Dinner was more ham.
Performed Rigoletto. (Giuseppe liked a joke I told him where a priest asks a little boy "In your house, do you pray before you eat?" and he answers "We don't have to. Mom's a good cook.")
Saw the DVD of Buster Keaton's first feature The Sap-Head. His persona was already in place. (The DVD included two funny Keaton shorts: The High Sign and the famous house-assembly comedy One Week.)
Dinner was salmon.
Went to the Games Meetup. I played Ghettopoly--a non-PC version of Monopoly--then watched a couple of people play a board game called Pompeii.
Dr. Ang told me my iron count is low again, so it's back to the Palafer. (While waiting to see her, I read the Modesty Blaise comic strip adventure "Bad Suki.")
Dinner was roast chicken.
Performed La Traviata. Moira came to see it. (She didn't like the acting of the leads.)
A blogger sent me some interview questions on my comic strip collection. (I got in touch with him through a link on the Comics Curmudgeon website.) I stayed awake for quite a while thinking about what I'd say.
"I'm glad that's the last time."
--Modesty Blaise
"That isn't a big little piece, it's a little big piece"--Pennies From Heaven
Dreamed of catching someone stealing British comic annuals; wondering why he'd do that when they aren't that valuable [though some of the older ones are]; figuring out the year of birth for people graduating this year.
Dinner was scalloped potatoes and ham.
Saw Jacques Rivette's Hurlevent at the Cinematheque. It's a curiously naturalistic adaptation of Wuthering Heights, set in 1930s France. Long but enjoyable overall.
Read "The Jericho Caper," a reprint of a Modesty Blaise comic strip story.
Went shopping.
Dinner was spaghetti.
At choir practice we took up the spiritual "Were You There?"
Finished Studs Terkel's "The Good War." Father is interested in reading the interview with nuclear physicist Philip Morrison. [He was a nuclear physicist himself.]
Dreamed of a woman apologizing to me for being too sick to come to a meeting with me; me saying "Nobody wants to get sick."
Performed La Traviata.
John and family brought over vegan dinner. (Afterward I sneaked out to KFC again.)
Dreamed of being a paratrooper in an airplane; suggesting to Mother that I dreamed about the beach by the cottage near my hometown of Sackville, NB, because I was torn between swimming away to unknown places and returning by land to the places I knew; an acerbic satire about a British general in World War II who was so incompetent that he got sent to Canada and put in charge of a Royal Canadian Air Force museum in Pittsburgh(?); considering which famous religious leaders showed a special "combination of meekness and severity" (an actual quote by historian Elie Halevy).
Dinner was McDonald's.
Performed Rigoletto. (Part of me wished I could just take sick for the next fortnight!)
Dreamed of a big poster promoting the Live Aid concerts with a non-existent quote at the bottom from economist Milton Friedman(?) saying that the United Nations had done nothing for the poor(!).
Dinner was ham.
La Traviata premiered. The parents came to see it. I misplaced my contact lenses, but I'm ust as happy without them. Now I can read between scenes, and I don't really need my long-range vision on stage. I tried telling Carmen some jokes, but she didn't get them.
Baked whole wheat bread overnight.
Dreamed of meeting Klaus Barbie in his SS days (I'd been reading about him in "The Good War"); prophesying that he'd die in prison; walking along Yonge Street at night with a pony who turned into a woman in the day.
Dinner was pizza.
We did the dress rehearsal of La Traviata. Giuseppe told me last night that the chorus would be in the curtain call, but then he changed his mind. (These things happen often.) We found some pro dancers for the scene with the gypsies and bullfighters. I gave Carmen her valentine a day late (she isn't in Rigoletto), and she was pleased. Later I coaxed a hug from her!
Dreamed of the song "Till We Meet Again"; trying to go to school in the morning but finding that everything was conspiring against my getting there on time; a sequel to La Grande Traversee, the comic book where Asterix visited the New World, with him going there again; riding in a car out on the highway and finding that we somehow ended up reversing our direction.
Baked gingerbread for sale in the lobby at our opera. (When I brought it there, it had been out of the oven only an hour!)
Dinner was steak.
Rigoletto premiered. The house was pretty small. In the corner of one wing I noticed snow that had blown in from a crack between the doors!
Dreamed of visiting the Mt. Allison University Athletic Centre with Margaret and Moira; visiting the top floor with its trophy room; also finding non-existent rooms for living in; suggesting that we look at our old home in Sackville, NB.
Went to the office of my shrink Dr. Hassan and booked another appointment. Afterward I distributed cards promoting our opera at several libraries. (I also left a couple in the music section at Indigo Books.)
Dinner was lasagna.
We went through the dress rehearsal for Rigoletto. Unfortunately, I'd forgotten that we were supposed to come an hour earlier.
Dreamed of being attacked by terrorists at the Citadel in Halifax, NS.
Moira and I saw Clint Eastwood's Flags of Our Fathers followup Letters from Iwo Jima at the Varsity. (We were going to use a 2-for-1 coupon, but it turned out to only be good for weekdays.) Another triumph. They should show it to every teenage boy in the world, so they'll know what war is like.
Dinner was roast chicken.
Baked white bread.
Dreamed of watching a movie on the late show, a romantic comedy about divers.
Saw the Canadian Opera Company production of Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. Wasn't my cup of tea. (I left after less than an hour.)
Dinner was Burger King.
"I imagine they meet you halfway."
--Murder, My Sweet
Dreamed of a DVD of the movie Fargo, including deleted scenes; being unable to figure out how to start it; admiring the moment when William H. Macy realized he hadn't thought about having to talk to his son about the kid's mother being kidnapped.
