Nickled and Dimed to Death

I guess these are all small things, but oh so annoying.

I am heading over to see A Strange Loop at Soulpepper on Sat.  I think I'll find it interesting, though I am definitely not the target audience, and indeed I generally am not that big on musicals in the first place, with a few key exceptions.  Anyway, what was not made clear (or at least I definitely missed it) is this is such a challenging role that the lead is taking off every Wed. and Sat. matinee!  (Honestly, that feels a bit extreme.)  Of course, I had already booked a ticket for a Sat. matinee and thought, well I really ought to switch that.  There was a bit of a hassle, and I had to downgrade my seats a bit, but I managed to get this done.  And then after I thought everything was settled, a different person from the Box Office wrote me back saying that there was an $8 ticket transfer fee.  I wrote back a pretty salty email, saying that this was part of a subscription, as well as I thought it was misleading to not have the lead actually in every performance, and I would never have booked that date in the first place, etc.  I guess I just really was annoyed by the constant nickle and diming, esp. as the original person I was talking with did not mention an extra fee.  They ended up just sending me the ticket without collecting the extra fee, though maybe I used up all of my karma for the week.

I had recently put in an order from Dusty Groove.  It's quite a decent jazz store in Chicago, and they do a good job with shipping items, even internationally.  I definitely miss dropping in on the store, which I used to do all the time while living in Chicago.  At any rate, I ended up putting in an order.  Normally I ship to a friend still living in Chicago, but I won't be going back to Chicago any time soon, so I investigated the cost to ship up to Toronto.  It definitely cost more but not a ridiculous amount more, and this was offset by not paying Illinois sales tax.  However, when the package arrived, it was over the de minimus limit (which was supposed to be raised in any event), and I ended up paying $20 extra dollars in GST.  Which makes it that much less likely I'll be ordering again from them in the near future.  Darn it...

But the most annoying has to be this poster I was working on for a conference that was in town.  First off, I was never granted permission to go, even though I had the poster accepted and it was just down the street.  So that really dampened my enthusiasm.  Then my hours supporting the other conference activities were cut substantially, and I ended up having to do the research for the poster on my own time, which understandably started to drag...  I did finally pull all the data and putting the poster together (pretty late at night), but I was also disheartened by the fact that the data didn't line up with what I was expecting to see, which made it particularly hard to come up with any punchy findings.  So generally it was a disappointment all the way around.  Anyway, I finally got it done, though far too close to the conference deadline, but then I needed to actually print the poster.  I uploaded it to the Staples website after asking someone who said it would be ready the next day.  Well, they definitely gave me bad advice.  The next day I waited quite some time and then finally started calling in the afternoon, but I never managed to talk with anyone in the print shop.  The conference had already started by this point!  

This morning I decided enough was enough, and I biked over in the morning, only to find that the poster still wasn't done.  However, if I forked over another $20, they would turn it into a rush job, and I would have it in about 30 minutes.  So I did that, though with very poor grace.  I think next time I will just go to The Copy Shop instead, which is just a bit further up University Ave.

So just a few of the many interactions leaving me annoyed these days...

 

A Busy, Busy April

As April comes to a close (with more unseasonably cold weather and even a hail storm, though one that seems to have bypassed Toronto), I thought I should write down the highlights of what I got up to.  As I have been moaning, I spent an awful lot of late nights on my US and Canadian taxes, though, in the end, everything got mailed in with one day to spare in both cases.

I saw Esprit Orchestra three times(!) with several highlights including Vivier's Lonely Child.  And I saw Amici perform, primarily pieces off of their Armenian Chamber Music CD, along with a few other "Hidden Treasures."  I saw Logan's Red up at the Theatre Centre.  It was a solid performance (and I'm glad I went), though I did see the original production in New York, and that is awfully hard to beat... 

I saw Godard's Une Femme est une Femme at the Fox, though I didn't care much for it at all.  I saw Certified Copy at the Paradise and was somewhat dissatisfied with the way information was withheld from the audience, though I certainly liked it more than the Godard film.  I followed that up the following day with Kurosawa's Yojimbo at the Revue, and that film I did enjoy a fair bit.

