A Few Positive Events

I definitely dwell mostly on the negative side of things, and there is certainly a lot to be negative about!

But I'll list a few positive developments, though a few are minor indeed.

I have had a few abstracts accepted to conferences recently.  It's nice to know I haven't lost my touch, even though I don't really have enough time allocated to this sort of thing at work, which means tackling it in the evenings, along with all the other things I am trying to juggle.

While I seem to be missing a lot of the Sun Ra music that I have downloaded or ripped in the last year or so, I did come across a folder of 8 albums and I have another 2 on another hard drive.  I know I have far more than that, so, hopefully, I will come across that fairly soon.

I have been filling in some gaps in my jazz collection.  For some reason I am interested in relatively early 1950s jazz from France.  Recently I picked up some CDs by Hubert Fol and Guy Lafitte.  I also managed to locate a re-issue of a rare LP called Jazz Boom No 1.  

I had assumed I had ripped this previously, but that doesn't seem to be the case, so I just ripped it now, which greatly increases the odds I can listen to it while at work!  I'm partway through ripping 2 box sets from Vogue records, and in a few cases trying to track down some of the sessions that weren't issued in the box sets.

I actually have quite a long ways to go with the ripping, and I probably should try to finish ripping several classical box sets I have lying around, but before too long, I would like to re-rip the Jazz in Paris box set.  (I ripped it back around 2005, but at a fairly lossy level, and I don't think I even captured song titles or the key performers.)

Between the original box and a bunch of follow-up re-issues, there are something like 120 CDs involved, which will clearly mean going to get another hard drive to back things up properly in multiple locations!  I have no idea what I paid for the set, though likely around $250.  I see the few complete sets on the market are running close to $2000!

We had quite a rain storm in the early evening, though it was just about done raining by the time the movie (The Dead Zone) ended.  The streets were, in fact, flooded, and I was very glad that our basement was fine, as I was half-expecting water to be seeping in.  

The last thing that has gone better than expected is that our dehumidifier in the basement had stopped working because the filter was jammed up with lint (and cat hair).  I cleaned this off and put it back together, but it wouldn't run.  I tried all kinds of resetting buttons and even just leaving it off for a day to let it cycle back to normal, but nothing worked.  I was very close to calling a repair man for a quote (though realizing it was probably just as cheap to buy a new one!), when it started working again spontaneously.  It's been running ok for a week now, and hopefully we won't have any other issues for a while.  It's certainly unusual for an appliance like that to self-repair, but it was definitely good news for me.

Bubblings of Trouble

While I am definitely getting a bit nervous about various things, most notably whether I can actually participate in Fringe (as I'll get to in a moment), the weather is improving and my mood is lifting at least a bit. It was a long tough winter, particularly all of Jan.  But the weather was great on Monday and I biked a fair bit.  I did skip out on going to the gym, mostly because I stayed at work a bit longer than expected, I did so much biking over the weekend, and I am just generally depressed about things going on at home (to say nothing of the Orange One’s global tantrums).

Working backwards from that, Sunday was pretty good.  I managed to get in 16 or so laps at Jimmie Simpson, then had to bike to Little Italy.  I made it in 35 minutes, which was pretty good.  I was a bit early, though the bar at the Monarch Tavern wasn't open before the show and the line at intermission was moving so slowly.  Fortunately, the play itself – Galatea by John Lyly – is fairly short, and we were done around 4:30, even with the extra long intermission.  It is a weird play, with two young maidens, both disguised as young men, falling in love. Then at the end, the goddess Venus says she'll change one of them into a male, so they can marry (naturally), but they won't know who is transformed until they get to the church door!  So wild.

I had really wanted to rope in Steven Ho into my Fringe play (as Jasper), but he is directing another Fringe show, which rules him out.  I approached an older actor (with ties to Video Cabaret and their history plays) who might make a solid Frederick, and he said he would email and I would get him the script, but radio silence. I suspect he has decided he is not free during Fringe, but still it would be nice to hear directly and not just be ghosted.

