Yes, it matters to me.

First Card

2008-08-04T02:09:09Z

I did an odd thing yesterday. I got a library card for my child. This is only odd when you remember that she is three months old. I mean, it’s not as though she was expressing a burning desire to get out books on her own or anything. The reason to do it is a little mundane I’m afraid, library fines for children are ¢10 and ¢30 for adults. None the less it felt in a small way like a milestone.

Books you see...no, lets talk about some other things first. As a child I was not good at a lot of things. I had three older brothers, so I did nothing for the first time, as well as they did it nor with the same difficulties that they had fought through. Is that clear? It was to me. Except for books. Those were mine. Even the ones that they knew first. I read for pleasure, to escape, to learn, so many reasons, but in the end for only one, I read because I had to. There have been many passions in my life, but there is nothing that is quite the same as reading. The moment of orgasm encompasses your whole being, but books last longer.

Libraries are for me the promise of eternal pleasure. Libraries are... let me do something unusual to explain them; use math, or more specifically geometry. Dimensional understanding has to do with doubling, so the first dimension we are told is a line on a page, the second a cube on a page, the third a cube separate from the page. The fourth dimension is that cube squared again, essentially a cube travelling in time. (The fifth dimension is of course a somewhat cheesy R&B group, but leave that aside). That much is clear. Now think of the dimensions in language. The first is the word, the second grammar, the third the book (really the created piece in any form, but dimensions are other things than cube so just roll with it OK?). The fourth then is the Library. It is the book in time, travelling in time and space from say Thomas Mallory’s prison library in London to the Main St branch of the TPL in the form of the “Le Morte D’Arthur”. They are the place of interaction between all aspects of communication in all of creation. Or so they seemed to a lonely, shy and frustrated child.

I remember the magic of piling books up on the counter and then, by merely passing over my little cardboard card and waiting while a mysterious process of running it, and then the cards at the front of each book though a machine with a roller, which whirred excitingly, I was allowed to take them home and run them around in my imagination for a period of weeks. I spent hours in the window seats of the Pape library reading and dreaming and inhaling the library air. Some nights my Dad and I would go on trips to the vast and overwhelming Northern District Library, searching through the acres of books, records, films and (a personal favourite) the “Oversized” section which still makes me think of Medieval libraries with it’s great uncataloged depths piled with books of every variety, recognizable by colour as much as title.

So my daughter got her first library card yesterday. And we went upstairs to the picture book section, and I found things for us to read together, or look at, and as I held her and walked around the room I walked over to the windows, which still have seats in them, and looked out across the world with her, and if I cried a little it was for that boy, dreaming and travelling in time and space through libraries on the powerful magic of books, who has come to this wonderful place on the first day in the life of a library card owner.

Go Tell it on the Mountain

2007-11-04T17:18:54Z

B is pregnant!

I'm going to be a father!

The rest of this post is anticlimax.

We have been keeping a secret for a long time in the hope that there would still be a secret to keep. Our thinking was that there were so many things that could go wrong, by not telling people perhaps they wouldn't. And they haven't, so... now the word can come out.

B is 16 weeks pregnant as of Tuesday. Due in the middle of April.

Please feel free to tell anyone who might be interested or who might not care but knows us, or whoever you feel like.

But more than this.

I want to take this opportunity to ask folks to get in touch with me. People that I've lost track of, or touch with or just lost the phone number for.

Please write me with contact info, updates on your life and any contact/other info for anyone else that you know that knows us. Don't assume that I have info for mutual friends, I'm terrible about this stuff, but am trying to get better.

I will write more about this soon.

noondaypaisley @ 2007-07-30T13:30:00

2007-07-30T17:43:43Z

Ingmar Bergman Died

He was not a young man, he died happy, loved and revered around the world. The news is only sad because a great soul has passed, but I'm still upset.

He created so many thing that moved me so much, that taught me so much, that affected my own creative work and my life... I just feel a little adrift.

