November 14, 2005

Dreamed of being in a crowd of people about to be slaughtered; reflecting that the J.R. Williams comic strip Out Our Way was conservative, not in the sense of right-wing but "conventional"; a John Le Carre thriller in which a character played by Richard Attenborough gets obsessed with rescuing a missing friend, then witnesses a suicide and has to cover up his own presence, so it looks like he killed the guy; shovelling hay and oats for a small airship(?).

Went shopping.

Dinner was veal, for a change.

At choir rehearsal we sang "Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming"--at least, those of us who had the music (which didn't include me). I came in too early twice, but that was because Giuseppe said "Bass!" when he meant to say "Mezzos!" My voice got pretty tired.

November 13, 2005

Dreamed of attending the United Church in Sackville, N.B. with my parents, without wearing a tie; getting bored and wanting to leave; eating a Macintosh apple; the insipid Paul McCartney-Stevie Wonder song "Ebony and Ivory."

Went to the book club where we were going to discuss Regeneration.  Unfortunately, it turned out that the organizer couldn't make it because of a family emergency.  I did get to meet and talk with a woman from Yugoslavia.

We took Donald out to dinner at Swiss Chalet. (We were going to eat at Red Lobster, but there was a queue there.)

On Six Feet Under Keith took David to a family funeral.

Baked white bread overnight.

November 12, 2005

Dreamed of becoming so obsessed with a complicated puzzle that I stopped going to school; blaming my sister Margaret for introducing me to it; visiting my Aunt Alma in Cape Breton and spending all the time in the rafters of her garage arranging newspaper sections for sale; being unable to fold two huge banknotes to fit inside my wallet; fighting some kids who made fun of me, then fighting their father; hearing that Australian singer Rolf Harris had taken his money out of the stock market and put it into safer investments; speculating that Czechs would like Harris; a (non-existent) Classics Illustrated comic book of a World War II novel like The Caine Mutiny; doing a cryptogram-type puzzle in red ink; being about to leave our Sackville house for the last time; telling Mother that it seemed like I'd recently been there more often than I actually had, because I've dreamed about it so often; asking Marilyn Monroe for a kiss (both of us being in high school) but finding out that I'd actually asked a fat girl, who enthusiastically gave it to me.

Moira and I saw the DVD of the Glyndebourne Festival production of the Handel opera Rodelinda.  It's over three hours long, so I just watched the first act.

Dinner was steak.

Saw Mikio Naruse's silent melodrama Not Blood Relations at the Cinematheque.  It's about a woman who abandons her baby and returns from abroad as a rich movie star who wants to raise her daughter, except she has a new mother.  Pretty sad.

November 11, 2005

Drunk Nazi: "We Germans don't realize that all people want to be free"--Rome:  Open City

Dreamed of going on a long winter hike away from Halifax; passing a parade of a huge brass band with a Macy's parade-type helium float of the head of Teddy Roosevelt; the Halifax cinemas called Casino and Cove, which closed years ago.

Saw the DVD of Rome:  Open City (for the second time). A bluntly powerful drama about Nazi-occupied Rome, with Anna Magnani's first great performance, which launched the "neorealist" genre of postwar Italian movies.  Too bad it gets didactic toward the end.

Dinner was pizza.

Went to see the Russo-Cuban movie I Am Cuba at the Cinematheque.  Couldn't get into it.  I left after half an hour.

November 10, 2005

"Sassoon didn't want to talk about the nightmares.  He was feeling distinctly cheerful.  Exactly the same feeling he had had on board ship going to France, watching England slide away into the mist.  No doubts, no scruples, no agonizing, just a straightforward, headlong retreat towards the front....  

Rivers seemed to read his thoughts. 'Don't take unnecessary risks.'

'No, of course not,' Sassoon said.  Though he thought he might."

--Regeneration

Gordon and I went to the Royal Wiunter Fair.  I couldn't find any Mennonite food, but still got some PEI potato samples.

Finished Regeneration.  Masterful.

Dinner was ham.

I was going to attend the Salsa Meetup, but I couldn't find the place!

November 9, 2020

Dreamed that the TV show Six Feet Under was based on a series of Warner Brothers cartoons made by Chuck Jones around 1960 involving a family of rabbits(!); of creating a remake of the movie The Great Race, giving the Natalie Wood character a girl sidekick aged 12 or so; the girl mistaking "automobile" for an "Ottawamobile" railway line; a sequence showing growing boredom as the racing cars travel westward.

Dinner was halibut.

At the taijiquan class we learned a group of moves called "stork cooling his wings." I think maybe I'm getting better at the breathing.

