March 25, 2006

"Our apologies, Mr. Judd, we were expecting a younger man."

"I used to be young.  So were all of us."

--Ride the High Country

Dreamed of going with my friend Puitak to see the Gene Tierney movie Leave Her to Heaven; seeing a version in which Gene was even more evil than in the actual film, as a double agent in World War II; finding it so unpleasant that we left early.

For dinner Moira made quiche. (I supplemented it with KFC afterward.)

Saw Sam Peckinpah's Ride the High Country (for the second time). The Cinematheque presented it with an introduction by a film historian.  It's a wonderful movie, full of adventure but also elegiac and funny, with veteran stars Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea in rare form.

Baked multigrain bread overnight.

March 24, 2006

Dreamed of being in a story with Enid Blyton's Noddy, involving an adventurous visit from Britain to Northern Ireland(!); a map of the world showing Noddy's adventures all over the earth, including one in the Rocky Mountain states involving the Grinch.

At work I got halfway through indexing the 2002 decision reports.  I also did some more shredding, for Dawn.

Saw the DVD of the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 version of Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders.

Dinner was McDonald's.

The parents came to my choir's Italian folk song concert. (Moira wasn't up to it.) We were in pretty good form.

Finally finished reading The Book of Predictions.  I predict that it will return to the library very soon!

There was a book sale at the Reference Library.  I bought the vinyl album Mary O'Hara Live at Festival Hall for a quarter.

March 23, 2006

A mother's "lullaby": "Don't move or the Sandman will get you!"--Wozzeck

Dreamed of a non-existent scene in Goodfellas just before Henry and Karen take the back entrance into the nightclub, with them in a convertible under a sky full of stars.

At work I made the last preparations before shipping out the 50-odd boxes, including moving one group of files out of a bigger non-regulation box into two regular ones. (Of course, Catherine needed a file from a box that was about to leave.) I brought to work our CD of Kathleen Battle singing baroque songs with Wynton Marsalis on the trumpet, since the place is lonely without Marj.

Another afternoon nap. (I lay down on my bed for a minute and couldn't get up!)

Dinner was shrimp and rice.

Moira and I went to a rehearsal of the Canadian Opera Company production of Alban Berg's expressionistic opera Wozzeck. (She got the "by invitation" tickets at work.) Pretty unsettling.  They skipped the first act. [In the scene where the lead throws the dagger into the river, the prop was missing and he had to mime throwing it!]

March 22, 2006

"Robin would not let me plant any trees, I suppose because he did not trust me with the tap-roots; however, I was allowed to help scoop moist earth round the seedlings, and press it in with my fingers, which had all the delight of making mud pies with the added pleasure of utility; for children are bored with pointless things and, when they play, attempt by pretence to add the dimension of reality to their actions.  Now there was no need to pretend, the mud pies had a purpose and so the making of them was delightful, at least until I grew tired"--Elspeth Huxley, The Flame Trees of Thika

At work they gave me some stuff to shred.  I'm almost through 2001 in the indexing.

Went to Dragon Lady and picked up another Ebay comic strip package.

Dinner was spaghetti.

The chorus did the dress rehearsal for our folk song concert. (This time I was early again.)

March 21, 2006

Dreamed of seeing an American comedy from the World War II period, with a large group of men in it, which Donald liked more than me; meeting the character who was most like me.

At work I inserted some updated sheets into a manual of library policy, in addition to the indexing.  I've come to welcome getting new keywords to add to the index, because they add variety to an often tedious job.

Took an afternoon nap.

Dinner was steak.

Saw the DVD of the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 version of the 1980s sci-fi B-movie Space Mutiny. ("They shouldn't have put the phasers on miss!")

March 20, 2006

Dreamed of going to a theatrical musical but only seeing one number; walking south from the northern end of Manhattan, along a very narrow isthmus, and fording a stream that bisected it; meeting an unhappily pregnant woman and sending her to Planned Parenthood.

Marj is still sick. (She has some back trouble.) I continued working on the index.

