Random round-up

I'm a little concerned that a few of my contacts have not gotten back in touch after I emailed, though most were glad to connect even remotely.  In some cases they may be in a deep funk, or in one case where my friend's partner may well have been laid off (as he is in the hospitality industry) they may be completely panicked and scrambling (and emailing pleasantries back and forth is naturally low on the agenda...).  There's not a lot I could do to help in such cases, but there is also no point in pressing them.  They will get back in touch when they are in a better place.  I have been in somewhat closer contact with my cousin and his wife in Brooklyn, though I haven't heard from them in a couple of days.  I'm obviously extremely concerned, as the coronavirus is spreading very quickly, and I don't like their chances if they do contract it.  I'll just try to send good vibes to them and the millions of other New Yorkers who are suffering.  It does put Toronto's lock-down in perspective.

I'll probably take the next two posts to talk about some intriguing on-line art and theatre events, as well as a general appreciation for the way Canadian politicians have really come together and are quite united in fighting this pandemic (which unfortunately does not appear to be the case south of the border...).  But here I'll just touch on a few minor, non-disease, topics for a bit of a change of pace.

I'm still going back and forth on whether to buy Doblin's Berlin Alexanderplatz.  The price for a physical copy keeps going up, largely because Canada's currency keeps dropping (as it is so tied to resource extraction and the oil sands are actually worthless right now*).  The chance of it showing up at BMV is extremely, extremely low right now (and I had checked on my last few visits), not that I would be able to get into the store, let alone be reading on transit any time soon.  As it happens there is a pretty good sale on the Kindle ebook, though I'd rather hold off until I get through a few other ebooks, but by then the sale may have ended.**  Quel dilemme!

On the other hand, I had been extremely tempted by Picasso: The Late Work, and again the price keeps edging higher.

I'm quite sure that I had checked at the library, and it wasn't in the collection, but I checked again tonight, and Toronto Public Library now has 5 circulating copies!  I wish I had known about this before the libraries all closed, but I put it on hold anyway, and it is something to look forward to in June (hopefully!!!).  So one less thing I am tempted to buy.

It did take a while for my on-line orders of New Worlds Anthology (#1-6) to turn up, as this was "needed" to complete my Mr. X collection (as discussed here).  #6 was by far the hardest to source, but I did eventually find a copy.  What was a bit of a surprise is that the Mr. X material in #1 is actually identical to the final issue of Series 2 (#13).  I guess it's not the end of the world, but it was a bit frustrating to go to all that trouble to essentially buy it twice.

What I really need to do over the next few weeks (and I suppose I have far fewer excuses than before) is to start cleaning out the basement (now that I have probably satisfied (for now) my yen to acquire any more comics books between Mr. X and the very last Futurama issue).  It's a bit of a challenge as we cannot donate anything with all the charity shops closed, but they are still taking garbage and recycling, so I can still make some headway.

I have not made much progress at all in sewing the quilt, and I'm trying not to feel too guilty about that.  However, perhaps I will first actually try to make a few face masks (with some leftover cloth) and see who could use those, after equipping my family.  I don't think I know any doctors or nurses, but if no one else could use them I could donate them to the senior centre nearby.

It seems that pretty much no matter the topic, the coronavirus keeps creeping back to the top of my thoughts, so it's probably time to shut this post down and get some rest.



* It is possible that in the medium- to long-term, Canada might start doing better than the US economy, since it appears we are doing better in flattening the curve (and thus probably can restart our economy with less pain), but it doesn't really matter.  When the US economy is in the tank, Canada is also dragged down.

** Actually, I no longer have a dilemma.  It is a bit embarrassing to admit but with everything going on it just slipped my mind.  I ordered a copy of this a couple of weeks ago but had it sent to a US address, so it will be a while before I have it in my hands.  It turns out that the library does have a ebook version, and I've joined the queue for that.

Community Theatre (from before the Crisis)

It definitely seems like a different world now, but I thought I would get a few thoughts down on community theatre as a reminder of what is on pause right now.

I guess it can be a fairly thin line between community theatre and the black box theatre that I generally favour.  I suppose the main difference is that, for the most part, the actors in community theatre accept that they are are not on a professional track and they are a bit older than the artistic troupes at black box theatres.  Perhaps this is not universally true...  What does seem to be true is that they lean a bit more heavily on broad comedies, so Norm Foster is commonly programmed, for example, whereas in the past it might have been Neil Simon.

I don't think I saw much of what would be considered community theatre in Chicago, but there were actually two groups in Vancouver that shared the Jericho Arts Centre out at Jericho Beach (I will say it was a lot easier getting out there after I signed up for Car2Go!).  One was the United Players of Vancouver and the second was Ensemble Theatre Company.  I thought I had seen another show by the United Players, but the only one that I am sure I saw was Alan Bennett's The Habit of Art in 2013.

I'd say Ensemble Theatre was a little more ambitious, usually taking on a Jacobean play each season.  I saw them doing Middleton’s Women Beware Women in 2013. I can't quite remember why I passed on seeing The Alchemist in 2012, but it probably was related to the theatre being pretty far from my house and I don't think I had Car2Go at that point. As I indicated, they do seem to be a bit more ambitious, and they are relocating to a theatre on Granville Island, so maybe they shouldn't be counted as community theatre any longer.

I don't really put Alumnae Theatre in the same category as community theatre, though it probably is one notch below professional theatre.  It's conceptually much closer to black box theatre (in a quite nice theatre space), though Toronto Irish Players (which rents out space from Alumnae) fits reasonably well into the community theatre grouping.  I've never actually seen anything by Theatre Etobicoke, and they seem to only put on one show a year.  The Scarborough Players are a lot more active, but I haven't gotten out that way to see anything by them either.

I've seen a handful of performances by the Village Players out in Bloor West.  I had a couple of bad experiences out there (Ken Ludwig's Fox on the Fairway was particularly terrible) and had largely written them off.  But then this season they were doing Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie, and I thought this would be a good one to take my son to, and the acting was solid, as was the overall production.  So I decided to be a bit more open-minded towards them.  I then saw Lindsay-Abaire's Good People (just before the hammer came down on live performances) and the acting was very good.  They definitely have a tendency to pick weak but crowd-pleasing comedies, but I'll definitely give them a shot in the future on a case-by-case basis.

I've probably seen the most plays over at East Side Players, which probably not coincidentally is the one closest to me (performing in the Todmorden Mills Heritage Site in the Don River Valley).  They do put on high quality performances, but I do find myself frustrated with their decisions.  There was nothing I wanted to see in the 2017/2018 or 2019/2020 seasons (though I might have gone to see Disgraced if Mirvish hadn't put it on just a year or so before).  However, the 2018/2019 season was solid (and would have been amazing if they hadn't swapped in Shelagh Stephenson's The Memory of Water for MacDonald's Good Night, Desdemona; Good Morning, Juliette).  I really disliked The Memory of Water and left at intermission, which I think is the first time I've bailed on them.  Note that I'm not the only one that strongly dislikes this play (see the very critical review in Variety).

