Futurama Lives On

I see that 4 years ago, I was writing about how Futurama had been cancelled and even the Futurama comic book had come to an end.  I thought that was the end of the road.  However, somehow the fates aligned and it was brought back from the void.

I'm pretty sure somewhere in the blog, I mentioned that Hulu had renewed Futurama (and there was some kerfuffle about the voice actor for Bender holding out for more money, though I don't think he actually got it...).  I have a 3 month trial subscription to Disney + which is how Canadians watch the show.  I have managed to watch the first "new" season and am two episodes in to the second.  I'll give a few thoughts below.  I am not getting through them quite as quickly as I thought, and I imagine I'll get stung with paying at least one more month for Disney +, though I am definitely going to cancel, unlike a few other things that I seem to forget, like Crave which I never watch.*  (I did, however, cancel Amazon Prime in time...)

I have been poking around the internet, trying to find out if these will ever come out on DVD.  Hulu doesn't seem to be too interested in bringing things out on DVD, so that doesn't bode well, though it is possible that Groening put in a clause that said the new seasons will eventually come out on DVD.  Pretty hard to say.  I don't think there is a lot of buzz around Futurama, and some of the fans or former fans on Reddit have indicated they thought it was past its sell date.  Nonetheless, I just read that Hulu has renewed for two more seasons.  I will have to see if I can hold out until either both seasons are released by the end 2026 or renew for just a month at a time when each season hits.

Here are some random thoughts on the first season - some SPOILERS ahead

SPOILER WARNING

S11 E01 · The Impossible Stream - the main story about Fry binge-watching was kind of dopey but the craziness around bringing Calculon out of retirement to film new episodes of All My Circuits was ok

S11 E02 · Children of a Lesser Bog - I generally find stories about Amy and her terrible parents pretty funny.  I do wonder if the chronology was off in terms of how old the children were supposed to be.  The part about almost all the DNA coming from Leela was an interesting twist.

S11 E03 · How the West Was 1010001 - this was not particularly good and stories featuring Hermes usually don't hit the mark

S11 E04 · Parasites Regained - this should have been better (and the worms were always an amusing species) but the ending just didn't work

S11 E05 · Related to Items You've Viewed - pretty decent, including the gag about the entire solar system now being inside a Momazon fulfillment center

S11 E06 · I Know What You Did Next Xmas - also pretty solid episode.  (I should probably queue up all the Xmas episodes over the next couple of days...)

S11 E07 · Rage Against the Vaccine - terrible, definitely the worst of the season

S11 E08 · Zapp Gets Canceled - pretty good

S11 E09 · The Prince and the Product - I didn't think the episodes of the various toy stories were too compelling

S11 E10 · All the Way Down - I thought this was quite good and a bit thought-provoking (if the universe was just a simulation being run by someone in the "real" universe).  Probably the episode closest to classic Futurama.

I've only gotten to the first two in Season 12:

S12 E01 · The One Amigo - the NFT subplot was incomprehensible (which itself was sort of the point), though the heist itself was clever.  Also, Bender connecting with his Mexican roots was not bad.

S12 E02 · Quids Game - this was actually quite good with the right mix of humor and melancholy and seeing a bit more of Fry's parents usually is a winning combination.

I'll try to get to The Temp tonight, which looks promising as well.

I think they may have regained their mojo about midway into Season 11 (with the terrible misfire of the Covid-inspired episode Rage Against the Vaccine).  But there's no question I have so much affection for the characters that I will keep watching as long as they keep pumping them out.  Now if only they'll put out more product, especially a shiny new DVD set, that I can buy.  

Too bad it is clearly not going to be something I can buy (for myself) this Xmas.

* One of the more annoying things that happened recently is our cable box gave out and had to be replaced.  They didn't tell us that this meant everything that was stored in PVR would be wiped out.  Now, I probably was not actually going to watch some of that, including Season 1 of The Handmaid's Tale (just too f**ing depressing these days) and this show about a Toronto library that wasn't as good as I hoped.  But I really had planned on watching the final Venture Bros. season finale.  It will probably be shown again on Comedy Central or Cartoon Network or somewhere, but it means I need to spend the extra effort to track it down, which I am loathe to do.

Almodovar Update

I never did snag a ticket further back for Labyrinth of Passion, but it was ok from the 2nd row.  Just as with Talk to Her, I realized that I watched this movie after borrowing it from Robarts, though somehow I must have been too tired, as I completely forgot the subplot of the woman from the dry cleaners undergoing plastic surgery to look like Sexilla!  I may have also watched Pepi. Luci and Bom, but perhaps not,* so I requested that again and should have it soon (unless Robarts has shut down for winter break).

I did manage to read the three stories in Munro's Runaway that inspired Julietta.  Two I liked, but I thought the third was pretty sad.  It will be curious if Almodovar covers that much of the woman's life.  He notoriously doesn't like sad endings, so I'm not sure how much he did take from the third story, but I'll find out fairly soon.

There's a pretty good chance I will wrap up both Runaway and The Love of a Good Woman this month.  I might also take on Joy Williams's Taking Care, though I still wanted to see if I could read Kilometer 101 before the end of the year.  Since I am on the TTC a lot more these days, I do get more reading in.  I did ride my bike today as it was just a bit warmer, but I regretted it coming home from TIFF, as the temperature dropped again.  I also found my glove liners, so the whole business of stopping at MEC before Brazil was particularly pointless.  I just have to keep reminding myself not to go back into MEC.

I need to wrap this up pretty soon.  I need to get some rest, since I am leaving early in the morning to take a bus to Buffalo.  I'm mostly going to the Albright-Knox to check out the Marisol exhibit, though I may make it over to Target, though it depends a lot on the timing.  I am taking a slightly earlier bus back (4:25 instead of 6:15), since I don't like hanging out at the Buffalo Greyhound, so I don't have a lot of slack time in the schedule, and I likely will end up cabbing it at least part of the time.

Anyway, when I get back, I will see if I feel up to going to the gym (I only went swimming over the weekend), and I need to wrap a few presents, and I also need to make more progress on getting my expenses into the system.  As always just a few too many things going on all at once.

* I actually later had some back and forth with someone at Robarts who says that their copy is Region 2 (and PAL), which is fine, and has no English subtitles, which is not.  Disappointing, and that clearly means I never did watch this and had watched Labyrinth of Passion instead.  There is one version of Pepi floating around that has burned in subs, though this is out of print.  The same version is on Almodovar Collection 1, available in Region 2.  It turns out that they have 3 of the other films in the set, so are not likely to order it.  I have 2, though I don't have Dark Habits.  I thought it was an interesting film, but probably not one I would watch very often, and I don't want to duplicate the others.  Also, Pepi, Luci and Bom is supposed to be a fairly weak offering, and not something that I would watch more than once.  Maybe I should have tried harder to see it during the retrospective.  Now if Labyrinth of Passion had been included in the box set instead of Women on the Verge, then yes I would have ordered it.  In general I am trying to avoid too much overlap and am waiting to see if Criterion or someone else puts out a truly comprehensive Blu-ray set.  Here's hoping.

