Sackville.

The new Harper's has an interesting article about the concept of dissent. [Edward Hoagland's "The American Dissident:  Individualism as a Matter of Conscience."]

It turns out that the Sun Yat-sen book that Puitak lent to me and I returned to the Wychwood library didn't get returned to the original library.  I went to Wychwood to try to set the matter straight, but they said they need Pui and her card.

Dinner was the rest of the lasagna.

Cynthia did a Lindy hop class.  Davis led the hand-jive line dance again.  There were a lot fewer women than men at this dance party (It's usually the other way around), so I missed quite a few dances.  And I didn't really care!

Salon had a lot of articles on the Iraq scandal.  I spent quite a while reading them.  I feel bad for those American soldiers who were led to believe they'd only be there a short while, and now have to stay there for who knows how long?  Really unfair.  "Hope deferred maketh the heart sick"--Book of Proverbs

July 17, 2003

Dreamed of the Icicle Works song "A Whisper to a Scream" (which has a Catholic theme).

Went shopping.

Dinner was spinach lasagna.

Started typing out my eharmony.com personality profile for Dr. Hassan.

Arman taught a waltz class with the brush twinkle and spirals.

July 16, 2003

Dreamed of going home on a long commute; wondering if I should move out to increase my independence.

Another dance lesson.  Sue, an old instructor who left in September, is back.

Dinner was salmon (which I fried).

Saw two Carl Dreyer movies.  Day of Wrath was a really stunning movie, set in the good old days when they burnt witches at the stake.  It was an incredibly sexy movie despite having no nudity and only a couple of kisses.  Dreyer clearly influenced Ingmar Bergman.

The second movie was Leaves From Satan's Book, Dreyer's answer to D.W. Griffiths' epic Intolerance.  It was about the Devil's machinations throught the ages, including the arrest of Jesus, the Spanish Inquisition and the Reign of Terror.  The last story was the goofiest: Finns in 1918 fighting the evil Soviets.  A Russian commissar recited "the Red Catechism" and a young heroine saved the day with a hand grenade.

Read 48 pages Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

July 15, 2003

Professor Umbridge: "This is school, Mr. Potter, not the real world"--Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Dreamed of trying to finish some corn on the cob that wasn't very good (the other day I was eating corn on the cob, but that corn was pretty good); being in Prince Edward Island and walking all the way from Charlottetown to a place dozens of miles away; wandering into someone's house, picking up and dropping J.B. Bury's book about ancient Greece (a book we have), and meeting a teenage black girl who posted on the Mr. Cranky website; her telling me she liked posting but often worried she wasn't in the right position to join a thread; telling her that there were no rules, and she should just take a position.

On second thought, I think Signs is nonsense.

Saw Robert Rodriguez' Spy Kids 2.  It was silly fun, like the first one.  Its visual design was an homage to the special effects legend Ray Harryhausen.

Dinner was McDonald's.

Baked whole wheat bread.

Suzanne at eharmony.com decided to close communication with me before asking me detailed questions.  Oh, well.

The sixth Harry Potter book is the best one yet!  There's something sad about the increasing rage among the schoolkids.  I remember how angry I was when I was 15. [Long story...]

Went to karaoke.  I sang "All Night Long," "Memories," and the "Beat It" parody "Eat It." On the way back there was some heavy fog.

July 14, 2003

Dreamed of going along a Sackville street; thinking of how I'm always dreaming about Sackville; Dirty Dick, an actual character in the British comics weekly The Dandy; Jesus Collver, a (not actual) character in an illustrated narrative in The Dandy, a young assistant to an older prosecutor, sent to investigate a house but being captured (there was someone named Jesus in Sound of Brazil); the prosecutor coming to the house, but JC managing to signal that it wasn't safe; the story being set in Devon, one illustration showing a plaque saying "Mary Tyler Moore was born here."

Shelled the first peas of the season.  Afterward, I watered the compost one more time.

Dinner was chicken (which I fried). I overcooked the peas.

Went out and rented the DVDs for M. Night Shyamalan's Signs and Spy Kids 2.  Signs was an oddly conservative thriller about alien invasion, directed with much the same brooding atmosphere Shyamalan brought to The Sixth Sense.  I prefer the latter:  ghosts interest me more than aliens.  It was the perfect movie for the USA in the post-9/11 period.

Started typing out the May entries of this diary.

July 13, 2003

Dreamed of a large toy airplane based on the Concorde; adjusting its nose to the right angle; travelling on a cruise ship with the parents; Father getting off at the right stop but Mother and I failing to because I couldn't put on my socks and shoes and get my stuff together; going down the escalator at the U. of T. Robarts Library; someone on campus handing out your choice of church event promos; choosing the Catholic promo; researching Chinese history.

Saw Sound of Brazil at the Paradise.  It's a documentary about Brazilian music by Mika Kaurismaki (Aki's less famous brother). It was pretty cool.  The director was certainly an odd sight, this Finnish guy wandering through an equatorial land.