I am getting very antsy at this point, and I am starting to wonder if I will have to pull the plug. I guess I’ll email Jamie over the weekend and try to have him put out a casting call, as this is just getting ridiculous…

After this, I was quite hungry, and I had planned to grab an eggplant Parmesan sandwich next door, but that restaurant closed permanently, which is a real shame.  The other Italian place across the street is nowhere near as good, so I biked off in search of an early dinner.  I found a pretty decent Thai place on College, though the service there was also slow.  I was definitely getting worried, but I biked hard and made it to the Paradise to see Foxy Brown (a notorious Blaxploitation film starring Pam Grier) with about 5 minutes to spare.  All I can say is they would never get away with this today, though the fashions were pretty great and over the top.  Then I biked home, so I was a bit worn out.

Sat. was considerably simpler.  I put in a fairly solid workout at the gym and brought home the groceries.  I then biked across on Dundas to the TMU Image Centre.  They have a good exhibit on early photos from Magnum Photos, which runs through this Saturday.  I went over to 401 Richmond and briefly dropped in at a couple of galleries.  It was already 5 by this point.  I then went over to The Well.  As my bag was pretty full, I just ate there rather than carrying it off anywhere.  Then I dropped in at work for an hour or so, trying to compile all the tax info, particularly the donations I made last year, as tax season is sneaking up on me!  (Especially my US taxes!)  Then I saw a TSO concert where Joshua Bell played Bruch's Violin Concerto and also conducted the orchestra.  Not only the Bruch, but Beethoven's 7th Symphony.  Then I went back to the office for about three more hours and tried to download all the account info I will need to do my taxes, though I didn't actually start in on them.  Then I finally went home.

Ok, I have to get at least some rest now…

Cutting Things Too Close (Yet Again)

Always a constant problem with me, as I just try to fit too much in.  And it is a weird time when I've done a bit of biking, so have reset my mental clock to remember how much of the city I can cover on a bike -- but then not being able to bike and being stuck on the TTC instead.

This was definitely an issue last Sunday when I didn't have much on the calendar except for a Mooredale concert at 3:15.  I did some work and tried to get caught up on a few things and didn't make it to Jimmie Simpson until just after 1.  I had really thought I would swim 30+ laps, but in the end I was really struggling to get about 25, and it took me pretty close to 50 minutes.  Then there were quite a few delays on the TTC, and of course they had closed down Line 1 (when I really needed to get to the Museum stop!), so I literally ran from St. George to Walter Hall and made it with only 3 minutes to spare before the concert.  So frustrating.  The concert was fine though.

I had to drop off stuff at St. Mike's, so I did that after the concert, then walked back across Queen's Park to Robarts and dropped off the other Buñuel DVDs and did a small bit of research.  Then I decided to head over to BMV (though I didn't have anything with me to sell).  Once again, I cut things too close (and didn't have time to grab food), and I made it to Carlton Cinema as the trailers were rolling.  I was there to see Project Hail Mary.  On the whole I enjoyed this, but the faster-than-light travel really grated at me, particularly when the author wants to be so serious about the science behind his anthrophages, etc.  Most fans of the book are totally devastated that this isn't The Martian Pt. 2 with the whole movie spent on scientific experiments etc., but that just seems like it would have been intolerable.  They also didn't like that the main administrator wasn't the all-powerful pan-governmental agent who nukes the Antarctic in the book but not in the movie.  I think that was a change for the better.  Anyway, not really a hard science fiction movie, which was fine by me.

Tonight I will be facing the same sort of thing, and again the weather is just not right for cycling (too cold this morning).  I am off to the Jazz Bistro to see Kirk MacDonald and Pat LeBarbara play, but I am probably going to run off to the Paradise right after work, and I may end up regretting it, esp. if the TTC does not behave.  (It was quite bad last night, where a "medical emergency" at Castle Frank shut down St. George to Broadway yet again, and I waited around for a while, finally giving up and heading south to catch the streetcar.  It was only when I got to Museum that they said service had resumed!  Then the Carlton streetcar I was on decided to go down to Queen for some reason, so not good at all.  I was also extremely frustrated that my camera battery had died on me and spoiled some of the video and photos I was trying to take.  I think I needed only 5 more minutes of battery!  So overall not a great night.*)  I do hope tonight goes a bit better.

