Good stuff of late
--Singing with negothick last Monday at the Senior Center was awesome. Performing together restores me. After a lot of time this winter/spring learning a lot of new school subjects very quickly for which I have little immediate use, it's a blissful sensation to get to do some singing. That's something that I love, and I already know so many songs that it's not an ordeal to learn a new one. Hardly any learning curve, immensely fulfilling to do. Also, singing as a duo is my favorite way to perform, ever. And people clapped. It was a very rewarding experience all the way around.
--Next week is my last week of French classes. I am pretty happy about that. I hate my French teacher with a fiery loathing which is astonishing when you consider that he's not a criminal. He is just so annoying that it makes me want to scream. When he hands out papers, he licks his fingers with a big wet slurp every time he tells off a sheet of paper. Whenever I see this, my soul tries to leave my body. Now you can share my pain. He talks to us in loud baby-talk French, and shouts "NO-O-O!" if you get an answer wrong. And of course he gives us half an hour to do an hour exam (which he calls a "test"), refuses to explain his grading system which is apparently calculated in base-14, etc., etc. The hell of it? He's honestly trying to be a good teacher. He will say, "But did you think that was an okay lecture?" in all earnest, at the same time as you're trying to escape after handing in your fiendishly difficult quiz. I consider myself a saint for not laying him out with a textbook to the head.
--Saturday and Sunday, I'm going to visit redcolumbine in Boston. It's gonna be awesome. We've been promising ourselves we'll go exploring in Mount Auburn Cemetery, where I haven't been for at least ten years. Possibly we might go letterboxing. Other than that, we've the whole weekend ahead of us to do what we please. Tomorrow, I'll buy my bus tickets after school.
--Also tomorrow: ice cream with a trial-period-possible-friend from dancing. I don't want to get overenthusiastic and decide that she must be my friend right away, but she does seem like she'd be fun to talk with. We started talking at a dance, and even though we had to shout over the music, we were both rattling on about robots and boats and ballroom and school. Worth hanging out a little, anyhow.
--I just watched Of Mice and Men. Lon Chaney as Lennie is the cutest thing I've seen since I don't know when. Well, in a looming, manic sort of way, but I guess I have some unusual standards for cute. Lennie listening attentively with big, worried eyes is just plain adorable. Also, and this isn't a non sequitur, I feel like I've had my emotions shoved through a laundry wringer. Possibly this was not the best time for me to watch this film. "Nobody ever gets to heaven, and nobody gets no piece a' land." They had about the perfect cast. The woman who played Curly's wife was surprisingly fun. The guy who played Crooks was great. I don't know how much of this was real, but he looked exactly like a scarily emaciated old guy with a gimpy arm. And--this part was just good acting--I totally bought him as a bitter old SOB who enjoys tormenting Lennie a little because he's so miserable himself. It's hard to put across "I just want to be liked" through all the crap that Crooks says, but this guy did it. And Lennie is the performance that followed Chaney for the rest of his life, in the same way that M haunted Peter Lorre's entire film career and Karloff kept having to play the Monster, and... Anyhow, I can see why, in the copycats' defense. He's excellent. Burgess Meredith isn't bad himself.
Anyhow, my emotions ran the gamut from "Oh hey! This is totally where Pinky and the Brain come from!" to "GET HIM, LENNIE!" to *weeps for the death of innocence* Maybe I'll watch some Pinky and the Brain tomorrow to cheer myself up.
--I like how Steinbeck's titles are honest. Of Mice and Men is about mice and men. You read The Grapes of Wrath, and, by God, it's got grapes and wrath. Cannery Row is about Cannery Row, and The Pearl is about a pearl. (Of course, this is only setting you up to be disappointed when you move on to reading W. Somerset Maugham.)
--Next week is my last week of French classes. I am pretty happy about that. I hate my French teacher with a fiery loathing which is astonishing when you consider that he's not a criminal. He is just so annoying that it makes me want to scream. When he hands out papers, he licks his fingers with a big wet slurp every time he tells off a sheet of paper. Whenever I see this, my soul tries to leave my body. Now you can share my pain. He talks to us in loud baby-talk French, and shouts "NO-O-O!" if you get an answer wrong. And of course he gives us half an hour to do an hour exam (which he calls a "test"), refuses to explain his grading system which is apparently calculated in base-14, etc., etc. The hell of it? He's honestly trying to be a good teacher. He will say, "But did you think that was an okay lecture?" in all earnest, at the same time as you're trying to escape after handing in your fiendishly difficult quiz. I consider myself a saint for not laying him out with a textbook to the head.
--Saturday and Sunday, I'm going to visit redcolumbine in Boston. It's gonna be awesome. We've been promising ourselves we'll go exploring in Mount Auburn Cemetery, where I haven't been for at least ten years. Possibly we might go letterboxing. Other than that, we've the whole weekend ahead of us to do what we please. Tomorrow, I'll buy my bus tickets after school.
--Also tomorrow: ice cream with a trial-period-possible-friend from dancing. I don't want to get overenthusiastic and decide that she must be my friend right away, but she does seem like she'd be fun to talk with. We started talking at a dance, and even though we had to shout over the music, we were both rattling on about robots and boats and ballroom and school. Worth hanging out a little, anyhow.
--I just watched Of Mice and Men. Lon Chaney as Lennie is the cutest thing I've seen since I don't know when. Well, in a looming, manic sort of way, but I guess I have some unusual standards for cute. Lennie listening attentively with big, worried eyes is just plain adorable. Also, and this isn't a non sequitur, I feel like I've had my emotions shoved through a laundry wringer. Possibly this was not the best time for me to watch this film. "Nobody ever gets to heaven, and nobody gets no piece a' land." They had about the perfect cast. The woman who played Curly's wife was surprisingly fun. The guy who played Crooks was great. I don't know how much of this was real, but he looked exactly like a scarily emaciated old guy with a gimpy arm. And--this part was just good acting--I totally bought him as a bitter old SOB who enjoys tormenting Lennie a little because he's so miserable himself. It's hard to put across "I just want to be liked" through all the crap that Crooks says, but this guy did it. And Lennie is the performance that followed Chaney for the rest of his life, in the same way that M haunted Peter Lorre's entire film career and Karloff kept having to play the Monster, and... Anyhow, I can see why, in the copycats' defense. He's excellent. Burgess Meredith isn't bad himself.
Anyhow, my emotions ran the gamut from "Oh hey! This is totally where Pinky and the Brain come from!" to "GET HIM, LENNIE!" to *weeps for the death of innocence* Maybe I'll watch some Pinky and the Brain tomorrow to cheer myself up.
--I like how Steinbeck's titles are honest. Of Mice and Men is about mice and men. You read The Grapes of Wrath, and, by God, it's got grapes and wrath. Cannery Row is about Cannery Row, and The Pearl is about a pearl. (Of course, this is only setting you up to be disappointed when you move on to reading W. Somerset Maugham.)