I remember seeing Cries and Whispers for the first time in a film class at Trent and being totally shattered, it changed forever how I looked at Colour and Sound.

I remember how comforted I was by reading his autobiography and finding out that he suffered from insomnia and had anxiety dreams as I often did.

Did someone Read this?

2006-08-01T09:18:15Z

I got a whole huge load of stuff from Teachers College today. Some dull, some interesting and a great deal of it Shockingly Illiterate! Not just typos either, a letter from the head of the program missing participles, quotation marks thrown in at random, partial sentences, etc. But the worst (the real head banging type stuff) was from the Education Student Association, remember, this is written by aspiring teachers many of whom have finished their degrees. I give you a few choice quotes there are far too many to choose from.

"...it is also an important professional learning in that..." or "A no less important learning" Interesting use of the word learning.

"...do not get involved in any way with a student that is not conversant with professional ethics and generally accepted moral codes." SO, is it the student that needs to be conversant?my dictionary defines conversant as "Familiar, as by study or experience: conversant with medieval history" so I guess getting involved is OK as long as I am familiar with the moral code?

How about this sentence? "Without fanfare and with seemingly little notice." , is something missing, a subject for example?

and my favorite is the last sentence in the whole thing, I think it needs no other comment.

"Is is over the course of several years' experience that a teacher develops into good teacher, but only if through the willingness to engage in this type of professional learning."

I hope I can do well in school, only if through the willingness.

Coming to Peterborough

2006-05-27T02:47:45Z

OK, It's official, we are coming to Peterbrough on Monday.

We will be around in the afternoon and early evening.

We really want to see folks. (public_ear I'm looking at you, since you don't answer your email!)

call or answer or whatever.

Sorry if it's short notice.

BE PREPARED

2006-05-23T18:20:56Z

It has now been confirmed,

B and I will be coming into Peterborough on Monday the 29th.

We want to see people!

Are any of you around?

We'll have a car,

I'll be doing some Trent related stuff in the morning, but that's all we know so far.

Here's hoping folks are free.

On an unrelated note, I'mm thinking about getting a notebook computer and am soliciting opinions about what to get... so fire away.

Eleven years ago

2006-05-21T10:50:18Z

Yesterday was my Eleventh Wedding Anniversary. Getting married was the best thing I have ever done in my life. Some mornings I think it's the only good thing. Most years B and I go out to dinner and spend the evening staring at one another happily over really good food.

This year we had dinner with my parents and parents in law.

A bad plan.

When we got home a friend that we haven't spoken to in Five years had called, out of the blue.

Little things can be very cheering.

We had a drainage and flooding problem manifest itself during the thunderstorm on Tuesday. It looks to cost us $7,500 to get the problem solved.

This morning (and the next) I have to work.

Just Trudging Along.

I Got In!!

2006-04-13T14:54:58Z

I got in to Teachers College!!!

The short version is that I applied to Five different programs and got accepted to Two of them.

Trent and Queens both said yes. U of T and York and a special Artist/Teacher program at Queens said no.

SO

I'm going to Trent in September!

I'm a bit freaked out, very happy and relived and very much at sea. It's been a long and needlessly frustrating trek to this point and now I don't really know what to do or how do figure out my plans.

It does mean that I'll be looking for a place to stay in Peterborough next year ( Public Ear I'm looking in your direction)

Any teachers out there who can offer words of advice about what I can do for the next few months to prepare or just things that I can do to be a good teacher I'd appreciate it.

Some Catching Up

2006-03-14T00:14:18Z

It has been a while since I last posted. I was reminded by Public Ear (who I am still frustrated that I wasn't able to see the one weekend in five years that he comes into T.O., AUUGHGH) that I really ought to especially with my last post being a sort of teaser with no follow up. There are reasons for this, but none that should really count so here I go. My news.

