January 23, 2005

"Wouldn't it be easier to just read the script?" "Nope.  Reading cramps up the brain and flabbies up the muscles"--On Stage

Dreamed of waking up in our Sackville house; receiving the zip.ca DVD of the miniseries version of Traffik (which I haven't ordered); the back yard of our Sackville house overrun with dandelions.

I still have a headache.

John, Rae, and Kathrine came over for dinner, which was vegetarian hot dogs.

On Six Feet Under it was Christmas time and the whole family was remembering the father (who'd died just before the previous Christmas).

January 22, 2005

Dreamed of visiting London; saying I was disappointed my Ph.D. thesis hadn't turned out better.

Heavy snow!

Saw the play Da Kink in My Hair at the Princess of Wales.  It was pretty cool.

Headache!

Saw Nathaniel Kahn's documentary My Architect several weeks after we taped it.  It's about Kahn's father, the visionary architect Louis Kahn, who had three families in different places who only met at his funeral.  You couldn't make up a story like that...

Donald came over for dinner, which was churrasco chicken.  Then he spent a long time fixing the glitches in our computer which had developed after I installed an updated operating system the other night and it "froze" before the installation was complete.

January 21, 2005

"What's mine is yours and... um... How does the rest of that go?"--On Stage

Started reading some more On Stage stories in Menomonee Falls Gazette. (One story had a movie title The Cop Came C.O.D.)

Moira came home from Kingston.  She seemed to be in an ill humor about something.

Dinner was roast chicken. (I was going to fry it, but it was already in the oven.)

Had a meeting of several activist Meetup groups at my house.  There were four people (including me).  We talked about a lot of different stuff and had a good time.

January 20, 2005

Saw a DVD of the Agatha Christie series Tommy and Tuppence:  Partners in Crime.  Cute, lightweight comedy-mysteries set in 1920s London.

Downloaded some free software so I can save DVD screen snapshots on our computer (which plays DVDs).

Dinner was pork roast.

Started reading Lynne Truss' punctuation guide Eats, Shoots and Leaves.  Really long introduction.

Saw Mike Leigh's Vera Drake at the Revue.  A really sad movie about an illegal abortionist in 1950 London, with a devastating performance by Imelda Staunton.  It barely seems like the same country as Tommy and Tuppence!

January 19, 2005

Dreamed of moving into a new house in Halifax.

Read another Red Ryder adventure and one involving Johnny Hazard.

Dinner was spaghetti.

Went to the first drama class of the winter term.  We did an exercise of splitting into pairs and improvising a scene with the dialogue: "Is this seat taken?" "No.  Go ahead." "Thanks. [pause] Nice shoes."  I did a scene where the other one was putting her feet on the other chair and only belatedly lowered them for me.  I tried to put a Larry David-type sarcastic spin on "Nice shoes." Later we played the game The Expert, and I played an expert on marbles.

January 18, 2005

Maleficent transforming into a dragon: "Now shall you deal with me, O Prince, and all the powers of hell!"--Sleeping Beauty

Dreamed of visiting a hill where they were assembling the foundations of new houses (including one with a sauna); trying to set up the channel reception on a new TV set; my sister Margaret cleaning the ash suppository below the fireplace in our Sackville house; Raquel Welch.

Went shopping.

Brass monkey weather!  When I was outdoors it felt like opening the door to the frozen foods shelf in the supermarket...

Saw the DVD of Disney's animated Sleeping Beauty (for the fourth time). Disney visuals at their greatest, though they played loose with the story.  Sure glad I got to see it in widescreen!  My favorite sequence:  putting the castle to sleep.

The Book Club Meetup where they're talking about The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time got delayed a week because the organizer's sick. Which means it's on the same night as the first Common Room meeting, alas, so I won't get to go.

Dinner was McDonald's.

January 17, 2005

Dreamed of looking up the non-existent French word "giraille" after learning of a late 19th-century French politician called Desgirailles; finding out that it meant "grill"; wondering about the 1871 Paris Commune and deciding that the leaders were crazy. (I'm really not sure.)

Read some Steve Canyon adventures in Menomonee Falls Gazette.  Dated.

Went to Mission:  Possible and submitted my application for their Common Room support group.  Then I went to the Geneva Centre and finally got my membership fee paid.