Edit (03/28): Last night actually worked out surprisingly well.  I made it to the Paradise and saw Petzold's Miroirs No 3, which I enjoyed, and then I ran back downtown to see Pat LeBarbara and Kirk MacDonald (and Neil Swainson!) doing their annual tribute to John Coltrane.  This is the first year it's ever been at the Jazz Bistro, but I certainly hope it goes back to the Rex next year.  It was great, and this time around my phone camera didn't break down.  After the gig, I saw a Carlton streetcar.  I actually had to run a couple of blocks, but it was not going very fast, and I managed to board it, so the trip back was surprisingly smooth.

* It really was frustrating not having a working phone while I was having these major TTC issues, and I was particularly annoyed that if Esprit had stuck to its original program (with only 1 and not 2(!) intermissions) this probably wouldn't have been nearly as much of an issue.  Also, right at the start of the viola concerto, the violist broke a string, so they had to change it and restart!  Not something you see every day, and this also pushed the concert end time even further out.

Frustrating Trip to Tarragon

For once the TTC travel wasn't so bad, but the lead-up was definitely annoying and then the station had lots of construction that forced all the passengers to make long detours.  Anyway, I'll get to that in a moment.

What really grates is that I ran up to Bloor with a moderate pile of stuff to try to sell off at BMV.  As I was getting closer, I wondered if it was too late to try to sell to them.  And indeed, they are only open until 7 pm on Mon-Wed., which seems frankly silly when they are open until 11 pm(!) on Friday and Saturday.  I could have checked, but 7 just seems so early for a Tues.  Then I thought well at least there is a decent chance Seekers will take the books, though not the CDs or DVDs, and they were closed for inventory!  Grrrr.  So that was really frustrating, and I am not sure when I will be able to haul all this stuff back with me for another go at BMV.

Not only was a huge chunk of the station off-limits, forcing everyone to cross Spadina and Dupont, but this section had been closed off for a few months before and now it is closed again?  The sign said it would be another 6 weeks, and indeed, I will probably try to avoid making the trip to Tarragon until this is resolved.  Then some condo construction forced a closure of a traffic lane and the sidewalk, and the pedestrians were forced into another lane of traffic.  It just was really annoying.

Anyway, I got to Tarragon not in the best of moods.  I thought Icarus did a good job with their production of Julie, which is an update of Strindberg's Miss Julie.  I'm pretty sure I saw Miss Julie (in a slightly modernized adaptation) at the Chopin Theatre in Chicago decades ago.  As it happens, I have a copy of Miss Julie, which I browsed after I got home.  I would say Miss Julie is still a fairly pathetic lost soul in this version, but she is a bit less passive this time around.  Also, I think there was a slightly larger role for Katerina the maid.  It's a fairly downbeat piece, however.*

I'm going to see an early Strindberg work, Creditors, at Canadian Stage next season.  Paul Gross is in it, which was one of the main draws.  I toyed with the idea of seeing Dance of Death at Stratford close to 10 years ago, but didn't go.  I can't remember if the travel was too much of a hassle or the reviews were poor.  I actually saw A Dream Play at Northwestern back in 1997, but I don't remember anything about it.  I suppose if it ever comes through, I would see A Dream Play again.  I would like to see The Ghost Sonata some day, and that might be enough Strindberg.  I am not a massive fan of his work.

There are quite a few other things I was going to discuss, but let's keep this post reasonably short... 

* And this is after a very downbeat movie, Fassbinder's Veronika Voss, at the Paradise on Monday, so back to back misery.  I sort of think of Veronika Voss as Sunset Boulevard but with morphine addicts.  It morphs into a neo-noir film about halfway in.  As I was thinking about it, I don't believe there is a single Fassbinder film with a truly happy ending, though Ali: Fear Eats the Soul has a somewhat open-ended ending that isn't completely miserable.  Just as with Buñuel (or Petzold for that matter), I've gone from seeing virtually none of his work to getting up to 5 films (almost all at the Paradise), though there are several key ones I still need to see (where I feel I've seen all the core Buñuel's).