Almodovar Count-down

I decided I would go ahead and just list all of Almodovar's films and then I can try to keep track of them and whether I have seen them or not.  If I am scheduled to watch something at TIFF through the end of Dec., I'll just put down TIFF and assume nothing will go wrong (always a risky assumption...).  O stands for I own this on DVD.  (While there is one Blu-Ray Almodovar set, it is mostly the early films, and otherwise Criterion only has singles, and I am trying not to go that route, as I expect one of these days Criterion will put out a Blu-Ray set of his entire oeuvre, though maybe I am just dreaming.)

Pepi, Luci, Bom (believe I borrowed this from Robarts and watched it)
Labyrinth of Passion TIFF
Dark Habits TIFF
O What Have I Done to Deserve This?
O Matador (Own on Almodovar Collection V.2 but not watched)
O Law of Desire TIFF
O Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (TIFF screening will be 3rd viewing)
O Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! TIFF
High Heels
O Kika TIFF
O The Flower of My Secret TIFF
O Live Flesh
O All About My Mother Paradise & TIFF
O Talk to Her TIFF*
O Bad Education Paradise
O Volver TIFF
Broken Embraces TIFF
The Skin I Live In TIFF
I'm So Excited! (Watched on DVD)
Julieta TIFF
Pain and Glory TIFF
Parallel Mothers TIFF
The Human Voice/Strange Way of Life (TIFF showed these two shorts together)
The Room Next Door TIFF

Marking it all down means I really will have seen (or can fairly easily see) all of Almodovar with the exception of Dark Habits** and High Heels.

In terms of my favorites, I rank Women on the Verge first, followed by All About My Mother, Pain and Glory and Volver.  I expect I'll like Talk to Her, which is another highly rated film, and I do hope I enjoy What Have I Done to Deserve This? whenever I finally get around to watching it.  About the only one that didn't do a lot for me was Parallel Mothers.

It's somewhat interesting that I watched Women on the Verge on its initial release (and loved it), and then was so turned off by the plot of Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! that I kind of went off Almodovar through the 90s and 2000s (obviously my loss).  It really wasn't until Pain and Glory in 2019 that I started watching his films again on the big screen on their initial release. 

* I was reading something about the plot of Talk to Her, and I realized I have seen it already!  The struggle is figuring out where and when.  I thought the most likely candidate was the Paradise, but it wasn't part of the Queer Cinema Club offerings; Google doesn't appear to think it played at Paradise or at TIFF or even at Carlton either in 2023 or 2024.  It's certainly possible I broke down and watched it on DVD, but I don't recall doing that.  So weird.

** I decided to take a quick look, and while I do have a conflict with TIFF's screening of High Heels, I actually can catch a screening of Dark Habits in a couple of weeks.  (There would have been a conflict with Dark Habits, but Bad Bad No Good was asking a ridiculous price for tickets to a gig at Lee's Palace!  I suspect if this is what they think they are worth, I won't ever see them.  C'est dommage...)  In fact, I got the very last ticket to Dark Habits right after I decided to look!  Fortuitous.  I will still want to check in a few more times to see if I can get a seat a bit further back for Labyrinth of Passion.  

Movies & Books (Dec. 2024)

So hard to believe it is Dec. already!  I'm probably running a bit ahead of where I thought I would be with movies (particularly catching up with a lot I've never seen including The Shining and The Godfather 1 and 2 and then of course this amazing Almodovar festival at TIFF).  While I still find dealing with TIFF incredibly frustrating, I was persistent enough to get tickets to all the Almodovar films that caught my eye, with the exception of What Did I Do to Deserve This, where I have a conflict that just can't be resolved.  As it happens I do have WDIDtDT on DVD, so maybe a bit after the fest ends, I will watch this, as well as lobby for Carlton Cinema to show it as a $5 throwback movie.

Just a quick follow up on Almodovar.  I had totally forgotten that I saw Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown on the big screen at Paradise, but not as part of their Queen Cinema Club.  So at the tail end of December I will have seen it for the third time on the big screen, but bringing my son along.  I will also watch Pain & Glory for the second time (tonight in fact) and All About My Mother twice as well.  These are probably his strongest films for me.  The same day as All About My Mother, I am seeing an advance screening of The Room Next Door, which is his first feature length film in English (with Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore).  I'll basically just have time to run between the two.  As it happens, they also added The Apartment even earlier in the afternoon, so you could run between all three.  It's sold out now, and I am wondering if I would even enjoy watching three films in a row, even though I haven't seen The Apartment in its entirety.  I might check back in at a later date.  Anyway, about a week ago, I decided I could squeeze in Kika and The Labyrinth of Passion.  It took quite a few tries, but I finally got a ticket for each, though I am in the second row for Labyrinth, and I will try to get a better seat closer to the time and cancel the one in the 2nd row (or maybe give it to a friend).

On Tues. I went and saw Brazil, probably for the first time on the big screen.  For a long time, this was my favorite movie.  I find the Sam Lowry character to be a bit on the annoying side now, though I don't know that I have any other movie that is clearly my new favorite movie, though possibly Women on the Verge...  I had left work a few minutes late, and then made a stop off at MEC to try to buy some glove liners.  What a mistake.  The place is now quite badly organized and there wasn't anyone to help me, so I had to wait in line and ask the cashier.  Then it was impossible to actually pay for the glove liners, so I just left.  MEC has disappointed me several times in the last few months, and I simply have to expunge it from my mental map as a place worth visiting.  At any rate, I showed up at Carlton at 6:49, which should have been absolutely no issue (because Brazil was actually going to start at 6:55), but there was a line out the door to get tickets to something else.  I have never seen Carlton that busy.  Even the self-serve ticket machine had a long line and didn't seem to be working either.  I asked the guy at the concession stand if I could just pay for the movie (which I think can be done at Market Square) and he said he couldn't help me.  I finally cut into the line and handed the ticket seller $5 and ran in, getting there just seconds before the pre-credits explosion.  (This is quite reminiscent of Taxi Driver where I cut it way, way too close.)  I also was sitting behind someone who was just slightly too tall.  But I enjoyed the movie.  It does make a difference seeing it at that scale, so I'm glad I went, even though it wasn't an ideal experience.