Baked multigrain bread overnight.

November 8, 2005

Dreamed of an idea for a comedy sketch called "Bad Irish Accents Theatre" (brought to you by Irish Spring soap, Shirriff instant mashed potatoes and Lucky Charms cereal--it's magically delicious!) with characters saying things like "Top o' the mornin' to you!" and "I'll be the judge of that!" and "Begorrah!" and "Yes I said Yes I will Yes"; a Warner Brothers cartoon with a classic gag involving ping pong balls(?); a comedy with the exchange

"I'm a hot liquor!"

"You'd better lick it!"

Dinner was spaghetti.

At the opera chorus we started preparing for the fundraising concert.  I have most of my lines memorized already!

November 7, 2005

"Look, Sarah, he's an officer.  What do you think he wants you for?"

"How should I know?  Breath of fresh air, perhaps."

"Bloody gale."

--Regeneration

Dreamed of a really complicated puzzle involving figuring out a long quote; Mother getting the answer; getting another package of comic strip reprints.

Went shopping.

Dinner was chicken curry.

The choir started the Bach chorale "Sheep May Safely Graze." (Two chorales are better than one, I guess.) 

November 6, 2005

"To think that dolled-up poodle-faker used to be one of us!"--Triumph of the Rat

Dreamed of looking for Tevye and His Daughters, the collection of Sholom Aleichem stories that the musical Fiddler on the Roof was based on; trying to DVDcap the shot in Horse Feathers where Harpo Marx orders a scotch by doing a Scottish dance; finding that I'd put on a second sweater over my shirt!

Saw the silent British movie Triumph of the Rat at the Cinematheque.  It starred Ivor Novello as a Paris gangster who gets accepted into high society, then loses everything. (The title's ironic.) Another movie about how nasty Parisians can be.

Dinner was roast chicken.

Saw the DVD of the pilot episode of the ca. 1980-set high school comedy Freaks and Geeks.  It's pretty believable.

On Six Feet Under the family went to see an art show where Claire had a piece for sale.

November 5, 2005

"Where's the boy?"

"Dodger's minding him.  They're as close as Cain and Abel!"--Oliver Twist

Dreamed of wanting to look through a large collection of documents John had accumulated; considering how to translate Robert Burns' "To a Field Mouse" into Chinese and Japanese.

Saw the DVD of the screwball comedy My Favorite Wife.  That's the one where Cary Grant's wife has been lost at sea for seven years and returns just after he's married someone else.  Grant could do awkwardness like nobody! (There was also the Robert Benchley short Home Movies.)

Baked raisin bread.

Dinner was McDonald's.

Saw Roman Polanski's Oliver Twist at the Paradise.  The umpteenth adaptation of the Dickens book, it's familiar but not boring:  some scenes are quite frightening.

November 4, 2005

"When I see three girls in an empty house, I'm reminded of How to Marry a Millionaire"--All About My Mother

Dreamed of leaving our cottage near Sackville, N.B. for the last time (which we actually did when I was 16); stepping over piles of apples; sharing a room at Goodenough College in London with O.J. Simpson and his girlfriend; O.J. bullying me and attacking me with pepper spray.

Saw the DVD of Pedro Almodovar's All About My Mother.  Very outre.

Dinner was shepherd's pie.

Went to the Karaoke Meetup.  We were at it almost four hours!  I did about a dozen songs, including three new ones:  Try to Remember, White Wedding and Day-O.

November 3, 2005

Overheard at my Geneva Centre meeting: "I grew up in Sudbury." "I'm sorry."

Dreamed of slogging through a snowstorm.

Got a new package of comic strips from Barry King.  Stuff like Dick Tracy and Steve Canyon and the biblical strip Tales From the Great Book.

Dinner was lasagna.

At the Geneva Centre group one of the new guys told us how he'd tried to kill himself last week! (He's a schoolteacher in York Region who just got diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome this year.) John F. showed us a ten-minute video he'd made about his former landlord, who was close to female impersonator Craig Russell.

November 2, 2005

"Old men were often ambivalent about young men in uniform, and rightly so, when you considered how very ambivalent the young men felt about them"--Regeneration

Dreamed of considering that the last season of The Sopranos will be like Der Gotterdamerung at the end of Wagner's Ring operas [it wasn't quite]; reflecting that Tony Soprano deserved to die slowly and painfully (because he had Adrianna killed). [If you ask me, they should have ended the show after Adrianna's death:  the rest was anticlimax.]