Follow-Up on Art

It's looking less and less likely that I will run over to the gym for a cardio session.  I need to get over to Jimmie Simpson around 12:30 and the weather is pretty miserable (cold rain), so I will be trying to figure out how to do this all by TTC.  Probably head down to Queen, and then after swimming just take the Queen streetcar downtown.  I'm hoping there is enough time to drop in at work and pick up more printing (only a few pages printed after all), then go up to St. Mike's and drop off DVDs, see the concert, go to Robarts and drop off the rest of the DVDs and do a bit of research, then maybe see about selling some stuff to BMV (though this will only happen if I do manage to make it to work), and then perhaps see Project Hail Mary.

I did decide not to bother with the TO Bach Festival pass.  While there is some modest price savings, that is only if you go to all 4 concerts.  I am definitely skipping one and probably a second one of motets.  But I would like to finish booking everything else today.  I am very tempted to buy tickets to Penderecki Quartet on May 21, but I remembered just in time that I have tickets to see Hillary Hahn on that date at Koerner Hall.  It's a bit of a waiting game, as her recovery is not going that well unfortunately, and she's cancelled a lot of concerts, and I expect she will probably cancel this one as well, but hasn't done it officially yet.  I'd probably slightly prefer the Penderecki Quartet, but I'll just wait and see how it plays out.  Also, I don't think they let you cancel concerts just on a whim or the worry that an artist will pull out.  (I'm still a bit annoyed that they rescheduled the Music of Golijov concert so that it overlapped with the Amici concert they are also presenting, but I ended up using the price of the ticket to a jazz concert coming up at Koerner Hall.)

As a brief overview, yesterday I biked downtown.  I stopped in at the BMV near Yonge-Dundas Square.  I was mostly looking for Howl's Moving Castle, though there are a couple of Criterions I am always looking for.  I suppose there is a small chance I would pick up Buñuel's Él, as the bonus features are really good.  (I have a DVD on hold at TPL, but this is fairly recent release and it will take quite some time to work my way up the queue.)  Anyway, I saw Breaking Bad on Blu-Ray, the complete seasons 1, 3 and 4, so I got those.  Why not.  If I do make it to the BMV on Bloor, I'll have to see if they have season 2 or 5.  I was almost out the door, when I saw an interesting Max Beckman and Paris book for only $15, so I got that as well.

I went over to the AGO right after that, though I didn't have much time and decided to skip the Paul McCartney photo exhibit.  I saw the Edna Taçon exhibit instead (where the Naoko Matsubara exhibit had been , and this was definitely more up my alley.  Her early works are quite similar to early Kandinsky, and her later works are akin to Klee with perhaps a touch of Miro.  I'll definitely want to check this out a few times, and it runs through late August.  I'm not quite sure I want to pay $45 for the catalogue, as nice as it is, but the library appears to have a few copies, so I will check one out and decide then.

Edna Taçon, Untitled, 1941

Edna Taçon, Ecstasy (Black Accent), 1944

 

Edna Taçon, Improvisation No. 2, 1946

Edna Taçon, Green Organization, 1943

I also had a chance to stop by the contemporary sculpture garden by Ranbir Sidhu and take some photos, as the previous batch was lost.

Then I ran over to Gagné Contemporary where they have a new show called Mona Lisa with Moustache, which only runs one more week.  I think this piece, which involves cut-outs and interesting shadow play, was perhaps the most interesting.

 

I had a bit more time so I ran upstairs to the Red Head Gallery as well.  Then I grabbed a banana chocolate loaf slice and walked back over to No Frills.  Since my bag was completely full, I actually went to work to drop some stuff off, then biked back to The Well and grabbed Thai food, but ate it at work.  I didn't have a lot of time, but I did update a few things.  I would have finished my time sheet, but I haven't been given some of the codes, which is very frustrating.

I went to the concert at Soundstreams.  I liked some of the pieces a fair bit, though there were just too many pieces (9 premieres in total), and the quartet went offstage to retune between many of them, so the concert lasted well over 2.5 hours!  In the end, it was a bit too much.