It's taken quite a while, but I finally finished Eric DuPont's Songs for the Cold of Heart.  I didn't like some of the cheap and easy postmodernism early on in novel (the grandmother sticking around forever after dying the first time) and the sheer number of coincidences at the end were annoying (similar to what turned me off on Powning's The Sea Captain's Wife).  The middle sections were pretty good.  I haven't decided if I am going to hang onto my signed copy or try to sell it off.  Probably the latter, but I'll hold off for a few weeks to make my final decision.  

I also finished off Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles.  I generally found this too annoying.  I like Murakami's short stories and I remember generally liking After Dark, but a lot of his novels don't work for me, between somewhat passive characters that just let events overtake them and too much woo-woo mysticism.  And his books are too long.  In particular, I didn't much like 1985, which was much too long.  It very much sounds like his latest novel, The City and Its Uncertain Walls​​, is just full of everything I don't like about his work.  I suppose I am a glutton for punishment, as I do have a hold on this at the library, though I have suspended the hold for now...

Anyway, this was final wrapping up of the books I had taken on longish trips to Stratford and then to NYC/DC (where I could have finished the book had I stayed awake on the NYC-DC train ride!).  I am planning a trip to Buffalo next week, and I am deciding between Mutis's The Adventures of Maqrol and Soseki's I am a Cat.  And I am also pretty seriously considering making a trip out to Ottawa in March (to finally see Collective Soul as well as Our Lady Peace*), and I suppose I would take the one I don't take to Buffalo if I actually do go to Ottawa.  (I was a bit more successful in finishing Oliver Twist right after my last Edmonton trip, and it didn't drag on quite so long.  Oliver Twist was much better than Nicolas Nickleby, even though the denouement was fairly weak.)

I recently abandoned Thomas Bernhard's Extinction.  It just wasn't working for me.  This blog makes an argument for Bernhard's fiction, but I am still not convinced.  Just not for me, particularly in my current mood.  The novel is just one ridiculously long stream-of-consciousness rant by an uber snob (speaking as a snob myself, he was just too much).  He spends pretty much all of his mental energy running down his recently deceased parents and younger brother.  Nope, not for me.  For a short while I was reading this while cycling at the gym because the other two books were just too long and bulky.  That isn't an issue now that I have switched back to shorter books, and indeed short stories.  I am jumping ahead to read the first 4 stories in Munro's Runaway, since Almodovar's Julieta is based on them, then I will circle back to finish For the Love of a Good Woman (and then most likely finish off Runaway), so a lot of Munro this month, even though I still find her a pretty terrible human being.  But I am interspersing with Lucia Berlin's A Manual for Cleaning Women, where the stories are a bit shorter.

I'm hoping before the year ends, I will actually get to Osipov's Kilometer 101, though this may not happen.  I am reading some much shorter fiction, along with everything else, but I will just have to discuss that at a later time.

Coda: While I initially balked at the dead essentially following Francis around in Ironweed, I am getting used to it, and in fact it is used sparingly in the later chapters.  This does remind me a fair bit of Rulfo's Pedro Páramo.  This novel didn't do a lot for me on first reading, but it is short (and highly praised by others), and I hung onto it.  I am wondering if maybe I should reread this right after Ironweed and then settle whether I want to keep it or not.  Some of the other short books I have in the stack are a book of Orwell's lesser known essays and then perhaps Huxley's The Devils of Loudun. I should be able to squeeze in Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49, though it is at the bottom of the stack, and recently I added Jelloun's The Last Friend and Azuela's The Underdogs (which would pair well with Rulfo's novel).  As always, too much to read and not enough time to do it in.

* I'm going to wait 2 more weeks to see if they add a Toronto date to this tour, but so far it seems they are only playing smaller cities, in Canada at least.

Movie Time

Just back from The Godfather (Pt 1), which was at Carlton Cinema.  Again, I worked until almost the last minute and was almost late, though I did have my bike with me.  This time I made it during previews.  The happened to me a few months back when I turned up just as Taxi Driver was actually starting, though I don't think I missed anything.  And then just a few weeks back I actually came in maybe a minute into Kiki's Delivery Service.  That was super frustrating (in part because the TTC was exceptionally slow), though I had seen the movie before.

It's kind of incredible how many major movies I haven't actually seen (up until now), including The Godfather, Taxi Driver, Chinatown and The Shining, all of which I saw at the Carlton for $5.  I think it was a few years back that Hot Docs had some documentary about the making of Midnight Cowboy, and they also showed the movie itself.  I tried to work it out, but just couldn't watch it.  

Now I have managed to see Rear Window and North by Northwest on the big screen twice each (once in Toronto and once in Chicago), though I haven't seen Vertigo on the big screen.  I couldn't quite see The Sweet Smell of Success on the big screen, though I have at least seen it.

This weekend, Carlton is showing The Godfather, Pt II.  I think I'll go, even though it is 3+ hours, and they are showing it without an intermission!  

I think Paradise was showing Network and The China Syndrome, neither of which I've seen, but I wasn't able to go.

In the end I did manage to snag a ticket to one more Almodovar film (The Flower of My Secret).  I need to stop looking at Dec. 22, when they are showing What Have I Done to Deserve This, since I am going to the Sing-Along Messiah on that day.  In a perfect world, Tiff would shift the time of movie by a couple of hours and move it to a bigger theatre, so I could do both, but that doesn't seem likely.  I'll just have to see if What Have I Done to Deserve This shows up at Paradise or maybe The Revue one of these days.

I'm still a bit annoyed at how short the distribution run for Rumours was and it doesn't appear to be showing up on any streaming site or at a second-run theatre, though I am keeping my eyes out.  Bah.  I haven't seen anything announced for Cronenberg's Shrouds but that will definitely play Tiff again (and quite likely Market Square).  I think Carlton is supposed to be getting My Neighbour Toroto in in the next few weeks, and I'll probably go see that a second time.  (This is actually the film that launched my recent exploration of the Ghibli Studio work.)  The first week of Dec., Carlton is also showing Brazil.  Now I've seen Brazil quite a few times (6 or so), but I am not actually sure I have seen it on the big screen (only on home video), so I will try to make it for that.

A few days after that, I will probably see Orson Welles's F for Fake.  I have seen a fair number of Welles's films though not all that many on the big screen.  I'm pretty sure I saw The Lady from Shanghai at Film Forum in NYC, and Touch of Evil at the Paradise.  (I didn't actually think that much of Touch of Evil because so many characters just were so stupid...)

I did manage to see Varda's Murs Murs at the Paradise recently and enjoyed that.  I also saw The Beaches of Agnes at the Paradise and Faces Places at Tiff.  I tried a couple of times but haven't seen Cleo from 5 to 7 on the big screen.  Maybe some day.

Now I have managed to see most of Tati on the big screen.  I remember seeing Playtime in Chicago (and apparently a second time which I don't recall), and I am sure I saw Mon Oncle and M. Hulot's Vacances.  This might well have been New York.  I am much less sure if I saw Trafic in a theatre or not.