I was misled and didn't see a couple of David Lynch films on Good Friday as planned, though I did make it to the gym and then that evening I saw A Public Display of Affection at Crow's.  On Sat., I saw both parts of The Mahabharata at Canadian Stage, as well as hit a few art galleries in Yorkville and even went swimming.  That made for a very long day.  On Easter itself, I helped out with the neighbourhood Easter egg hunt (planting eggs not searching for them...) and then saw Pochsy Part IV at Video Cabaret.

Somewhere in there I ended up seeing The Little Prince at Theatre Passe Muraille.  I didn't care much for this at all, because I hadn't realized there would be no dialogue at all.  I had assumed there would be some dialogue (though interpreted in ASL).  I found it just too difficult to follow along -- and the story seemed to have been altered and stretched out beyond what I remember from French class.  Speaking of French, I received a free ticket to a different production at TPM called Cispersonnages en quête d'auteurice, which was indeed in French (though with super titles, so it wasn't that hard to follow).  This is a spin-off of the Pirandello play.  It's a bit hard to describe.  I didn't love it, but it was interesting.  I don't regret going at least.

Last Saturday, I went swimming, then went to Bau-Xi over on Dufferin.  The transit ride to get there was pretty bad, and I was not impressed with the new exhibits.  I made it back over to Tarragon, though I was about 10 minutes late to meet my friend.  We were there to watch Feast.  I thought individual scenes and characters were interesting, but did not find the ending remotely plausible for all kinds of reasons.  And there was absolutely no reason to make this a 2 hour play with no intermission!   I went back south with my friend to Osgoode.  I thought I would find something to eat on Queen Street.  I settled on Queen Mother Cafe, but it really was a not very appealing Thai-inspired dish.  I kind of doubt I'll go back.  Anyway, I went in to work (and work on taxes) for a couple of hours, and then back out to TPM to see the French play, as I mentioned.  At least I didn't get rained on, as I had feared.*

Sunday, I did not get up as early as I hoped, but I still made it to the gym and did the grocery shopping.  I made it to Union Station to catch the 12:30 bus out to Hamilton.  I was there to see the Helen McNicoll exhibit.  It was pretty good with a lot of paintings that are in a private collection and aren't displayed frequently at all.  I thought the exhibit only ran for another month, though perhaps it was extended through the end of August?  At any rate, it is worth checking out this spring.  I'll add a few shots from my visit later.  It was unfortunate that the Farmers Market at Jackson Square was closed on Sundays (I keep forgetting that detail), but I ended up catching the bus back and not having to wait too long.  It was probably the 3:50 bus, and we got in around 5:30.  (Traffic on the Gardiner was pretty slammed in both directions...)  I was able to finally wrap up Soseki's I am a Cat and started in a bit on Joy Williams's State of Grace.** 

I grabbed a bite at Kibo at Union, then went over to the office for the last plunge into taxes.  It was so late when I finished that the subway was no longer running!  I debated catching a cab, but in the end I waited for the King Streetcar and then walked home from Queen and Carlaw, since the overnight bus wasn't going to show up for ages.  I had kind of thought I would take Monday easy, but that didn't happen.  I put in essentially a full day at work, though I had to leave at 5:30 in order to pick up my bike from the bike shop before it closed.  Then I voted.  Then I turned in a library book.  Ideally I would have gone swimming, but I really was wiped out.

And I probably bit off a bit too much on Tues. as well.  I ended up working until 7:25 (partly on a bid for new work, as well as on the first draft of a conference deck) and then took the subway round the loop to Yonge & Dundas.  I walked over to Massey Hall with 10 minutes to spare and saw a huge line.  I almost gave up, but then the line started moving quickly, and I was able to get to the box office and scored a ticket to the Max Richter show.  It was a very hot ticket and had been sold out forever...  Indeed, there were quite a few people who bought standing room only tickets, which I thought was just absurd.  It was an obstructed view seat but on the main floor, and really the view wasn't too bad.  I had a very clear view of Richter himself and the first violin (and then the vocalist in the second half).  They decided to play not one, but two complete albums/compositions.  In the first half, it was In a Landscape.  After the break, they played The Blue Notebooks.  I enjoyed The Blue Notebooks more, particularly the ending of the piece.  But it did remind me of electronic mood music more than a contemporary classic concert.  It was worth seeing, but I wasn't really knocked out the way I was during the Steve Reich celebration a few years back.

