Dreamed of actor Montgomery Clift in politics.
Last night at opera rehearsal we finally started the Marriage of Figaro choruses. (I like the all-female one.)
Went shopping. (For the first time this year I heard Christmas Muzak--urrgh!)
Dinner was fettucine with pesto (which I cooked).
Went to a History Meetup at the Golden Griddle. We saw two new-agey National Film Board documentaries about earth goddesses and witch-hunting.
At today's singing lesson Giuseppe suggested four arias for me to consider learning. (He thinks Hemingway was gay.)
Dinner was stuffed sole.
We had a second La Traviata dress rehearsal. Igor couldn't make it, so Giuseppe sang his part instead. He still has a good voice!
--A Farewell to Arms
"Take it from me--marriage isn't a word, it's a sentence!"--The Crowd
Went bowling with the Introverts Meetup group at Danforth Bowl near Coxwell station. I got three strikes!
Saw King Vidor's silent classic The Crowd (for the third time) at the Cinematheque.
Started reading Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms.
The Coro Verdi did the first of two La Traviata dress rehearsals at the Villa Colombo, with a piano in serious need of tuning.
Baked whole wheat bread overnight.
Baked another pumpkin pie in the afternoon. (The rest of the pumpkin went bad--I should have put it in the basement refrigerator!--so I used canned pumpkin instead.)
Dinner was Thai food.
Went to a Games Meetup at Mary's place. I played Scrabble and Ticket to Ride, and between them sat around for a while waiting for a new game.
Dreamed of being in hiding in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia; looking for anachronistic details to confirm that this was a later re-enactment of the time.
Went to Deer Park library and borrowed Roald Dahl's Danny, Champion of the World.
Dinner was roast chicken.
Went to a new Aspergers Meetup at the Kingsway Starbucks. There were four people there.
Finished watching I, Claudius. Really brilliant.
Went shopping.
Dinner was curried pork.
Went to a Games Meetup at 401 Games. I played Ticket to Ride (the original version with a U.S. map), Agricola and Carcassone. In my second Agricola game my score rose from 10 to 11 points.
Dreamed of being about to be in a graduation ceremony and realizing I was wearing a turtleneck instead of a suit.
Met my shrink Dr. Hassan.
Dinner was salmon.
At opera rehearsal we did the rest of Pagliacci. (We would have done our Marriage of Figaro chorus but the scores weren't ready.)
Baked rye bread.
Last night I cut up our pumpkin and today I baked a pie.
Finally got around to composting the garden.
Dinner was McDonald's.
Went to the Karaoke Meetup and sang "Dancing in the Dark" and "The Battle of New Orleans."
Supervisor: "It's not our tradition to abandon agents in the field."
Reilly: "But you do, dear boy."
--Reilly: Ace of Spies
On Livia: "They say a snake bit her and died"--I, Claudius
Dreamed of putting toothpaste on two toothbrushes; meeting an MP.
Dinner was roast chicken.
Saw the first episode of the DVD of I, Claudius (for the second time). (Moira rented it from 2Q Video.) It gets off to a slow start.
Had a dental checkup in the afternoon.
Dinner was scallops.
Went to a Games Meetup where I played Agricola for the first time. I got 10 points and finished last because I was slow expanding.
Reilly (learning that Japan's about to attack Russian territory): "Without a declaration of war?"
Japanese officer: "Our code does not require one."
"Theirs does."
"Very unfortunate--for them."
--Reilly: Ace of Spies
Dreamed of the movie Titanic; planning to turn it off when the iceberg struck; trying to translate "He ain't heavy, he's my brother" into French and Spanish. [Google Translate gives "Il n'est pas lourd, c'est mon frere," and "No pesa, es mi hermano."]
Saw the DVD of Empire of the Air (for the second time), a Ken Burns documentary about the inventors of radio.
Dinner was lasagna with spinach.
At opera rehearsal we did the Bell Chorus from Pagliacci, which I already knew from singing it at Coro Verdi.
Dreamed of a car being transported by a helicopter with Jackie Kennedy inside; a female Hollywood puppeteer with lots of opinions.
