New Guard Meets Old Guard

Not entirely sure I mentioned the concert last Friday at Yonge-Dundas Square.  In any event, I worked a bit late, then walked over to the Eaton Centre and grabbed something for dinner.  I turned up at the square just as the opening act (Garcons) was winding down.

 
I saw that Skye was at her merchandise booth and chatted with her for just a bit.  (I had met her twice before at Toronto Cold Reads, but she hasn't been back for a while, nor have I for that matter.)  I was pleased to hear that she was the middle act (going on at 9) rather than the main headliner, starting at 10.  I debated getting her newest CD, though I've already streamed it a couple of times on iTunes, and I basically didn't have any cash on me.  I didn't see as many people as I expected from Toronto Cold Reads, but I did see Jamie Johnson there taking a ton of photographs.  Mine came out pretty blurry and then after the show started, the lights made it impossible to get a decent shot.

While I wouldn't completely commit to it, I think one of the musicians in the crowd was Lawrence Nichols of the Lowest of the Low.  Given that Skye opened for Ron Hawkins just a while ago, they presumably all know a bit about what the other groups are up to.  But as I said, I'm not entirely sure this was the case.

For once, I stayed late enough at the square to see the old Sam Records sign lit up properly.

It was a good set, though I'm not as familiar with her newer material.  She mostly played songs from the recent album, though she did play Scarlet Fever, a fave of mine.  I would have liked to hear Dead Things Part II, Middle Class Ontario or Not Ready For This to Start.  Not sure I'll go out of my way to see her again, just because I don't really enjoy going to rock shows anymore, but I'll definitely keep an eye out to see if she does another acoustic set at Cold Reads.  At any rate, if she does make it big, and perhaps things are moving in that direction, I can say I saw her a few times while she was still in the trenches.

Then the following evening, I went to see the Driftwood Bus Tour doing a musical version of Midsummer's Night's Dream at Withrow Park.  The weather was quite nice.  I biked over with my son.  This time around we rented chairs, and we were in the front row of the seating area, so pretty swanky.  At it happened, I was one row ahead of Lynn Slotkin (who hasn't reviewed the show yet, but might well post a review later).  What was even more intriguing was that Oliver Dennis (from the Soulpepper troupe) was there, supporting the Driftwood tour.  I think this Mooney review does a good job of summing up the performance.  The performance almost teeters into being too precious about Millennials and their selfies but then settles down into an amusing romp.  It is interesting to hear some of the longish speeches from Oberon and Titania translated into song, which is a first for me.  Another interesting first, probably not to be repeated during the run, is that the character playing Puck had a leave of absence for that night (as his partner was having a baby), so the director (Jeremy Smith) stepped into the role for the first time in 15 years.  I must admit, he pulled it off quite well.  I debated getting the CD of the songs in the show but decided I probably wouldn't listen to it more than once or twice more, and, again, I didn't have any cash with me (though they gladly would have let me paid by square).  There are quite a few more dates, a few more in Toronto and then throughout southern Ontario.  Details here.

Overall, some solid entertainment over the weekend, and it was nice seeing some more established artists supporting up-and-coming artists.

Giving It Away (Almost)

I'm generally doing pretty well giving away books in the Little Free Library.  Of course, I have a few that I have disposed of with prejudice (Zorba and Lincoln in the Bardo), but other books I thought were pretty good, just not ones that I would be reading a second time.  From time to time, others will leave books, so in general the box is pretty well stocked.  My biggest concern now is that the table that the whole thing sits on is starting to give way, so I may need to put this up on a post after all.

However, it is getting harder and harder to get any money for books that I take to the used book store.  I'm still pretty sore about BMV not taking my copy of The Man Without Qualities.  It is in good condition, with both dust jackets and the slip cover box.  They said that they were having trouble getting rid of paperback copies, and then asked if I just wanted to leave it with them for nothing!  Actually, the last time I checked, they only had volume 2 in paperback, so I can understand why that might be moving slowly...  I didn't feel like arguing, but I also am pretty soured on BMV, and it might be a while before I go back.  It's really a shame that Eliot's Books has closed, but I think I'll reach out to a couple of bookstores on Danforth and then, if they both pass, then there is one on Roncesvalles that was aimed a bit more at serious readers, so they might be interested.  I could always put it on Amazon, but the shipping costs are pretty steep nowadays.

At any rate, I have a whole lot of CDs that I am still trying to get rid of, and I might just put them out on the street the next time that there is a neighbourhood yard sale.  I haven't quite decided about a stack of children's DVDs, but I may also consider a yard sale.

