On my way to class along College Street on Tuesday, I saw a man
pushing a stroller, who said to his child, “Daddy’s gonna make pizza!” and then
he started singing, “My little girl’s gonna get pizza!”
In Children’s
Literature class, we spent the entire two hours discussing Louise Fitzhugh’s
“Harriet the Spy”. Once Fitzhugh became successful she stopped wearing what
would traditionally be considered women’s clothing and only wore beautifully
tailored men’s suits. When Harriet the Spy was first published it was
criticized as not presenting a good promotion of behaviour for a child because
it inspired children to spy on other people and advised them to lie if they got
caught. Harriet is a tomboy, she didn’t show any interest in what girls in
children’s books usually did, and this inspired thousands of young lesbians.
Lesbian cartoonist, Alison Bechdel, said that she read Harriet the Spy about
seventy times while she was growing up.
Harriet discovers a lot about human
nature while spying, such as that even familiar people have other dimensions.
Harriet’s nanny, Ole Golly is very
similar to the literary Mary Poppins, as opposed to the film character. One of
Golly’s quotes is, “Description is good for the soul and clears the brain like
a laxative.” She also advised Harriet that it’s okay to lie as long as you know
the truth.
Harriet wonders, “Is everybody a different
person when they are with someone else?”
During the halfway break I chatted with
Professor Baker about Harriet the Spy’s era, since she and I are about the same
age. There are references in the book to Dr Kildare and Ben Casey and one
single use of hip language when the character Sport says, “Boy, this is a scene I really can’t make.”
She told me that Fitzhugh was from Memphis and ran away from her mother to New
York City.
Readers and writers are spies.
After class, since I didn’t have to work until that night, I had time to go home, get a few things done and even have a nice siesta before leaving again.
On the way to OCADU, along Dundas, I pulled over because an ambulance was wailing behind me. After it passed though, it was having such a hard time spooning through the thick porridge of traffic that I caught up with it several times.
I was scheduled to work for Sarah Cale, who I think must be one of the newer instructors at the college, since I hadn’t met her before. She was already in the room when I arrived and seemed to look at me curiously as I walked in. I went to the models change room to hang up my jacket and as I was coming back out she approached me and asked if I was a model. I resisted pointing out to her how obvious that fact was, but instead simply confirmed that I was. She told me then that she didn’t have a model booked for that night. I shrugged and said that she could send me home if she wanted because I would get paid anyway.
She decided to go to her laptop and double check, I assume online, but while she was doing that, another model came in, saying that she was also booked to pose for Sarah’s class. After checking, Sarah found out that she actually did have a male model booked for that night. She was trying to figure out though what to do with the other model, Pat, and told her that she could use a model on November 17th. Pat checked her schedule but said she was working that night. I checked my schedule and told her that I’m available on November 17th if she wanted to switch, but there was no way of knowing at that time if Sarah had the budget for her class to get another model booking. I informed her that Pat and I would get paid anyway for that night, no matter what happens, and us getting paid would come out of her model budget. Classes like hers don’t get a very big allotment of money for models, which is stupid, because the foundation year classes should really have the most life drawing. It was decided to let Pat go and to find out later about November 17.
Sarah Cale is a tall, very slim and pretty woman in her early thirties. I think she might even be as tall or even taller than I am. She is as slim as the average fashion model and walks like she might have done some modelling at some point in her life. Although she’s thin, it doesn’t seem to be to an unhealthy degree. I could tell that she doesn’t starve herself because I could smell her dinner on her breath.
During my first break, I went out to the hall, where I ran into Pat. It turned out that she had the wrong room all along and was booked for a different class.
I did mostly short poses for Sarah’s class, but I wasn’t as pooped when it was all over as I had been the night before, because of the nap I’d taken and also because I’d brought something to eat with me.
On the way home I passed two women standing side by side on the sidewalk, each holding and looking at their smartphones, while icy glow lit up their faces.
When I got home I needed something quick for dinner and so I opened up a can of pork and beans with molasses and had that with toast.