I will close by saying this is the very last day to catch Jeff Wall at MOCA.  I was tempted to go again.  Though I went at least twice, and maybe a third time.  I probably would have if the weather had been better or if I could have scored a free pass through the library or if it had extended one more week, since I would have bundled it with a trip west to see Shakespeare Bash'd at the Monarch Tavern.  Anyway, here are a few of my favourite photos from the show.  (I'll circle back and label them tonight, but I'm running late again...)

 

Detail from Insomnia

 

 

 

 

 

Come Through the Other Side of Disappointments

If I had gotten around to it, I'm sure I would have written about how disappointing I was in myself, letting one thing or another keep me from swimming.  It's certainly true that I don't push through to exercise as much as I used to, particularly when it is cold and/or I am wet.  (And I got hit with snow out of nowhere on the bike ride home on Monday.)  But things have generally taken a bit of a turn for the better at work, though I need to press one guy to see if he did the extra tasks I assigned him.  And I was really disappointed to hear that a few senior staff had been let go (though nothing like last year) and that the woman in charge of our Social Equity team had been let go, esp. as I was trying to do more work on the technical side of supporting equity analyses.  I think it is incredibly short-sighted and shows just how cowardly U.S. based companies are.  Sigh.

But the weather may have finally gotten to the point where boots are no longer necessary, and we probably won't have any snow that sticks.  Famous last words of course.  I was able to bike on Thurs., though it rained a fair bit Friday morning, so I was back on the TTC.  I'm making pretty decent progress on this mega-projects book for the review, though I've decided it just isn't a very good book, which is a shame of course.  I'm still only a bit further than 1/4 of the way through Ada, but I'll try to read another big chunk this weekend.

I don't have too many library books out, though I do need to get to Murakami's The City and Its Uncertain Walls, right after I am finished with Ada.  In addition to the other books I have planned to read, I decided I should read Kathy Acker's Don Quixote (and probably before I get that much further with my play, which has Don Quixote and other fantastical dreamers as a running subplot).  I've certainly read excerpts of her works and probably some short stories, but I don't think I've ever read an entire novel, though I may just be forgetting.  She is certainly one of the most transgressive authors out there, along with the Marquis de Sade and Henry Miller!  I think I would pair this with Coover's The Public Burning, and, while I hope my copy sitting in North Carolina, makes it here in time, I may just borrow a copy from Robarts.  This is all probably happening late April/early May.

I have sat down and watched several more Buñuel films, so between the Revue and TIFF (and Ann Arbor ages and ages ago) and home viewing, I have gone through the following:
1929     Un Chien Andalou
1930     L'Âge d'Or   
1953     Él
1961     Viridiana
1962     El ángel exterminador (The Exterminating Angel)
1964     Le journal d'une femme de chambre (Diary of a Chambermaid) 
1965     Simón del Desierto  (Simon of the Desert)
1967     Belle de jour    
1972     Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie (The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie)
1977     Cet obscur objet du désir  (That Obscure Object of Desire)

In addition to being influenced by The Exterminating Angel, I think Gilliam was clearly cribbing from The Obscure Object of Desire with all the explosions when he started work on Brazil (and also the radical openness/uncertainty at the end of Belle de Jour).

I think this is quite a good overview of Buñuel's work (up from only seeing Un Chien Andalou prior to this year!), though it looks like I can (and probably will) borrow the following from the library (though I am no longer in such a rush):
1969     La voie lactée  (The Milky Way)
1970     Tristana    
1974     Le fantôme de la liberté  (The Phantom of Liberty)

I won't write a lot about it, as I am already pretty late for the gym, but I am leaning towards ordering a Rita Letendre piece from a gallery in Montreal.  It's on the small side but surprisingly affordable.

Anyway, today I am off to the gym, will need to help my daughter with some math homework, and then I should have just enough time to get to 401 Richmond (and possibly the AGO).  Then I'll grab some Thai food at The Well, drop in at work to pick up some printing and then go over to a Soundstreams concert in the evening.

