August 25, 2004

A parent to teenagers going off on a date: "Be good.  And if you can't be good, be careful"--All or Nothing (but she got pregnant anyway)

Baked white bread overnight.

Dreamed of having a cameo in a series of four unpleasant Wagnerian operas as a bedridden invalid; being unable to turn off a stereo radio in my room; reading British comic annuals; returning from the operas on the London subway, still unable to sit up; the 1970s sitcom One Day at a Time.

Got a Sunday comics section from 1966.

Dinner was fettucine in pesto sauce (which I cooked).

Registered for continuing education courses in drama, creative writing and dancing.

Saw the video of Mike Leigh's All or Nothing. (I'm not quite sure what the title means.) It's a Leigh-style "slice of life" drama about people living on a London housing estate.  Interesting but kinda bleak.  Mother said Timothy Spall looks like he's seen a ghost!

August 24, 2004

"Renny would not have understood or would have chosen not to understand.  A new and desperately urgent life was thrusting up, out of the colonial past, but he ignored it, not so much in antagonism as in absorption by his own manner of life.  He simply could not imagine a change in Jalna itself"--Centenary at Jalna

Dreamed of walking home in Sackville and seeing a TV ad somehow projected in the sky; borrowing several Dr. Seuss books from the library; visiting an open house with a large group from my dance studio; seeing an episode from a comic strip in the boy's swashbuckler genre of Treasure Island; the composer Henry Mancini giving me an autographed record album.

Saw the video of Powell & Pressburger's A Canterbury Tale, a World War II movie about a GI, a Tommy and a Land Girl who come together in a village near Canterbury and solve the mystery of a night stalker who throws glue into women's hair.  There's a sort of parallel evoked with Chaucer's pilgrims.  An intriguing curio, though a bit long.

Dinner was steak.

Went to a Writers Meetup at the Fox and Fiddle.  There were three people there.

August 23, 2004

Dreamed of taking a swimming course; the Elvis song "Memories" fused with Glen Campbell's "True Grit" theme song.

In the reprint I've been reading, Terry and the Pirates improved remarkably in the first year.

Went shopping.  We also rented some videos at Revue.

Dinner was chicken (which I fried).

Saw the video of the first episode of the BBC series Elizabeth R. (It shows how Elizabeth I survived her political difficulties in the years before becoming Queen.) It's a terrific show, with Glenda Jackson at her considerable best in the title role.  I recall this as the best of all the episodes. [Later I decided I preferred the fifth episode, about defeating the Spanish Armada.]

Read the Classics Illustrated special issue "The Atomic Age."

August 22, 2004

"You're a fool, but you're my fool!"--The Battle of the Sexes

"Ye'll never live t'regret it"--Terry and the Pirates

Dreamed of seeing a movie at the Bloor Cinema; being afraid to watch a scene with people being attacked by dogs; being unable to put my shoes back on and gather all my stuff after the movie was over.

Started reading the Terry and the Pirates reprints.  The first episodes were kinda lame.

Moira went to Kingston for a week or so.

Saw the DVD of D.W. Griffiths' The Battle of the Sexes.  It's a silent melodrama with comic touches, about a rich married man who abandons his family for a gold digger.  Minor. (They broke Chekhov's rule by showing a gun and not having it go off.)

Dinner was McDonald's.

There was a last-minute bidding war, but I got twelve of the eighteen Menomonee Falls Gazette issues I was trying for.

Read the Teddy Roosevelt and Snow White comics I recently bought.

August 21, 2004

Dreamed of going on a Ferris Wheel.

Baked multigrain bread.

Sinus trouble.

Went to a Movie Meetup.  There were half a dozen people there. We saw Open Water at the Market Square.  It's a stunning independent production about a couple on a scuba dive whose boat leaves them behind!

Dinner was churrasco chicken.

August 20, 2004

"If they hadn't put up that building, you could see the Hudson from here"--Hallelujah I'm a Bum!

Dreamed of getting a job as caretaker in a school.

Dinner was spaghetti (which I cooked).

Saw the DVD of Lewis Milestone's Hallelujah I'm a Bum! (The other DVD player was working again.  Its sound problem is intermittent.) It's a 1933 musical, from the time before they introduced the Production Code, so there's quite a bit of off-colour humour.  Al Jolson plays the "King of Central Park" (as in a hobo). There's a Depression-era populist theme.  Silent comedian Harry Langdon plays a revolutionary!

Visited the old dance studio.  My teacher Cynthia now has a tan.

Vanity Fair has a good David Halberstam article about the shadow the Vietnam War casts over American politics today.

August 19, 2004

Dreamed of being in the movie Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and doing a dance number with Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell.

Got a reprint of the last episodes of Terry and the Pirates.

Dinner was salmon.

We were going to watch the DVD of Francois Truffaut's Day for Night, but there was no sound on our DVD player, so we switched to the other machine.  We watched about half an hour, then I stopped the machine to go to the lavatory.  When we started it again, the disc had gone back to the beginning, so I fast-forwarded it to the scene where we'd stopped, but then it wouldn't go to Play or Stop or Power Off or anything, and all I could do was unplug it.  Then, when I plugged it back in none of the buttons would respond!  It's inconvenient to have both machines malfunction at the same time.

Finally finished reading my Menomonee Falls Gazette collection.