October 19, 2005

"I will kill him for you!"

"Have you finished packing?"...

"It runs in my family.  My father killed a man just before I was born!"--Top Hat

"I will not listen to any excuses--not even the truth!"--ibid.

Dreamed of reading a 1950 hardcover annual edition of a boy's magazine in the style of Boy's Own Paper or Chums (we owned several of those annuals, but the lates was from the 1930s); a reprint inside of the comic strip King of the Royal Mounted (I have some reprints of that strip, but not in those annuals); a map inside of the Maritimes, showing the Northumberland Strait as far too narrow; some women telling me that I was going to be sent to the United States shortly; a woman poking her nose into my forehead.

Saw the DVD of the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musical Top Hat (for the third time). That's the one where she mistakes him for his married producer (Edward Everett Horton in a funny role). My favourite of the Irving Berlin songs is "The Piccolino."

Another taijiquan class.  We've learned several steps by now.

October 18, 2005

Dreamed of being on a tour in Nevada; seeing a cruise ship on a lake (how did it get that far inland?); reflecting on why Eisenhower ordered Patton to apologize to the whole Third Army for slapping a soldier he wrongly suspected of malingering; the family going out somewhere and Father deciding to return because Moira was sick; the tour entering Utah, and my mentioning that Mormons like Jello and candy bars (which is true).

Started the DVD of Sister Wendy's "Grand Tour" of famous art museums.

Dinner was spaghetti.

We did some pretty difficult stuff for the first time at the opera rehearsal.  Most of us were rather overwhelmed. (I almost was!)

October 17, 2005

Dreamed of visiting our old cottage near Sackville, N.B.; Father tearing down the cottage's walls, revealing no foundation; finding out that British artist Francis Bacon (whom I heard Sister Wendy discussing in her history of painting) was affected by the years he spent in Ghana(?) and a poltergeist he witnessed in Sackville's Central School(!).

Finished reading Something Wicked This Way Comes.  Very impressive.

Went shopping.

Moira returned from Kingston.

Dinner was roast chicken.

Started reading a paperback reprint of Dick Tracy's pursuit of the Nazi spy Pruneface.  The latter's development of a mass-murder weapon brings today's terrorists to mind.

My choir had the dress rehearsal for Friday's concert.

October 16, 2005

Dreamed of the Parker Brothers toy Soma, in which you put together different Tetris-type block combinations to make structures such as a 3*3*3 cube; imagining a bigger toy in which you could combine the blocks to make a 4*4*4 cube, including combinations of three in a row and four in a row, which weren't in the real game; an actual song from one of our old 78 RPM records, "What Did You Do Before They Had TV?"; the actual line the physics course marker wrote to me during my Grade 10 correspondence courses, "Remember that it is better to do it right the first time than to have to do it over again," which I still resent. (Did he think I wasn't trying?) The real problem was that my parents had put me in a Grade 11 physics course that I wasn't ready for.

We had a choir rehearsal on Sunday afternoon for a change.

Dinner was the rest of the pork.

On Six Feet Under Nate and Lisa went camping with friends.

Baked rye bread overnight.

October 15, 2005

Saw Harold Lloyd's silent comedy Safety Last at the Cinematheque (for the third time). That's the one where he climbs the wall of a skyscraper.

Dinner was McDonald's.

Saw Mervyn Leroy's 1930s comedy Three Men on a Horse.  It was funny, but we couldn't get the last part because it was taped during a rainstorm.

October 14, 2005

Dreamed of walking along Moncton's main street in August; passing a store displaying coffins; feeling my mouth full of phlegm and wanting to go outdoors to expectorate; the song "Down Among the Sheltering Palms" and its lines 

"How my love is burning, burning, burning,

How my heart is yearning, yearning, yearning..."

Dinner was more turkey pie.

Got a start on spading the garden.

Saw Harold Lloyd's silent comedy The Kid Brother at the Cinematheque.  It's a skilful slapstick romance.  There's a great scene where he climbs a tree and the camera keeps climbing with him!

October 13, 2005

Dreamed of winning a lottery; going through a big warehouse where every space contained something magical; trying to poach an egg but finding I'd put in an orange instead.

Went to Dragon Lady and picked up some Heart of Juliet Jones and Steve Canyon comics.

Dinner was the rest of the lasagna.

Went to a Chinese Linkup.  But I didn't stay long because I suddenly lost my energy. (I had a strawberry smoothie and it went down wrong.) I was going to go to a Salsa Dance Meetup afterward, but that was definitely out.

Instead, I went home and saw the DVD of The Snow Walker, based on "Walk Well, My Brother," a Farley Mowat story about a bush pilot who crashes with a consumptive Eskimo woman and learns from her how to survive in the Arctic.  A wonderful tale, with dramatic scenery! (It was directed by Charles Martin Smith, who starred in the similar movie of Mowat's Never Cry Wolf.)