Dinner was roast chicken.

The choir started the Bach chorus "Crucifixus." For the first part of the rehearsal I was one of only two baritone-basses present. (Several others were delayed by performing at a funeral mass.)

Read a 1930s story from the comic strip Red Ryder.  The villain was so mean that he wanted to kill all the town's dogs, so Red Ryder's young Indian pal Little Beaver formed a posse of vigilante children who wrecked the villain's gambling hall...

January 16, 2005

"How many times are they going to kill me, you know what I mean?"--Aileen Wuornos

Dreamed of a flood of water washing through a bed of dry gravel; starting to drive home from Cape Breton; viewing an opera and accidentally being dropped onto the stage; Indian music for a western; a star in a lounge singing about how he's always been rich and successful.

Saw the DVD of Nick Broomfield's Aileen Wuornos:  The Selling of a Serial Killer.  It does not increase one's confidence in American justice. [She looked pretty insane to me...]

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

On Six Feet Under Claire visited Aunt Sarah during a Howl Weekend, and Keith's neice had appendicitis.

January 15, 2005

"What do you want?  Who are you?" 

"Dave Jenkins."

"Dave Jenkins is dead a long time ago."

"Calder Benson."

"What's your name?  Benson's dead, too."

"You ought to know, Frank, better than anyone.  You killed 'em"--Once Upon a Time in the West

Dreamed of sneaking into Cuba; visiting the beaches near the southeastern tip of the island; reflecting that the US would be smart to life the ineffectual trade embargo on Cuba.

Baked multigrain bread.

Dinner was scallops.

Saw a special Cinematheque presentation of Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West (for at least the fourth time).  Highly entertaining, though it's basically a western about westerns.  Too bad we had to sit through a long Bart Testa lecture first, where he used words like "arrogate" and "totalized." He also kept saying "Right?" the way Mr. Mackie, the guidance counsellor on South Park, is always saying "M'kay?"

January 14, 2005

Dreamed of getting around to reading the Classics Illustrated comic of Victor Hugo's The Man Who Laughs, which disturbed me when I was little (I'll get around to reading it again someday) [I bought it on Ebay a few years later, but only got up the nerve to read it again a year or two ago]; Dick Tracey investigating some crooks living in caves near the quarry near our old home in Sackville, N.B.

We did the December accounts for our used books business.  Almost $400 profit!

Dinner was spaghetti.

Saw two Sergio Leone spaghetti westerns at the Cinematheque:  A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More. (Both starred Clint Eastwood in the "stranger with no name" role.) The latter was especially fun.  The place was packed.

Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is a really funny and entertaining novel!

January 13, 2005

Dreamed of entering the Mount Allison University library and hearing a military band;  looking at the table of contents of a collection of horror stories from ca. 1950; playing the Dmitri Kabalevsky piano piece "Dance on the Lawn."

Unusually warm weather.

Went to Chapters and bought the novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, about a hero with Asperger's Syndrome.  I also got Lynn Truss' grammar book Eats, Shoots and Leaves.

Saw the last of the third season of South Park on DVD.  The joke is old.

At the Geneva Centre there was a CBC camera filming another documentary on Dan Kelsey.  I kept pretty quiet.

Saw the anime classic Akira at the Royal. (I left the Geneva Centre meeting early to be on time for it.) Stunning and visionary, it's about teenage punks in a futuristic Tokyo who stumble on mysterious powers, but that hardly begins to describe it....  Too bad it was a dubbed print.

January 12, 2005

Dreamed of witnessing a nuclear explosion in Sackville, N.B.; "waking up"; trying to notice a visual difference between the world of dreams and the waking world.

Read some Jeff Hawke adventures in Menomonee Falls Gazette.  It's a British sci-fi comic strip about an English spaceman with a launch base in Dartmoor!  Unusual stories.

Saw Paul Bogart's movie of Harvey Fierstein's gay-themed play Torch Song Trilogy on DVD.  It wasn't really my cup of tea. (I just got it for the scenes with Matthew Broderick.)

Dinner was the rest of the stew.

Went to a Comic Books Meetup at Butler's Pantry in Mirvish Village.  There were four of us, and of course one (not me) did most of the talking.