I have enjoyed these plays the most at East Side Players: Speaking in Tongues by Andrew Bovell, Wonder of the World by David Lindsay-Abaire, Office Hours by Norm Foster and Time Stands Still by Donald Margulies.

One thing that is particularly nice about East Side Players is that the building they are in almost always have art on the walls for sale.  One time there was a small photography exhibit (linked to the Scotiabank's Image Festival).  This was probably my favourite of the bunch.

Calvin Lee, Rain

While most of his recent work features photos of dancers hard at work, Calvin Lee also has a portfolio of textures, from which this photo is drawn.

So that's a bit of an exhaustive run-down of the community theatre I've seen in the recent past.  Here's hoping it isn't too much longer before they can get back on the boards!

Recklessness

I'll keep this shorter than usual.  It still blows my mind at how stubborn and callous some politicians are.  It is absolutely incredible how low Trump can go, and yet every day he sinks lower.  What's so incredibly depressing is that he is benefiting from the (completely undeserved) impulse to rally-round-the-leader that occurs pretty much in every national crisis.  Aside from deep partisan enemies, people have this instinctual urge in times of danger to feel that there is someone in charge who knows what he (or she) is doing, and whoever happens to be in charge get this mini-wave of support (even a tosser like George W.).  It's absolutely laughable that such an impossibly reckless and terrible politician is going to benefit from this.  All I can say is I am so glad the elections aren't right around the corner, or he would probably win.  By Nov., his complete inadequacy and the fact that he drove the US into a deeper crisis will likely lead to Biden beating him (unless of course he gets the virus on the campaign trail...).  Even a few people were saying that Boris Johnson was acting more like a real leader,* though this seems just as fanciful and mere wishful thinking, and they generally stopped saying that around the time he and his health secretary caught the virus.

The Brazilian stongman and general rightwing dickhead Bolsonaro is going to add unimaginable misery to Brazil by claiming the whole thing is a hoax and not supporting social distancing and generally feuding with the governors of Brazil.  No question Trump is going in the same dangerous direction, though even he doesn't go this far (or not calling it "a hoax" any longer though still half-heartedly feuding with governors and as always reversing himself frequently via Twitter).  In any case, I am still holding out hope that both Trump and Bolsonaro get the disease and in a particularly nasty form.

Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised, but the left wing leader of Mexico, AMLO, is not covering himself with glory either, and is completely downplaying the seriousness of the situation, assuming that it will mostly affect the rich, whom he basically despises, and will leave the poor alone.  Fat chance of that.  So I am quite sure that Mexico will be in a terrible, terrible position in about 3 weeks.

I don't have a lot of hope that humanity will learn from this and will start electing smarter or at least less pathological leaders down the road.  It just seems to be a lesson that we need to learn over and over again, but it never sinks in.  Sad.


* I was completely flabbergasted when I read this in the Guardian, and I wonder if the article has been scrubbed, since I simply can't find it again.

Missed Opportunities (Recent)

I try not to dwell too much on things I passed on, since I follow so many different arts and it just isn't possible to do everything (this is certainly one reason that I am extremely resistant to add in anything new into the mix, particularly dance or opera).

I have a few minor pangs of regret that I didn't see the Banksy show last year, though I just thought the ticket prices were far too high.  I did discuss checking out a play up at York U (Goodnight, Desdemona; Good Morning, Juliette) with a friend of mine, but she was too busy, and I didn't feel like trekking up there by myself.  I had seen the play once before (at Brock actually), so I don't feel deprived.

I did debate going off to see TorQ two Thursday ago, in what would have been one of the very last evenings at Hugh's Room (I didn't even realize this was a jazz club, which doesn't speak that well of its abilities to get the word out!).  I was starting to get a bit uneasy about being out for any events, so I passed.  I have seen TorQ quite a few times, so it isn't quite as severe a blow.

There were a couple of concerts last year I got serious about too late and they were sold out.*  This includes Antibalas at the Horseshoe and Bruce Cockburn at Koerner Hall (though he almost only comes through on solo tours, and I'd much rather see him and his band).  I'll probably think of a couple more down the road.

I guess this is more like two years ago, but I didn't go see Collective Soul, since one time they were at the Phoenix, and I would have had to stand all night (and I am just too old for that!), and then they were at the Budweiser Stage, and I try to avoid that place.  (That said, I am slated to see two concerts there this summer and early fall, and I will not moan about going out there if the world has returned to normal and the shows go on...)

Oh, that reminds me that many years ago I passed on a chance to see Toad the Wet Sprocket playing in Chicago, and that I was going to make up for it by seeing them this summer out at the Budweiser Stage (correcting that previous missed opportunity).  The jury is very much still out if that will happen.

I had been hoping (and planning) to see the Sarah Sze exhibit at MOCA.  In fact, there was one weekend where larger cultural institutions were shutting down, but the smaller ones were open.  I went to The Power Plant at Harbourfront, and I would definitely have made the trip out to MOCA, but it closed along with the AGO.  It's not my biggest regret (out of everything that is going on), but it is the one that I could have handled differently had I known just how quickly everything was going to shut down.  It is true that the piece is being loaned to them by David Mirvish, so he may well let MOCA hold onto it for a couple more months after the quarantine has been lifted.  Certainly I hope so, but I have a lot of other things to worry about at the moment.

That covers a lot of the cases I was thinking about.  Some of the other things are wishing I had grabbed a couple more library books before the libraries all closed, but as I noted, I really do have plenty to read, and I might not actually get around to all the library books, regardless of how long I have to read them. I suppose if I had 100% foresight, then I might have grabbed Bottom's Dream by Arno Schmidt from the Pratt Library at Victoria College, as I would have the whole spring to read it.  This is apparently the only copy of the book in the entire city, and there's no way I can read it in 2 weeks (when things get back to normal) as it runs just under 1500 pages.  But this may well be a curiosity that I wouldn't actually like all that much, and really I have quite a few more pressing things to do first, like read Fante's Bandini Quartet or reread Durrell's Alexandria Quartet

A lot of the other stuff is out of my control.  I don't know if Picasso is coming to the AGO this summer or not, though I would say probably not at this point, but it won't be a missed opportunity since no one in Toronto will have that opportunity.  Most of my tickets through May have now been voided, but, again, everyone is in the same boat, and it isn't like I just forgot and missed a show.  I do try to take advantage of things when they crop up, and, consequently, I don't have lots and lots of regrets about missing out on artistic events.**  I certainly do regret there is almost nothing to do at the moment, though I suppose this too shall pass.