I ate while watching what I think is the very best of Buster Keaton’s feature films, “The Cameraman”. Buster plays a lowly tintype photographer, trying to make a living on the street when he gets swamped by a crowd of people who are gathered to see a well-known politician. There are a few professional cameramen there from a news service and with one of them is a young woman with whom Buster immediately falls in love. When the crowd thins down he takes her tintype and later tracks her down to the news company for which she works, answering the phone. After giving her the picture, he asks if he could get a job as a cameraman for that company. She tells him that he would need to get himself a better camera, and so he immediately goes out and buys a movie camera that is antiquated, even for 1928, causing the other photographers to laugh at him.
He finally gets up the nerve to ask Sally out for a Sunday stroll. She says she has a date but if it falls through, she’ll call him. When she does call after all, he leaves her talking to him on the phone and runs across town to stand behind her even before, wondering why there is silence at the other end, hangs up. After walking for a while, they decide to take the bus, but after she gets on, so many others get on that the only way he can sit next to her is to ride on the wheel-frame on the outside of the bus, beside her window.
They get off at the municipal pool where Buster goes into a small dressing room to change into his swimming suit. Just then, a big gangster type guy comes in as well. Buster says, “Hey! This is my dressing room!” The guy responds, “It’ll be your coffin if you don’t shut up!” For the next few minutes there is a hilarious scene of the two men both trying to take their clothes off and change into their swimming suits in the tiny room at the same time. Buster ends up stepping out to the pool, wearing the other guy’s oversized swimming suit. When Buster tries to show off for Sally by taking a clumsy jump off the diving board, he returns to the surface without his suit on. After Sally suggests they take a stroll on the boardwalk, he can’t leave the pool until he’s not naked, so he steals the frilly bottom pants of a large woman’s swimsuit.
The next day, Buster is hanging around Sally’s place of work with his camera, hoping for a break, when she gets a call from one of the reporters saying that there’s something happening in Chinatown and so she should send a cameraman down. Instead of calling on one of her colleagues though, she decides that this could be Buster’s chance to get some good shots and impress her boss, so she only tells Buster. He goes dashing out, but while running around a corner he slams into an organ grinder and knocks him over on top of his monkey. When the Italian man gets up though, the monkey doesn’t. He shouts at Buster, “You killa da monkey!” A cop who saw the whole thing makes Buster pay the organ grinder for his dead monkey. Buster wraps up the little ape and carries it away, but a few minutes later the monkey comes to, because it was only stunned. It immediately attaches itself to Buster and becomes his sidekick for the rest of the film.
There is a dragon parade dancing through Chinatown. Buster sets up his camera on the street and begins filming. But suddenly the guys carrying the dragon throw it off, revealing that they are carrying machine guns. They begin shooting at some other Chinese guys, who begin to shoot back. Buster is caught in the crossfire of a Chinatown gang war. Instead of running away though, he continues to record the event while moving round to keep from getting shot, taking footage from various angles. He runs behind some sandbags to shoot from there, but there is an unmanned Gatling gun mounted next to him, which the monkey decides to start firing at some gang members. The guys being shot at see Buster and assume that his camera is a gun, so they shoot back at him. Buster is filming two guys who are lying on the sidewalk and fighting over a knife, but when one of them drops the knife, to keep the shot interesting, Buster picks up the knife and puts it back in the man’s hand. In another scene, one of the gang members tries to sneak up on Buster with a knife, but the monkey gets hold of another knife, comes up behind the attacker and begins to repeatedly stab him.
Later, when Buster brings his camera to Sally’s boss to show him all the great action he’d captured, he opens up the camera and discovers that there is no film inside. Buster apparently had forgotten to load the camera in the first place. Sally almost gets fired for tipping off Buster and not the company’s own professional cameramen. Buster is told to leave and to never come back.
A day or so later, Buster goes to shoot footage of a boat race. It turns out that Sally is in one of the speedboats, driven by Buster’s rival. On a sharp turn though, they both fall out of the boat. The driver, thinking only of his own safety, swims to shore, while Sally is trapped in the centre of the circles that boat is making while locked in a right hand turn. Buster takes a rowboat out, allowing it to be slammed by the speedboat, thus veering it off in another direction. He then jumps in and swims to Sally, pulling her to shallow water and then carrying her to the beach in his arms. He lays her down on the sand but she is still unconscious. Seeing a drug store nearby he runs to try to get something to revive her. Meanwhile, Buster’s rival discovers Sally lying there and when he goes to her she comes to, and thanks him for saving her life. He says, “What else would a man do?” Buster returns from the drug store to see Sally walking away with the other guy, each with their arm around the other.