I mean I could try Craigslist or Kijiji, though I have to say the last time didn't go so well.  I had three inquiries for the girl's bike I was trying to get rid of, but I couldn't find the training wheels, and they all ultimately passed.  I didn't think I would manage to get rid of this bed frame, but I did have one person ask about it and then change their mind.  I even looked at Bunz to try to trade for it, but Bunz wanted me to post a photo before I could sign up, and that did not appeal to me at all...  I finally just put the bed frame and mattress out for the garbage pick-up (it's kind of incredible how much space we have in the basement now!).  I'm still trying to get rid of the bike and a file cabinet, but it is much harder than it should be.

Maybe the next time we move (downsizing to a condo), I'll have to get rid of most of the books and CDs, since the next opportunity for a big purging (when I pass away) there won't be any value left for all these things.  What a change from when I was growing up and there were all these estate sales.  Now hardly anyone wants tangible things at all, but they want it digitized instead.  (As an aside, access to digital files and obviously data streams cannot be passed on to heirs, but maybe that is just as well.  Most people don't really know what to do with all the stuff that they inherit anyway.)  I wonder if any of the art works I bought have any actual lasting value.  Probably not for the most part unfortunately.

Dropping Like Hot Potatoes

I've mentioned previously that I really should drop books sooner.  It's actually fairly clear to me early on whether I am going to enjoy a book or not.  I can think of very, very few examples where a book "turned around," and I enjoyed it more by the end.  Off the top of my head, I can't think of any, but there are probably a few.  It's definitely more common where the ending is fairly disappointing, bringing down an otherwise decent novel.  (While it wasn't the only problem with this massive novel, the lack of a proper ending for The Man without Qualities definitely doesn't help.)

At any rate, I had a copy of Zorba the Greek (probably from another book exchange).  I was debating reading it or just putting it out in the Little Free Library.  I finally decided to give it a shot.  I definitely agree with the critics of the novel that this is impossibly dated and frankly boring (once you strip out the parts of Zorba saying that women are basically just beasts of burden and are made for men's pleasure, there isn't a whole lot left).  I bailed prior to the most appalling part of the book where a woman suffers mob violence (and is actually beheaded) because she has the audacity to reject one suitor's advances and choose another lover.  Bleech.  Not for me.  It is true there are some connections to Rabelais throughout, but Rabelais (while certainly sexist) doesn't strike me as an out and out misogynist like Zorba (and frankly the author...), and there are plenty of other, you know, adventures in Gargantua and Pantagruel.  Still, I made it about 100 pages in before I couldn't take any more.

In contrast, I knew within a few pages that George Saunders' Lincoln in the Bardo was an appallingly pretentious work that basically gives literary fiction a bad name.  I think it is shocking that it won the Booker.  There are basically two modes of writing here.  You have lots of voices of ghosts hanging out in the bardo.  It took me a while to understand that the small print underneath their reminiscing is there to identify who is talking.  Ultimately, there are close to 160 different voices gabbling over each other, though I only made it as far as meeting four (including little Willie Lincoln).  Pretty much all these spirits seem unaware that they are dead, which suggests either they are incredibly dense or just in denial.  (This part reminded me a bit of Spoon River Anthology, though I thought Edgar Lee Masters did it better or at least not at such ridiculous length.)  Then there are sections that basically read as reportage of Abe and Mary Lincoln and their doings in Washington on the eve of the Civil War.  What's a bit confusing is that this appears to be stitched together out of actual contemporary diaries and academic papers/monographs, though I believe most are invented by Saunders (even this is annoying since he really shouldn't be mixing actual references with made-up ones).  Since the citations are in the same tiny print as the spirit names, it is all quite confusing.  It's possible that if this was a straight-forward account of Lincoln's grief at the death of his son, I would have been a bit more interested, but this double scaffolding seems so unnecessary and frankly alienating.  So it will go out to join Zorba in the Little Free Library, and I will move onto books that are more to my taste.  I'm about 1/3 through Ovid's Metamorphoses and the next novel will be Powers' Morte d'Urban.

Oh, it's definitely not at the same level of reaction, but I've been browsing Howard Barker's work and decided that there is no way I am paying Shaw Festival prices to see Victory.  I might have gone to see it at a independent black box theatre (for $20 or so), but I really don't think his indulging in a bit of the old ultra-violence here and there appeals to me.  I can safely pass on this play.  (And unless Stratford cuts its prices on Henry VI, I won't be going to that either, so this will be the first summer in five or six years that I am not going to either festival.)

In other disappointing book news, Goodreads has changed the way that they archive their cover images, and I can't seem to directly link to them (at the bottom of the blog).  I've found alternative covers for a few books I'm reading, but this is adding an awful lot of time to something that used to be simple, so I'll probably drop the Currently Reading and Book on Deck features if things continue on the same way.  It's just a small thing, but still an annoying change I don't want to have to deal with.

