2009 October 14.

From the first life drawing class this term. I was having a terrible time, my neck/shoulder was really hurting - first time i'd had that from life drawing (and i'd had massage therapy that morning). I left after only an hour, and my neck got worse the next few days. Ugh. Anyway, not much turned out from that night, but i like the energy in this one.

He didn't have glasses, that's just a line for the eyes.

2009 November 4.

I waited until after my next therapy session to start again. I also stood the drawing donkey on its end, and stood while drawing. It was a much better session. These ones i liked were all 15-30 minutes pieces.

Last week, on the way to Dar's, i stopped along the way at several spots to take som photos of the leaf colours, and other fall scenery.

Looking down Concession Road 4 (or is it 6 or 7?), west. Pretty sure it's 4.

What happened this week? Gah! Can't remember. Lots of marking. I think i saw Astro Boy again Monday night. No! I went to Kennedy Commons to see A Serious Man, but i didn't want to think, so i saw Whip It again, lol.

Thursday after class i went to TO to met up with Ange, whom i hadn't seen for a few months. We had lunch at Peter Pan - i had some delicious lamb chops, and wine. After, i did a bit of shopping, then saw Where The Wild Things Are again, this time on IMAX. Then it was off to see Cirque Du Soleil's Ovo again. So good. But.... dang, it was cold in the outer concessions tents - not to mntion the water outside the portable toilets.

Friday i had intended to see a movie after our meeting, which was kind of rushed, and got a little heated, ha ha. Anyway, Angelina, Matt and i, and eventually Chris, wnt to Wild Wings. I tried different than my usual, starting with Lemon Pepper (after a while, the lemon got strong). I tried one of Angelina's, with i think was BBQ & Blue Cheese (too much blue cheese is obnoxious), and one of Matt's, which was BBQ and Taco (a little spicy for me). Later on, i ordered a second pound, Wild West, which was BBQ and mustard. It was okay, but eventually i realized it tasted like brown beans, and that kind of made it less interesting, lol.

Saturday, i went into TO to do some shopping - i saw stuff at the Queen St H&M i liked, but they had only one thing in my size. The Eaton Centre store had a few interesting sweaters and a pair of pants. There were black pants with a paisley pattern i liked, but they didn't have my size either.

I had lunch at Spring Rolls (pork chop rice platter, springrollini, chicken-veggie dumplings).

Then i saw A Serious Man, the latest by the Coen Brothers. After a prologue involving a ghost in a Jewish settlement in centuries past, the jumps to the late 60s, and a serious, rational man named Larry Gopnick. Larry is a physics professor hoping for tenure (although someone is writing nasty letters to the tenure board), is bribed by a foreign student who wants to pass his class (or sued for accusing the student of bribing him), a neighbour encroaching on his property, has an unemployed brother living on his sofa, has a wife who want to divorce him (much to his surprise) and marry the widowed neighbour, a pothead son coming up to his bar mitzvah, and a very bitchy daughter. Every time he moves, something else happens to him, and he is slowly having a breakdown. He looks for help from lawyers and rabbis, but no one can give him answers.

It's funny, although dark, and ends rather darkly. The best comparison is Job (from the Bible, being a good man to whom many bad things happen with no explanation - and in that book, it's very much debated about why God was punishing Job). Larry is a good man, tries to be honest, doesn't swear or get angry and so on. Where he differs is that he has no faith in God, he has only faith in the mathematics of physics. One school of thought is that Job was punished for his arrogance (when he was being punished, he said he was not a sinner, but isn't everyone? Though the idea that your prosperity indicates your righteousness is somewhat disturbing). Is Larry being punished for his lack of faith? The biblical connection is also made with the storm, which was a element in Job's story and the movie.

There's also Larry being hounding by the Columbia Record company - Larry Gopnick repeatedly rejects 'Abraxas' (the album by Santana), which a gnostic name for God.

There's the foreign student's father, when Larry points out the contradiction in being sued for defamation of character when he accuses the son of trying to bribe him but wants him to take the money for a higher grade, who tells Larry, "Please, accept the mystery."

And there's the Jefferson Airplane music that kept appearing, "When the truth is found to be lies, And all the joy within you dies, Don't you want somebody to love?" maybe it's talking about Larry's beliefs in math and physics as the answers for the universe?

Maybe all the people hounding Larry are the equivalents of the Adversary from the Book of Job.

Maybe when Larry went to talk to the rabbis, when they talked about God or mysterious messages rather than his family problems, when h thought they were missing the point, it was actually he who was missing the point.

Being embraced by his wife's new love.

"Dad, what's sodomy?"