Got a dental checkup. (It was a few weeks late because my dentist had to go to Prague and provide for her sick mother.)

Dinner was salmon.

Went back to my taijiquan class.  The frustrating thing is that we only do a little new stuff each week.

November 1, 2005

Dreamed of trying to drag a futon up a hill and having it keep sliding down; considering the horrors of World War II and what I'd do to escape being drafted; reflecting that Margaret Thatcher's assertion at Ronald Reagan's funeral that he'd surely go to heaven must have had Dante spinning in his grave!

Went shopping.

Dinner was sausages and mash.

At the opera rehearsal we were moving a lot of props upstairs.  I already have some sections virtually memorized!

Baked whole wheat bread overnight.

October 31, 2005

Dreamed of a Mecca-type shrine just south of our old Sackville house, attracting Moslem pilgrims; passing by a group of Moslem girls; one of them spitting on me.

My Metropass didn't arrive (was it stolen in the mail?), so I had to go out and buy one.

Dinner was roast beef.

At choir rehearsal we tried Schubert's "Ave Maria," but Giuseppe didn't like the harmony line and dropped it.

I told Giuseppe a joke:

Priest: "I'll be sure to thank your mother for the cake she had you bring over to me."

Boy: "Uh--could you thank her for two cakes, please?"

October 30, 2005

"I'm a little fool.  I'm an amateur.  You're a professional"--The Third Man

Spent most of the day resorting my comic strip collection.  I have several strips in large enough quantities for Ebay resale. (But will anyone buy them?)

Saw Carol Reed's The Third Man (for the second time) on DVD.  A complex thriller in Graham Greene's customary manner.

Dinner was pizza.

On Six Feet Under Nate's wife Lisa went to his ex Brenda incognito for a massage; Dave and Keith played in a paintball game (on opposing teams!); Ruth kissed the apprentice.

October 29, 2005

"If you don't think that's funny, you'd better not go to college"--East of Eden

Dreamed of having to drive alone from our old cottage near Sackville to the Moncton airport [I can't drive]; having to cross railway tracks and avoid passing trains; seeing a Polish exhibition with a flag displaying a yellow lily; having a big load of vinyl albums to carry home (including soundtracks of The Wiz and the actual Pam Grier movie Friday Foster).

Finally finished spading the garden.

Baked cheese bread. (I had to go to the store to replenish our salt and yeast.)

Dinner was McDonald's.

Saw Elia Kazan's movie of John Steinbeck's East of Eden (for the third time) at the Cinematheque.  Starring James Dean in his best role, it's epic 1950s angst, stylish and entertaining.

October 28, 2005

Dreamed of my family visiting our hometown Sackville, N.B., and the parents deciding they were going to stay there for the next year; not liking being in limbo; landing on the moon (which looked the same as the earth) and wanting to bring back two surplus space helmet packages with pictures of Alan Shepard and John Glenn in them; seeing the 1930s Warner Brothers movie of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (which I haven't seen); James Cagney being limited to a cameo at the beginning (he actually had a bigger role as Botton); Olivia de Havilland lighting a cigarette.

Finally did the September book business accounts.  We made a good profit, because of my Ebay comics sales.

Dinner was pork curry.

Went to a Meetin Halloween party. (I wore my beatnik costume, including shades, a glued-on beard and my mother's beret.) They said they were going to have a karaoke, but they couldn't get the equipment.  I told a joke to three people, and two of them left the room before it was finished!  In the end I had to leave early because the music was getting on my nerves.

October 27, 2005

Dreamed of my sister Margaret being launched from our old Sackville home in a contraption with dozens of helium-filled party balloons (wearing a T-shirt and tall boots); expecting to be launched next.

My glasses disappeared again!  This time they turned up under my bed.

I've taken to writing down the opera chorus lyrics I'm learning in a way that shows the rhythm, compressing syllables etc.  I got so caught up in this work that I forgot to eat lunch!

I went to a Scrabble Linkup, preceded by a potluck dinner. (I brought a coffee cake from Loblaw's.) I managed to score over 50 points in one move by putting the word "zebra" on a triple-word score!

October 26, 2005

Dreamed of being in a big building on a resort island and wondering if it was a prison; a film about rock group U2, which I wasn't interested in; the lines from the song "Thanks for the Memories"

Of sentimental verse...

Of nothing in my purse...

Of chuckling when the preacher said "For better or for worse"...

Headache!

Dinner was spaghetti.

I thought my headache had eased enough to go to the taijiquan class, but by the time I got to Central Tech High I decided it would still be better to skip it.