Donald came over, and we went out to eat at the Red Lobster.  I ordered the twin "canning" lobsters, which was a mistake:  they took forever to eat!

After we came back home, Donald looked at our computer.  He finally succeeded in finding and downloading a Mac-friendly version of Webwasher! (In computer matters, I'd be helpless without Donald.)

July 12, 2003

"You asked for 1000 francs.  That means you hope for 500, and need 300.  Here's 100"--Les Quatre Cents Coups

Dreamed of the movie Breakfast at Tiffany's; wondering what role the late Buddy Ebsen had. [He played Audrey Hepburn's estranged husband.]

The other week Father bought a handsome picture book of Little Women at a neighborhood used book store.  Today I lent it to Puitak. (She likes picture books.)

Bought the new Vanity Fair with the revelations about JFK Jr.'s marriage. (I got it for Christopher Hitchens, of course.)

Dinner was McDonald's.

Saw Francois Truffaut's Les Quatre Cents Coups (for the  third or fourth time) at the Cinematheque. (The official English title is The 400 Blows, but a truer translation would be Off on a Spree.) It's one of the truest, funniest movies about childhood. (Truffaut also got it right in Small Change.) I noticed that the kid had a jacket like Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront.  He looked like a pint-sized Brando, a witty effect.  Classic freeze-frame ending.

July 11, 2003

Dreamed of imagining walking uphill from my home and ending up walking along the watershed between Lake Superior and Hudson Bay; going to a ballet with Moira and watching it on computer screens; a Clint Eastwood mystery involving objects thrown off a bridge into a river in a big city (from The Road to Perdition?).

Walked out to the park, and it was like the rain stopped for my walk!

Dinner was steak.

Dawn taught a samba lesson with compesos and botofogo.  She also led a samba line dance.

July 10, 2003

Dreamed of returning some overdue books to Sackville's junior high school library, and finding out that I owed $30.00!

Went shopping.

Dinner was spaghetti.

It rained today for a change.

Now translating the drama scene I worked on this spring.

Armand taught a tango class with body contact and the shoulder lead.  Lisa said that most of them were going to a big dance showcase in Miami this fall and asked if I was interested; I said "I'll think about it," which was my polite way of saying no.

After dancing I went to the local karaoke.  I sang "I Can Dream About You," Dancing in the Dark" and "All Night Long."

July 9, 2003

Dreamed of a version of Charlie Chaplin's The Gold Rush with sound dialogue(!); someone asking if I was going to dance in Las Vegas.

The parents went out and picked some more strawberries.

Dinner was the rest of the lasagna.

Saw Carl Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc again.  It's really powerful.  A transcendent performance by Annamaria Falconetti!

Elena taught a merengue class with crossover breaks and conga points. (I was late because of the movie.) Cynthia led a merengue line dance.

July 8, 2003

Dreamed of Father driving with me to Kingston and back in one day, and planning to drive even further the next day; the front lawn of our Sackville house full of dandelions about to sprout.

Vacuumed my room.  A lot of dust!

Finished the Larry McMurtry book.

Started reading J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. (I read 51 pages!)

Dinner was roast chicken.

When I was passing through the Scarborough Town Centre I saw a fantastic sunset!

Went to the karaoke in Scarborough.  I sang "When I'm Sixty-Four," "Rock Around the Clock" and "Every Breath You Take."

July 7, 2003

Dreamed of reading old Classics Illustrated comic books.

It rained a bit for a change. (The humidity was getting to me.)

Another dance lesson. (There are only four left.) We're now doing the rumba routine to Dean Martin's "Sway." [The video at top is taken from the movie Easy Virtue.]

Dinner was spinach lasagna.  Father was late because he was driving John somewhere.

July 6, 2003

Dreamed of having my bed at the bottom of my closet in my room in our Sackville house.

Fierce headache!

Dinner was steak.

Saw the DVD of Sam Mendes' The Road to Perdition.  I'd heard it was slow, pretentious and overdirected, and it was.  It's based on a comic book, and it shows in the many precious visual compositions.  The best thing in it was Jude Law's hitman, but that role was too small.  Conrad Hall's cinematography won an Oscar, but the DVD only came in pan & scan format. (Hiss boo!)

July 5, 2003

Dreamed of gathering red apples that had fallen from a tree in the back yard. (A lot of tiny plums have fallen from the plum tree in our back yard.)

Baked cheese bread.

Subscribed to eharmony.com and took the first steps to communicate with Suzanne. (She says her job is "film festival organizer.")

Dinner was fettucine with pesto sauce (which I cooked).

Printed out my diary's April entries.

In the evening the temperature cooled down all at once.

July 4, 2003

Dreamed of a really tall tree in the Sackville neighbourhood with the top of its trunk like the top of New York City's Chrysler Building but with almost all its leaves gone. (The crab apple tree in our front yard has lost a lot of its leaves.)

Told my internet friends [in the mrcranky.com forums] about Father's condition and Hairhead had some advice, which I printed out.

Went shopping.

The weather was extremely muggy, so I had a hot bath. (Call it homeopathy.)