Finally, I remember I finally saw Fellini's La Dolce Vita at Tiff and then Amarcord at The Revue.  I don't go to The Revue very often, but they are showing La Dolce Vita in late Jan., and this is probably worth going to a second time.

Wet, wet day

Yesterday started out pretty badly, though I will admit that I didn't get rained on, which was a strong possibility.  Seeing that the bus was 8 minutes away, I walked up a couple of stops.  I looked to see if it was coming but it wasn't there, so I started walking to the next one, only for the bus to pass me.  That was so frustrating; it is so rare for TTC buses to actually make up time that I simply don't put it into my personal decision matrix.  Needless to say, I was then late for work and an early morning meeting.  Then Teams was acting up.  I could have probably handled a bit of lag on the audio, but it was just not working at all, so I had to restart the machine entirely.  It was a very poor start to the day.

The middle of the day got better but never amazing.  I was really struggling to get people to do what I wanted them to do in a timely manner.  And I had to take on a GIS task that should have been relatively simple (extracting highway links) but in the end was a manual process that took hours.  I wrapped it up at 6:55, emailed it off (because it was a critical item in someone else's workflow), then ran for the train.  I made it to Coal Mine Theatre at 7:31 or so.  I felt really terrible, since I was one of those people that they hold the show for.  (Almost every play in Toronto starts 5-10 minutes late, but I think this is almost impossible to change because traffic and particularly the TTC is so unreliable.  I will say that the TTC did ok in getting me there for once, and it was entirely my fault for working up to the very last minute.)  I ended up in a kind of crappy seat right next to some duct work that forced me to sit at a weird angle.  If I had had another minute or two, I would have moved up a row or two and it would have been better.  It didn't help that I had forgot my glasses (and my work pass!), so it just wasn't a great day in general.

It was a good though very depressing play about two single fathers, whose access to their daughters is gradually stripped back, along with other life challenges that they face.  I think my friend who struggled with infertility and then briefly explored adoption would not have enjoyed it very much.  I wasn't entirely sold on the very last scene (and I do find it almost impossible that one character wouldn't remember the other one (a Black man in Idaho!) from school), but otherwise it was a strong play.

Leaving the theatre, it was just pouring out.  That was not great.  And I went over to a Thai place, but it closed at 9!  Then there was a small store that also sold Ethiopian food but it looked like every seat in the place was full.  I looked in at two pizza places but decided they weren't that appealing, so I just went home.

I got pretty wet.  The book I had with me didn't get wet until sometime towards the very end of the trip, perhaps the very, very long wait for a bus in the rain (because the Ontario Line construction closed the Pape bus loop!).  It doesn't appear that the basement flooded, which is a small mercy, but generally it was a pretty bad end to the day.

Down the Rabbit Hole

While I often go quite deep down the rabbit hole in terms of books I am pursuing, right now I have been bitten by the classical music bug, which happens periodically.  About the only positive is that this sometimes chases away my need to buy jazz or pop/rock music...

Anyway, my trip to NYC and DC came off fairly well, though I was very exhausted by the end of it.  I made it home around 9:30 or so and then just crashed for a while.  I had thought it might be worth running to the Regent Park Pool to at least sit in the hot tub, but that didn't happen.  Instead, around 2 I finally got myself together and went to the Toronto Reference Library to see what they had left on the last day of their book sale.  I ended up getting a couple of art books, a large stack of books destined for the Little Free Library (though at least a handful I'll try to read myself first) and then a CD box set of all of Haydn's Symphonies conducted by Antal Dorati.  This was half price but still a bit on the pricey side, since there are 31 CDs (Haydn wrote a ridiculous number of symphonies).  I actually had miscalculated and had to put back one book (Sarong Party Girls, which the publisher somewhat incredibly calls an updated Emma set in Singapore).  But then I ask myself when will I ever listen to this or indeed any of the classical box sets I've picked up in the last 10 years.  I did a much better job of getting through them before then, and I have generally been better about listening to the jazz or world music CDs I've picked up along the way.

I actually built a shelf that holds a bunch of box sets that I really ought to listen to before buying anything else.  When I look at the shelf, sometimes my heart does ache a bit that I don't have a life where I can just listen to music and forget about everything else.  It's not like I listened to a lot of music at work previously, but way back in the day laptops had CD players!  And then after that, they at least had ports for portable CD players.  But then I migrated into a job where all the USB ports are turned off for security reasons, which causes me no end of grief in trying to transfer large files, which indeed is necessary for my work more than you might imagine.  Even if I did take a month or more just to rip everything once and for all (and ideally see if I could trade in the box sets after all that), I probably still wouldn't listen to a lot of it, at least not at work.  At work, I pretty much only listen to Bandcamp (and I have an absurd amount of music archived there as well).

At any rate, because I was searching around for the Dorati Hayden set, Amazon recommended that I check out these other box sets of his mono recordings with the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra (most of which were never on CD) and his stereo recordings with Minneapolis (which are far more available).  And then for good measure they pointed me to a box set of his recordings with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.  After pondering it for a long time, I decided that there was so much that I simply wouldn't listen to, and I should cherry pick what I was most interested in, and then see if I could borrow it from a library or listen to it on iTunes or Naxos.

It looks like pretty much all of the stereo records are on iTunes (and these are the recordings that have had the broadest release and re-issuing) and most though probably not all of the mono recordings are available.  The DSO recordings on Decca are harder to come by, though I think most of them are on Naxos.

I tried to whittle it down a fair bit and ended up with the following:

Copland - El Salon Mexico and Danzon Cubano.  (I have the other key Copland pieces Dorati performed on another CD.)
Stravinsky - The Rite of Spring (mono - I have the stereo already)
Stravinsky - The Firebird (mono and stereo, and I guess I should check out the DSO version on Decca)
Respighi - Pines of Rome & Fountains of Rome 
Gershwin - Porgy and Bess Suite 
Bartok - Suite No 1 (DSO on Decca)

I actually came reasonably close to ordering the Bartok on LP (from a seller in Ottawa) but realized just in time that I could just listen to it on Naxos instead.

I spent far more time than I should have this evening tracking down the mini Dorati box set I already own, as well as Dorati Conducts Kodaly and Bartok, but I did find both.  This really speaks to needing to get better organized and certainly to rip the music that I really think is worth listening to.

Then I was partially sucked in by a George Szell set: The Warner Recordings, 1934-70.  This one is all on iTunes, so there is nowhere near the same pressure.  I will definitely be listening to his Dvorak Symphony 8 and probably Schubert's Symphony 9, as well as Brahms Double Concerto (with Oistrakh and Rostropovich!).  As it happens, the Double Concerto is in all kinds of box sets, and I have it in an Oistrakh box set and probably at least one or two other places.  I am pondering ordering a subset of this box, which is a 3 CD set of the Beethoven Piano Concertos performed by Gilels with Szell conducting.  That might be something I would listen to on more than one occasion, and it is still available relatively cheaply.  But it isn't something that I absolutely need, and I probably should hold off at least for another week or two and not just make another late-night impulse purchase!  (Which I have certainly been known to do...)