The next day, Sally, her boss and Buster’s rival are in the company theatre, reviewing some reels, when an employee brings a film canister to the boss, saying that Buster left it for him and he could have it for free. The boss is amused, and decides that watching Buster’s movie might be good for a laugh.
What they see is the entire Chinatown gang war. It turned out that Buster had put film in the camera that day after all, but the monkey had taken it out afterwards. At the end of the reel was also Buster’s rescue of Sally, because the monkey had been on the beach, turning the camera crank during the whole thing.
The boss immediately sends someone after Buster to tell him that this was the best film footage he’d ever seen and so, needless to say, he got both the job and the girl.
Readers and writers are spies.
After class, since I didn’t have to work until that night, I had time to go home, get a few things done and even have a nice siesta before leaving again.
On the way to OCADU, along Dundas, I pulled over because an ambulance was wailing behind me. After it passed though, it was having such a hard time spooning through the thick porridge of traffic that I caught up with it several times.
I was scheduled to work for Sarah Cale, who I think must be one of the newer instructors at the college, since I hadn’t met her before. She was already in the room when I arrived and seemed to look at me curiously as I walked in. I went to the models change room to hang up my jacket and as I was coming back out she approached me and asked if I was a model. I resisted pointing out to her how obvious that fact was, but instead simply confirmed that I was. She told me then that she didn’t have a model booked for that night. I shrugged and said that she could send me home if she wanted because I would get paid anyway.
She decided to go to her laptop and double check, I assume online, but while she was doing that, another model came in, saying that she was also booked to pose for Sarah’s class. After checking, Sarah found out that she actually did have a male model booked for that night. She was trying to figure out though what to do with the other model, Pat, and told her that she could use a model on November 17th. Pat checked her schedule but said she was working that night. I checked my schedule and told her that I’m available on November 17th if she wanted to switch, but there was no way of knowing at that time if Sarah had the budget for her class to get another model booking. I informed her that Pat and I would get paid anyway for that night, no matter what happens, and us getting paid would come out of her model budget. Classes like hers don’t get a very big allotment of money for models, which is stupid, because the foundation year classes should really have the most life drawing. It was decided to let Pat go and to find out later about November 17.
Sarah Cale is a tall, very slim and pretty woman in her early thirties. I think she might even be as tall or even taller than I am. She is as slim as the average fashion model and walks like she might have done some modelling at some point in her life. Although she’s thin, it doesn’t seem to be to an unhealthy degree. I could tell that she doesn’t starve herself because I could smell her dinner on her breath.
During my first break, I went out to the hall, where I ran into Pat. It turned out that she had the wrong room all along and was booked for a different class.
I did mostly short poses for Sarah’s class, but I wasn’t as pooped when it was all over as I had been the night before, because of the nap I’d taken and also because I’d brought something to eat with me.
On the way home I passed two women standing side by side on the sidewalk, each holding and looking at their smartphones, while icy glow lit up their faces.
When I got home I needed something quick for dinner and so I opened up a can of pork and beans with molasses and had that with toast.
I ate while watching what I think is the very best of Buster Keaton’s feature films, “The Cameraman”. Buster plays a lowly tintype photographer, trying to make a living on the street when he gets swamped by a crowd of people who are gathered to see a well-known politician. There are a few professional cameramen there from a news service and with one of them is a young woman with whom Buster immediately falls in love. When the crowd thins down he takes her tintype and later tracks her down to the news company for which she works, answering the phone. After giving her the picture, he asks if he could get a job as a cameraman for that company. She tells him that he would need to get himself a better camera, and so he immediately goes out and buys a movie camera that is antiquated, even for 1928, causing the other photographers to laugh at him.
He finally gets up the nerve to ask Sally out for a Sunday stroll. She says she has a date but if it falls through, she’ll call him. When she does call after all, he leaves her talking to him on the phone and runs across town to stand behind her even before, wondering why there is silence at the other end, hangs up. After walking for a while, they decide to take the bus, but after she gets on, so many others get on that the only way he can sit next to her is to ride on the wheel-frame on the outside of the bus, beside her window.