* To spin this a bit more positively, I did get tickets to the sold-out Laurie Anderson show, as well as Lowest of the Low at the Horseshoe.  I believe Angela Hewitt's performance of Bach's Goldberg Variations was technically sold out, though there were a few no shows.  Her upcoming (and rescheduled to October hopefully!) performance of Art of the Fugue is also sold out, and I have a ticket for that as well.  And it was a major coup to get a ticket to see Salman Rushdie speaking at the AGO.

** In terms of what I did see before the curtain came down hard, two full weeks ago (already such a different world), I saw Knives Out at the Paradise (which was amusing but not a great movie by any means) and Good People by Lindsay-Abaire at Bloor West Village Players (with lots of seats between people in the largely empty theatre).  While I have some quibbles about the way the character is written (it is not really convincing in the end why she doesn't fight harder for her severely disabled child), the performances were top-notch.  I would have been upset at myself had I skipped these opportunities before the expert guidance tightened up and made such outings a thing of the past.

Teleworking - Week 2

We are nearing the end of the 2nd full week of teleworking.  In general, it is going ok.  It is quite draining to do on-line meeting after meeting.  That was a huge problem yesterday, but I don't have nearly as many meetings scheduled today or Friday.  Also, fortunately, my team has far fewer group check-ins or team meetings (maybe 2 short ones per week) compared to other teams.

For me, work always blended into my "real life" too much anyway and, when I am trying to solve some problem, I'll be working at odd hours and for far longer than my scheduled work hours for the week.  This crisis really hasn't changed anything for me in that sense, but I think it is a bigger challenge for others, not used to working this way.  If anything, I find I am working a bit more right now, esp. as there are so few "real world" distractions and places to go, though there are just as many on-line distractions and the siren call of the news sites and the coronavirus counter.  I was good and didn't watch The Show Must Go Online during working hours (a new play, The Taming of the Shrew, starts today at 3 pm Eastern), but I did record the audio stream and then was able to watch the video stream later on.  It's a bit unclear to me if they are only going to archive past shows for a week or longer.  They've revamped the site a bit, suggesting they expect to archive the shows longer, which is amazing.  I haven't donated to the Patreon page, but I probably will this week, as I start deciding how much to donate to arts groups vs. the Canadian Red Cross, United Way and so on.

At least for the moment, I'm actually reading a bit less than I was before the crisis -- and watching no more tv, movies or video streams (with the exception of The Show Must Go Online), though that may change eventually as the new routine becomes more routine...

It goes without saying that I am fortunate to have a job where I can work from home and there are no whispers at the moment of any job cuts or furloughs.  While I am only involved in longer term planning of the transit system, the agency as a whole is directly involved in transit provision and, as such, is considered a vital lifeline in these troubled times.

My home office set-up isn't too bad.  I actually can look out a window and see some trees and a bit of sky, and as the weather warms up, I'll be able to open the screen door and get some fresh air.  The layout isn't completely dissimilar to this Stay-at-Home Dad's den...

I do know that I am not getting enough exercise.  Tuesday I did go for a slightly longer bike ride and then walk (as I had dropped my bike off for a tune-up both because I want to make sure it is in good shape during this crisis but also to put a bit more money into the bike shop, so it doesn't close).  Wed. I went for a very, very short walk but didn't go into any of the stores (or to check out how Gerrard Square is doing with virtually all its stores closed down*).  This morning I did some crunches and push-ups, and will try to force myself to make that part of the new routine.  I should be able to get my bike back this afternoon and go for a short ride, and then I expect I'll take some longer rides this weekend, if I can figure out places where other people aren't also riding.  I'm definitively snacking a bit too much, though there aren't too many sweets at the house, and I'll just have to show some will power in not buying any when I am at the store.  I've never really been a vitamin person, but I am taking Vitamin C until this all blows over.

So it could be better, but it certainly could be a lot worse, and we'll just see how it goes over the next few weeks.  I'm still holding out a bit of hope that there will be some kind of a home Covid-19 test to enable the really widespread testing that we need that might then allow the world to slowly get back to normal, though I am well aware that it won't be business as usual until there is a working vaccine against the coronavirus.


*  Food Basics and Home Depot are open, and can be reached from both ends of the mall.  Presumably Walmart is open (for now) but that means they have to leave the whole mall open but with all the other individual stores shuttered.  I mean I am curious, but not curious enough to go and run the risk of catching the virus.  I'll probably just stick to No Frills for when I absolutely need to go get something.  (At the moment, the lag time in on-line delivery of groceries is pretty long, so we'll probably go ahead and risk it, though I will start wearing gloves for sure...)

Books and E-Books (During a Crisis)

I think for some (admittedly perhaps a very small percentage of the population), one challenging thing about the lock-down is that the libraries are closed (and even for them, it probably barely breaks the top ten things I hate about COVID-19).  There is no question that some Gen Z'ers (ok, my children) ask why I have so many books in the house when there are libraries and various electronic books.  (Most of which were purchased long before Kindle was even "a thing," but I digress.)

Now I can simply point to the shelves and say these books won't be going anywhere if the internet goes down, though it is true reading them by candlelight would be a challenge if the electric grid also goes down...

I guess I've read around 30% of these books (with the box to the right full of books that I plan on reading and then putting out in the Little Free Library).  I have just about the same amount of books downstairs, but I've only read 10% of them.

This pandemic will have to go longer than a year (and I'd also have to lose my job) to really put a dent in this stash.  Which is a good thing over all.

Fortunately, the library does still process their electronic books through Overdrive/Libby.  I currently have Kathleen Jamie's Findings on my phone, and may add Sightlines, though her third book of essays, Surfacing, is not available.  I'm debating adding Amitav Ghosh's The Ibis Trilogy but will hold off for the time being.  Some of Toni Morrison's books, like Home, are available now (and I probably should add that before it gets too popular) but Song of Solomon and The Bluest Eye in particular have very long waiting lists.  I haven't been able to track it down, but I should have The Bluest Eye in the Norton's Anthology of Women's Writing, which certainly should be downstairs somewhere.

I've downloaded quite a few interesting books over the years from the Internet Achive and Project Gutenberg.  I'll probably get through The Go-Between relatively soon, though I don't have any plans at the moment to tackle Henry James, for example.

I do have a Kindle reader installed on my home computer, and I have a number of titles that I have ordered.  I'm very much on the fence regarding Doblin's Berlin Alexanderplatz (NYRB).  I think this is a book that will take so long to read that I would prefer to read it on transit and so forth, which implies a long wait indeed!  I think I'll just keep watching to see if I can get a good deal through an on-line bookstore.  In terms of what is currently on the Kindle, I'm probably most likely to read Kingsley Amis's Girl, 20 and maybe Juvenal's Satires.