1) I have a job! It's stupid and badly paid, but it's a job. I'm a parking lot attendant at Pier 27. For those that care this is a parking lot near the ferry docks to the Toronto Islands, past Captain John's Restaurant (that's the one which is a boat). I sit in a little glass booth for 35 hours a week, I take money and give out little yellow tickets. I have plenty of time to read and listen to the radio, it's completely stress free and involves NO DATA ENTRY! Plus I work alone %99 of the time which is very calming and good.

2) There is still no word about teachers college. I am slowly going mad waiting but am supposed to start hearing in April. I've decided that if I don't get in this year that I will not apply again. I put a lot of time, energy and money into applying this year and if I don't get in there is basically nothing that I can do to improve for next year. I can't improve my grades, I can't go back in time and have done different volunteer or teaching related things and the amount that I can add in the next eight months won't change things enough. So, here's hoping.

3) My parents sold their house last month. This is the house that they bought when they were expecting me so they had owned it for almost 40 years. It was a huge deal, and I ended up spending most of February getting them packed and out of the house. They now live in a beautiful condo by the St Lawrence Market which is a great deal smaller then the four story house they had but this is really a good thing for two 75 year olds.

4) Brin is still working on Lord of the Rings and related costumes. We got to see a preview of the show and...well... it's great. There are some cheesy moments (the Lothlorien tourism song, the Gondor model houses) some amazing scenes (Helms Deep, Frodo and Sam lost and alonein Mordor, the Dark riders) and some bits that they clearly just had not got right yet (the death of Boromir looks like he tripped, Brent Carver clearly in text revision hell) but in the end it really is great.

5) I really am learning how to play guitar. This is a big deal for me, I don't think I ever realized just how much I wanted to do this. Everyone I knew in high school seemed to play guitar and so I think I spent a great deal of time needing to not need to do it. If that makes sense. It's very cool, picking out blues chords and fingering Clapton and Oasis. It's still early days to say the least but I love doing it, and can spend an hour working my fingering without noticing.

6) One of the side effects of my parents moving is that I inherited a lot of books. Anyone that has seen my house knows that the last thing that I need is more books but I have found places for them, mostly. It means that I'm reading more and having the fun of sorting books, a joy that only bibliophiles know.

That's all the main stuff for now. I hope to be a little more regular in posting in the future, but I promise nothing.

in on it too

2006-02-11T06:36:43Z

OK so, I can see the frightening fun in This. just follow along and tell me what you think.

BTW I've had a totally insane week and intend to write about it in the next day or so.

noondaypaisley @ 2006-01-19T12:29:00

2006-01-19T17:31:53Z

LJ Interests meme results

croquet:
There is very little in life as much fun as drinking wine and playing croquet with friends. You have to love a game where you get to whack things with a mallet and yet be dressed in high fashion.
friends:
I don't mean the TV show. I know it sound odd to say that friends are an interest but really what I mean is that I maintain an interest in my friends. I self isolate very easily and need to spur myself to keep up with others or I tend to lose them.
hope:
In a world of hate and war I maintain that a healthy interest in hope is essential.
mods:
I started defining myself as a Mod when I was 14. I firmly believe that the strength it gave me kept me alive through my teenage years. "Clean living under difficult circumstances", "the sharp edge of punk" and "let your heart dance" having a great deal of meaning.
nigella:
The cooking goddess. How can you not love her?
peter brook:
The great theatre thinker. A man that forced theatre into new places and asked fundamental questions that changed everything about directing and acting for me.
rpgs:
Like most in my generation I started with D&D, but quickly played everything that came along. To this day the fear and derision with which it is greeted makes me certain of its continued creative power and importance.
show jumping:
My wife got me hooked on this. I can happily spend hours and hours watching horses jumping over things. I love that the top riders in the world are both female and male, over 60 and under 25 and that the love that they show to the animals is so clear.
syncopation:
This is really a way of talking about the music that I love. I am fascinated by the interplay of rhythms and sounds. I love getting into fights about music, afterall it means so much and is so totally subjective.
theatre:
For many years my entire life was defined by the theatre that I was doing at that moment. I feel better now. It remains the single place that I feel fully at home and creatively alive.