After work I went to Dr. Hassan's office to schedule my next visit, but it was closed. (And I'd walked through the cold to get there!)

Dinner was roast chicken.

I was late for choir practice.  I definitely need a new watch!

March 19, 2006

"You could be shot for this, Amos."

"My executioners will have to join a long line."

--Major Dundee

Went to the Book Club Meetup at the Lillian Smith library.  Karen rented a room in the basement, which resembles a dungeon slightly, to discuss Shakespeare's Richard III and a Josephine Tey mystery involving the King.  Someone brought some good brownies.  I gave a big talk about what happened in the Wars of the Roses, then left early for a movie.

That movie was Sam Peckinpah's Civil War western Major Dundee, shown in a restored version with a new score.  It's a terrific macho epic, with the definitive Charlton Heston performance. (Karen told me that she met Heston once, and he kissed her hand!)

The others came back from Kingston.  Donald, John and the girls came over for dinner, which was takeout Indian food.

Baked raisin bread.

March 18, 2006

"Would you doubt the word of a man of the Gospel?"

"His word I doubt most of all!"

--The Ballad of Cable Hogue

Dreamed of preparing for a school trip; being told by some guards that I was under arrest for being late, but ignoring them; an entrance to a theatre which was also a portal into different points in the past; watching black comedian doing his "Dy-No-Mite!" shtick on the 1970s sitcom Good Times, in a "rough cut" that needed editing.

The others went to Kingston for my niece's birthday.  I stayed home and sold a book to a local buyer and his brother at the appointed time.  They bought two more books as well, and will buy at least one more in the near future.

Went to Nirav's place for a Games Linkup.  We played Pictionary and The Amazeing Labyrinth.

Dinner was McDonald's.

Saw Sam Peckinpah's western comedy The Ballad of Cable Hogue.  Jason Robards and Stella Stevens had some surprisingly sweet scenes together.  Subdued by Peckinpah standards, despite numerous closeups of Stella's cleavage.

March 17, 2006

Isela Vega (explaining to her boyfriend Warren Oates why she'd spent a month with Alfredo Garcia): "We were saying goodbye forever....  It took a little time"--Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia

Dreamed of creating a whirlwind around myself which left the room I was in a total mess.

Marj was absent again.  I finished labelling the boxes then worked on the index. (How did they compile indices before word processors and the insert mode?)

Dinner was ham.

Went to the Cinematheque to see a movie at 18:30, only to realize it was scheduled at 20:45! (Why do I make such no-brainer goofs?) On top of that, it started late because the previous movie was longer than they thought.

Later I returned to see Sam Peckinpah's Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, a black comedy whose title tells all.  Unpleasant and oddly slow-moving, it should have been better.

March 16, 2006

"Hereward is happy, he is teaching Tilly and thinks that she is hanging on his words."

"You mustn't be unkind to Hereward."

"Perhaps not, but he is such a fine specimen, he ought to be stuffed"

--The Flame Trees of Thika

Dreamed of a glossy gossip magazine with a big scoop about the next member of the Bush administration to be indicted:  a former child actress.

Marj called in sick today.  I finished boxing the South Region terminated files, filling 25 boxes with 12 left to be labelled.

Went shopping.

Got an Ebay package of Steve Canyon comics from Holland.

Dinner was lasagna.

We made $1400 from our used book business last year, half of which goes to me.

Another games night at the Geneva Centre.  We played Apples to Apples and Trivial Pursuit.

March 15, 2006

Dreamed of trying to print out more copies of my Ph.D. thesis and not being sure it would pass; the parents and I being in my hometown Sackville, N.B.; me wanting to go home at last to Toronto, now that our old home was sold; asking Father for one reason to stay and him saying he had several reasons. [These are two dreams of mine that have recurred quite a bit.]

At work I started boxing the South Region terminated files and ended up with eight boxes labelled and sealed.  I finally got the last of the attendance files shredded.

My watch keeps stopping on me!  Looks like I'll have to get a new one.

Father and I did the January and February accounts of our online used-book business.  We netted about $350 the first month, and $100 the second.

Afternoon nap.