In terms of physical books, I'll go ahead and read the library books first (Camus's The Plague, Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being and That Time I Loved You by Carrianne Leung).  Then I'll start working my way through the books on Libby.  I have several books of short stories I should tackle, including stories by T.C. Boyle, William Trevor and of course Alice Munro.  I might investigate genre fiction after this.  I've never actually read all of the Sherlock Holmes novels and stories, and that is something else I have in the house, and I might reread Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, where I have read nearly all of the novels at least.  In any case, I am surely not going to run out of things to read, even with all the libraries being closed (at least not when I have the complete run of Dickens and a large dollop of Trollope!).  Hopefully, you are equally well situated...

Camus on Quarantine

I've known about Albert Camus for the longest time, but hadn't read much by him aside from a few short essays in Summer in Algiers (a Penguin pocket book I picked up in Cambridge) and The Myth of Sisyphus, though I don't remember much about that one.  I did read The Stranger a couple of years ago, and naturally I decided I needed to rectify this gap by reading The Plague in the midst of this pandemic.  (I'm in basically the same boat regarding Celine, an even darker writer, and I'll probably get around to one or two of his novels by the late summer/early fall.)

I personally can't vouch for the quality of the translation, but several reviewers felt that the recent (2001) translation by Robin Buss was better than the more widely-known one by Stuart Gilbert.  I was fortunate (and a bit foresighted) in picking up a copy of Buss's translation from the Trinity Library (a day or two after the Toronto Public Libraries had completely shuttered).

The first part certainly rings true with the authorities dithering (and generally waiting for word from even higher up the chain) with at least some people wanting to downplay the dangers to avoid upsetting people and being "bad for business," more or less.  Some things never change.

Then part one ends with Oran being quarantined and completely closed off from the rest of the world.  The next section opens with people coming to grips with their new reality.  "In the first hours of the day when the decree took effect, the Prefecture was besieged by a crowd of applicants who, on the phone or face-to-face with the town officials, were explaining situations that were all equally interesting and at the same time equally impossible to consider.  In truth, it was several days before we realized that we were in an extreme situation and that the words 'compromise', 'favour' and 'exception' no longer had any meaning."

Just a bit after that, Camus notes that some people were able to pass messages through the guards at first.  "This was in the early days of the epidemic, at a time when the guards found it normal to give in to compassionate impulses.  But after a short while, when these same guards had become fully persuaded of the gravity of the situation, they refused to take responsibility for anything when they did not know where it might lead."

This ultimately leads to strict rationing of telephone calls, from a relatively small number of public phone booths, and to the widespread use of telegrams!

So in one sense, we are in a very different situation, as most of the world is now on lock down, and there aren't really any safe places (not that this hasn't stopped some people from trying to flee to rural, remote areas).  On the other hand, we are more connected than ever electronically, and staying in touch (remotely) is probably the least of our worries.

Nonetheless, I was struck by a few news reports about Canadians stuck outside of Canada with few options to return.  Or in particular one family trying to have an "exception" made for their Peruvian nanny, who was not allowed to come back with them.  It's likely that even now there are (too) many compassionate exceptions being made, but people will soon start understanding that the authorities are serious and that the rules apply to them as well.

I haven't seen too many people crowding together, with the possible exception of people too close together at the grocery store (currently exempted as an essential need that people are allowed to travel to undertake), but the stories out of the UK, Ireland, Australia and even France are pretty dispiriting.  What's even more dispiriting is that if we had the ability to do truly widespread testing (and had taken this seriously as people returned from foreign vacations!), we could probably wrestle this pandemic under control in a month or two, but we don't, so we'll try this much more inefficient approach of breaking transmission through "social distancing."

I'll probably just push through the rest of The Plague over the next couple of days, as I don't expect to be going anywhere for quite some time...

The Toilet Roll Chronicles

I think I mentioned that despite there being huge toilet paper shortages in my neighbourhood, I was able to find some at a Longo's downtown (on two separate occasions, in fact).  My wife was one of the lucky ones last week and got one of the last five packages at No Frills, and she also found some at a Chinese grocery store (which surprisingly, didn't put up a big 'We Have TP' sign in the window), though it was somewhat overpriced.  So we were generally in good shape.

This morning, I was very amused watching the shoppers in No Frills follow a pallet of toilet paper around.  It was pretty much like the pied piper of Hamelin.  There was more rationing this time around, but it looked like it would be gone fairly soon.  I didn't bother picking any up, as I was actually going to retrieve some of what I had stashed at work.  (I'm sure there are some stories from Canada about shoppers getting out of control and pushing back against rationing (like there is going on Australia notably) but generally people in Toronto have been restrained and are generally showing community spirit.)

Nonetheless, I made one quick stop at another No Frills along the way to work, and there were actually some packages left on the shelf, and no one queuing for it.  I thought that was a very good sign.  The hoarding message from my reptile brain came very close to making me pick some up, but I was pretty sure that trying to carry such a large package on my bike would lead me to getting into an accident.  The last thing I want to do is go into a hospital, both for my own sake (to avoid infection) and for the good of society to not overload the hospital system when it will be stretched so thin over the next months.

I took care of a few things at work, and while I didn't interact with anybody at all, other than at the store, I still felt a little guilty about leaving home.  I wouldn't be surprised if there is a complete lock down fairly soon, and biking across the city will be a thing of the past.  So I will need to be strategic about going out, and making sure that I truly cannot catch anything and taking advantage of these last few days of freedom.  (Not trying to be histrionic or anything, but it is likely going to get a lot worse before it gets better...)

As I pulled into my yard, I saw someone pass by with a huge package of toilet paper.  Intrigued, I wandered over to the No Frills.  Imagine my surprise when I saw that they had restocked with these mega-packages, and that it seemed like supply had actually caught up with demand, as there were several packages just sitting on the shelf without people fighting over them.  I did take one, just to be on the safe side, and was astounded to see that it was actually on sale - 30 rolls for $9.88!

So I think the long national (tp) nightmare is over at long last!  And I don't have to buy any more toilet paper for quite some time...

Life During an Epidemic

While it's perhaps a bit of a stretch, this is the second epidemic that has impacted my life, though certainly much more profoundly than the AIDS epidemic.  Or at least it has a much deeper impact on my life, though my life was changed in several small ways by the AIDS epidemic.

I can't speak for all Gen X'ers, but certainly many of us had childhoods that were somewhat haunted by the spectre of nuclear annihilation (always waiting for Reagan in particular to make some unbelievably stupid move and set off the Soviets).  Then just as we were coming into adulthood, the Cold War ended (yea!) but AIDS was running pretty rampant, bringing lots of fear and misery and largely doing away with the era of free sex that had lasted into the mid 1970s.  But kids think they are immortal (particularly all the people partying on the beaches in Florida this week -- so foolish).  And common sense doesn't always prevail in the bedroom...