Enter your LJ user name, and 10 interests will be selected from your interest list.

get the strategic nickel mines!

2005-12-31T14:36:55Z

The Washington Post on American invasion plan for Canada. War Plan Red

Sadly it misses the Civil War stuff(nod to nottheterritory!) but it's still a fun read.

"I ain't talkin about no full length mink"

2005-12-29T09:12:46Z

For some reason I have Raised on Robbery in my head. I know that I've been listening to a lot of Joni recently (and I just got a CD of Blue so that's not stopping anytime soon) but why I wake at 2 in the morning with this line in my head I do not know.

I'm choosing to cure it by listening to Thin Lizzy and Blur, radical but effective treatment.

It's been a while since I updated so...

I'm unemployed again, the massage centre I was working at went broke. all offers considered.

I really love learning guitar, I don't know why I didn't do this years ago except to say that everyone I knew in high school played guitar and the intimidation factor was very high (considering that three of my close friends from that time are now professional musicians I think I was right)

I've been having a lot of fun cooking the best being a medieval "Farsed Chicked" (stuffed with cherries, lentils and oats) from Fabulous Feasts, but I've also been baking (hazelnut and orange Biscotti was fun but a little dry).

I've become a little addicted to downloading through BitLord. Mostly TV shows (who knew you could get all of The Good Life) but also a fair deal of music (best find a top 100 albums of 2004, lots of indy stuff that I didn't know, "Woven hand" or "The soundtrack of our lives" or "John Vanderslice" anyone?)

my tutoring has been better and worse recently. The homework club is more fun all the time "Hey John, come help me... NO! Help me!" and the day program worse, just a lot of angst and nothingness from sullen teenagers.

Holidays are good so far both family gift giving things went without major idiocy (nothing like drinking to get through these things in a stoned stupor) Got some things I really wanted (thank you Amazon gift lists!)

I've been very tentatively starting some writing projects... enough said about that for now.

Still doing not nearly enough gaming, this is mostly my own fault.

I miss people. Plan to rectify that in the new year. Not that anyone calls me either.

Done and done

2005-11-30T21:05:14Z

I have finally finished the process of applying to teachers college. I've filled in all the useless forms, gotten reference letters and signatures and all the rest, sent them off to the right place (or for York and OISE dropped them in the right places)and I now get to not think about it again until April when I might first get word.

As any of you who have gone through this process know it's a stupid and annoying set of hoops to jump through, questions that largely ignore your experience and the tiniest spaces to fill in huge amount of thinking and explanation.

Oh, and it costs a lot of money (well, a lot to me) and I haven't really been sleeping.

You see, the thing is that I apply now, then find out if I got in in April, for next September, and if I didn't, then I can do the whole thing again next year. Fun eh? So, no sleep this last few days. But, all done now.

RIGHT, on to the rest of life.

What are you folks up to? public_ear you never did call me, did you get my email? Anyone else? Call me, I'm not so busy anymore.

The Clash helps though.

dead computer

2005-11-03T14:06:21Z

If anyone has been sending me mail or trying to get in touch with me in the last week and a half please note that my computer is dead and I have only been able to check in from work every once in a while.

I have been getting royally reamed by Best Buy and have no idea when I'll be properly back online.

Ah Life!

2005-10-16T13:23:27Z

As reported in the Evening Standard.

"A Sky News presenter announced at 12:01 p.m. that Harold Pinter had died," the paper said, "before correcting herself, after a Pinteresque pause, and saying that he had in fact won a Nobel prize."

How do you improve on that.

Meme from Anidada

2005-09-27T23:57:40Z

Following the lead of </a></b></a>rayne_y_daze:

When you see this, post your favourite line from a movie and have your flist guess where it's from.

"You are paid to squeeze and so you must squeeze to pay!"