Got Stan Lynde's Rick O'Shay, Hipshot and Me, which reprints several stories from the strip.

October 25, 2005

A deranged Humphrey Bogart (who's just shot his partner): "Conscience--what a thing!  If you believe you've got a conscience, it'll pester you to death.  But if you don't believe you've got one, what can it do to you?  It makes me sick, all this talking and talking about nonsense!"--The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

Dreamed of visiting a new house where John had been living for a while and finding that the attic had been converted into a room (our house has a converted attic); an SCTV parody of Don Messer's Jubilee(?); looking at a digital clock and seeing that the time was 12:40 A.M.

Went shopping.

Dinner was salmon.

Met Barbara at the opera rehearsal, for the first time this season. (We helped move some furniture afterward.)

Got some Comics Review issues.

October 24, 2005

Dreamed of preparing to register for university courses; living on my own in a room in Halifax in August, and not remembering how I'd got there; two kids living in a community brainwashed by a cult, being the only ones to resist the brainwashing, and setting out to foil the brainwashers; the idea of turning the comic strip Steve Canyon into a TV show; bobbing up and down on a rope like in the church scene in The English Patient.

My glasses turned up inside the sofa. (Just as I was getting used to contacts again...) It was our old sofa, which we were about to throw away!

Took my diary along on my appointment to see Dr. Hassan.  I talked a lot about my dreams in recent days, mentioning even more details than I'd written down there.

Dinner was roast pork.

The choir had its first rehearsal for the Christmas concert.  We started on Bach's "O Wake and Hear the Voices" chorale, which is very challenging. [We ended up dropping it.] We also worked on the German carol "Still, Still, Still."

October 23, 2005

When I woke up in the morning I kept thinking about the Grade 7 Industrial Arts teacher who humiliated me in front of everyone in our very first class, and how my parents wouldn't speak to him about it because when I'd told them about it they automatically dismissed him as "unreasonable."

Reread "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" for the Book Club Meetup.

My glasses disappeared, so I had to wear my contact lenses for the first time in ages. (The lens was curled a bit at the edges, but I managed to put it on.)

I was late for the Meetup but Carolyn was glad to see me.

Dinner was pork chops.

Saw the DVD of John Huston's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (for the fourth time). Now there's a movie with cojones!  Humphrey Bogart's descent into bloodthirsty madness is horrifying, and Walter Huston's also at his best.

On Six Feet Under Lisa had a fit because Nate took their baby to the funeral of his ex Brenda's father, and let Brenda touch her.

October 22, 2005

Dreamed of getting intimate with a pig; discussing terrorism, pointing out that someone called war crimes trials "victors' justice," and suggesting that terrorism was justice for the defeated; putting down the attitude that says, "We're right, therefore what we do is right"; an adventure in Charlottetown, P.E.I.

Baked multigrain bread.

Put up five new packages for sale on Ebay, include Dick Tracy and Prince Valiant comics and some duplicate issues in my Menomonee Falls Gazette collection.

Went to a Games Linkup at Nuraj's apartment.  We played Scrabble, The Amazeing Labyrinth, and variations on Apples to Apples.

Dinner was Harvey's.

October 21, 2005

Dreamed of my friend Gordon and me winning a free cruise; explaining the song line "You say vanilla, I say vanella" by pointing out that people often think of "help" as "halp."

Got Pat Barker's World War I novel Regeneration from the library for the next Book Club Meetup.

Saw the DVD of John Ford's The Searchers (for the sixth time). One of the greatest!  That ending always makes me blush.  John Wayne's greatest role.

Dinner was churrasco chicken.

The choir had a sellout concert.  The parents and Moira attended it.

October 20, 2005

(after getting a snowball in the face) "You know what?  Snow tastes just as bad as water!"--Swing Time

Dreamed of beings from a planet where small objects had human intelligence, becoming refugees on earth and taking human form; being Christopher Hitchens' assistant in a report on Cape Breton drag queen shows(!); ending up walking in a marathon in southwestern Cape Breton; finding out at the end of the course that I'd been disqualified, and saying "I don't give a shit!"

Saw the DVD of Swing Time, another Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musical (for the second time). There's a funny scene where she's a dance teacher and he pretends to be a clumsy student (he's actually Fred Astaire!) just so he can meet her.  My favourite of the Jerome Kern songs: "The Way You Look Tonight."

Dinner was fettucine alfredo (which I cooked).

There were almost a dozen people at the Geneva Centre meeting.  We were going to have a games night, but we got to talking (a couple of people especially), so we'll do it next time.

Saw a DVD of Sister Wendy visiting British art museums.