Dinner was salmon.

March 14, 2006

At work I started making an index of union committee decision notes.  I also started moving a huge pile of terminated files back into their two places.

Dinner was scalloped potatoes and ham. (We were going to eat at the nearby Thai restaurant, but it's closed for renovations.)

Got a bunch of Ebay British comics, including the Beano, the Dandy and the less famous Sparky.

Baked whole wheat bread overnight.

March 13, 2006

Dreamed of watching Miami Vice on TV.

At work I checked the list of boxes ready to be shipped out. (There are now 53 of them!) I also opened some long-closed boxes and found, among other things, a camera and a bag full of photos taken at the HQ of the Scarborough system before amalgamation.

Saw the last of the SCTV DVDs.  Classic show!

I got another headache and took an afternoon nap.

Dinner was spaghetti.

Alon was absent from choir practice, so Leonard drove me to the subway station.

March 12, 2006

Dreamed of wondering what exactly I knew because I wanted to write about what I knew; considering that Giuseppe di Lampedusa, who wrote The Leopard, and Luchino Visconti, who directed the movie version, both knew what it was like being in a fading aristocratic family in an increasingly bourgeois, artlessly modern world; thinking about this while walking along St. Clair Avenue near Winona Drive on a rainy evening.

Joined a Linkup group to see the documentary Escape to Canada at the Bloor.  It was so warm that I walked there!  It's a pretty good "agenda" piece about how Canada is becoming freer than the USA. (Before the movie I made my first cellphone call ever, borrowing Laura's machine to call home and confirm that they knew I wouldn't be home for dinner.)

Afterward I ate at Burger King.

March 11, 2006

Dreamed of being a last-minute substitute in a female(!) role in one of the Toronto City Opera productions; realizing just before I was to go onstage that I hadn't learned any of her lines; describing the documentary Midnight Movies to someone.

Saw the DVD of the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 version of Overdrawn at the Memory Bank, a very strange PBS play about virtual reality.

Stayed indoors all day.

Saw the DVD of the Ian McKellen version of Shakespeare's Richard III (for the second time). A clever updating of the story to the fascist era, though overdone at times. (Did they really need to show him going to the bathroom?)

March 10, 2006

Warmer weather has finally arrived!

More sorting of attendance files at work.  I finished shredding the dispensible stuff from 2001, filling about two shredder bags along the way.

Went to see my shrink Dr. Hassan late in the afternoon.

Dinner was roast chicken.

Went to the Royal and finally saw all of the documentary Midnight Movies.  Fascinating stuff.

March 9, 2006

Dreamed of Tom Selleck when he was a little boy; wondering how Peter O'Toole did take after take in Lawrence of Arabia of letting a match burn down to his fingers; considering that the famous sunrise shot in that movie may have inspired the opening shot of sun, moon and earth in 2001:  A Space Odyssey noting that with the position of the three bodies the moon shouldn't have had such a wide sliver shining; hearing that the cable TV channel Showcase was about to close down.

At work I sorted some of the files from the copying room cabinet, which were more attendance files.  Then I did some shredding, until the machine's noise brought back my headache.

Went shopping. (But we only bought a few things.)

Baked rye bread. (Father just got some new rye flour.)

Dinner was fettucine alfredo (which I cooked).

Went to an opera excerpts performance by Toronto City Opera soloists at the Bickford Centre.  My favourite part was the Carmen duet. (Afterward I helped them move some of the props out.  Those slabs are heavy!)

March 8, 2006

Dreamed of digging in the ditches around the garden of our old Sackville home to increase the water flow; a song with a chorus that included the line "I'm not a ruddy, bloody stud!"

At work I finished boxing and labelling the Sunday posting applications.  Later I sorted attendance files and removed the part that could be shredded. Movers came and took out the cabinet I cleared, as well as one in the copying room.  But it turned out that nobody had thought to clear the latter, so Marj and I had to do that in a hurry. (Most of those files are likely to be shredded.)

On the way home I bought some Cinematheque tickets.  They're showing a lot of Sam Peckinpah's movies.