2019 Fringe Round-up

In the end, we did go see In Waking Life, which is a partly scripted, partly improvised piece about two Norwedish psychics (raised on the border of Norway and Sweden by a family of goats...).  I'd say they are more Gen Z than Millennial, though they were very stuck on One Direction (and hated Zayn), which may be more of a Millennial thing. 

At any rate, they were one of the Best of Fringe shows that will be playing in a couple of weeks in North York.  More details here.  In addition to this show, I also saw The Huns and Three Men on a Bike, which also get repeat performances.  The Huns and Tita Jokes were Patron Picks, though the already had their extra performance last Sunday.  Finally, The Commandment was picked to be part of Fringe Orangeville, which runs this up coming weekend.  That means that of the 10 shows I saw, fully 5 of them were Patron Picks, Best of Fringe or picked as part of Fringe Orangeville.  That's a decent hit rate.  As I said, there was only one that was a total waste of time.

I'll just have to see what mood I am in next year and whether I can manage to see 10 shows, or I scale back a bit.

First Week of Fringe

We're actually well into the second week of Fringe.  I managed to see 9 productions.  Most of them were quite good, and indeed, two of them are considered hits that are selling out (Three Men and a Bike and Tita Jokes), so I think I have picked fairly well.  The Huns at Crowsnest was good in a darkly humorous vein.  There was a very entertaining site-specific Taming of the Shrew, which was in the Grange behind the AGO.  (So I took my son into the AGO for a quick refresher before the show.)  However, they play this completely straight-up and didn't try to soften Kate's complete obedience to her "lord and master" at the end.  I'm definitely coming around to the idea that this last scene (with Kate upbraiding Bianca and the widow and teaching them their "duties") should just be cut completely.  It simply cannot be salvaged in any reasonable way, whereas the bits up to this point can be finessed.  Nonetheless, it is still one of the funnier plays in the canon, even if incredibly dated (as my son said afterwards).  In contrast, the ugliness of anti-semitism in The Merchant of Venice is so all pervasive that I simply have no desire to ever see this play again.  (I had forgotten that I had a longer piece on redeeming the Shrew from several years back.  I think the points are still valid, particularly in this stripped-down version that didn't bend the play nearly as much as Driftwood a few years back.)

There was one show I saw where the acting was good but the plot, such as it was, didn't make any sense, but I probably would have gone regardless, since I knew one of the actors.  There was only one bad show where one of the actors was still peeking into his script and then there were all these bizarre plot twists at the end, none of which made any sense if you really stopped to think about it.  So only one true dud so far.  What made it even worse is that I left a library book at the show (as my pannier was sort of overflowing).  I was extremely fortunate that one of the volunteers found it and then brought it to the Fringe Patio the next day where I was able to retrieve it.  So a happy ending after all.

There is a chance that I'll still make In Waking Life at Crowsnest this weekend (to round things out to 10) but a lot depends on what my step-mom and her family wants to do, since they are in town to visit Toronto.  In her case, this is the first time she's been in Toronto in decades, and probably seeing the Toronto Fringe is not at the top of her list...

All in all 2019 seems like a pretty good Fringe (for me), and definitely a much less stressful one than last year where I really was running around like crazy, even when I wasn't stage managing my own show.

First Night of Fringe

Back from the first day/night of Fringe.  I saw The Commandment, which was an interesting take on an atheist visited by God, who sounded almost a bit like Jimmy Stewart as the message got relayed.  It definitely had some dark moments, but worth checking out.  (I definitely like this year's Tip the Fringe button -- there are actually four different designs, but I'll stick with this one.)

I had just a bit of time between work and the show, so I managed to check out the art gallery in Hart House (just a few weeks left for the exhibit to run -- featuring Carrie Mae Weems, it is linked to the Scotiabank photography festival) and then dropped off some books at Robarts, so it felt productive.

I'm booked for Three Men and a Bike tomorrow.  Ironically, I probably won't be biking as it is up a very steep ridge to get to Tarragon, and then I need to turn around and get to the Randolph Theatre on Bathhurst, though this is for a show I don't have tickets booked, so I am taking a bit of chance, not that hordes of people make it out to the second night of the Fringe.  I think I'll end up TTC'ing it again, but I'll see how I feel in the morning.

While I am seeing 11 or so shows this time around, it still doesn't feel quite as frantic as last year, when I had to try to do as much as possible on Sat. evening and Sunday to avoid conflicts with my show.

But this is probably going to be the big hurrah this summer.  I'm just not that interested in SummerWorks this year.  I also was kind of horrified at the Stratford ticket prices.  $115 or so for the cheapest ticket to Henry VIII.  That's too rich for my blood, so unless they email me a discount code later in the summer, I shan't be going to Stratford after all.  Too bad.

Not that it compensates or anything, but I saw that Beck is going to be touring with Spoon, and they're playing Toronto on August 11.  I should be in town, so I am starting to think seriously about going to that.