Dinner was stuffed sole, which Moira cooked. She didn't think much of the result, but I didn't mind it. (Of course, I wouldn't eat the stuffing no matter how good it was.)
At choir practice we started on the Christmas concert and rehearsed the songs we've been singing every December.
Dreamed of snow in August.
Saw the DVD of Mervyn LeRoy's Quo Vadis. Very long and pretty conventional.
Dinner was roast beef.
Saw the DVD of the first episode of Reilly: Ace of Spies. I want to find out how much of it is true. [They took some dramatic licence...]
Father: "Art who?"
--Splendor in the Grass
I was a long time getting to sleep because of my leg, so I took a sleeping pill. [I'd only use them sparingly because I was afraid of becoming dependent on them.]
Dreamed of trying to make an anagram of David Letterman's name. [I found a website that gave me "Tamale-ridden TV," among others.]
I committed to go to the Bowling Meetup in the afternoon and thought of going on a walking tour in the morning, but my leg was too sore.
Saw an early Dr. Who story on DVD, about an adventure among the Aztecs.
Dinner was McDonald's.
Saw Elia Kazan's Splendor in the Grass at the Cinematheque with the VITAL group. (Jackie was there and we agreed to play Agricola next week.) The movie was Mad magazine-ridiculous--all about Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty not having sex.
Dinner was fettucine alfredo (which I cooked).
Listened to "Kashmiri Song (Pale hands I loved beside the Shalimar)" on the internet. I'd heard it on the DVD soundtrack of the silent movie The Sheik, then recognized the tune in the documentary series The Story of English.
Dreamed of briefly returning to a ship and meeting a young woman and her father whom I'd encountered there before; reflecting that we sometimes turn our memories of painful times into nostalgia.
Went shopping.
I forgot to put yeast in last night's multigrain bread! (It was on the flat side.) So I baked it again.
Dinner was roast chicken.
Puitak and I went to see the Vogue magazine documentary The September Issue at the Varsity. I can take it or leave it.
As I practiced singing, my voice gave out on the high notes. I'll have to cancel next week's lesson and ease up.
Dinner was ham.
Went to a Games Meetup at 401 Games. I played SmallWorld and Carcassone. My SmallWorld races were commando humans, seafaring tritons and wealthy ratmen, and I won a game for the second time! (I smoked 'em and got 89 points!)
Baked multigrain bread overnight.
Priest to bishop (sarcastically): "Well, we all love workshops!"
--Dirty Sexy Money
Dreamed of Violetta's death scene in the last act of La Traviata , in the part where it goes into a major key; attending a school where Friday afternoons were devoted to putting on plays; trying to master a combination lock for my locker; Carrie in Sex & the City moving to Lebanon.
Dinner was fish.
Left opera rehearsal midway through because I fel unwell (due to the fish?). I finally got a Pagliacci score.
After I got home I was sick.
Had another singing lesson. Giuseppe's not happy about the shortage of Pagliacci scores.
Started reading the crime issue of Lapham's Quarterly.
Dinner was tortellini with pesto sauce.
At choir practice Giuseppe put us through the Traviata choruses once, then let us leave early so he could rehearse the soloists.
Saw the DVD of the early cinema verite documentary Primary, about the 1960 Wisconsin primary where JFK beat Hubert Humphrey. I think I saw it before.
Dreamed of a reprint of the comic strip Prince Valiant drawn with crayons.
Went to see Mira Nair's biopic Amelia with the Movie Meetup. Hilary Swank and Richard Gere had weak chemistry.
Then I went to a Depressed But Enthusiastic Meetup. Basil and I were there. (He mentioned that his religion is Mandaean, which I'll have to Google!)
Dinner was KFC.
Finished Studs Terkel's Great Depression oral history Hard Times.
Saw the Ken Burns documentary Congress on DVD. Breathless.
"What's that?"
"Lose."
--Rhoda
Dreamed of being visited at my old home in Sackville, N.B., by two friendly people who turned out to be ghosts; saying I was sorry that they were dead.
Dinner was spaghetti.
Saw the Fred Astaire musica Swing Time again.
Father (seeing her new sweetheart): "Who's that?"