Headache.  I went to bed late in the afternoon.

Got a big batch of Ebay comics at Dragon Lady.

Dinner was salmon. (Mine was late.)

Saw the DVD of the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 version of a dubbed German TV production of Hamlet.

March 7, 2006

At work I finished boxing, labelling and sealing the pay equity files. (There are twenty boxes of them!) I also moved files from one cabinet to another in Elaine's office.  In the afternoon I combed through a big pile of Sunday post applications and separated the internals from the externals, then shredded the latter.  Marj said I did a good job.

Dinner was the rest of the stew.

Saw Jonathan Demme's concert movie Neil Young:  Heart of Gold at the Varsity.  I slipped in and out of it. (It was a Meetin-Linkup event, but I was a bit late--because of diarrhea--and only got there after the others had gone in.) Someone made music by sweeping a broom along a carpet. [In one number there were about eighteen people playing guitars at once!]

Brought my Tommy Makem CD to work and left it there overnight!

March 6, 2006

At work I did more boxing and labelling of the pay equity files.

In the afternoon I saw the video of Al Pacino's Looking for Richard (for the second time), which I'd rented from Suspect Video.  It's an interesting "performance movie" about Pacino and some other stars acting out scenes from Shakespeare's Richard III.  Kevin Spacey had some remarkable scenes as the shifty Duke of Buckingham.

Dinner was lamb stew.

Got another Ebay package of comics from Barry King in Korea.

At choir practice we went through the whole program for the upcoming concert, for the first time.

March 5, 2006

Stayed indoors all day.  I didn't even get dressed!

Dinner was shepherd's pie.

March 4, 2006

"It is always our own qualities that most appal us when we find them in others"--The Flame Trees of Thika

Dreamed of becoming a new MP in Ottawa, then realizing I'd been elected in a provincial contest, and that it might have been another James Matthews; helping the people from Goodenough College [where I stayed in London while researching my Ph.D. thesis in 1995] landscape a new garden; reading of a classic episode of The Sopranos titled "Only the 21s"(?) and wondering whether I'd seen it.

Went to Masa for a lunch with the Book Club Meetup group.

Dinner was spaghetti.

March 3, 2006

At work I labelled several boxes of the pay equity files.  Then I copied the rest of the binders. (I've done a total of ten dozen.)

Went shopping.

Baked multigrain bread. (The multigrain flour ran out, so it's 1/4 white bread.)

Started reading Elspeth Huxley's memoir The Flame Trees of Thika, about growing up in Kenya, for April's Book Club Meetup.

Dinner was steak.

Went to the Karaoke Meetup.  I only stayed for about an hour because I had a headache. (Like yesterday's movie night, I only came because I'd promised to.)

March 2, 2006

Dreamed of the actual 1985 movie The Emerald Forest, about a white boy raised by an Indian community in the Brazilian jungle; a non-existent scene where the Indians scare away a visitor by making a clearing near her camp and using wooden shoes to make footprints like a huge monster's paws.

At work I filed copies of the memos I prepared for mailing the day before.  I also did a lot of shredding, cleared out a file cabinet so we can move it out, and started boxing some pay equity files.  I also got the break I didn't have time to take yesterday.

Got my hair cut.

Did my singing exercises for the first time in months. (I also resumed doing sit-ups.)

Dinner was halibut.

The Geneva Centre group had a movie night.  They showed the John Grisham movie The Runaway Jury.  That legal stuff doesn't interest me, so I came home early.

March 1, 2006

At work, I unexpectedly did afternoon overtime for the second day in a row.  Magdalena was sending out a reminder--which had to go out on the same day--to qualified part-timers to apply for OMERS insurance coverage.  I photocopied her memo, labelled and stuffed over 100 envelopes.  Marj was really surprised when I managed to finish the job just before my regular quitting time. (I'd had to convince her I was up to the extra time.) In the morning I boxed and labelled the Voluntary Severance Package files from the period just after amalgamation when the system was being downsized.

