November 21, 2005

"They can't do that to us!"

"This is school.  They can do anything to us."

--Freaks and Geeks

Dreamed of being a character in a seriocomedy--a maladjusted Moncton prep schooler who keeps getting into fights with bullies; a girl who worries about me and talks to God out loud; reflecting that the western High Noon wasn't credible because (among other things) Gary Cooper missed a chance to shoot his main enemy in the back at the start of the gunfight; walking along Main Street in Sackville, N.B. and passing by a procession of coffins from a nearby disaster; a horse hurrying past me.

Today Ebay is letting you post stuff for sale at a discount so I posted several collections of my extra comics.

Dinner was the rest of the lasagna.

At the choir we did "Ninna Nanna Calabrese" for the first time.

November 20, 2005

"I am not in denial!"--Six Feet Under

Dreamed of needing to tune a TV set with a complicated system of rabbit-ear antennas; adding a card to the system and getting a near-perfect picture; visiting a beach near Ottawa in winter; climbing a cliff to the top of a snowy dune; thinking "I love this country!"; trying to imagine how hard it must have been for the Russians to hold out at Stalingrad; reflecting that they were motivated by the threat of extinction; marrying a rich young socialite; her faking her death by an elevator crash; moving from California to New York City and avoiding school enrolment.

Sang at the opera chorus fundraiser.  Someone complimented me on my gingerbread. (It disappeared pretty quick as I'd only brought a third of what I'd baked.) I helped clean up afterward and got to bring home a big amount of cookies and cheese.

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

Saw the DVD of the SCTV episode with the Pre-Teen World Telethon and the Ocean's Eleven spoof.

On Six Feet Under Lisa went missing.

November 19, 2005

"The Irish are the blacks of Europe, the Dubliners are the blacks of Ireland, and the North Dubliners are the blacks of Dublin!"--The Commitments

Went to a Cinematheque screening of Betty Boop cartoons from the 1930s. Very cute. (They also had some animated bouncing-ball singalongs like "Come Take a Trip in My Airship.")

Headache.

Dinner was roast beef.

Baked gingerbread to bring to the opera fundraiser tomorrow.

Saw the DVD of Alan Parker's The Commitments (for the second time). It's based on Roddy Doyle's novel about a group of working-class Dubliners forming a soul band.  An enjoyable comedy with a swell cast.

The New York Sunday Times crossword puzzle was harder than usual. (The long answers involved colleges famous for athletics.)

November 18, 2005

"And the tune he played made Lucy want to laugh and cry and dance and go to sleep all at the same time"--The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

Dreamed of recalling an actual CBC news report on Canada's prison system in which someone said that we had one of the world's best; thinking that he should have said one of the world's least bad; reflecting that someone who thinks a good prison system is possible is either a genius or a fool; finding the show business magazine Variety for sale; seeing a similarly formatted magazine devoted to cooking.

Saw the first snow since spring.

The rest of the family went to see the latest movie of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, but to me it was more important to attend the Movies Meetup. (I ate at Arby's.)

The next book for the Book Club Meetup is C.S. Lewis' Narnia book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.  Unfortunately, because of the upcoming movie all the library copies are already out, so I bought a paperback edition at Indigo.  There's something vaguely creepy about it.

The Movies Meetup organizer couldn't come (like the Book Club last Sunday), so only one other person showed up, and he got called away by his job just as we were about to go see The Squid and the Whale.

Instead, I went to a combined Meetin/Linkup event at Twister Karaoke.  I sang the Gary U.S. Bonds song "New Orleans" for the first time.  The equipment acted up.

November 17, 2005

Math teacher: "He's a loser, and losers pull down winners"--Freaks and Geeks

Dreamed of taking the elevator up to the fourth floor of the northwest wing of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London; the 1960s motto "Be realistic:  ask for the impossible"; reflecting that my version would put "impossible in quotation marks; meeting someone in that museum who was impressed that I knew our choir director Giuseppe; the opening scenes of a movie made in Israel.

Turned out that I'd forgotten to put the dough in the baking machine last night. So today I'm baking the whole wheat bread.

Saw the DVD of Alexander Mackendrick's classic Ealing Studios comedy Whisky Galore!  It's about a remote Scottish island in World War II that runs out of whiskey, until a ship runs aground with a cargo of... Some fine Scottish actors.

Dinner was sausages and mash.

The Geneva Centre group had a karaoke night. (I brought some microwave popcorn.) I sang "Back in the U.S.S.R." and "Rock Around the Clock." On the way back I met Catherine from the choir.

November 16, 2005

Did some more volunteer work at the health centre.  Today we were assembling binders. (I did at least 15.)

Dinner was salmon.

At the taijiquan course we learned a new step called "playing the banjo." I'm pretty sure I'm improving.

Baked whole wheat bread overnight. (Or so I intended.)

The Freaks and Geeks episode "Kim Kelly is My Friend" is a classic!

November 15, 2005

Dreamed of going through a mess of books and magazines at the post office in our hometown of Sackville, N.B., to find a couple of items that were due to me; reflecting on how lame a certain episode of Little House on the Prairie was in that the plot required a sequence of characters doing a certain thing at a certain time.

Went to the health centre where I did the "foundation building" work and did volunteer work for a few hours. (A couple of other clients from the Hawkens Institute also came.) I did stuff like photocopying and affixing "doctor's orders" stickers.

Dinner was spaghetti.

At the opera chorus the men did their part in Suor Angelica for the first time. We're offstage angelic voices, and have all of 15 bars in Latin.  Giuseppe's already getting exhausted.