I don't have much planned for the 30th, though I may try to go swimming after work.  I do have a pretty full agenda from May 1-4, however, so I guess I need to gear up for that.  And with that, I really do need to get some sleep.

 

* Somehow I totally forgot that after the French play on Sat., I took the Queen streetcar over to the Rex.  It was just after 9 (and the show had started at 8:30, so I hadn't missed all that much).  It was supposedly sold out, but they managed to find me an open seat (and in the front section even!).  The line-up was unusual: 2 guitars (Peter Bernstein and Lorne Lofsky), Neil Swainson on bass and a drummer.  I had actually stopped by on Friday at 6, but they were sold out for the evening sets and even the early set was pretty full, and I would have had to sit in the back, which I try to avoid.  I ended up taking the subway to College and seeing In the Mood for Love.  (I had tentatively pencilled it in for Sunday afternoon, and that would not have worked at all...)  So I was glad that I managed to see this group on Sat. as sort of a last minute add-on to an already busy day.

** I may have mentioned that I finished rereading Tim O'Brien's America Fantastica (for a book club at work!), which is quite dark and full of largely unredeemable characters and other characters that make terrible decisions.  It was clearly written as a response to Trump being in power, and frankly isn't as funny now that he is back in power and even worse than before.  There are some interesting parallels to Timothy Findley's Headhunter (another dark, flawed work).  I finished Abe's The Woman in the Dunes.  I'll still go see the movie at the Fox in a couple of weeks, but I don't think I'll bother with the book lecture.  I'm midway through rereading Carr's A Month in the Country, and thankfully this novel does stand up to a second reading.

 

A Dog's Breakfast

I think the first time I ever heard this term (or at least the first time it stuck with me) was 1993 when someone was predicting the federal election would result in a "dog's breakfast" with no party able to govern effectively.  As it happens, that didn't happen, and the Liberals under Jean Chrétien wiped out the Conservatives and had a stable majority government.  While it is a bit too early to tell, I worry a bit that last night's result will result in a weak minority government.  I mean there is no question that the Liberals cannot believe their luck (and will gladly take this result).  Not only did they avoid being wiped out, which clearly was going to happen under Trudeau, but Poilievre lost his seat!  I'm sure he'll be around carping for quite some time, but if the Conservatives were smart, they would dump him now and find someone less grating.  If the current projections hold, then the Liberals will come up 4 or 5 seats short of a majority, but the (very weakened) NDP will have 7 seats and could enter into a Supply and Confidence arrangement.  I think this could probably work, rather than the Liberals having to rely on the Bloc or hiving off a few Conservative votes now and again.  But if the math doesn't work after all the votes are counted, then we are looking at a really precarious government that would likely only last a year or two before going back to the polls.  So fingers crossed.

I'm still recovering from being up nearly all night doing taxes.  Last week I finished my son's, only to find that his T4 was completely incorrect.  He did have provincial taxes withheld but this wasn't indicated anywhere on the T4, so he will need to get that corrected and then refile them.  So infuriating and unfair.  I did get a modest refund, though I was expecting a much larger one.  As always, the issue ends up being the large bite that Ontario takes.  I think what continues to grate on me the most is that the marginal tax rate is pretty high in Ontario, but then they hide it.  So you calculate taxes and then have to pay not one but two surtaxes, i.e. tax on your tax, which brings you incredibly close to 50% marginal tax (and indeed 53% for anyone earning over $250K), and it just seems completely dishonest to me.  So I'm feeling very surly today.  It isn't just the tax (not that I enjoy paying these sneaky surtaxes), but that I am paying to support a bunch of provincial politicians that I despise and are making life worse most of the time for progressives in Toronto, by ripping out our bike lanes and weakening environmental laws and just being stupid and generally corrupt.  And we seem to have no way to get rid of them, as the voters are still punishing the provincial Liberals for the sins of the 2010s.  Sigh.

I did manage to do a few fun things over the weekend, and maybe tonight or tomorrow I can account for the time I was not doing taxes.  I'm actually going to run over to Massey Hall to see if any tickets opened up for Max Richter, but I think that's fairly unlikely, so I will probably have this evening to work on this, as well as a few other outstanding issues on my plate. 