"The opposite of boring!"
--Fame
Dreamed of the British school-themed TV series To Serve Them All My Days (and an escapade that wasn't in the actual show where a schoolboy hid in some sheets and ended up being washed with the laundry); the English city Canterbury.
Went to dinner with the VITAL Meetup group (Variety In The Art of Living) at Il Fornello. The others were female and talked a lot about their travels. I ate spaghettini bolognese.
Afterward I saw the Fame remake at the Yonge & Dundas. It was less excessive than the original, more on the bland side. (While most of the original cast seemed a bit old to be playing high schoolers, some of these actors seemed twelve or thirteen!)
"How often do guys like Vince Mazuma come along?"
"Every three seconds."
--Rhoda
Dreamed of going through a whole videocassette to see what was taped on it (there was an episode of David Letterman's late-night show and the movie Shanghai Noon); the war movie The Dirty Dozen.
Dinner was another turkey pie.
Indian summer weather.
The opera group had an acting class. We drew slips for characters to play and I got one who scrimps and saves to see the theatre in Pagliacci. There's a new girl from Nova Scotia called Meredith Nicholson. [Nicholson was my mother's maiden name.]
Dreamed of sleeping on a mattress that was coming apart one spring at a time; bicycling east to New Brunswick; having a nervous breakdown due to anger; seeing a tall tower from a distance; comedian David Steinberg.
Saw the DVD of Ken Burns' documentary The Statue of Liberty. It got a bit gnomic in the second half.
Dinner was turkey pie.
At opera rehearsal we started on Pagliacci. I was late and they didn't have enough Pagliacci scores, so I had to share Gianni's.
Dreamed of reflecting that I wasn't cut out for historical scholarship. (Or was I? Things seem less certain in the morning after you wake up.)
Found a big zucchini in what's left of the garden.
Dinner was lasagna.
At choir practice the La Traviata soloists rehearsed with us, and we went over all the chorus parts twice (once for either soprano). I told John George that he reminded me of Pete the fisherman on Twin Peaks.
"Beautiful people can get whatever they want.... Have you ever seen a beautiful blonde go to the electric chair?"--Twin Peaks [Actually there's Gwen Stefani in the video for No Doubt's "It's My Life"!]
Dreamed of having my bedroom in a driveway; the beginning of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World where Jimmy Durante's car goes off the freeway (except here he was on a roller coaster).
Went to a Games Meetup at the Yellow Griffin. First I played Scrabble with a tournament player, who got about 450 points to my 250. Then I played Settlers of Catan, which was a tight three-way race. Jeffrey won when he got the largest army card, but I did manage to build four cities!
Dinner was pork steak.
Practiced my singing for the first time in a week.
"They'll be buried side by side."
"So they can keep an eye on each other?"
--Twin Peaks
Dreamed of travelling westward and keeping a diary of it.
Went to a Shyness Meetup at the Mood Disorders Centre. The others went out to a pub, but I went home.
Dinner was McDonald's.
Doctor: "I didn't drop you on your head when I brought you into this world. Please don't make me regret it"--Twin Peaks
Dreamed of the Eurhythmics' Annie Lennox singing a non-existent song titled "Cranberry Hues."
Dinner was scallops.
Choir practice was today because Monday was a holiday. I'm under the weather so I told Giuseppe to cancel next week's singing lesson.
"Are you going to eat that pie, or just push it around my China?"--Twin Peaks
Dreamed of considering writing a new book about the Titanic; meeting a secretary through a mutual acquaintance (a sergeant in the Marines) and almost having sex with her; wanting to lock the door to our room beforehand but her preferring it unlocked.
The parents were out shopping in the morning and picked up a new autumn coat for me. It's really snug.
Went shopping. (I also got a new pair of shoes, through it'll soon be time for winter boots.
Dinner was turkey casserole.
Went to a Games Meetup at Dueling Grounds. I played a new game called Pandemic, where we worked as a team and succeeded in saving the world from four contagious diseases. Then we played Puerto Rico, which I won to my great surprise. (I couldn't afford to buy any of the new buildings late in the game, which usually make the difference.)