Melville-Darwin Link

There is an interesting (to me) historic link between Charles Darwin and Herman Melville in that both visited and wrote about the Galapagos Islands.  Darwin of course featured them in his write-up of his trip on the The Beagle.  Melville wrote a series of 10 sketches called The Encantadas, or Enchanted Isles, which I just wrapped up.  I was not sure whether Melville had actually visited the Galapagos, but indeed he did visit them on his first whaling voyage.  It's less clear whether he himself hunted for tortoises (the text suggests he did unsuccessfully though this may be fictionalized) or simply helped load them on board.  I did think his vision of the ancient tortoise carrying the world on its back (as in some mythologies as well as Pratchett's Discworld) was pretty interesting and perhaps the highlight of The Encantadas.

I also wrapped up Billy Budd.  For the most part, it felt too abbreviated.  I did find the last few chapters showing how "broken telephone" led to a completely false version of events among the general public while a very different (and more broadly accurate) version was circulated among the crew as a sea chanty.  This seemed a bit reminiscent of what Faulkner was up to in A Fable, though I didn't like A Fable at all.

I had mixed feelings about Manu Joseph's Serious Men, particularly the well-worn trope (at least in novels written by middle aged men) of a beautiful young woman falling for a man old enough to be her father and then trying to destroy him after she was scorned.  I could have done without that for sure!

I didn't like the first one-third of DuPont's The American Fiancée, mostly because of some lazy magic realism where the grandmother dies but then hangs out at a funeral home (and later a convent) for many decades waiting her second death.  There just didn't seem to be any point to it.  I can't remember off the top of my head if the same sort of thing happens in Kroetsch's What the Crow Said, but I thought so.  (What may be more curious is that I am negatively comparing DuPont to Kroetsch, but at the time I wasn't all that crazy about What the Crow Said either, thinking it had too much pointless magic realism!)  But the later sections focusing on the great-children and what they get up to in Europe is much more interesting to me.  I have a bit under 200 pages to go, so I will likely finish this up as soon as I am back from NYC and DC.  After this, I have short stories by Lucia Berlin (A Manual for Cleaning Women) and Alice Munro.  I haven't completely given up on Munro, though I am certainly not rushing to get through her work.  I did get a few stories into The Love of a Good Woman, but I really need to read the 3 stories from Runaway that Almodovar used as the basis of Julieta, so I'll make sure I get to them soon.  And then I'll finally read Osipov's Kilometer 101 (NYRB).

Speaking of the NYC trip, FedEx did get me my ticket to McNeal, so I will be going to that.  (The poetry books haven't turned up at my friend's house, but there is another day or so, so I have some hope...)  I haven't 100% decided on whether I will try to get to the Jewish Museum or MoMA on this trip.  I'm leaning towards squeezing them in, but it just depends on how quickly I get through the Met and the Guggenheim on Wed.  I would like to try to see The Phillips Collection on Friday, but I don't think that will happen.  I will say I don't feel ready to make the trip, but it is just around the corner (tomorrow actually)!  So I had better drop off and start getting ready for the rest of the day.  Ciao!

Last(?) New York Trip

As I indicated, I am beside myself with despair on the terrible choices the US has made.  I haven't made a solemn pledge or anything, but I don't think I will travel to the US again after Jan.  Maybe I will make an exception to pick up a few things from my stepmom in North Carolina, but that is not guaranteed.  Indeed, I am thinking I may well make a one-day trip to Buffalo in mid Dec. to see Marisol at the Albright-Knox, and then put my passport away for a long time.

I thought I would organize in my own mind how next week is going to look.

On Tues. I will be at work, and I even decided to go see Timon of Athens at the Theatre Centre.  Perhaps a mistake, though I think this is a somewhat shortened version.  Then on Wed., I wake up quite early and catch an early Porter flight to Newark.  It will then take an hour or so to get into Manhattan proper.  I will only need to buy a one-way NJ Transit ticket this time, however.

The plan is to go up to the Met first and see the various exhibits.  They don't have any blockbuster exhibits on, but I definitely want to see the Mexican print exhibit and the photographs by Anastasia Samoylova and Walker Evans.  I had thought there was a new book about Samoylova, but now I don't think so.  I will then run over to the Guggenheim, at least in part because I get free admission there!  But the exhibits look at least somewhat interesting.  

This will likely take the full day, but if I am exceptionally efficient, I may have a couple of hours to hit the MoMA.  I hadn't planned on going on this trip, but it might be my last visit for a very long time.  I also am intrigued by their small exhibit on German expressionism, and the fact that they have a Beckmann triptych (Depature) on view and the Met has The Beginning on view as well does make it more appealing.  There is no question I would go if I had the time, but Thurs. I have quite a few things that will eat into my museum time, so if I can't squeeze it in on Wed., I probably can't go.

Anyway, I'll meet up with a friend for dinner, and then we are off to see the Pacifica Quartet at the 92 St. Y.  (This performance is being live-streamed and you can watch up to 72 hours later, so I am toying with the idea of purchasing the live-stream as well for when I get back.  I also found out that Abdullah Ibrahim is in NYC on Friday and at the Y!  But his performance is not available as a live-stream, which is incredibly disappointing to me.  So I will not be able to make up for missing him in Markham a few years ago.  I might have rearranged the whole trip had I realized he was playing so soon after Pacifica.  C'est la vie...)

Then I go crash at the Youth Hostel for the night.  (Even though my bag will be pretty full, I do need to remember to bring my lock!)  Then I will probably head over to the Strand at 10, and then I meet someone from work and go sit in on one virtual meeting at the office and then I think I will probably head over to Bleeker St. Books and Howl Arts.  However, I could perhaps run over to MOMA first and then these bookish places afterwards and then make a short visit to the Whitney.  (I used to have free admission to the Whitney, but not any longer.)  As it happens the Whitney is open longer than any other museum on Thurs. (until 6 pm), and there is one Jane Dickson painting on view in their Shifting Landscapes exhibit.  

Jane Dickson, Heading in—Lincoln Tunnel 3, 2003

But I probably wouldn't spend more than a couple hours at the Whitney, so maybe I will fit everything in after all.  It's a bit hard to tell at the moment.