For Father's birthday we ordered takeout Chinese food. (My fortune cookie said, "You will make a financial investment with returns beyond your hopes.") Moira baked him a chocolate cake.

At lunchtime I bought Don't Know Much About History at Bookends for $1! (I've read the same author's book about geography.) It should be good.

Saw the first part of the DVD of Fellini's Juliet of the Spirits.  Too strange for me.

February 28, 2006

Dreamed of our old Electrohome TV set; turning on the TV and finding an episode from the next season of Six Feet Under not wanting to see it because I didn't want the story spoiled; giving a speech as US president invoking the spiritual line "And the walls came a-tumbling down" to symbolize the abolition of slavery.

At work I spent the morning copying more binders. (It's now over half finished.) In the afternoon I did more labelling and taping.

Dinner was steak.

Finished reading Richard III.  It moves!

Got an Ebay newspaper supplement titled "Cavalcade of American Comics:  A History of Comic Strips from 1896."

February 27, 2006

"Plain and not honest is too harsh a style"--Richard III

Dreamed of trying to cross a level crossing with many trains zooming through near Davisville subway station, meeting a Burakumin woman (Japan's "untouchable" class) and her seven-foot husband.

At work I printed out more labels for the remaining boxes and copied out a dozen more binders for Sean.

Had a nap in the afternoon.

Dinner was shepherd's pie.

The choir did some new songs: "La Barchetta," "Montanara" and "In Mezzo al Mar."

Got a whole Ebay batch of Dick Tracy Sundays.

February 26, 2006

"You are deeply irrelevant!"--Six Feet Under

Dreamed of being about to see a three-hour "restored" cut of a war movie directed by Sam Peckinpah (I just got the new Cinematheque schedule, which includes a Peckinpah series); being about to participate in another Peckinpah movie (as a character, not an actor), lying in wait before an ambush; running off to our old house in Sackville, N.B.; seeing a new mosque being built just south of it; writing this down in my diary.

Went through the last Elixir of Love performance in the afternoon.  I'll now have some more free time.

Afterward I went to the cast party at Barbara's home.  There was lots of food, especially pasta.

Saw the last episode of the fourth season of Six Feet Under.  Glad it's finally over.

Emailed Debbie another progress report about my job.  It's hard to think of things to say.

February 25, 2006

"OK, brother."

"Don't call me brother!"

"OK, sister."

--Lost Horizon

Dreamed of a thriller involving the pursuit of a killer who used computers and murdered someone on a playing field; discussing the Mafia process of getting "made" and mentioning the movie Donnie Brasco; a downtown building's rooftop with some penthouse-type extra floors for parking(?); a crazy fan leaving an actress distraught with a rude suggestion; me throwing him out.

Saw Frank Capra's movie of the James Hilton novel Lost Horizon at the Cinematheque. Precious 1930s escapist kitsch.  I had trouble staying awake at times.

Dinner was KFC.

We put on the last performance of Suor Angelica.  I returned my scores of both operas to Barbara, but told her I didn't need my $20 deposit back. (Besides easing the company's finances slightly, I've made a bit less work for her.)

February 24, 2006

Dreamed of the University of Toronto's Robarts Library; the Jessamyn West novel The Friendly Persuasion (I haven't read it, but I've seen the movie).

At work there were no new jobs.  I sorted and filed a pile of performance evaluations, then I transferred two boxes of files into new boxes. (Facilities picked up those thirty-odd boxes yesterday!)

Dinner was roast chicken.

Another Elixir of Love performance.  I felt weary but I don't think it showed.  I brought the gingerbread for selling.  Moira came to the show and enjoyed it.

February 23, 2006

At work I copied a dozen binders of training manuals for Sean.

Went shopping.

Baked gingerbread to sell in the lobby at the opera.

It turns out that there won't be a civil service strike just yet, so the last opera performances will go ahead at the Bickford Centre. (We were afraid we'd have to find another place.)

Dinner was linguini.

Went to see Memoirs of a Geisha at the Paradise.  The novel was a good read, but the movie left me feeling shut out.  I left after 20 minutes.

Baked cheese bread overnight.