Good Luck all.

busy but good

2005-08-25T18:50:25Z

So, it's been a while since I wrote anything here, but there are reasons.

1) I started tutoring.
          This has been a mixed bag at best, (a lot more like babysitting angry youth then teaching or even helping) but it is a step forward and something that I need to do if the teacher college thing is going to take off for next year. Any teachers out there that would care to have me come in and watch what you do for a day or two it would be greatly appreciated.

2) I got a job.
           It's only a part time thing, and it's very badly defined. I'm working for a massage place (no sex jokes please, we're legit) trying to get their office and publicity things going. Anyone interested in hot stone massage talk to me.

3) Work around the house.
          In the past weeks I have, fixed the eavestroughs, put up shelves in a workroom, covered the backyard in mulch, stopped an area of erosion, moved bookshelves, finished a bathroom project off, sorted and filed and played with many storage areas. It will in the end be worth it, or so I keep telling myself so that I don't go mad.

4) Joining some other actors in a collective type workshop.
          This is a very fun thing that has only just started. Our second meeting was last night. Six of us so far and hoping to grow. I don't fully know what will come of it but so far it's great to get together with other creative types and just feel like we are moving on something.   More about this as it grows and gets clearer.

5) Rebuilding my parents porch roof.
         I recovered my parents roof. It was not a lot of fun, we had a hurricane in the middle of doing it, but it got me a little money and it sure as hell didn't cost my parents the $1,000 that the roofers were going to charge. (it's a 8x8 roof for f***s sake!)

6) Angst, pain and recrimination.
        Lets just say that nothing comes without a price, not family, marriage or dreams. I often hate myself, this has been one of those times. I feel better now.

7) a short trip to to the north to look at old boats/ historical site.
        B and I took a day off to go to Discovery Harbour. It may seem like an odd thing to do but then we're odd people. It was very cool, lots of wandering through reconstructed 19th century buildings and then (bestill my heart) onto and into a 49 foot two masted schooner (the Bee). A gaff rigger, tiller steering and a six hands to work her...a beauty, all wood and lovingly made. I even got to meet the man that built her. Now that's a life!

So, I hope that this goes a certain way towards explaining why I haven't A) done any gaming with anyone. B) called or seen anyone. C) commented on much.

I am getting things in order, my life as well as my work situation. B will finally be getting back to work after a 4 week layoff (wasn't that a fun thing for August) so some money worries are diminishing, if not actually going away. My family life is sorting out, people are actually talking to one another again (doesn't everyone love a scene) and everyone is healthy (touch wood).

The kind of day it's been

2005-08-10T07:49:15Z

For those that don't know, we have been doing some renovations to our house in the last month. Not a lot, just painting and clearing the backyard etc, and biggest task of all laying a tile floor along with a new toilet and sink in our little bathroom (not even 5x3). We got it mostly done on Monday. A new sub floor, concrete backerboard, new tile, grout, calking, sealent, the toilet put in, the sink in place. All that remained was the sink to finish hooking up. So, last night we discovered that we had a leak, from the second floor bathroom into the basement. Through the walls. I'm talking water soaking through the floorboards into brown puddles on the floor of the basement.

That was a good way to start a panic. Would our new floor have to come out? Would we have to tear out the walls to get at the shower or sink pipes? Not a good nights sleep.

Today the plumber came, two hours later, and for not the arms and a leg that we feared it turned out that the toilet flang was not attached properly, and was thus leeking. A new flange was fitted (without needing to drill new holes as the plumber feared). Problem solved, end of panic. He also gave me the info on a better way of hooking up the sink than I was going to use so that looks good also.

Owning a home is not for the faint of heart.

Hurm, is this me?

2005-07-28T13:46:32Z

The Social Worker
You scored 31 Leadership, 39 Charm, 76 Nobility, and 47 Competence!