Went to the doctor and got my first prostate exam. Then I bought a valentine for Carmen!
Saw the DVD of Edward Dmytryk's Murder, My Sweet, based on Raymond Chandler's Farewell, My Lovely. A classic of film noir style, with a great dementia montage.
Dinner was shepherd's pie.
Saw the DVD of the first episode of Dennis Potter's 1970s BBC series Pennies From Heaven. Pretty strange, in a very British way. (Why did they think it would work as a Hollywood movie?)
Dreamed of looking out at Washington, DC, from a tall building and seeing another building blown up; my building collapsing.
Went to the dentist and got an old filling replaced.
Dinner was salmon.
Saw a DVD of TV commercials with famous people in them. (I remembered seeing a few of them!)
Went shopping.
Finally saw our second Rigoletto DVD, which I'd been passing around the opera chorus. It's an Arena di Verona production, more conventional than the Royal Opera version but done on a huge scale.
Dinner was spaghetti.
We rehearsed La Traviata. After one chorus bit Giuseppe pointed out that I was the only one who remembered to laugh! Looks like I'll wear my slippers with the Rigoletto costume and my regular shoes with Trav.
Got another Ebay comics package from Barry King.
Dinner was goulash and fettucine.
We rehearsed Rigoletto. There was a predictable delay in getting started becasue most of us were trying on our costumes. (The break was longer than usual too.) I'm still having trouble with the chorus at the end of the first scene--it's very fast.
Baked multigrain bread overnight.
Helped unload the opera costumes from Malabar. I got up earlier than usual, and managed to get to the Bickford Centre by 10:00, but it turned out I was an hour early. (When I told Barbara it was my birthday, she gave me a hug!) I also tried on both of my costumes. The Rigoletto costume looks a lot like what I wore in Lucia di Lamermoor. My La Traviata tuxedo needs cufflinks.
When I was at the bank, there was an old lady who needed medical assistance. They brought in some paramedics with a stretcher.
Moira gave me a Sam the Record Man gift certificate worth $50!
We ate out at Red Lobster, where I had talapia with rice.
Leonard has returned to the Coro Verdi, at least for now. This week, in addition to Stabat Mater we also practiced "Adormas Te, Christe" and "O Divine Redeemer."
Moira and I saw the Canadian Opera Company production of Gounod's Faust. (She was going to see it with her friend Mary, but Mary couldn't make it so I sat in Mary's seat in the fourth row from the front!) It was great--I liked the Second Empire costumes.
Dinner was roast beef.
Brass monkey weather!
Saw Frank Tashlin's The Girl Can't Help It at the Cinematheque. It's a 1950s satire with Jayne Mansfield and a whole lot of acts from the new craze of rock & roll. Pretty fun.
Dinner was McDonald's.
Dreamed of getting out of a jail in the Philippines at night to join Father in a tiger hunt; getting a few bullets into a tiger but failing to kill him; visiting Parliament Hill; meeting some NDP candidates whose campaigns I'd worked on; walking along a nearby rural riverside road.
Dinner was shrimp.
Stayed indoors for the second day in a row.
Dreamed of a Three Stooges-type slapstick comedy about a group of Union soldiers foiling a Confederate plot to raid a city and burn down the cathedral; climbing a cliff as Hannibal Lecter and running into Max Headroom(?).
I was in bed around the clock again.
Dinner was steak.
Saw Vincente Minnelli's musical The Band Wagon again, this time on DVD. Moira went to bed before the private eye ballet at the end, so I'll show it to her tomorrow.
Dreamed of seeing pictures of characters from the comic strips Dick Tracy and Mickey Finn on the roof of my junior high school in Sackville; finding I had no shirt on; talking to a nun(?); complaining that I had a Ph.D. [I do] but was still in junior high!
Went shopping, for the first time in a while.
Finished learning my La Traviata lines. (There were fewer to learn, but again I forgot some of them.)
Dinner was sausage and mash.
For the first time this season we had an opera rehearsal on Wednesday. This time we went through La Traviata.
Dreamed of a movie with Morgan Freeman piloting a fighter jet(?); a movie with Sigourney Weaver wearing a beard(!).
Dinner was salmon.
Finished learning my Rigoletto lines. (I soon forgot some of them, however.)
We went through Rigoletto all the way at opera rehearsal. The chorus went downstairs for remediation because we'd done such a poor job of learning our lines!
Found a fun website at misterkitty.com , with a whole lot of pages about "stupid comics." (Archie imitations, fifth-rate romance comics, formulaic horror comic covers etc.)
Dinner was the rest of the lasagna.
This week I managed to stay for the whole choir rehearsal!
"That's a very inoffensive way of saying you don't really believe in anything."
--The Painted Veil
The parents and I saw the movie of W. Somerset Maugham's The Painted Veil at the Carlton. Middlebrow story well told, nicely acted by Edward Norton and Naomi Watts. (I didn't recognize Diana Rigg as the Mother Superior!)
Baked raisin bread.
John and Kathryn brought over dinner, which was chickpea loaf or something. I actually didn't feel hungry enough to sneak out to McDonald's afterwards!
Dinner was lasagna.
Saw The Journals of Knud Rasmussen at the Cinematheque. It took me into another world: the Inuit just before the modern world came to them. For some reason, that cold Arctic landscape makes me sleepy. Maybe it's the hibernating instinct...
Dinner was stir-fry, which we haven't had in a while.
Went to the Games Meetup. (This time I knew the address and the dialup code.) I played Apples to Apples and The Amazeing Labyrinth. I also tried to play Munchkins in Space, but it was too complicated for me.
