March 31, 2003

Got up at 10:06.

Dreamed of a grocery story with a gap in the floorboards covered by a rip in the carpet; "waking up" and checking the time, several times (it was between 7:00 and 11:00); checking the temperature outside our Sackville house.

Puitak and Gordon came over and we watched the Oscars show.  Too bad they couldn't stay for dinner. [That year Chicago won the Best Picture Oscar.]

Dinner was takeout Chinese food.  My fortune cookie said, "You have at your command the wisdom of the ages." Does that mean I'm no longer young?

Some snow this morning!

Returned to the Slingblade forum at new.mrcranky.com for the first time in months.  I've also invited a couple of people from the drama course.  We can tell Philm Phan [Cynthia from Toledo] and the others about our experiences.

March 30, 2003

http://www.dailymotion.com/

video/xs5fdl

"Not only stray dogs can be human"--The Last Letter

Got up at 8:58.

Dreamed of returning to North America from Europe with an American; driving to the US; walking through a basement-level shopping mall-spa near Niagara Falls; my junior high school in Sackville.

Saw Satyajit Ray's The Expedition.  Another wonderful movie. [It's about a Brahmin taxi driver defying local authorities.]

Stayed for Frederick Wiseman's stunning The Last Letter, a film of Catherine Samie's one-woman show of a Holocaust victim's last letter to her son, from a chapter in Vasily Grossman's Russian novel Life and Fate.  A really good Russian-to-French translation job.

Dinner was spaghetti.

Finished Jane Eyre and started reading My Losing Season, Pat Conroy's memoir of his senior year on the Citadel military academy's basketball team, where they lost a majority of their games but he found himself. (It's rare for me to spurn Emerson's advice and read a book that's less than a year old.)

March 29, 2003

Got up at 8:52.

Saw George Pal's The Time Machine at a Cinematheque matinee, for the second time.  Rather a 1960 California idea of the future, which was interesting in itself.

Stayed for the Pather Panchali sequel Aparajito, in which Apu goes off to college in Calcutta.  Very sad.  Satyajit Ray was one of those directors who seem to get every detail right!

Donald (back from visiting India), John and Rae came over for dinner, which was chicken and vegetarian lasagna.

Sent Cynthia in Toledo an email telling her about the drama course and suggesting she invite some other students to come talk about it.

March 28, 2003

Dreamed of being in the front passenger seat of a car with back seat passengers, noticing there was no driver and moving to the driver's seat (I don't know how to drive); arriving at the Aulac junction near Sackville; a Vietnamese chain store located at Dien Bien Phu Street in every town!

Another headache.  Maybe that's because it started to cool quickly in the morning, then got warm again.  By 15:00 it was about 18 degrees.

Saw the Sopranos episode where Dr. Melfi got raped.

Dinner was roast chicken.

Went out to the Kingston Road karaoke place because there was no dance party.  There was a power failure so I had to wait for a shuttle bus between St. George's and Pape stations, causing over half an hour's delay.  And then, it turned out I'd taken the wrong bus and couldn't find the place and had to just go home!  But I think I'll know where to find it next time. [I read a lot of Jane Eyre during the trip.]

March 27, 2003

"Valentine, could you go for a doctor?" "Certainly.  Bring him in!"--Love Me Tonight

Got up at 8:49.

Dreamed of seeing (and being in) a longer "director's cut" of a Harry Potter movie, with a deleted scene where he goes to visit a Hannibal Lector-like prisoner who sneaks in and out of his cell.

We took out the big ladder and washed the upstairs windows on the outside.

It turns out that not enough people registered in the intermediate drama course. But Sue says if they don't restore the continuing education program in the Toronto schools, she'll find a new venue for the drama classes.

Baked raisin bread.

Had a dance lesson with Dawn, who suggested I imagine being in a suit of armour and introduced me to collection points.

Dinner was lamb stew.

Saw Rouben Mamoulian's Love Me Tonight.  It was pretty fun.  You'd be surprised how much off-colour humour they allowed in 1932 movies, before the Production Code clamped down in 1934.

March 26, 2003

"Wouldn't know how to wave his hands in the air if you pulled a gun on him"--New York Press on clubowner David Rabin, from an online list of the 50 most loathsome New Yorkers

https://www.metafilter.com/24583/The-50-Most-Loathsome-New-Yorkers

Dreamed of being in a social group like Mensa; meeting Robert Urich; a fellow-member (a middle-aged woman) taking me and a small group past the CNE horse show; meeting a Chinese man who was blackmailing the woman, and plunging a fountain pen into his eye; being photographed at the social group; while passing the horse show in shiny shoes, commenting that the shoes wouldn't be shiny for long!

Got up at 9:06.

Went shopping.

The parents went out to find new curtains. (Mother's doing spring cleaning.)

Dinner was pork chops.

The last acting class was a blast!  We did things like create scenes like Hamlet seeing his father's ghost.  My group got the idea of turning the lights off and on.  The girl playing Hamlet recited a bit from Dante's Inferno.  I played the ghost and my only lines were "Avenge!" and "Swear!" [I appeared silently when the lights were on, then spoke when they were off.]

Then we did this dialogue from The Prodigal with banal lines like "I'm home," and "Do you want a drink?" First time my group did it in a bar, and I was a drunk who conked out in the middle, but was back up like a shot when hearing "Do you want a drink?" (The bartender did my lines then.) Sue admired the way I did it with my back to the audience.  Second time I camped it up as Dracula. (When my wife offered me a drink, I reached for her neck.) The audience was in stitches both times.

Then we did silly circus acts. (I pretended to break out of a straitjacket.) Last of all we joined hands and performed a dance Sue had learned from a Russian period dance teacher.

March 25, 2003

Dreamed of talking about the movie Talk to Me with Moira; Donald meeting a brunette woman he'd known several years earlier, called J.J. Harper (actually an Indian killed by the Winnipeg police.) [Was I thinking of singer P.J. Harvey?]

Go up at 7:25.

Still mild.  It rained a bit when I visited Dr. Hassan. (He wants to help improve my matchmaker.com letters.) [That didn't happen--all he could do was say what was wrong with them!]

Went to the Wychwood librarly and read Paddle-to-the-Sea.  It's a classic!

Dinner was McDonald's.

In the proofreading class Shelley was discussing photo editing issues, with several examples.

Charles Taylor had an interesting article at Salon about how today's audiences watch old movies.