October 17, 2004

"You think I'm drunk, but I've only had tee martoonis"--Dean Martin in The Rat Pack

Dreamed of trying to write poems whose first lines were palindromes; a Mormon sect declaring Marlon Brando their great prophet and exhuming an earlier leader's remains to remove his ring so Brando could wear it; having a balcony seat in a really huge theatre and developing a fear of heights; the song "Lullaby of Broadway."

Saw the musical play The Rat Pack at the Canon.  It's a fun show with three actors impersonating Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr., singing classic songs and telling corny jokes.  Too bad that Davis is rather impossible to impersonate. (When they made him, they broke the mold!)

Dinner was turkey and mushroom soup on toast.

Saw the Sopranos episode where Meadow started volunteering at a legal aid clinic.

October 16, 2004

The dance class was teaching foxtrot and quickstep. Unfortunately, they're teaching international figures and my background is in American.

Dinner was fettucine (which I cooked).

Finally got my whole Bethune monologue rememorized for performing at the next drama class. [It describes a fascist air raid on the refugee-filled port of Malaga in the Spanish Civil War.]

Went to the SCRIPT party at a house a few blocks northwest of St. Clair & Dufferin. (It was a week later than I thought.) They were playing a videocassette with footage of Toronto streetcars and subway trains from 50 or 100 years ago.  I only stayed for about an hour.

October 15, 2004

Got some more Menomonee Falls Guardian issues and a large number of comics clipped from the Gazette.

Dinner was ham.

Hosted the Asperger's Meetup at my house.  Wayne from the Geneva Centre was the only person who came.  He's a visual designer, and he brought a portfolio of his designs.  I opened up the box for The Amazing Labyrinth for the first time, and we played a few games.  We went online and I showed him the webpage for the Graphic Designers Meetup. (The Toronto branch has hundreds of members.) I hope he brings his wife to a future meeting.

October 14, 2004

"'Tell me now, then,' said Will. 'And remember, it's no good telling me what I should do--none of it matters to me, none.  Only Lyra matters, and my mother.  And that,' he added to Balthamos, 'is the point of all this metaphysical speculation, as you called it'"--The Amber Spyglass

Dreamed of reading in either The Globe and Mail or The National Post that there were going to start carrying the comic strip Rick O'Shay (which folded back in the '70s); trying to find the newspaper section that mentioned it; a sports team turning into a choir to sing the coach's favourite song; a movie with Frankie Muniz helping out an unlucky fellow teenager.

Got a whole shear of Menomonee Falls Guardian issues (just for Popeye and Alley Oop) and a Rick O'Shay paperback.

Saw the documentary Broadway:  The Golden Age at the Carlton.  It consisteed of interviews with a lot of famous Broadway actors (Carol Channing, Julie Harris etc.) remember the fertile period between 1945 and the late 1960s.  Conventional but interesting.

Dinner was Burger King.

October 13, 2004

Dinner was spaghetti.

Got one issue of Menomonee Falls Gazette and one issue of Menomonee Falls Guardian.

At the drama class we worked on skits where we insulted each other.  We also tried out scenes.  Patricia and I did a scene from Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, but she had most of the lines.  Ditto a scene from Neil Simon's Chapter Two.  Next week we're going to try one from The Glass Menagerie, between Laura and the Gentleman Caller.

Baked multigrain bread overnight.

October 12, 2004

Went shopping.  We didn't get much.

Got a Menomonee Falls Gazette issue (well, half of one).

Dinner was turkey pie.

Dreamed of walking into central London.

At the creative writing class, I started writing a story about a Chinese girl based on my friend Puitak.  I read it to some other students and they really liked it.

Put a couple of Menomonee Falls Gazette issues up for sale on Ebay. (I have duplicate copies of them.)

October 11, 2004

Dreamed of waking up early on a cold morning and walking through the streets in my pyjamas; going to see an early-morning showing of the movie The French Lieutenant's Woman (in a special edit only 45 minutes long!) before going to school; trying to get my things in order, and looking for a big apple; a crooked group constructing a multistorey building just east of our Sackville house, then stopping construction; the unfinished building falling into the nearby quarry.

The parents returned from Kingston.

Donald, John, Kathrine and Rae came over for Thanksgiving dinner, including turkey.

Went to a Chinese Meetup at the Futures Bakery. (Because it was a holiday, there was no choir practice.) There were five people there, less than usual because of the holiday.

Finished The Bad Beginning, and started reading The Amber Spyglass.