They get off at the municipal pool where Buster goes into a small dressing room to change into his swimming suit. Just then, a big gangster type guy comes in as well. Buster says, “Hey! This is my dressing room!” The guy responds, “It’ll be your coffin if you don’t shut up!” For the next few minutes there is a hilarious scene of the two men both trying to take their clothes off and change into their swimming suits in the tiny room at the same time. Buster ends up stepping out to the pool, wearing the other guy’s oversized swimming suit. When Buster tries to show off for Sally by taking a clumsy jump off the diving board, he returns to the surface without his suit on. After Sally suggests they take a stroll on the boardwalk, he can’t leave the pool until he’s not naked, so he steals the frilly bottom pants of a large woman’s swimsuit.
The next day, Buster is hanging around Sally’s place of work with his camera, hoping for a break, when she gets a call from one of the reporters saying that there’s something happening in Chinatown and so she should send a cameraman down. Instead of calling on one of her colleagues though, she decides that this could be Buster’s chance to get some good shots and impress her boss, so she only tells Buster. He goes dashing out, but while running around a corner he slams into an organ grinder and knocks him over on top of his monkey. When the Italian man gets up though, the monkey doesn’t. He shouts at Buster, “You killa da monkey!” A cop who saw the whole thing makes Buster pay the organ grinder for his dead monkey. Buster wraps up the little ape and carries it away, but a few minutes later the monkey comes to, because it was only stunned. It immediately attaches itself to Buster and becomes his sidekick for the rest of the film.
There is a dragon parade dancing through Chinatown. Buster sets up his camera on the street and begins filming. But suddenly the guys carrying the dragon throw it off, revealing that they are carrying machine guns. They begin shooting at some other Chinese guys, who begin to shoot back. Buster is caught in the crossfire of a Chinatown gang war. Instead of running away though, he continues to record the event while moving round to keep from getting shot, taking footage from various angles. He runs behind some sandbags to shoot from there, but there is an unmanned Gatling gun mounted next to him, which the monkey decides to start firing at some gang members. The guys being shot at see Buster and assume that his camera is a gun, so they shoot back at him. Buster is filming two guys who are lying on the sidewalk and fighting over a knife, but when one of them drops the knife, to keep the shot interesting, Buster picks up the knife and puts it back in the man’s hand. In another scene, one of the gang members tries to sneak up on Buster with a knife, but the monkey gets hold of another knife, comes up behind the attacker and begins to repeatedly stab him.
Later, when Buster brings his camera to Sally’s boss to show him all the great action he’d captured, he opens up the camera and discovers that there is no film inside. Buster apparently had forgotten to load the camera in the first place. Sally almost gets fired for tipping off Buster and not the company’s own professional cameramen. Buster is told to leave and to never come back.
A day or so later, Buster goes to shoot footage of a boat race. It turns out that Sally is in one of the speedboats, driven by Buster’s rival. On a sharp turn though, they both fall out of the boat. The driver, thinking only of his own safety, swims to shore, while Sally is trapped in the centre of the circles that boat is making while locked in a right hand turn. Buster takes a rowboat out, allowing it to be slammed by the speedboat, thus veering it off in another direction. He then jumps in and swims to Sally, pulling her to shallow water and then carrying her to the beach in his arms. He lays her down on the sand but she is still unconscious. Seeing a drug store nearby he runs to try to get something to revive her. Meanwhile, Buster’s rival discovers Sally lying there and when he goes to her she comes to, and thanks him for saving her life. He says, “What else would a man do?” Buster returns from the drug store to see Sally walking away with the other guy, each with their arm around the other.
The next day, Sally, her boss and Buster’s rival are in the company theatre, reviewing some reels, when an employee brings a film canister to the boss, saying that Buster left it for him and he could have it for free. The boss is amused, and decides that watching Buster’s movie might be good for a laugh.
What they see is the entire Chinatown gang war. It turned out that Buster had put film in the camera that day after all, but the monkey had taken it out afterwards. At the end of the reel was also Buster’s rescue of Sally, because the monkey had been on the beach, turning the camera crank during the whole thing.
The boss immediately sends someone after Buster to tell him that this was the best film footage he’d ever seen and so, needless to say, he got both the job and the girl.
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