Went to 2Q Video and rented DVDs of the second half of the last season of Twin Peaks. It got a bit silly toward the end.
Mother: "What for?"
"To kill herself."
--Bright Star
The parents and I drove out to the Queensway (where we'd never been before) and saw Jane Campion's Bright Star. It's a wonderful love story, realistic, affecting and subtly beautiful.
Afterward we ate at a Mandarin restaurant nearby.
Saw a big pile of trees that they're about to plant along St. Clair Avenue now that the streetcar line reconstruction is almost finished.
In the morning we drove out to Orchard Home Farm and picked Jonagold and Mutsu apples. (The Golden Delicious were finished.) The Mutsu were nice and big and we got four bags of them.
We had lunch at Arby's in Brantford. The place was surrounded by scaffolding but still open inside. (Hardly anyone was there.) Driving home I dozed off several times.
Dinner was fettucine with pesto sauce (which I cooked).
At choir practice we did the rest of Cavalleria Rusticana, except for the scene just at the end.
Saw some of Disney's Pluto cartoons on DVD. Every great cartoon series seems to have one character who doesn't talk. [Like Dopey or Maggie Simpson.]
"When I feel bored, I'm ancient."
"How old are you now?"
"About 100."
--Coco Avant Chanel
Dreamed of being in a group leaving a Miami theatre through a window; dangling upside down.
The cool autumn weather's arrived.
When I went to Giuseppe's it turned out that he thought this week's singing lesson had been cancelled, and I was willing to wait till next week, but since I'd come the whole way he gave me a lesson anyhow.
Puitak and Gordon had me over for dinner, which was spaghetti. (I was afraid I hadn't told the parents, but it turned out I had.)
Then Pui and I went to see Coco Avant Chanel at the Yonge & Dundas. A bit conventional, but Audrey Tautou was in fine form. (On our way to the movie, we saw a really long queue near the Greyhound bus station.)
John, Donald, Kathrine and Rae came over for a Thanksgiving dinner. We had turkey and the vegans had something different.
Saw The Man From Beyond, a silent with Harry Houdini as an 1820 man who survives being frozen for a whole century(!), then meets a woman he's convinced is the reincarnation of his late sweetheart. It's a curious casting choice, considering that Houdini was famous for debunking spiritualists... [There was a 1960s sitcom The Second Hundred Years with a similar premise.]
Dreamed of a fireplace with a wind blowing down the chimney; having a huge pile of little tiles to glue to a wall.
Baked cheese bread.
Went on a Walking Meetup. (Nice day for it.) We started at Victoria Park station and went northwest along Taylor Creek, than southwest along the Don River. I quit near Broadview station, but some were going as far south as Queen Street! I was talking to Jane, an acting teacher with glasses like movie director Lina Wertmuller.
Dinner was McDonald's.
"Our marriage?"
"The translation."
--The Browning Version
Dreamed of a European woman arriving in America and going off to join an Indian nation; her watch having mystical symbols instead of numbers.
Dinner was frozen Thai food.
The parents and I were going to see Bright Star, but it was pouring rain so we decided to wait till next week. Then I was going to see the Fame remake, but when I got to the Yorkdale it turned out it had started 20 minutes earlier than I thought, so I went home.
Got a package of Ebay comic strips from Barry King.
Saw the DVD of Anthony Asquith's 1951 movie of the Terence Rattigan play The Browning Version. Superb. (I should see the 1994 Mike Figgis version again.) [This movie got me interested in learning classical Greek!]
Dreamed of planning to read the novel Ben-Hur; seeing a shot from the movie where the film crew was visible.
Dinner was ham.
Saw Michael Moore's latest agitprop documentary Capitalism: A Love Story at the Cumberland with a Movie Meetup group. (There were only three of us.) After a vague start, it got better and better. Food for thought.
Went shopping.
Finally got a start on putting the garden in order. (We got one pumpkin and I brought it indoors.)
Dinner was roast chicken.
Went to a Games Meetup at 401 Games. I played two new games: Big City, involving laying buildings and streetcars on an urban grid; and Bang!, a card game where we played gunfighters. (I was the sheriff's deputy.)
