October 31, 2003

Dreamed of the Eddie Murphy movie Trading Places (and of an actual comment in Pauline Kael's review in The New Yorker, "It's like watching a Christmas movie on a broken TV set"); trying to finish a crossword puzzle.

Indian summer has returned.  I did some hoeing in the garden.

Dinner was chicken (which I fried).

Went to a lecture on Germaine Dulac, a female director of French silent movies, at the Cinematheque.  They showed some abstract movies she'd made, which were pretty strange.  The lecture itself was rather boring.  There was also part of a newsreel she made in the early sound era, showing the yo-yo craze sweeping France.

Went to a dance party at the Arthur Murray studio for the first time in three months, because it was Halloween and a chance to wear last year's beatnik costume again.  Only a handful of us were wearing costumes.

Baked whole wheat bread overnight.

October 30, 2003

Dreamed of waiting in a parking lot near a subway station on the Bloor-Danforth line (to the west) for a friend to drive me home; Pierre Trudeau's 100th birthday (he only lived to be 81).

Baked gingerbread in the convection oven for the first time. (Father had to show me how.)

Dinner was pot roast.

Opened a new pair of contacts.  I had to open two left lenses because I lost one of them.

Saw Peter Mullan's The Magdalene Sisters at the Music Hall, about "impure" teenage girls doing slave labour in an abusive Irish convent.  It was well made, but basic and unsubtle in a not unpredictable way.  It's more than just an indictment of the Catholic church; it indicts Irish society as a whole.  From seeing this and reading Angela's Ashes, I get the impression that the Irish are a "little" people.  Graham Greene said that Catholics are capable of greater evil than other people.  Geraldine McEwan, who played the nasty Mother Superior, had an odd resemblance to Alan Cumming. [If people think they're saving you from the fires of hell, whatever they do to you will seem like the lesser evil...]

October 29, 2003

Dreamed of violinist Isaac Stern writing a list of famous things that originated in Norway, including corn on the cob(?).

Saw Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill:  Volume I at the Yonge-Eglinton Silvercity.  It's a stylish, well-made and original take on the violent revenge genre.  I enjoyed it but felt rather dirty for doing so.  This genre is a kind of pornography, really.  Paradoxically, seeing someone get his arm cut off seems more violent than seeing him beheaded.  No wimpy stuff here about redemption like there was in Pulp Fiction. (At least not in this half.)

Dinner was spaghetti.

Only five people at Creative Writing.  My story for next week will be a centenarian reminiscing about the street he's lived on.

October 28, 2003

Dreamed of being in a movie where Russell Crowe protects a future colony of people on a foreign planet menaced by fantastic creatures; taking a chemistry course but finding it conflicted with something else; a Sailor Moon episode involving Vietnam(?).

Saw Sophia Coppola's Lost in Translation at the Cumberland.  It was quite good, in a low-key sort of way.  Bill Murray played it straight this time.

Dinner was steak (which I fried).

At the opera rehearsal we went over Don Giovanni for the first time. (It has only three choruses.) During the break I helped move set pieces and props upstairs to the stage.  We brought some plywood statue cutouts, but it turned out that they weren't wanted, so we had to take them back downstairs.

October 27, 2003

Dreamed of maintaining a fire in the fireplace of our Sackville house; bicycling with my manager to a meeting with Hollywood people along York Street in Sackville; the Gordon Lightfoot song "Canadian Railroad Trilogy."

Went shopping.

For dinner we went to the Mandarin restaurant to celebrate my finishing the first phase of the Mission:  Possible program.

Did an online jigsaw puzzle in the easy mode.  It only took about 20 minutes.

Saw Fassbinder's Martha.  It was one of the creepiest movies I've ever seen!  It's about a woman who marries a control freak and goes around the bend, but it's really a perverse comedy.  At the end of it I was thinking, "It's only a movie!" One of those movies I do not want to see a second time. [I remember a scene with actresses walking in high heels in this echoing

room where the heels made resonant clicking sounds!]

October 26, 2003

Dreamed of crossing the north Atlantic on a ship, looking out and seeing islands; staying at Goodenough College and picking up the British magazine Private Eye; a future entry in the Harry Pottter series involving his pet monkey; seeing preacher Jim Bakker on TV.

Saw Fassbinder's Effi Briest.  Restrained and intelligent, with beautiful black & white photography.

John and Rae came over for dinner, which was vegetarian lasagna.

In Six Feet Under Brenda's brother went off the deep end, or looked close to it.

October 25, 2003

"Bill looks 32.  He looked 32 five years ago.  He'll look 32 twenty years from now.  I hate men!"--Bette Davis in All About Eve

Dreamed of being a character in an anime-like show involving a rather comic family that didn't get along very well and a struggle with powerful demons; acting in a skit where I was crowned Roman Emperor.

Saw Joseph Mankiewicz's brisk All About Eve (for the second time) at the Cinematheque.  Some great dialogue from the time when they still made "women's pictures."

Dinner was Burger King.