Oh, kind and selfless soul! So obsessed you are with helping others that you fail to see that your own character is suffering. It's great to help new players get a foot up in the game, but make sure that your own character is building up some skill in the meantime. You can aid others better by building good relationships and taking initiative once in awhile.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 99% on Leadership

You scored higher than 99% on Charm

You scored higher than 99% on Nobility

You scored higher than 99% on Competence

Link: The Roleplaying Destiny Test written by MadelineGrace on Ok Cupid

painter man

2005-07-16T14:21:03Z

B and I spent all day yesterday painting our bedroom and hallway. We're going to spend all of today doing the rest of the hall and her workroom. Man is it hot and exhausting. The bedroom looks so much better though. We're doing a whole lot of work around the house at the moment so it's a total disaster area. We're getting a new low water use toilet (our old one leaks, not a good thing), new fixtures in kitchen and laundry area (again leaking troubles) and painting what seems like every surface in the house. Of course this also means that we're rearranging many things, moving bookcases, sorting out B's workroom, getting new stuff from Ikea, taking old stuf to Goodwill or the dump, planning the garden, fixing the downspouts, pretty much anything you can think of.

I decided on a whim as I was writing this to try to find a recording of The Creation doing Painterman but couldn't. I used to love that band, (and that song, though I prefered How does it Feel to Feel but now discover that my album (there was very little to own, but I did have a double LP from the early 80's) is gone, who knows where. Probabily I lent it to someone or it got "borrowed" at a party. That is so frustrating. I hate having a song in my head but not being able to hear it. Where am I going to go for feedback guitar played with a violin bow now!

Banned Books Meme

2005-07-10T10:42:32Z

The following are a list of 110 banned books.

Bold the ones you've read
Italics the ones you've read part of
Underline the ones you've owned

#1 The Bible
#2 Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
#3 Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
#4 The Koran
#5 Arabian Nights
#6 Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
#7 Gullivers Travels by Jonathan Swift
#8 Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
#9 Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
#10 Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
#11 The Prince by Niccoli Machiavelli
#12 Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
#13 Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
#14 Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
#15 Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
#16 Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
#17 Dracula by Bram Stoker
#18 Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin
#19 Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
#20 Essays by Michel de Montaigne
#21 Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
#22 History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
#23 Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
#24 Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
#25 Ulysses by James Joyce
#26 Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
#27 Animal Farm by George Orwell
#28 Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
#29 Candide by Voltaire
#30 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
#31 Analects by Confucius
#32 Dubliners by James Joyce
#33 Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
#34 Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
#35 Red and the Black by Stendhal
#36 Das Capital by Karl Marx
#37 Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire
#38 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
#39 Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence
#40 Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
#41 Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
#42 Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
#43 The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
#44 All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
#45 Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx
#46 Lord of the Flies by William Golding
#47 Diary by Samuel Pepys
#48 Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
#49 Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
#50 Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
#51 Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
#52 Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant
#53 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
#54 Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus
#55 Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
#56 Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X
#57 Color Purple by Alice Walker
#58 Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
#59 Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke
#60 Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
#61 Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
#62 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
#63 East of Eden by John Steinbeck
#64 Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
#65 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
#66 Confessions by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#67 Gargantua and Pantagruel by Francois Rabelais
#68 Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
#69 The Talmud
#70 Social Contract by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#71 Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
#72 Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence
#73 American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
#74 Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
#75 Separate Peace by John Knowles
#76 Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
#77 Red Pony by John Steinbeck
#78 Popol Vuh
#79 Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith
#80 Satyricon by Petronius
#81 James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
#82 Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
#83 Black Boy by Richard Wright
#84 Spirit of the Laws by Charles de Secondat Baron de Montesquieu
#85 Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
#86 Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
#87 Metaphysics by Aristotle
#88 Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
#89 Institutes of the Christian Religion by Jean Calvin
#90 Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
#91 Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
#92 Sanctuary by William Faulkner
#93 As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
#94 Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin
#95 Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig
#96 Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
#97 General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud
#98 Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
#99 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Alexander Brown
#100 Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
#101 Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest J. Gaines
#102 Emile Jean by Jacques Rousseau
#103 Nana by Emile Zola
#104 Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
#105 Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
#106 Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
#107 Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
#108 Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
#109 Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark
#110 Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

The next show I'm going to

2005-07-07T21:20:57Z

Shakespeare's NHL

I'm planning on seeing the Sunday 2PM show. Anyone care to join me?