Dreamed of hoping for a remake of The Good Earth.
Yesterday I placed a hold at the Reference Library on a book the parents are interested in, about New Brunswick shipbuilding in Kent County. But when I went there it wasn't returned.
Dinner was roast beef.
At opera rehearsal we did "Regina Coeli" from Cavalleria Rusticana, but we didn't have time to finish it.
At today's singing lesson I forgot to give Giuseppe his payment! (I gave it to him at choir practice in the evening.)
Dinner was ham.
At choir practice we went through all our La Traviata parts for the first time.
"All heck's breaking loose!"--ibid.
Went to an Intellectual Meetup at Niky's place. Or rather, I would have but when I got to his street I couldn't remember his address. (This is the second time it's happened!)
Dinner was Wendy's.
Saw the DVD of George Cukor's The Women. Lots of talk, some of it sharp. (Rosalind Russell puts Norma Shearer to shame!)
"That isn't flying, it's falling with style"--Toy Story
Dreamed of visiting my hometown Sackville, N.B.; getting a debilitating sickness and recovering by lying in the grass.
Baked whole wheat bread.
Saw the first episode of the DVD of Melvyn Bragg's language documentary The Adventure of English. The history of languages always interests me.
Dinner was McDonald's.
Saw John Lasseter's two Toy Story movies in 3-D with the Movie Meetup at the Yonge & Eglinton. (I hadn't seen them before.) They're both quite clever.
Finished Two Years Before the Mast.
"Bob would have gone far."
"I'm sure he did--er, would."
--A Shock to the System
Michael Caine talking to himself: "You, you and you stay calm. Everyone else panic!"--ibid.
Dreamed of a convocation where I was graduating along with SCTV's Dave Thomas.
Saw the DVD of the black comedy A Shock to the System. (It's been in my zip.ca queue for five years or so.) Michael Caine's in fine form.
Dinner was fettucine with pesto sauce (which I cooked), for the first time in quite a while.
Went to a Games Meetup at Mary's place. I played The Amazeing Labyrinth, Carcassone, Apples to Apples and a new game called Drakon.
Went to see my shrink Dr. Hassan.
Dinner was takeout Chinese and Thai food.
Went to a new games group at Duelling Grounds west of Dufferin Station. We played Carcassone, then a new game called Holy War. (I was the voodoo prophet Baron Samedi.) I didn't care for it, and didn't stay for another new game involving ethnic restaurants in a shopping mall.
Went shopping.
Dinner was scallops.
Wrote a review of Fame for mrcranky.com.
https://canadiancommonsense.blogspot.com/2018/01/fame.html
Went to an Introvert Meetup at the Tim Horton's near the Eglinton station. (I had a coconut cream doughnut.) I met a guy I remembered from the Writers Meetup.
Dreamed of doing a New York Times crossword puzzle where the answer to "Lowest beach in the world" was "Iqaluit desert"; visiting a park on the south shore of Brooklyn with a group of people; meeting actress Norma Shearer, whose photos I'd just been looking at online.
Dinner was spaghetti.
Music teacher on electronic music: "That's not music, Martelli, it's masturbation!"--ibid.
"I bombed out there and you're talking about fucking pizzas?"
"I'm not talking about fucking pizzas, I'm talking about eating them."
--ibid.
Saw the DVD of Alan Parker's High School for the Performing Arts movie Fame, for the second time. It's terribly dated, like an After School Special cramped with R-rated cliches (e.g. boys peeking at girls undressing). When student Doris said "I don't know why I'm here," I didn't know either.
Went to the first Toronto City Opera rehearsal. Barbara won't join us till December. We did the chorus entrance from Cavalleria Rusticana and the part where Alfio arrives.
"An overstrained sense of manliness is the characteristic of seafaring men, or, rather, of life aboard ship"--Two Years Before the Mast
Dreamed of a gospel song "Count Your Heavens"; a combat-fatigued soldier seeing a shop and saying "Why buy things?"
I overslept and was late for my singing lesson. There's one part of "Pieta, Rispetto, Amore" where I still don't have the melody learned. [I figured out that it was like the first two bars of the Christmas carol "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear."]
Dinner was steak.