Edit (11 pm): While there are two or three extremely tight ridings that will go to recounts, the unofficial count shows the Liberals at 169.  So very, very close to 172.  (Again, in their wildest dreams, the Liberals couldn't have expected this outcome, even a month or so ago.)  If I were Carney, I would probably cut a deal with the NDP to allow them to keep official party status (and not much more) in exchange for a Supply and Confidence arrangement (and just let the Conservatives' complaints about "corruption" roll off his back).  I think that is probably the stablest of any of the options, but I guess we'll find out what they decide to do.  I would definitely hope we don't go back to the polls for at least two more years.

So long, Cinemaclock

I've been more than a little annoyed at Cinemaclock for some time now, not least because whenever I get around to turning on Adblock (which I really should reinstate on the new computer), it completely blocks me from the service.  While I am not 100% against ad-revenue on principle, most of the time these ad-happy websites don't do any meaningful screening, and you can end up with some really annoying computer infections, so it doesn't seem reasonable to me to over-react when people try to keep their computers clean.  Nonetheless, that isn't really the issue.  The issue is the several times now that I have been given bad information from Cinemaclock, including the wrong time for Mickey 17 out at the Beaches, and then on Friday I had planned what would have been an incredible twofer of David Lynch movies at the cinema kitty-corner to the Eaton Centre.

I actually made an extra effort to get over to the gym early on Friday so that I could leave in time to make it to the 12:30 show.  For once, transit went super smoothly, and I made it there by 12:15.  Then I went up the many escalators, only to find that Mulholland Drive wasn't playing at all that day, and Lost Highway wasn't playing until the late evening.  They had nothing on at 12:30, and only Eraserhead at 1 (a film I didn't care for and have no intention of revisiting).  I was very clear on putting the schedule together, so someone screwed up, and I am not sure if it was the cinema itself or Cinemaclock, but I was beyond pissed to the point that I am going to make a conscious effort to block Cinemaclock from all my devices.  In addition, I don't plan on going back to the theatre at Yonge and Dundas (just as I am avoiding Beach Cinema).

So I went home in an incredibly foul mood.  This even spread to the point that I decided I didn't want to see Memento at Carlton Cinema, even though this had nothing to do with them.  I just decided this was a movie that I wasn't sure I really wanted to see, and I wanted the opportunity to stop the film if I didn't like it (as I generally don't care for gritty crime films, no matter how novel).  I will still see In the Mood for Love next week, though I will go straight to the Carlton website.

I took a nap and did a couple of other things (though I didn't make any appreciable headway on Canadian taxes), and then I saw A Public Display of Affection over at Crow's.  It wasn't the worst way to end the day (and in fact it is a very thoughtful piece on growing into a "gay elder" in Toronto), though I had such higher hopes for the day...

Taxes and Other Certainties

I wouldn't say I exactly procrastinated on the taxes, though it is true I didn't get too far on them on the weekend of the 5th-6th.  I was still pulling together lots of materials at this point, especially the small gifts to charity.  The only positive is that I need almost all the same material and even a bit more for CRA, so it won't take nearly as long to get started on them, though they do take twice as long, since I need to file completely separately from my wife.  Sigh.  Also I am mostly but not 100% finished with pulling together medical expenses.  This is likely going to be another year where this will be treated as a non-refundable credit, so I am not likely to owe too much to CRA, though I guess I'll know in a few more days.  (I am definitely not leaving it to the last minute like I usually do with the IRS.)

I'm struggling a bit to remember what I did on the previous weekend, though I remember I did bike around a fair bit, even though it was wet.  On Sat., I had tried to fit in a swimming session (since the Regent Park pool was closed).  I found a pool near Corktown, though I didn't actually get there until the pool hours were over.  They strongly warned me to not leave anything in the lockers, as there were massive security issues there.  The pool itself looks pretty nice, and I may go one of these days, though it isn't a free pool (like Regent Park and Jimmie Simpson).  I did hit the galleries in the Distillery, and a small gallery on Richmond near Jarvis, then went to Gallery Gevik in Yorkville.  I honestly can't remember if I did anything else that afternoon or evening, but I think it was mostly spent on taxes, esp. starting my son's.  I did spend a lot of time pulling bank statements together, but some were missing, and it took forever to try to track down some health expenses, though fortunately they don't matter for US taxes only Canadian taxes.  That Sunday I saw Esprit's concert, which featured a solo percussion piece, as well as a Vivier piece.