Heard ya missed me, well I'm back

2005-07-05T16:56:49Z

Ok, I didn't hear anything of the kind but it is the title to a Sly Stone album so...

I've been away for a while at a cottage in the woods at the edge of a lake, and yes it did feel good and you can all be as envious as you like, I get up there maybe once a year and it was the first vacation that B and I have had alone together in two years.; Lots of reading, writing, listening to music and just;plain old;sitting around and not needing to answer to anyone for anything at anytime was accomplished.; Saw a lot of wildlife also, Two foxes (mother and child we thought), loons, beavers, muskrats, blue jays, a huge number of hummingbirds (we got to a point that the sound of them was like a pleasant punctuation to the reading) and even a heron.

Getting back and finding out that I may not get any EI sucked, (apparently I needed to get ;doctor to say I;was;depressed before they believed me);but hearing that my lovely neighbour had finally not only found work but work in her field (home renovations and such) was great. She is about the nicest person in the world.; We then heard that her partner who is getting here PhD in Art therapy in Switzerland (don't ask, who knew) had arranged for a flight as a surprise;so that they could be together when she got her degree and they could then spend a couple of days in Italy. Is that romantic or what!; I know this sounds like they must be rich rich but no, they have as little money as us, but figured it was a once in a lifetime thing. (how many PhDs does one get afterall).;

I've been in rehearsal for a small part in Amadeus that goes on at the Tarragon Extra Space in a couple of weeks.; It looks like a bit of a mess as a production but I really like the guy that's playing Salieri so I'm hopeful.; I have been hatching my own theatre plans as well BTW but more on that as I get things more to the up and moving stage.

B has confirmed that she will be building costumes for The Lord of the Rings for the next 6 or 7 months so;that's great news.

We are planning on painting every room in the house in the next month or two so if the next time you see me I have splotches in my hair or smell a little of something odd you have been warned. Much junk is being moved at the same time, I spent yesterday hauling a lot of crap out of my basement and onto the porch in prep for trips to Goodwill or the garbage.

Anyone that knows of any part time;work out there (trying to;do;some other things with;my life so not really looking for;full time unless it's in theatre or teaching) I'd love to know.

The days are just packed

2005-06-01T19:18:28Z

Ok, in the last week I have been to the dentist for a total of three and a half hours of cleaning, scraping, poking and pain! I know that I have bad teeth, but did I have to get reminded for so long? I know that it'll feel better later, but for now I feel like I've been stuck with pins (oh wait, I have!).

For some reason I've been watching a lot of classic Euro film in the past weeks. The Tin Drum, The Marriage of Maria Braun The bitter tears of Petra von Kant and Solaris as well as an old favorite (I was so happy the first time I saw this film) The man with the movie Camera.

I finished watching the restored version of Metropolis today. It's such a seminal film but MAN is it LONG! The audio commentary is totaly humorless, the shots go on forever and the acting is so dated in style as to be hard to bear, but those images! The towering citys, the masses of workers shuffling along, the Moloch machine devouring and spitting smoke and fire, and (to me) the new images from the restoration of the seven deadly sins coming to life or the subplot of the worker freed to party in the upper city.

To those of you that don't know what I'm going on about you've probably seen many of these images out of context in 80's music video. The most famous example is Queen's "Radio GA GA" but the robot transformed into a woman by a mad scientist bit appeared in many many many videos.

Gaming tonightwith nottheterritory, playtesting a beer and pretzels age of sail game. IT should be fun, it's cool to be able to give feedback to someone that's gone to the trouble of making something that you enjoy.

Still no work of course, but lots more applying for things.