Anyway, I have a ticket to see McNeal, which is Ayad Akhtar’s new play starring Robert Downey, Jr.  So it's a fairly hot ticket, and I waited a bit too long to commit to going, so the ticket prices were pretty high.  I actually found a reasonably priced ticket on Stub Hub.  However, I had just completed the purchase when I read that they were going to send me a physical ticket rather than an e-ticket, and I felt sick to my stomach.  It is being FedExed and it should be here Sunday or Monday, but so much can go wrong.  I absolutely would not have ordered this if I had realized that was the situation.  So one more thing to stress me out.

Then I head over to the Amtrak station.  There is a night train that leaves at 11 pm, and gets in to DC at 6 in the morning (it actually pulls over somewhere near Philly for a couple of hours).  Basically everyone just sleeps on the train.  And the ticket costs only $25!  Wild.

Friday I will likely go to the Hirshhorn, maybe the Freer and Sackler Galleries, then the National Gallery.  I should be able to meet someone else from work and we'll chat and look at art, which sounds like fun to me anyway.  I see that Beckmann's triptych The Argonauts is on view, which is great, but Falling Man is not.  I have not seen this in a very long time, which is getting more than a little frustrating.  

I will keep my eyes peeled for one new acquisition, a Remedios Varo painting, which I don't believe was part of the Art Institute of Chicago exhibition I saw last year.

Remedios Varo, Banqueros en acción (Bankers in Action), 1962

There also appear to be a few Joseph Cornell boxes on view, and I always enjoy looking at those.

The current plan is then to head to the Smithsonian's American Art Museum, as it is open the latest of all the Smithsonian museums.  Then I am staying somewhere in Adams Morgan, which I picked because I like grabbing Ethiopean food there.  Then I have a fairly early flight Sat. morning (at least it's out of Reagan National, not Dulles!).

I'll probably stop briefly at the Toronto Reference Library book sale on the way home, then crash for a bit.  Then I have a TSO concert that evening.

Sunday, there is a small chance I'll have to take my daughter to a volunteer opportunity, but mostly likely I will sleep in a bit.  I am then off to see Shakespeare Bash'd doing a staged reading of Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy, and if I am not completely wiped out by that point, I may go to the Paradise to see Varda's Murs Murs.  I don't think I've seen the whole movie, though bits and pieces of Murs Murs showed up in her later works.  So I think I will end up completely exhausted from this trip, though what else is new... 

Edit: I took a quick look at some other museums in NYC.  The Neue Galerie has an Egon Schiele exhibit up, which looks somewhat interesting but I think I did see enough of his work in Vienna.  I'm a little more torn by the Guston exhibit at the Jewish Museum.  This exhibit focuses almost exclusively on Guston's KKK paintings and then the critical response by Trenton Doyle Hancock, an African-American artist.  I find his KKK paintings to be less interesting than a lot of his other late paintings and also I've probably seen almost all of these already at the big Guston exhibit in Boston in 2022.  However, I should write to see if they have In Bed as part of the exhibit.  I would probably go to see that, esp. as I could hit the Jewish Museum after the Guggenheim.  Actually, if the Broadway show was 8 (instead of 7 pm) or indeed if my tickets doesn't reach me in time(!), there is a talk between Hancock and Musa Mayer, Guston's daughter, on Thurs at 6:30.  That would have been worth checking out.  Ah well.

Second Chance Books

Generally it isn't nearly as hard to track down books, so the whole "second chance" concept doesn't apply as strongly.  That said, some art books do vanish and become extremely expensive.  It took quite a while to finally track down a copy of Alex Janvier's catalogue (perhaps because most of them got shipped back to his studio, which is where I got my copy*).

While the postage was a killer, I did manage to get a copy of The City by the photographer Lori Nix, even after it was OOP everywhere else.  The one I got might even have been one of the last ones available directly from the publisher.

I wasn't as lucky with this Michael Wolf catalogue that Bau-Xi was stocking, though I do have a couple other books by Wolf.  

One that got away that still bugs me from time to time is a small Sarah Sze monograph that the MCA in Chicago carried.  I have several other books by her, but I just wish I had picked that up back in the day.

Now one that was not my fault, as it were, was there was an interesting catalogue of an art exhibit held out at the Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver.  I kept trying to get a hold of it, and I think the publisher never actually published the book, even though several libraries (in Vancouver at least) said that they had pre-ordered it.  Somewhat amusingly, one of my favourite paintings was by Freida Kahlo and that turned up fairly recently in a different art book that I picked up (though I would really struggle to remember off the top of my head which one).

There was another book that I had ordered from a Vancouver gallery, because it wasn't quite ready at the time of the exhibition and then they were going to mail it to me, and anyway I never got it, which was annoying, given I had already paid for the book!

I have managed to pick up nearly all of Jane Dickson's official monographs (like Jane Dickson in Times Square** and Peepland) though there are a few (quite pricey) very small gallery publications like Night Driving or Paradise Alley.  I have debated picking them up, but it turns out that Karma is publishing a very extensive (over 400 page!) monograph on Dickson at the end of Nov., and I assume it will have a lot, if not all, of the paintings from these recent gallery publications.  I did find out that Hot! Hot! Hot! is (surprisingly) still in print from Howl Arts, so I decided I might as well pick that up on my visit to New York next week.  I will try to remember to call Karma just to see if there are any advance copies of their new book as long as I am in town, but I assume that will not work out, and I'll just order a copy later (and not let it drag so long that it goes OOP).

I do recall on my last trip to Seattle, there was a copy of Craig Nova's Turkey Hash sitting outside a bookstore in Pike Place Market on their bargain shelves (for $1 I think).  The bookstore had closed but oddly enough had left the books outside!  I was so, so tempted to grab it, and I definitely would have if there had been a slot to drop $1.  I even bugged someone that worked in Seattle to get it for me later, but they wisely ignored me.  Anyway, I was poking around in BMV a couple of months later and got Turkey Hash and The Geek, so that worked out ok, though I did pay more than $1.  I found a couple of other Nova books with cheap shipping to Canada, so I ordered those as well.  (I had read a lot of Nova in my 20s and am feeling like revisiting him, I guess.)  On this trip to New York, after I stop by Howl Arts, I should also be able to go to Mercer St. Books and the Strand.  I'm still sort of on the lookout for Nova's Trombone and The Congressman's Daughter and maybe The Good Son as well.  I don't have a whole lot of other books I am looking for, and I am going to try to keep everything in one small backpack, so I really can't go wild while in the bookstores, as tempting as that always is.  In fact, I was thinking of bringing a few books along, but maybe I should only bring one book for the plane/train and then just supplement with whatever I do get at the Strand.  I have to remember that Hot! Hot! Hot! will also take up a fair bit of space, and I'll probably need to take my laptop along though maybe not the charger, so the laptop is going to be jammed from the start.  That said, I might still get the Nova books and maybe Joy Williams's Taking Care if I see it and one or two other random books in the Vintage Contemporaries series.