While I thought the odds were extremely, extremely low that I had caught anything, I wasn't entirely sure I hadn't caught anything either.  I then came to Toronto and fell in with a group of grad students, many of whom were gay and who generally heavily promoted safe sex.  In fact, one of my class projects was to talk about media narratives around the AIDS crisis.  I actually managed to get a couple of huge posters for the movie Zero Patience (which just I saw again recently at the Paradise Theatre), though eventually I got rid of them as it was too hard to explain why I had them in my dorm room...  Anyway, through all this research, I found out that it was free to get AIDS testing done in Toronto, so I went ahead and tested negative.  Not really a surprise, but still a huge relief!

I probably should mention that my mother was working for a social service agency in Detroit that specialized in helping people with AIDS, though this didn't impact me that much on a personal level.  I admired what my mother did of course, but we didn't really talk a lot about her work.  In short, while AIDS created a lot of anxiety as I was growing up, it only brushed me in the most superficial way.  (In what must surely be a bitter irony, there was so much ostracism directed at early AIDS patients, and they had to create posters about how you wouldn't get AIDS just from touching someone (assuming they didn't have open sores), and now this advice is no longer true and is actually dangerous.  We absolutely can get the coronovirus from touching or just generally being too close to someone who has it, which absolutely sucks!  And you can catch it from touching something someone else has touched like a door handle and probably even a toilet seat, which sucks even harder!)

I wasn't actually in Toronto during the SARS crisis of 2003, as I was back in Chicago at that point.  I've talked to a couple of people who were in school in Toronto at the time, and they said it was extremely localized (mostly in Chinatown), and that once the carriers were identified it was fairly simple to shut down the outbreak.  Day-to-day life wasn't really impacted.

As I believe I mentioned previously, coronavirus is quite different in that a person can be infectious for many, many days before showing any symptoms.  Indeed, there is a such a wide range of outcomes for the people infected, with the vast majority only suffering as if it were a bad case of the flu, but then some people developing lung disorders and pneumonia, and of course a death rate that far exceeds the flu for anyone with a pre-existing condition or older than 65.

While I have been taking care of myself and doing a lot of cardio, I often forget that I had very bad asthma throughout childhood into my early teens, and I've had pneumonia a couple of times.  So I might not be one of the lucky ones if I do catch this.  Something that I need to think about a bit more when I weigh the benefits of going out (to the park or the grocery store) versus just staying in.  What is interesting in this case is that because the symptoms are generally manageable for most people, again with some key exceptions, it truly is asking a lot of people to be altruistic and to give up a lot for the vulnerable people they don't know.  And it would be one thing if we could stay home and keep the economy going, but 20% or more people will be unemployed at some point during the crisis, which at best will peak in two months, but could keep going for over a year!  People being people, they are going to reject this call to social-distancing and all the economic pain that is coming down on them, for a very abstract benefit to "society."  I know it's hard enough for me to stay in, and I have gone out to the grocery store when I probably didn't strictly need to.  It's possible that in another two weeks we'll be like France where even outdoor exercise is more or less banned.  I'm hoping not, and it does look like the new infection rate has bent down ever so slightly compared to last week, though of course this might be false optimism.  (It does appear that Canada's death rate is below the curve, so that's something anyway.)

I was almost certain I was going to get it if we all continued working at Union Station, but this week almost all office employees were sent home to discover the joys of home-working, particularly with all the kids on their aborted spring break, so my odds have gotten a lot better.  Next week and the week after will be tougher.  I'm hoping that they have decided on some sort of a distance learning approach by that point, or the entire spring will be lost and the kids might well have to repeat half a year, with no idea how this would play out in real life.

My work is pretty technical, and I was able to get through a lot this week.  The people that are really suffering are the extroverts and/or the people that love to show their stuff at the endless meetings at work...  But I'm pretty sure that the next few weeks will really be fundamentally more difficult, as this new (largely joyless) reality sinks in.

I'm debating just going ahead and growing out a beard, but it is pretty itchy, and it is impossible to not scratch my proto-beard and generally keep my hands off of my face (at least while I am at home).  So I may lose it.  On the other hand, I might try one more time to grow one of those Van Dyke beards that Lenin sported.

I'll probably go ahead and finish this jigsaw puzzle that I started in the summer!  (It was much, much harder than I thought and I ran out of space when the family returned from vacation, so it is all sort of shoved into a corner.)  I'm trying not to do too much binge shopping, though with time on my hands there is always something that catches my eye, and probably the time to buy is now before the on-line prices reflect the fact that the Canadian dollar is dropping steadily.  There still is a short time to take advantage of the arbitrage, but again there is no point in overdoing it.

Fortunately, I do have an almost endless supply of books to read, to say nothing of all the DVDs and CDs I've stockpiled.  I have three books from the UT library and one book out from Toronto Public Library, and the due dates have been suspended until the summer.  (I picked them up just under the wire!)  I was kind of kicking myself for not picking up Hartley's The Go-Between while I was at the library a week ago last Thursday, since there was a copy right on the shelves, but I did find an online copy at the Internet Archive, so I'm basically good to go for a while.  I suppose the other thing I will do, aside from riding my bike around on the mostly empty streets of Toronto (as I don't have any other meaningful exercise outlets), is catch up on my book review posts...

Stay indoors if you can and stay safe!

Spring/Summer Events Cancelled or Postponed

Just to be clear, much of this is speculation, as most cultural sites are hoping to reopen by mid-April, though that seems very unlikely from my perspective.  A few of the really small theatres (and the Paradise second-run movie house) are keeping crowds below 250 and encouraging the audience to spread out, but I think it is only another week or two before they get the directive to close down completely (and again, probably until mid-May, though who knows at this point).  They are actually talking about making all kids in the UK more or less repeat a year of school, since there is no way for them to sit their exit exams, so who really knows what the new normal will be in another few weeks.  (Again, the only small comfort is that for most people under 60 the virus is not much more damaging than a bad case of the flu.)

As I mentioned before, I think the long-term economic impacts of the shutdown could well outweigh the impacts of the virus itself (even if we are talking 1.5% mortality rate as against 30-40% of the economy completely shuttered).  So it is a tough call to be made between completely hunkering down and going out (responsibly) to keep some of these businesses afloat.  Nonetheless, I will probably go into hermit-mode starting from today and will stop heading over to the gym and so forth, as well as taking the TTC (probably reading Camus's The Plague on the train this afternoon was unnecessarily provocative).