Dinner was salmon, which I fried.

Went to the Cinematheque to see Vampyr, the first in the Carl Dreyer series.  It was pretty creepy, though in the slow-paced manner of early sound movies.  I judge horror movies by whether they have style, and this one did.

Davis taught a cha cha class with chase steps and triple-progressive steps.  Elena led a samba line dance.  There were few people there. (One woman said I took a mathematical approach to dancing.)

July 3, 2003

Eli Wallach (seeing soldiers in grey and thinking they're Confederate): "God is with us because he hates the Yanks too!"

Clint Eastwood (seeing them brush the dust off their blue Union uniforms): "God's not on our side because he hates idiots also!"

--The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Dreamed of being in an army squad that included old women and children, with no uniforms.

Father's been diagnosed with diabetes, possibly a mild case.  He'll be changing his diet and exercising more.

Another dance lesson.

Dinner was McDonald's. (I was going to make it, but I completely forgot!)

Saw Sergio Leone's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly at the Cinematheque, for probably the fourth time.  It may not be the greatest movie in the western genre, but it has to be one of the most fun.  It's full of clever parodies of action-movie cliches.  An anachronism:  they blow up the bridge with dynamite, which hadn't yet been invented!

Downloaded the AdAware shareware but couldn't open it (like the WebWash last weekend).

July 2, 2003

Got up at 9:00.

Dreamed of a new cottage on the site of our cottage near Sackville, with no foundations so the winds were destroying it, forcing the resident (a Mafia veteran like Junior Soprano) to leave; a boat being towed on a trailer, shaped so that little of it would be above the surface; bring groceries to the Sackville home, and unintentionally bringing the shopping cart along.

Returned the videos.

We had dinner with Donald at the Mandarin restaurant near Eglinton station.  My fortune cookie said, "A good friend may be waiting for your call." Yesterday eharmony.com found my first match, whose job is organizing film festivals.  Should I take the plunge and subscribe?

Elena taught a rumba class with swivels.  Cynthia led a mambo line dance, and taught it to us really quick.  Afterward I told her, "If you'd been a general, World War II would have lasted twenty minutes!"

On the subway I met an East Indian fringe candidate for mayor this fall.

July 1, 2003

Dreamed of a third season of the Dabney Coleman sitcom Buffalo Bill. (It had only two short seasons in 1983 and 1984.)

We drove down to Mimico Park.  There was a nice offshore breeze, along with haze in the air.

Saw the video of Soldier of Orange, a movie about the Dutch Resistance in World War II directed by Paul Verhoeven before he sold his soul to Hollywood and made Basic Instinct.  It's a terrific, believable film, free of the usual war-movie vainglory.  I got the sens that there's a small distance between heroes, scoundrels and those who just protect themselves when the going gets tough.

Dinner was KFC.

Last night's Jekyll & Hyde DVD had some extra features, including a funny silent parody with Stan Laurel (before he met Hardy), titled Dr. Pickle and Mr. Pride.

Saw the video of Jean-Pierre Melville's famous first movie Bob le Flambeur.  It was way cool, something like its contemporary Rififi, with a great hero and an unusual elegaic tone.

June 30, 2003

Got up at 9:29.

Dreamed of having a big essay to write.

Went shopping, but we didn't get much.

Another dance lesson.  We did six dances.  I did something wrong in salsa, and ended up inventing a new move!

Dinner was spaghetti (which I cooked). We had the last of last summer's frozen strawberries. The parents had gone out this morning and got this year's first fresh ones!

Saw the video of Annie Hall (for the third time or so). Woody Allen and Diane Keaton have a nice chemistry.  But did they really need that flashback montage at the end?

Saw the DVD of a silent movie of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with John Barrymore.  It was rather heavy-handed and elliptical.

Salon had an article on the Pentagon Papers Supreme Court case, pointing out parallels with today.

June 29, 2003

Got up at 7:40.

Dreamed of looking through the diary and finding big gaps; remembering my old bed frame.

Did a questionnaire at www.eharmony.com .  The results are interesting enough to print out for Dr. Hassan.

Saw a couple of videos of toy commercials from the 1960s and '70s. (I remembered the Newbork Thumbelina ad.) Pretty mind-numbing.

Dinner was roast chicken.

Saw a video of educational films on sex and drugs.  Sonny Bono warning against legalizing marijuana was a hoot.

There was a shorter blackout in the evening, apparently because of a rainstorm.

June 28, 2003

Got up at 10:04.

Dreamed of being on a swim team; walking through a pathway and seeing a lion at the exit; willing myself to wake up and "waking up" in our Sackville house.

Went to the Queen Street Suspect Video to rent some stuff.  The longest time was finding something for the parents.

Raked up the dead leaves from the crabapple tree, which seems to be recovering from the fungus or whatever.

For dinner we went to the Swiss Chalet.

There was an evening blackout, apparently connected to a fire near Ossington and Dupont, whose smoke we could see!

Before long there was no light to read by so I went to bed early.