* I eventually bought one of his paintings as well, and I am finally going to pick it up from the framers tomorrow after a very long wait.

** This is one of those annoying cases where I ordered a book fairly early because I didn't want to lose out, and then the price dropped pretty significantly.  I don't know why that happened in this case, and I don't really expect this to happen with this new Dickson publication.

Second Chances

This was going to be a much more positive post on how I am sometimes able to make up (at least partially) for things that I missed because of double booking or indeed things that were cancelled outright due to the pandemic.  Many of the shows that were cancelled came back eventually.  For instance, Come From Away is back in town, and I am hoping to get tickets to that shortly and probably bring my son along.  Squeeze eventually did come back to town (and were great!).  Hall and Oates split up, however, and only Daryl Hall came to Toronto.  While it was an entertaining show, his voice is not what it was, even from a few years back, so that wasn't nearly as satisfying.  I have yet to learn if The Fixx will tour again.  While I had previously been willing to go back to NYC to catch them, now I am not so sure, and I think I will write to see if they will come to Toronto or at least Buffalo.  (I might once in a while break my upcoming embargo on the US to visit Buffalo, but perhaps not.  I could pick some weekend in Dec. and catch the bus to Buffalo to see the Marisol exhibit at the Albright-Knox and then say that is my last visit for the foreseeable future.)  I have seen Love and Rockets in the recent past, but I think I would still go again if they pull off one more tour, since the Toronto date was cancelled due to that tool, Perry Ferrell.  So frustrating.

As I have already alluded, however, the US has idiotically given Trump a second chance, as well as the opportunity to wipe out all his criminal behaviour due to the horrible enablers in the Senate and the Supreme Court (as well as the nihilistic voters in those swing states).  Given that the GOP has also won the Senate and quite likely the House, the US is going to be a criminal cesspit for years to come, to say nothing of the impact this will have on climate change goals.  We're all fucked basically, and the best thing that can come out of this is a violent uprising and a civil war splitting the US into a few parts, so that the smart, productive people in the States can leave the rest of the troglodytes in the dust.  Yes, I am more than a little bitter, and I don't think I'll be travelling back to the States any time soon, so I guess I will think more seriously about travelling to Europe (my carbon budget will be shredded, but it's all pointless even trying anymore).  I probably will renounce my citizenship soon enough.

Back to the matter at hand, I was very frustrated at missing out on seeing the Pacifica Quartet in Toronto (due to a work trip).  I found out that they were playing largely the same program (but substituting Crumb's Black Angels for a Shostakovich quartet) at the 92nd St. Y in New York, so I decided to just go ahead and travel to see that, and then see some museums and then travel down to Washington DC.  I don't normally travel that far just for a concert, though I did travel across states for a few exhibits (mostly Norman Lewis and Romare Bearden) and will travel a bit out of my way to see Stoppard's Arcadia.  As I said, I generally stick closer to home for concerts, though I have been known to take the train (or bus) to Montreal for a concert now and again.

It was a combination of traveling for work and competing concerts that has caused me to miss out on many of the Queer Cinema Club offerings over at the Paradise, with the ones that were the most disappointing that I had to miss Almodovar's Law of Desire, though I also would have wanted to see Saving Face and Tangerine.  Fortunately, the last two were available on DVD, so I borrowed those.   I can't believe what a short run Rumours had both at TIFF and then at Market Square.  I had wanted to check that out but was getting ready for a trip to Edmonton.  It vanished in about two weeks!  My best bet is that it turns up at some point at The Review or The Fox, but I don't see it in either of their calendars.  I asked if they were going to bring Rumours back to TIFF, and the woman at the box office said no.

At any rate, TIFF decided to end 2024 with a major Almodovar retrospective.  Now it is as annoying as ever, with almost every seat snatched up by members who just might happen to see the movie or may not.  I've learned that you have to have patience and do some lurking but eventually you can usually see the movie you are interested in.  This was certainly the case for their Christian Petzold mini-feature where I managed to see three in-demand films, with my favourite (and his least characteristic) film being Afire.

Anyway, I just managed to snag the last seat (for now) for Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, which is a film I decided to avoid on first release because the sexual politics of it kind of appalled me (and indeed they remain appalling but I am ready to see the film now).  So I am making up for that now, as well as catching a lot of his other films.  In the end,* I am going to see quite a few of his films, and certainly his best:
Broken Embraces (tonight!)
Volver
Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!
Pain and Glory (for 2nd time on big screen though I think I saw it somewhere other than TIFF)
The Skin I Live In (another one I missed at Paradise)
Law of Desire (with an intro by Peter Knegt! though I would still have preferred to catch this at Paradise)
Talk to Her (and taking my son!)
Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (my 2nd time seeing on big screen and my son's first time)
Julieta
All About My Mother (my 2nd time since this is one I did manage to catch at Paradise!)

This is really quite the program, with most of these falling late in December.  (I own many but not all of these on DVD, but just find it so much better to see his work on the big screen.)  I suppose this is a great way to go out of 2024 with a bang, and it is also a fine way to wrap up my membership, as I don't plan on renewing for 2025, unless they fundamentally overhaul the way that membership works at TIFF.

Here's hoping 2025 and beyond isn't nearly as shitty as I fully expect it to be.

* This is certainly a very full plate already, but I will try to keep Nov. 29 open for The Flower of My Secret and Dec. 22 for What Have I Done to Deserve this, and will check in every couple of days to see if a ticket opens up.  That's how I managed to score a ticket to Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!  I enjoyed Broken Embraces, particularly the film within a film, Women and Suitcases, which is sort of a parallel universe version of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, with several characters from that popping up in it.  They even showed The Cannibalistic Counsellor, which is essentially several additional minutes of this film.  Very droll.  I also managed to get a hard copy of my membership card to get my discount at the snack bar on my next visit.

Brushes with Fame

A few interesting things have happened in past week, but those stories will have to wait.  Last Saturday, I went out to Stratford to see Something Rotten.  The bus trip was quite terrible, but I think it deserves its own post.  The musical was very good, though I couldn't have helped think that I would have preferred to go out on the earlier date I had selected (but that the bus was sold out, then briefly available, then off-limits again...).  Not only I would have been able to see Get That Hope, instead of just hoping it will transfer to Mirvish or perhaps Soulpepper, but the bus ride would have been much smoother.  On the other hand, maybe I never would have finished work on the deck.  It's not looking that promising that I stain the other parts of the deck or tackle the fence, but I guess one never knows.

