There have been so many frustrating events in the news lately, most of which can be traced back to the general public's desire for simple answers (and an unquenchable desire for strong men on the part of right-wing voters). I guess I'll leave it at that, aside from noting that the Trudeau government has seemed incredibly ineffective lately, and I don't think this recent split on the right (Maxime Bernier) is really going to cause enough damage. I'm not sure I can take it if I have to live under Ford and Scheer.
At a more local level, I've been having to work too long on a number of projects that don't actually interest me that much. Last week, I was all set to go check out Julius Caesar in Withrow Park and then had to bail at the last minute. Indeed, that evening I worked until 4 am, caught a few hours of sleep, then biked back downtown to set off on a short mini-vacation. At any rate, Thurs. I also had to work on a project, so the clock was really ticking in the sense that Julius Caesar wraps this weekend. I finally got over there last night at about 7. While it appeared there were quite a few chairs, all had actually been reserved. The grass was still fairly wet, though they were renting cushions and blankets. The issue is that this is exactly what happened to me last year at Othello (technically put on by Driftwood rather than Theatre in the Ruff but in the exact same location), and it was frankly a miserable experience. Both companies have done a lousy job in setting aside space for people without chairs. The people on the cushions end up sitting right behind people in chairs and can't see anything. If this is your model (not actually having enough chairs for everyone), then you need to reserve space for the proles on the cushions and put the chairs behind them. It just speaks to a basic inconsideration for the audience, and it pisses me off to no end.
I have to admit, I was less and less interested in the performance in the first place. I am getting a bit weary of gender-bent Shakespeare. In this case, it is technically not gender-bent, but a complete rethinking of the play, with about half of it being new text that focuses on the Roman wives rather than Caesar and Brutus. They have been relatively upfront about this (that this isn't technically Shakespeare's Julius Caesar), and it does sound like an interesting experiment, though not one I am completely behind. In addition, I wasn't able to convince any actor friends to come out, so that also dampened my enthusiasm. I could probably make one more attempt to see this Saturday, but I'm not really in the right frame of mind to appreciate it. It's probably better to just make this the summer I didn't do any outdoor Shakespeare, and just hope that next year is a better one (across all kinds of dimensions).
Anyway, I came back home and took out some of my aggression on starting to cut the lumber for this pen for the garbage cans. I am trying to make sure that the raccoons cannot knock them over, at least while they are under the deck. I'm not 100% sure this will work, but it is worth a shot.
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