Bought some really cheap vinyl LPs at Sonic Boom.

January 11, 2005

Dinner was lamb stew.

Saw Martin Scorcese's Howard Hughes bio The Aviator at the Carleton. (A group from the Moviegoers Meetup were going to it, but if they were there I couldn't find them.) Mostly enjoyable, but not really anything important.  It made me appreciate how normal I am! [When I was little and nobody knew where Hughes was hiding, I doubted that he was real...]

Read a Rip Kirby reprint where a girl made Rip fall in love with her and then dumped him, to avenge his testimony which got her father wrongly convicted, then Rip reopened the case and found the real killer. [Think writing those strips is easy?]

January 10, 2005

Dreamed of getting a Christmas hamper that included equipment for turning your whole patio into a flying machine; John with a collection of memorabilia, including several jigsaw puzzles of maps.

Read some Brick Bradford comic strip adventures in Menomonee Falls Gazette.  It's sort of a cut-rate Flash Gordon.

Saw a TVOntario documentary about Asperger's Syndrome.  It featured Dan Kelsey, host of my Geneva Centre group.

Went shopping.

Dinner was roast chicken.

The choir had its first post-Christmas concert rehearsal.  We started working on Theodore Dubois' oratorio "The Last Seven Words of Christ" for the Easter concert.

Started reading a reprint of the comic strip King of the Royal Mounted.

I would have typed out my June diary entries, except that the ink cartridge needs replacing.

January 9, 2020

Dreamed of a history of America told as a foreign comedy; being attacked by someone while in a phone booth, and throwing him out; a guy whose friend was kidnapped by a religious extremist group to force the first guy to work as a librarian for them.

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

On Six Feet Under Patricia Clarkson made her first appearance as Ruth's free-spirited sister.

January 8, 2005

The parents and I took Puitak and Gordon to see Bayview Mall.  Then we saw Finding Neverland, the movie about Peter Pan creator J.M. Barrie, at the Bayview Cinema.  Johnny Depp is an interesting actor.

Dinner was McDonald's.

My choir repeated our Christmas carol concert at St. Bonaventure Church.  (Frank made me of copy of the right "Giesu, Bambino" score.) Giuseppe dedicated "Goin' Home" to the tsunami victims. (Rose Marie mentioned that Giuseppe said I read music like a newspaper!)

Became organizer for a whole cluster of Games Meetup groups and arranged for them to meet at my house on the second Saturday of the month. (I've done the same thing with the activist groups, except that it's on the third Friday.) I'm glad they removed the maximum on the number of groups you can organize. [They later restored it.]

January 7, 2005

Dreamed of improvising a Scottish song; visiting Australia; Gustav Lange's "Flower Song."

Read some Mandrake the Magician adventures in Menomonee Falls Gazette.  People are always saying "?" and "!" and looking dazed.

In the mail I got a dozen Menomonee Falls Gazette issues and a group of weekly comics from between 1977 and 1980.  I won't be getting much more on Ebay. [Wishful thinking!]

Brought some Cinematheque tickets.

Dinner was salmon.

We had a Karaoke Meetup at XO Karaoke.  Six people showed up.  I sang half a dozen songs.  Unfortunately, I overestimated the bill and most of them paid a lot more than their share.  They'll get it free next month.

January 6, 2005

Dreamed of eating a strawberry-caramel ice cream sundae; the horrid song "Desert Moon" by Styx' Dennis DeYoung; finding some old comics at our Sackville cottage; a well-paced Fred Astaire musical; entering the Sackville library in the guise of someone else.

Read some Flash Gordon comic-strip adventures in Menomonee Falls Gazette.  I like the villainesses.

Dinner was pork chops.

Went to an Animal Rights Meetup at the Udurpi restaurant in the East End.  This time, there were a couple of other people.

January 5, 2005

Headache.

Dreamed of a retrospective of Hitler's youth.

Dinner was lasagna.

We had a choir rehearsal for Saturday's concert.  It turned out that I had the wrong music sheet for "Gesu Bambino." (No wonder the other basses sounded different!) This was because they'd run out of the right sheets...

Got a DVD of South Park cartoons, but there was a place where it got stuck.

Finished reading a collection of Montreal Standard weekend comics I bought on Ebay.