Looking over my calendar, these events are almost certainly going to be cancelled.  I'll add a T if I had already bought tickets to the event.

March 20 L'Argent by Bresson at TIFF
March 26-April 26 Chekhov's The Seagull at Soulpepper (more for my son than for me)
April 3 T Frank-Ax concert at Royal Conservatory (ironically this was as a replacement for a concert cancelled twice for health reasons)
April 5 T Staged reading of 'Tis a Pity She's a Whore by Shakespeare Bash'd
April 6-26 The Antipodes by Annie Baker at Assembly Theatre (this is so far under the radar, they may well try to put it on despite the advisories -- I'll be tempted but I probably won't go)
April 10 T Always Still the Dawn by Fournier at Canadian Stage
April 12 T One at Factory Theatre
April 17-May 2 In the Next Room by Sarah Ruhl at Alumnae Theatre
April 18 T Rhinoceros at George Brown Theatre
April 26 T Angela Hewitt playing Bach at Royal Conservatory
April 26 T Hamilton (actually my wife and son are going, not me)
mid-March-April All the Little Animals I Have Eaten @ Crow's Theatre
mid-March-April Blacktop Sky @ Crow's Theatre
April-June The Cold War at Video Cabaret

As of now, the two productions at Crow's Theatre are definitively cancelled (perhaps to be rescheduled).  I'm pretty sure the rest of these will ultimately be cancelled but they are all holding out hope that the crisis will pass and events can take place (perhaps if attendees have a clean bill of health or whatever).  I do hope that most of these are ultimately rescheduled, even if it has to be in the summer or fall.

The May events are much more challenging to predict, but I expect most of them will be postponed or cancelled.

May 8 Skye Wallace opening for Union Duke at the Horseshoe Tavern
May 15 Brahms Sextet #1
May 22 T Beethoven 5th Symphony at TSO
May 23 T The Ex-Boyfriend Yard Sale at Soulpepper
May 31 Shubert Octet performed by Amici at Mazzolini Hall
Through mid May Sarah Sze exhibit at MOCA (I still think they could have stayed open another couple of weeks, given the actual attendance at this museum.  Ditto for the Textile Museum.)

Summer 2020

The jury is completely out this far out, though I still think it is unlikely there will be no impact or crowd restrictions.

Picasso: Painting the Blue Period June 27-Sept. 20 at AGO.  I definitely hope they find a way to put this exhibit on, even if the tickets are extremely limited and they can only let 100 people into the gallery at a time.

Other events that have caught my eye (so far) include:

June 13 T Beethoven Septet at TSO
July 9-Aug 9 Sizwe Banzi is Dead at Soulpepper
July 10 T Squeeze w/ Hall & Oates at Budweiser Stage
July 23 Toad the Wet Sprocket and Barenaked Ladies at Budweiser Stage
July 24 Miro Quartet performing Schubert Quintet
July 24-25 Henry V (adapted by Driftwood Theatre) performed in Withrow Park
July 29 Danish String Quartet
July-mid Sept. The Comedy of Errors in High Park (even though I more or less swore I wasn't going back to those back-killing seats...)
Aug. 13-Sept 9 M Butterfly by David Henry Hwang at Soulpepper
August 30 Moliere's The Miser at Stratford
Sept. 5 Pet Shop Boys and New Order at Budweiser Stage
Sept. 26 The Rez Sisters and Hamlet 9-11 at Stratford

So a whole lot of uncertainty right now.

Anyway, stay healthy everyone!  And probably you should stay home if possible for the next couple of weeks...

Update:  That didn't take long.  The show One at Factory is completely cancelled, and will not be rescheduled for next season (and very likely not the season beyond).  I'm expecting to hear from Canadian Stage soon, and Soulpepper will likely be cancelling The Seagull.

Update 2:  Indeed, Soulpepper is now a bit ahead of the crowd and is cancelling the entire run of The Seagull and hopes to reopen in mid-May.  And my gym just shut down indefinitely, which was certainly the responsible thing to do, but still upsetting.  These are depressing times for sure...

Update 3: Canadian Stage has essentially pulled the plug on the whole season, even Shakespeare in High Park, which is not until July!  I suppose they didn't want to invest in all the rehearsal for something that might well be off limits even this summer (whereas smaller, more self-contained events might be back by the summer, though there are no guarantees).   Interestingly, this Thurs. a UK theatre group will begin live-streaming Shakespeare's plays in order, with the first being Two Gentlemen of Verona, which is one of the very few comedies I apparently have never seen.  While I probably can't actually watch it live, due to time zone differences, I will try to check it out at some point.

Update 4: I had half an eye on the live-stream at The Play Must Go Online (link right above), though of course I was mostly working.  It looks like they have archived the entire production, though I suspect it will only last a week until the next play (The Taming of the Shrew), so go check it out.  Royal Conservatory has indicated that the Ax-Frank and Angela Hewitt shows will almost certainly be rescheduled, which is good news, though no one knows when obviously.  A few others have been outright cancelled.  The TSO hasn't cancelled May concerts yet, but it's probably only a matter of time.  Not much good news on the coronavirus front, though I would say new infections in Ontario are growing slowly (not doubling or tripling, like in Italy and now the UK), but it is still going to be a long time until there is any meaningful relief.

Update 5: Factory has cancelled MacIvor's House in addition to One, so the season comes to an inglorious end.  Soulpepper hasn't cancelled its May performances yet, though it is only a matter of time.  For the moment, the summer performances are still presumed to be going forward, except for Luminato, which has cancelled completely.  The big news of the day is that the Olympics bowed to pressure and is pushing the Summer Olympics to 2021!  That's a very big deal, but the right decision given all the uncertainty around this epidemic.

Some Good News

There was a report that no one on the Raptors appears to have caught the coronavirus, so that's great news.  It's not that I care more about the team than other Canadians, but they had been out meeting the community after their Utah trip, so the infection rate could have really gone through the roof.

Grocery lines are still generally long, but people are being fairly chill about it.  One of the grocery stores near me was pretty much stripped of all fresh fruit and veggies (aside from red potatoes for some reason!) while the other was reasonably well stocked.  Bread was still in short supply, though we have quite a bit of bread in the freezer (and 3 frozen pizzas!) and we have a reasonable amount of random pasta.  Both of them were still out of toilet paper, however.

I did need to come downtown to make sure I had everything I needed for teleworking, starting Monday.  I decided I would check out The Power Plant, since it is still open, for the moment.  On the way, I dropped into the Longo's.  To my surprise, they had just received a huge order of toilet paper.  They had asked people limit their purchase to 2 per household.  While quite a few people did pick up a package (including me), it wasn't universal.  So it seems a bit of the panic buying is over, at least in the downtown.