Tomorrow, I plan on swimming a bit longer (30+ laps) to make up for missing out last week, going to see a Mooredale concert at 3, and dropping off the Buñuel DVDs I have borrowed from Robarts.  I will see if it is feasible to catch Project Hail Mary at Carlton, but it isn't urgent.  But overall, it should be a slightly less frenetic weekend than usual, even though I am off to a late start, per usual...

Ciao!

Artistic Disappointments

It doesn't really upset me, as it doesn't affect me (and it isn't as disastrous a choice as Driving Miss Daisy or The Green Book) but I am disappointed that One Battle After Another won best picture.  I would really have liked to see The Secret Agent get it (which was then shut out of Best Foreign Film as well), though Sinners would have been an ok choice.  This year I saw a surprising number of Best Picture films.  In addition to OBAA and The Secret Agent, I also saw Hamnet and Marty Supreme.  And I did manage to see the animated short films.  I think The Girl Who Cried Pearls was probably the best of the bunch, but any of them (aside from this mawkish Christian fable about a bear and a pine tree) would have been fine.  There's no point in belabouring it, but the only thing I liked about OBAA was Benicio del Toro (and certainly not Sean Penn's (frankly cartoonish) role, which lurches into Jason territory as the (almost) unkillable monster).  Oh well.

The weekend was very mixed in terms of artistic positives and negatives.  I managed to get to the gym early on Sat. and then took the cat over to the vet.  Unfortunately, they want a follow-up visit and think the cone should stay on a few more days.  Sigh.  Then I had a fairly empty day, so I went around to a bunch of galleries.  I probably shouldn't have bothered with Corkin and Thomas Landry as nothing had changed.  I then dropped in at work and set off another long run (though I was extremely frustrated as the computer had crashed early into the Friday night run).  Then I went up to Yorkville and saw a few things there before going up to Davenport to Gallery Gevik.  I had sort of resolved in my mind to pick up one of the Letendre's that they had.  Little did I know that they had a Letendre show in Dec. and the pieces I was considering had sold.  (The newspapers do a terrible job in reporting on these smaller shows, and I generally don't check routinely, though after they moved from Yorkville I probably wouldn't have gone anyway, as it is pretty inconvenient to go except by bike.)  Then I asked about another piece I had considered purchasing, coming back a few times to look at it.  It also had sold.  I guess it was just not meant to be.  They do have some other Letendre pieces, though I wasn't crazy about the works on paper and the canvases were enormous and way outside my price range.  Too bad.

There is a Yorkville gallery that has a couple of Letendre works for sale, including this one.

They have another one I like a bit better, but probably not enough to buy it, so I may just wait and see if anything more to my taste comes on the market.  It's not like I have any open space anyway.

I had a bit of time, so I went to the original Bau-Xi gallery, though not the AGO.  Then I made it to 401 Richmond.  It was a few minutes before 5.  Red Head Gallery was basically shut up, and I was very disappointed that another gallery I had planned to see (and which is supposed to stay open until 6 on Sat.) was closed!  So I will have to try to hit 401 Richmond next Sat.  I think all in all, I probably should have skipped the detour to the Distillery and then I would have had enough time at 401 Richmond, but the real disappointment was the pieces I was interested in at Gevik were gone.

I saw The Herald at Buddies in Bad Times.  There were some elements in it that were interesting, but overall it didn't do a lot for me.  That's pretty typical for the experimental stuff that gets put up at Buddies.

Sun. there was a bit too much snow, but it didn't stick.  Still, I decided not to bike to the swimming pool, and I guess I'll try to go tonight and possibly Wed.  I was a bit delayed by the St. Patrick's Day parade but managed to make it to a Bach concert at Mazzolini Hall.  It was terrific.

Then I went back to work for a bit, though it was a fairly short trip before I had to head out for the cold read thing.  I think they really should have picked a different night.  There were few actors around, and I ended up reading some small roles.  The guy I had hoped to tackle the Frederick role in my Fringe piece decided to pull out.  I did get a bit of a lead on two other actors who might sign on and potentially a stage manager, though one with limited experience.  And I think next Sun. I should round up a few more, and then we'll see how many parts remain.  So on the whole, Sunday was a better day, artistically-speaking, and didn't have as many disappointments as Saturday held.