Over last week, I was mostly overwhelmed by work, but I did continue to pull receipts together.  As I mentioned, I finally managed to get to see Mickey 17.  I had been debating going to see The Little Prince at Theatre Passe Muraille (and they offered me free tickets!), but in the end I passed.  I may go this week possibly, depending on my mood.  Friday, I managed to see Godard's Une Femme est une Femme (literally catching the Lakeshore East train with one or two minutes to spare!  I didn't care much for it at all, and I feel you can already sense the contempt Godard has for conventions and certainly audiences that like movie conventions.  Also, I strongly disliked all the characters who were very unappealing to me.  I wish I had known how much I would have not liked this movie, but live and learn I guess.  

Then Sat. I did manage to get some swimming in, though only about half my normal laps.  Then I went to Gallery Gevik to look again at a small painting that is calling to me, along with a Yorkville gallery that had quite a few Letendre paintings, including a watercolor that is also calling to me (and somewhat blocked my interest in the painting at Gevik).  Then I ran into the AGO to see a new exhibit I missed last time.  (It really wasn't worth my time...)  Then I swung through Richmond 401 and used the cheque that I thought I was going to use at Gevik to pay for the framing of a piece I bought at Abbozzo.  

Then I finally started in on the taxes, and it took pretty much all night.  The worst was I started with the FBAR, which has the worst consequences if you don't file it.  I somehow put it in for the 2023 tax year and used the wrong file name as well!  I wasn't even that tired, so that was an extremely bad sign.  Over the next couple of days, I tried to tell the system to delete it, and that this was not an attempt to amend my 2023 filing, which was on time a year back.  I finally got a note from the government saying that they couldn't delete the improper filing, but that they had noted my comments.  I guess because I then filed the FBAR again with the same info but correct year and file name, that's the best I can do.

I took the forms home for my wife to sign.  I thought I would sleep in, but in the end, I did go to the gym for 25 minutes and picked up a small number of groceries.  I'm glad I didn't completely give up this weekend on staying active (and I had biked everywhere on Sat.), even though taxes were pretty overwhelming.

I still had a few minor tweaks to the taxes (mostly filling in Forms 8938, which are a total pain and simply repeat the same information on the FBAR!).  I think I probably could have/should have amended my Form 2225 and Schedule 1, but it wouldn't have actually changed the tax consequences, and it just wasn't worth it.  (If the IRS asks for any other amendments, I will do it at that time.)  I will read up on the topic and make changes for next year if it is still relevant.  While I haven't decided definitely to renounce or not, the ridiculous extra burden of all the extra forms for having investments in two countries makes the idea of renouncing very appealing, on top of the fact I wouldn't be connected to a country that seems determined to be run into the ground by the Worst and the Stupidest (to say nothing of the most Corrupt and Venal)...

Sun. was at least a little more fun to make up for the last gasp of the taxes.  I saw an Amici concert where they focused mostly on Armenian music.  Then I went out west to Ossington (luckily that was the last stop before a weekend subway closure!) and had Ethiopian food and watched Kiarostami's Certified Copy.  There are many parallels to Before Sunset, and personally I found Before Sunset to be a lot more satisfying.  Kiarostami refuses to let the audience know whether the couple are actually married or not.  Perhaps the one (fan) theory that makes the most sense is that the two are in a long-term affair and that Binoche's character decides to just play along that they are married (after a woman in a cafe assumes they are married) as a "copy" of marriage that has its own intrinsic value.  That still doesn't quite square up with the beginning of the movie where the author seems to have no idea about Binoche's family life, including her sister's name.  So a movie that is being intentionally obscure in a lot of ways, which frankly I don't appreciate.

Anyway, the important thing is that taxes are done, and I mailed them off on Monday.  I don't think I will be quite so late with Canadian taxes, since I have everything pulled together now.  I should be able to get them wrapped up this weekend.  Fingers crossed.  (And perhaps if I don't owe anything or even get some money back from CRA, I will more seriously consider buying the artwork I saw on Sat.  And while I don't buy art as an investment, it wouldn't be a bad idea to track down what I did pay for these other pieces and just note it down somewhere, since "collectables" are taxed at a different rate, and I probably have two or three pieces that should have at least held their value whenever I die or otherwise decide to give them up.  Such a cheery thought for a somewhat dreary day...)

