Last week was a particularly challenging one, as I was still recovering from working on a couple of proposals and quals submittals. The good news is that we were shortlisted for one project, though that probably means by next week we will be working on yet another proposal. It is simply a truism of consulting that you spend a huge amount of time chasing work, and the people who win work are rewarded far more than the people who get the work done. So I've been reflecting on that a lot lately. Anyway, eventually the work does need to get done, and the smart clients are the ones who become the squeaky wheel, since they get their work delivered more or less on time. "Reasonable" clients who stay silent and accept project delays end up getting less attention. Well, TransLink got a new project manager who knows how to play the game, and consequently I had to really buckle down and wrap it up. I should have a long time ago, but 1) I have a hard time getting everything compressed into model documentation and 2) there is a small piece of me that doesn't want to let go of the TransLink modelling work and was just hanging onto a bit of the work. Anyway, I have turned in model documentation that covers probably 75% of the model, coming up a bit short in discussions of the model calibration (though honestly that was given short-shrift at TransLink given all the other things we were forced to do) and 90% of the Users' Guide. So it is a pretty big weight off my shoulders, even if it is not at 100%. I may actually have a bit more mental space now to think about other things, including this paper abstract I need to wrap up tonight! I do hope this means I will be able to do a bit more concentrated reading now and certainly more creative writing. I am even thinking of sneaking in a few DVDs over the next few days, though that may not actually happen.
So, as I said, I was working quite late many days over the past two weeks, though I think it finally has paid off in getting on top of a few projects. I did manage to go to dinner with a former TransLink colleague visiting Toronto for a wedding, and then my wife and I finally had the baby-sitter over and went out for a proper dinner. I did give up on a handful of concerts, however, due to these time pressures.
Still, I managed to take the kids to the Gardiner Museum last weekend, and this weekend I took my son to the ROM (it was free for AGO members) and then to a performance of The Importance of Being Earnest. It was well-done, and I have to say I wish I had managed to see them doing Good Night Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) last season, which apparently was quite a good production. Sigh. (I also managed to miss some college in New West doing this a couple of years ago when it was so poorly advertised, and basically the same thing when I missed The Rez Sisters in New West, though then I was recovering from an illness.) I'm sure I'll see it live eventually, but it might be quite a while before it comes back through Toronto. I don't think I would travel too far to see it, as there is still so much else to see. In fact, assuming I don't just drop off my feet (and I manage to finish cooking this vegetarian paella), I'm off to see a darker Canadian play (George Walker's Escape from Happiness) this afternoon.
Why am I so tired? Well, after dropping off my son and grabbing a bite to eat, I went back out for Nuit Blanche, which is an all-night art event. I think this is a direct import from Montreal, which probably still does it a bit better, but I thought it was a lot of fun. This is my special TTC pass for the event.
And while I appreciate that the TTC tried to get into the spirit of things by running the subway all night, along with the streetcars, there was a bit of a dropping of the ball. The Queen streetcar just did not show up for 15 or so minutes while there were 7 going the other way. One finally came by and was so packed to the gills that the driver didn't even slow down. So I hiked back to Carlaw and took the 72 Pape bus up to the subway and thence to Union Station where I started my exploration of Nuit Blache about 45 minutes later than I had expected or hoped. I guess I was out and about doing Nuit Blanche from about 8:30 until 12:45 am, which was a lot longer than I had originally planned. This night definitely deserves it's own blog post, particularly if I can figure out how to get the photos off my new phone. I basically was debating getting off the subway at College and taking the streetcar versus going to Pape. Unfortunately, I made the wrong decision. I had assumed the buses would be running late, but they stopped many of them, so I was stuck pretty far from home. I could have walked it, but my feet were just killing me, so I cabbed it that last leg. Had I known, I would have just stuck it out on the streetcar. C'est la vie. It certainly didn't spoil the whole night. (Maybe when I was younger and had more of an ideological opposition to cabs it would have.) As I said, the review of the evening will follow as soon as I can share the photos.
One thing that I did manage to get done was read Dostoevsky's The Double. I found it an interesting set-up and it kind of reminded me of a good way of one of the Black Books episodes where Bernard has basically gotten so drunk that he can't remember why some of his friends are shunning him. The rest of the book didn't live up to this, however. In the end, I found this really disappointing. Not so much due to the ending, which I found awfully obscure, but the main character (the "hero") seems so vacillating and really unappealing. Also, he had these same characteristics even before he encountered his double, and this was for me one of the major shortcomings. Ultimately, I didn't really care whether he triumphed or not. It was a bit like one of those SNL skits that goes on far, far too long. How could no one really focus on the fact that he had an exact twin with the exact same name? Really? Gogol can kind of get away with it in a short story (though frankly I've never been that enamoured of "The Nose"), but the longer this dragged on the more completely implausible it seemed. I basically agreed with the contemporary critics who said it was second-rate Gogol. Interestingly, it has recently been made into a movie (directed by Richard Ayoade), and I am not sure I want to see it now, though perhaps I will, given that it has a pretty-killer cast. I would hope that it at least somewhat addresses the incredibleness of finding one's exact double, whereas most people in the novel hardly rate it. I'll also be interested if they change up the ending at all, which is pretty unsatisfactory. Curiously, I would say that the cult movie How to Get Ahead in Advertising seems directly inspired by The Double, though I don't see any other people making that connection, so perhaps it is all in my head.* I just hope that I find The Gambler, a much more mature work, to be more rewarding, even though it apparently was written in a fever pitch. (The back story of The Gambler is fascinating for sure, but I will have to return to this theme on another day.)
* Whoops, somehow I missed this very favourable review of Adoade's The Double which does make that connection. I suppose I will try to get around to the film one of these days. I guess I missed it playing in Canada (due to stresses of moving) but it might have popped up on Netflix by now.
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