While this has absolutely nothing to do with the virus, my co-author and I submitted our paper to Transportation Planning and Technology, so that's quite exciting.  Apparently, you have to be fairly patient with this journal, but as with most things it is generally worth the wait.  Hopefully, we won't have to make any major, major changes to the paper to get it published.

In my next post, I'll probably list things that I had been looking forward to in the spring/early summer, and then I will track which still are going ahead, which are postponed and which get cancelled outright.  Obviously, I am hoping that few end up in that third category.  More anon...

The Band Doesn't Play On

It's pretty frustrating how ad hoc everything is.  Just today the federal and provincial authorities strongly discouraged Canadians from making international travel plans, but unless these have the force of law behind them, it's going to be really hard to have so many people cancel their plans and get any level of refund.  (Maybe if this had been the advice two or three weeks ago, it would have actually helped!)  In our case, we had been a bit on the fence about going to Montreal, and then the rail blockades from a few weeks back put the kibosh on that.  So we didn't book anything and now don't have to worry about cancelling.  But I'm still a bit scandalized that they are not heavily screening people at airports (this has to change starting this week!) and only starting to think about closing down the border to high-risk travellers.

I'm definitely concerned about the knock-on impacts on the economy, as a lot of restaurants will go under (and for that matter perhaps some theatre companies if they are ultimately forced to cancel the rest of the season).  As far as I know, the movie I want to see tomorrow (Knives Out at the Paradise) and then a play at Village Players are still going ahead.  However, I'm quite sure that the next couple of weeks of Hamilton and Come From Away shows will be cancelled,* and it is anyone's guess how they will deal with rescheduling and refunding tickets.  I'm really hoping the virus transmission slows down by the summer and the number of new cases drops, so most of the concert tours then can go ahead, but I'm not too hopeful at this point.

* TSO has cancelled performances in the next two weeks and is playing it by ear after that (and the same with Royal Conservatory of Music), but I think most of the April concerts will end up cancelled.  In one case, I have a replacement concert for an earlier concert that was cancelled due to the musician's personal health crisis!  Most of my remaining TSO tickets are in May and June, so I may be able to go.  The Angela Hewitt concert at the end of April is probably off, though I would assume this will be rescheduled in its entirety.  Again, very hard to say.  This inconvenience is a small thing in the big picture, but the overall drag on the economy will not be a small thing unfortunately.

What I was not expecting is that the AGO is completely closed starting today** until April 5 (when the kids are supposedly returning to school).  MOCA is also closing.  It's a bit hard for me to see them ever having 250 people in the building at any one time (aside from their grand opening), so I do question that decision (them wanting to be just as impacted as the major cultural institutions in town...).  It's hard to tell, but I believe The Power Plant at Harbourfront is still open, at least through the weekend, so perhaps I shall make the trip out, since I will need to retrieve some things from work in order to telecommute next week.  I do know that the Hart House Museum will be open, at least through the weekend, so I might hit that too.  Life is definitely going to be a challenge in the next few weeks and months, particularly for people like me that are not home bodies...

Update: I shouldn't be surprised, but I am disappointed that the Toronto libraries are closing (though for the moment the UT libraries are open) and the pool and all other recreation centres (so just what do they expect the kids to be doing!).  I would have liked to get in at least one more swim session.  I hope that they go ahead and handle the maintenance that they were going to do right after spring break, so at least that is taken care of.  I think the Eaton Centre remains open, though it can only be a matter of time before it is closed down.  I think the gym at Gerrard Square is open (for now), and I guess I will take a look tonight after I get home.

** I wish the announcement had been clearer.  The AGO is closing as of 9 pm tonight, so I could have made one last quick trip on my way home.  Grrr.  Oh well.  I do hope we can ride this out and the restrictions start getting lifted in late April.  No question the authorities are in a no-win situation.  If hardly anyone gets sick (due to the restrictions), then people will say they over-reacted.  But if a lot more people get sick and die (which is still the likely scenario), then they will ask why they didn't take action sooner.  I guess I will swing by the gym tonight to see how they plan on reacting over the next few weeks...

Coronavirus Diaries - Toronto

So much to process.  I'm struggling to understand why this virus seems to be spreading well beyond SARS and a couple of the other near-pandemics of the recent past.  I'm not sure it's true, but I saw some evidence that coronavirus actually is only half as infectious as SARS.  It's possible that the difference was SARS manifested itself much sooner (and with more serious side effects) so that identifying the carriers was easier and thus containment was possible.  It seems coronavirus has a much longer dormant phase where it doesn't manifest any symptoms but is still transmittable.  Quite the super bug!

Anyway, I wouldn't say Toronto is precisely ground zero, as it was for SARS, but it's clearly spreading through the city.  Given how it's already been spread on transit, and I work at Union Station, I assume I have a much higher than 70% chance of coming down with this.  Fortunately, I have a solid immune system and I am well under 60, so I have a very good chance of coming through this with nothing more than a few days of (extreme) discomfort.  Also, I am not around any family members above 60 nor do I interact with many seniors, so I won't have to feel too guilty about passing it along to anyone who will be severely impacted.  I would feel quite differently if I had a senior living with us.

At any rate, it's been interesting watching the various governments flounder around for a response.  Canada's response hasn't been too bad, aside from pussy-footing around and not doing more serious testing of Americans coming in at the borders.  The US response has been completely pathetic, with virtually no wide-spread testing and now this weird and pointless over-reaction of closing off travel to Europe (except for the UK!).  And the crybaby-in-chief is still trying to blame this on Obama.  The truth is that no one really knows that much, but at least most non-US leaders (and the chief US Democrats) at least listen to expert opinion.  Trump has actually driven away almost anyone competent from his administration and is decimating the federal workforce.  Unfortunately, a lot of the seniors who will die are in urban areas (and basically not Trump supporters), but I frankly welcome the pain that is coming to Trump supporters.  If there was any justice in the world (which sadly there is not), Trump will catch coronavirus and die, putting us all out of our misery.  I certainly hope that this pandemic (and the markets tanking) will be a wake-up call that you simply cannot keep electing a party that doesn't actually believe in government and get good results, particularly in a crisis!  Whether this is actually enough to swing things in November is an open question.

With the NBA deciding to suspend its season,* a lot of dominoes will start falling.  I'm not sure if this will stretch into the summer, but a few of the summer concerts we were looking at involve bands coming from the UK, and I'd say those may well be cancelled or at least postponed.  I don't even want to mention it to my wife, but I am wondering if they will cancel Hamilton (at least the audience there will skew younger).  I'm definitely wondering about TSO concerts being cancelled, where not only must the average age of attendees be well above 65, but these past few visits there was a huge amount of coughing.  If the concerts do go ahead, they will have to empower the ushers to kick out anyone with a persistent cough!