At choir practice the pianist was playing a tune I recognized from silent movie scores which turned out to be Elgar's "Salut d'Amour."
Dreamed of comic strip hero Steve Canyon running for President; reflecting that in Dante's limbo you'd at least meet interesting people.
Went to a Games Meetup at the Yellow Griffin. I played Puerto Rico and finished last. (All those building rounds where I was one doubloon short!)
Afterward I went to a DBE Meetup at the Jester. There were only three people there.
Dinner was ham.
Moira recorded the Macbeth aria "Pieta, Respetto, Amore." (I remembered the title!) I had to bring down my study lamp so she could read the score with illumination.)
Dreamed of being in Halifax, N.S.
Dinner was McDonald's.
Went to a Classical Music Meetup at Java Mama. This month, the letter was K so the subject was Bach's Coffee Cantata. (Both words start with "K" in German.) Yossi played a recording and gave a presentation explaining what it was about. Fewer people than expected came because of the rain.
Picked up my new bifocals. It feels odd wearing clean new glasses, almost like they aren't there (like looking through a really clean window).
Dinner was KFC. Saw the DVD of the first half of Fritz Lang's quasi-serial double feature The Spiders. Silly fun.
Dreamed of a gun becoming so hot from firing that it was dipped into water with a hiss of steam.
Dinner was sausage and mash.
Went to a Games Meetup at the Ryerson student centre. As planned, we played Puerto Rico. I got a bad start but managed to get 41 points in the end, just 11 points behind the winner. (It was the first game I was in that ended when the victory points ran out, rather than the colonists.)
Then we played a new game called Endeavor, which was definitely not planned. If only I'd known we were going to play it, I'd have read all about it online. As it worked out, I still don't understand it completely. (Sara's explanation wasn't quite good enough.) Jackie won both games.
Preacher-soldier Ward Bond: "Amen. That means you get no pay."--The Searchers
Dreamed of finding out that Moira had gone to China unexpectedly.
Went shopping.
Dinner was roast chicken.
Saw the DVD of Peter Bogdanovich's documentary Directed by John Ford (in a new edition). Ford was a great artist and a character!
Dreamed of meeting a woman in a bank who'd just won over $8 million in a lottery; the actual Lawrence of Arabia quote, recalling that when he returned to London after five years away "I could have eaten every stone in the Strand."
Moira recorded the accompaniment for "Avant de Quitter Ces Lieux." It took long enough that we left the other song for another day.
Dinner was shrimp with rice.
Saw Steven Soderbergh's The Informant at the Yonge & Dundas with the Introvert Meetup. It may seem like a conventional melodrama at first, but a jaunty comedy quickly emerges. Matt Damon was in fine form.
Saw the DVD of the first chapter of the silent serial The Master Mystery, starring Houdini.
"What is there to do in New Jersey but go to New York?"--Rhoda
Dreamed of setting up a computer to view an internal forum, but John thought it was being set up to play a game.
At today's singing lesson we did the Macbeth aria for the first time. (When I arrived Giuseppe had been watching Bette Davis in The Corn is Green.)
Dinner was fettucine alfredo (which I cooked).
At choir practice we did the next act in La Traviata, but didn't have time for the last bit. (Earlier today I recorded our lines for Gianni. The parts we hadn't done yet were ragged in places.)
Newspaper headline: "Parade to distract joyless citizenry"--The Simpsons
Dreamed of a new cinema at a non-existent mall in Yorkville; recalling that the 1978 Neil Simon comedy The Cheap Detective was rather thin; a dying John Wayne tossing a lit Catherine wheel and killing a group of Native Americans who'd been hanging people.
Walked on the Leslie Street spit with the Travel Meetup group. There were almost 30 of us, and we mostly walked on off-road trails, which meant a long single-file procession. I left early to be on time for my next event.
That next event was another Games Meetup at the Foxes Den. I played Ticket to Ride and managed 111 points, but Lawrence got an incredible 141! Then I played Carcassone, of course. There was a new player and I wanted to do the simple version, but Lawrence insisted on the expansion version, so the game moved slowly.
Dinner was Chicken McNuggets.