 

 

Mickey 17

After 3 failed attempts, I finally managed to see Mickey 17 on Tues. after work.  It actually snowed on Tues., which was a real kick in the teeth.  (On Wed. I did bike in, despite it being on the cold side, particularly in the morning, but it warmed up a bit in the late afternoon.)  I had just enough time to get to No Frills and then march back to Market Square to see the movies, dropping in a few minutes into the previews.  (Somehow I got the row numbers wrong and was in someone else's seat, which was embarrassing.)  I have a few reservations, particularly Mark Ruffalo's impression of Trump.  Both he and his wife, who was totally obsessed with sauces, wore out their welcome really quickly.  It certainly wasn't a subtle movie, but overall I enjoyed it a lot.  That said, being beaten over the head repeatedly over how humans were the terrible colonizers and the so-called Christian leader who repeatedly called for the aliens to be doused with nerve gas was definitely unnecessary.  

It is interesting to see how polarizing this film is, with almost equal numbers giving it a 5 stars or 1 star!  I was definitely far more interested in life on the ship and some of those subplots than in the conquest of the aliens subplot.  I hear that the director shot enough for a 4 hour movie, so who knows how much of that might show up some day in a director's cut.  I think what I would have wanted to see more of was the love quadrangle, perhaps with Mickey 18 pretending to be Mickey 17 and then to make a move on Kai.

In general, I thought Nasha was a bit too much of a loose cannon to have kept her job as security officer, including pulling guns on fellow crew members any time they messed with Mickey, which was all the time as he was the lowest ranking individual on the ship by a long shot (and basically not even considered fully human).  But the interactions between her and the Mickeys were really the most interesting part of the movie, and I wouldn't have minded seeing even more of that, including how she coped with the fact that she would be mourning Mickey and then immediately start with a fresh one the next day.

Perhaps the drollest thing for me was the printer and how close it came to malfunctioning and generally it seemed to catch just like the old dot matrix printers.  I think I probably still have a few things printed on those continuous rolls of paper.  Or how they didn't always have the "printer tray" ready, and the new Mickey would end up on the floor.  Indeed, my brand new printer doesn't appear to have any sort of a printer tray, and my print jobs always end up on the floor.  Frustrating!

Now part of me is a little annoyed as I had drafted a SF story that uses some of the same conceits (reprinting bodies and overlaying a personality matrix on them).  So it might be a while before I could shop that around.  But it isn't as if this is really unique plot point.  I can think of several other authors that got there first, including Altered Carbon.  What is interesting is that apparently in the actual novel, not the movie, the aliens have a hive mind, which is something I was toying with in my "moon novel."  

And several people were saying they vastly preferred the movie Moon, which had some parallels to Mickey 17, and particularly to the original novel by Edward Ashton.  I'm kind of glad I didn't see this, as it apparently has cloning as a plot point, and yes I was thinking that there might be a handful of the colony founder's clones running wild in my novel, so probably best to wrap up whatever I am going to do with my own novel (which is, honestly, probably nothing) before watching Moon.

I had debated going to see Blade Runner on Wed., but was just far too busy, and tonight I need to get a first cut of the U.S. taxes done.  If all goes well, I will try to see Godard's Une Femme est une femme at The Fox after work on Friday, but I have to say I predict something will come up to prevent that from happening, given the way things have been going lately.

Quiet Desperation

I'm struggling a bit to recall how I found out about Dorothy Edwards.  Most likely it was through an Amazon recommendation, though I don't think I have been browsing anything lately that would have triggered this.  At any rate, I was surprised at the parallels between her and Katherine Mansfield (connections to the Bloomsbury group and dying much too young), though I suspect Virginia would have seen Mansfield as much more of a true rival.  Indeed, the way that Edwards sort of fell out with the group, and with David Garnett in particular, led to her suicide in 1934.  She had published Rhapsody, a collection of short stories, and Winter Sonata, a novel about a young man who struggles with his feelings towards a beautiful young woman in the village where he lives.  It's not really giving that much away to say there is not a happy ending in sight in the novel.  (I haven't read through the short stories yet.)