This is probably the week where the TTC and GO staff test their bosses to go to hell and start wearing masks, which they have been ordered not to use (to not upset the public...).  Anyway, lots of things that we didn't think possible are about to happen, like schools and universities all closing down through the summer.  It's definitely a scary time right now, though I am still moderately comforted that I probably won't be that affected if I actually do catch the coronavirus.  The broader economic impacts and the shutting down of cultural and sporting events is more likely to cause me grief, though I certainly won't turn down the lower mortgage rate that is being offered, since I had to refinance my mortgage anyway this year.

* And the Raptors just played the Jazz, where their center has tested positive.  So the Raptors will all be tested and probably quarantined, but again, this is probably too late, and there will be one more vector of transmission through the city.  Drat.

Update: On the way home from work, I decided I probably ought to grab some milk.  Probably a wise choice.  The grocery store was absolutely packed!  While people were staying calm, they were pretty serious about stocking up.  In addition to toilet paper being gone from the shelves, canned goods and pasta (and flour!) were all very limited.  Interestingly, there was no shortage of frozen stuff, as if people thought the electricity would be on the fritz in the next week or so...  After this, I decided I couldn't quite face up to the gym, though I will see if it is open next week.  It's far too early to tell about the summer concerts and festivals, though my suspicion is that most of them will be cancelled.

My workplace has bowed to the inevitable, and we are slowly migrating to teleworking, starting from next week.  I may or may not still be going in most days, as I am fairly senior.  Also, I can bike to work, which does cut down on the contagion.  I may need to go in, as the kids will be home for two weeks after spring break, and it is going to be a real challenge working with them in the background.  In one bit of shocking news, Sophie Trudeau has tested positive for the coronavirus, so she and the Prime Minister will be in isolation for 2+ weeks.  What a contrast from Trump, who clearly has been in contact with infected people but who supposedly hasn't bothered to get tested.  Well, hopefully he has caught it, and then we'll hear his tune change.

Workout Updates

I'll just mention this here more for my own sake than for anyone else.  I have started biking though it is still fairly irregular, particularly to work.  Last Sunday was quite nice though, and I biked to work, leaving my bike overnight (in order to see Bresson's Diary of a Country Priest* at TIFF and then take the train over to Toronto Cold Reads** for the rest of the evening).  Monday I then took my bike home, making a quick stop at Robarts on the way.  My knee bothers me from time to time, especially if I don't get enough sleep, but probably there is nothing torn in there.  Not sure if I will be able to take up jogging again, but at least the swimming and biking don't seem to put too much strain on it.

It's fairly chilly today, but I think I will bike anyway, since I want to hit the pool† on the way home, and I'm getting very tired of how poor TTC service is on both Dundas and College.  Given that we are just about at that point in the coronavirus cycle where they will tell us to avoid transit (and Union Station, which I can't avoid unfortunately), it is even more critical to be on my bike as much as possible.  The rest of the week looks better, weather-wise, though Sunday may also be chilly.

I did push through and went to the gym last night, even though I didn't really want to go, which is often the time you really need the will power to go.  So far, people are still going to the gym, though they are pushing us to wipe down the equipment more.  Also, they have removed the big pail of Tootsie Rolls, since reaching in and rummaging around seems a bad idea at the moment.  But otherwise, life goes on as usual.


* I totally regret taking the time to watch this, and if I were viewing at home, I would have bailed in the first 20 minutes with the dreary, dreary set up and the boring emo main character.  I find it actually intriguing that so many critics rate this film so highly, probably because they don't feel (as I do) that the theological questions posed by the priest are laughable.  One thing that I really didn't like is that the priest "preaches down" all the time, leaving alone some of the major "sinners" who frighten him and brow-beating women instead.  Bleague!  I was so disappointed with this film that it makes me considerably less likely to catch any of the other Bresson films in the TIFF retrospective.

** I've said this before but TCR is just not the right venue for me.  I find it kind of a closed-shop, and they essentially never take my pieces (and SFYS always does nowadays).  I do have one piece that they may be considering, but I would be quite surprised if it is taken.  Also, I find their approach very static (reading in chairs in a straight line) whereas there is usually some acting out of parts at SFYS, which is far more useful for a playwright.  The flip side is that, currently, they have the better bench of professional or quasi-professional actors (and writers), so if I actually did want to make a web-series or a short film or even a podcast, I'd probably be better off recruiting there.  At any rate, there is no point making a messy break with them, though I won't go that often.  I did think the line-up looked particularly strong last week (and I liked the musical guest and Dave Healey's short piece), but one piece I found pretty cliched and the other was a not very compelling remake of The Taming of the Shrew.  The most surprising reveal, however, was that one of the pieces had been done at SFYS the previous week!  There isn't supposed to be direct double-dipping, but I guess it is hard for these groups to monitor it.  So I'll see if a piece by a favourite writer like Healey or Jamie Johnson or David Strauss is on the line-up, but otherwise I probably won't be going back this year.

† The big difference from previous years is that I have been pretty good about going swimming twice a week and still trying to go to the gym three times a week, though with various events here and there it usually is closer to twice a week. Now that I am going to start biking regularly, I may actually be in pretty good shape come the summer.  (No question that it takes my legs a while to get used to pulling my whole weight around, as opposed to the ease of a stationary bike!)  Unfortunately, the pool will be closing down for almost three weeks starting March 21, and in fact if the city and the inside workers union doesn't settle, the pools and rec centres may be closed for a lot longer than that... However, the city was able to settle with the outside workers (so thankfully no garbage strike!), and there is a reasonable chance they will come to terms with the inside workers as well.

Even More Deadlines

I did manage to write one piece for Sing-for-Your-Supper (about the unlikely romance between an Uber driver and a Foodora courier).  It was a bit of a rush job, written in one day, but it flowed pretty well once I started.  It was one day late, but they accepted it, and it is going up tonight!  So that's always exciting.

I was one day early on getting in my short story for the Toronto Star Short Fiction contest.  It's a good thing I did get it in, as Friday was a pretty horrid day, and I didn't get back to the office until after 5, so I would have missed the deadline completely.  I don't think this will do all that well, since I turned a playlet into a short story.  It is extremely dialogue heavy.  But you never know.

At any rate, I just found out that there is a short play festival in Burlington, and they are accepting one short script.  I think I'll take the playlet I wrote just a few months back (and incidentally the piece that I turned into a short story for the Star).  It won't take a lot of polishing.  Anyway, the deadline is Friday, but that should be no problem at this point.

There are a few work deadlines, though none of them all that pressing at this point.  There are probably a few other contests I am just not aware of, but I think I am mostly on top of the deadlines for the time being.  Though I just remembered I have a book review due in May, but that is so far away it hardly counts...