I don't remember all the details of Carr's A Month in the Country.  I vaguely remember the plot running on similar lines but being very different tonally.  Nonetheless, given that A Month in the Country is quite short, I think I will slip it into my list of very short books I am reading on the side.

For that matter, I have only read long chunks of Walden, but not the whole thing.  (This links back to the title of the post: “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”)  Perhaps in the late summer and autumn, I will finally tackle reading all of Walden.  The edition I have also has some excerpts from The Maine Woods and Cape Cod, and I'll probably read those as well.  I actually have the full texts in a LOA volume of Thoreau's writings, but honestly, I think that will have to wait for some other year.

For the book club at work, we are reading one of my suggestions - Tim O'Brien's America Fantastica, which is a darkly comic road trip through Trump's America.  (This is set during the first Trump term and has quite a lot to say about greed and corruption.)

I'm kind of reskimming it now, though I don't know if I will definitely get through the whole thing.  I may need to borrow a copy from the library if that is possible.  (After checking, this definitely doesn't appear to be a problem...)  Here is a good summary though it and the interview with O'Brien have some significant spoilers, which I am trying to avoid.  At the time, I saw lots of parallels with Rushdie's Quichotte, and those are definitely still there.  But the slightly manic road tripping (with a spunky female sidekick) also recalls Tibor Fischer's The Thought Gang.  I'm trying hard not to endlessly reread books I've already read (though sometimes I do read them faster the second time around), but I remember really enjoying The Thought Gang, and I probably ought to read it again one of these days.

I did just reread Gide's The Vatican Cellars.  While it was fine, I didn't think it was quite as amusing this time around.  The criminal gang was sufficiently interesting, but Lafcadio is a bit of a drag, and I couldn't really get behind his motiveless crime this time around.  But it does set me up to read a couple of short Gide novels this year.

Anyway, to round out books that I might reread in the next couple of years.  I am definitely considering Murdoch's Under the Net, even though I don't know where my copy is.  I did plan on reading other Murdoch, though it might not be until 2026, so there isn't a huge hurry.  It looks like I read it for the first time in 2014.

I don't think I am going to reread Hoban's Turtle Diary in 2025, though there is a chance I might tackle it in 2026.  I read this back in 2019.  I don't have any specific novels I would pair it with, though it does make me think of del Toro's The Shape of Water.

On top of my work book club, I just found out that The Fox seems to be partnering with Great Escape Books (over on Kingston) to do a book club meeting on Kobo Abe's The Woman in the Dunes on May 9 with the actual film screening the following week at the Fox.  This is awfully tempting, but I am not sure I will be able to fit it in.

Just to recap, I have about 100 pages to go in Winter Sonata, and I should wrap this up tomorrow (or rather the next day I take transit).  I have two more chapters (roughly 150 pages left) in Soseki's I am a Cat (which honestly I am not enjoying all that much).  I'll probably go ahead and intersperse I am a Cat with Dawn Powell's Sunday, Monday and Always and Joy Williams's State of Grace as I wrap this up.  After that, I probably need to switch exclusively to O'Brien's America Fantastica, and then decide if I am going to read Abe's The Woman in the Dunes.  I think after this it is The Leopard and some other short story collections and maybe A Month in the Country.

Speaking of quiet desperation, I think I'll put in another hour or so on the ground work to do my US taxes and then go to bed.  Unfortunately, because of a pension distribution (a long story), I likely will owe US taxes, or at least I might before I claim the foreign tax credit, but I need to have the Canadian taxes completely done before I know what that credit would be worth.  It's definitely annoying.  I was on track to have the US taxes done in time, but think it would be a real push to have the Canadian taxes also done by the 15th.  I mean Musk is destroying the IRS, and Trump imagines replacing taxes with tariffs, but neither of these (quite horrible) events will happen in time to prevent me from needing to file my own taxes.  Sigh...
 

Edit: I just found out I don't even have a copy of The Woman in the Dunes.  I was sure I did, but instead I have The Ruined Map (which is probably the book I remembered wanting to read) and The Ark Sakura.  Weird.  (Maybe I do have a copy in storage in the basement, but I suspect not.)  TPL has this as an e-book, but only one reference copy.  Fortunately, there are a few copies kicking around at Robarts if I decide to tackle this after all.