Anyway, on the way back, I was towards the back of the line, and two of the actors from Something Rotten were going back to Toronto.  That led to several exchanges where people would ask how they enjoyed Something Rotten, and then they would say they were actually in Something Rotten!  One of them was basically part of the chorus, but the other one was the actor who played Lady Clapham.  (She had also been in Kat Sandler's Bang Bang over at Factory Theatre.)  I talked to them a little bit, including about the issues we had faced on the way over and then the remount of The Master Plan because the husband of one of the actor's was playing Dan Doctoroff.  If the bus had been quite full, I would have probably sat next to one of them and perhaps even asked for background detail to help flesh out my idea of writing up something about Stratford (or even just asking them if they had seen Slings & Arrows, which is the main reason I never will bother writing this up...).  So a bit of a missed opportunity.  I did manage to read more on the way back, whereas the tension on the trip in made it extremely poor setting for getting any casual reading in.

The following day I was at Trinity-St. Paul's to see Tafelmusik performing.  I certainly didn't recognize her, but I was sitting next to Alison Mackay, who retired from performing as a bassist with Tafelmusik in 2019 but still often pulls together multi-media programming like Staircases or The Galileo Project.  She was just up in the balcony with the rest of the plebes...  She also had ridden her bike to the concert, and I almost commented on that, as I was a bit sweaty from my ride in.  However, I had not brought a shirt to change into (it was still sitting on the sofa when I got home), so I had just turned my t-shirt inside out to make it seem slightly more appropriate for the venue, and thus didn't want to call a lot of attention to myself...

While it would be somewhat challenging to top this in Toronto classical music circles, I was just at the Nick Lowe show over at TD Music Hall (next to Massey Hall).  I was going through the security check when a few older gentlemen just brushed by.  The guards almost stopped them but then realized it was Nick Lowe and some of his entourage!  If the woman scanning tickets had been a bit more on the ball, I would have been in the same elevator as Nick Lowe!  As it happened, I was in the following elevator with Rob Baker (guitarist for the Tragically Hip).  He had almost waltzed in without having the tickets for the rest of his guests scanned.  So they made fun of him for that on the way up.  I didn't intentionally do it, but I had moved over to where he was standing watching the concert (to avoid standing behind some tall people on the left side of the floor).  I actually heard him get excited as the band played some particular song.*  He really knew Nick Lowe's body of work, even the new material, and had apparently gone to see him when he played the Horseshoe a few years back.  There was even one song where he moved up and stood right next to me and we both did our terrible white boy dancing while the music played!  So that will be extremely hard to top.

I guess I could drop that I was at one of Skye Wallace's secret shows at The Only Cafe.  I have gotten to know her a little bit over the years and we usually talk before her gigs.  I had noticed one of the guys from Lowest of the Low is also at the vast majority of her shows, so definitely a fan.  We ended up sitting at adjoining tables at that gig.  I actually talked to him a bit during one of the breaks and asked him if he was indeed in the band.  He said yes.  (It was Lawrence Nichols.)  I said that I really liked the newer material and that it was great they didn't only tour off the hits from the 90s.  He said that it was great to hear that.  I didn't want to be a complete gushing fanboy, so I kept the conversation fairly short.  I did ask a bit about their plans to tour later in the year, but they don't have too many Toronto dates lined up yet.  I may well see him the next time at the next Skye Wallace gig, which is Nov. 1, rather than at his own gig.

* Unfortunately, no one has filled in the setlist.  The set was very similar to the Pittsburgh show a couple of days before, though I think Los Straitjackets did different instrumentals during their part of the show.  For instance, they ended with "Venus" not "Itchy Chicken."  I don't believe Nick sang "Different Kind of Blue," and he definitely did "Blue on Blue."  Hopefully, someone else can fill in the details.  For me the standout songs were "I Went to a Party," "Lately I've Let Things Slide," "House for Sale," "Half a Boy and Half a Man" and of course "Cruel to Be Kind."  The encore "When I Write the Book" was also great.  I liked the show a lot, but it would have been better (for me) if it had been at Danforth Music Hall where I could have sat down, even if that meant not getting close to Rob Baker.  And while he doesn't sing it much any more, it would have been cool to hear "I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass," but only if he actually sang it, not just the instrumental version...

Wrapping Up the Book News

While I still have far too much actual work do to and not nearly enough time to do it in, the tasks that were really dragging me down, so I am mentally in a better place.  The remaining tasks are at least interesting, even if I still don't have enough hours in the day to get to them, and I am still working out whom I can delegate these tasks to (and have them done to a reasonable standard).  Consequently, it is slightly easier to balance work against other activities, like seeing plays or going to The Rex (which I just did).  It's a little harder to spend time on truly time-sucking activities like working on this long, long-delayed quilt or restarting the jigsaw puzzle, but I'll probably be able to get to them in Nov.

Anyway, I'll try to briefly wrap up the remaining book news.  As it so happens, I was able to get over to Word on the Street twice this year!  First, I went over just to see if there were any good sales.  I had to go back and forth several time to find Brick Books.  In the end, I didn't pick up anything from them, as I have been a subscriber for a few years, so have all of their recent back catalog items.  

I think but am not 100% sure that I saw Mayor Olivia Chow walking through the fair.  She did have a booth where people could tell her what they wanted changed about the city.  

I was a bit amused by the TPL signing people up for cards right there, but then also bringing a book mobile to Queens Park.  I haven't been inside a book mobile in years.

I ended up picking up several books from Exile Books, which is run by the grandson of Morley Callaghan, and they have a very tempting 4 volume set of his short stories.  However, they also make them available as e-books, and while I probably would actually read them sooner if I had them in print, I at least have access to his stories.  I settled on getting a volume of Callaghan's New Yorker stories, which I assume are among his best, and then his memoir of life in Paris in 1929 with all the other American writers in exile.  Also, I picked up Lisa Foad's The Night is a Mouth, which is a collection of short stories.

I seemed to be in a short story state of mind, as at other booths I got Alix Ohlin's We Want What We Want, Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century by Kim Fu and How to Pronounce Knife (the last being an extra-low cost item at the BMV booth).

I then went over to University College and checked out their book sale.  I picked up Billy Budd (as I mentioned) and then got a couple of Carol Shields' novel, another copy of Ian Williams's Reproduction and DuPont's Songs for the Cold of Heart.  I figured for $3, I could give a copy of these to friends.  As it turns out, the DuPont was a signed edition!  It turns out that the art books were upstairs, so I checked my bag and went up there.  I didn't see any art books that caught my eye, but I did get two poetry books, and they were both signed as well!  (Someone had cut the dedicatee out from the page, which was a bit annoying...)

The bad news was that it was very hard squeezing everything into the panier but I just managed it and came home.

Sunday I had wanted to get back to see a reading by Canisia Lubrin, though this was at 10.  I also needed to get through buying the groceries that morning!  I cut it far too close, and I really had to book over to Queens Park on my bike.  (At least the rain held off most of the weekend, but it warmed up too much, and then I was way too hot after biking over.)  I rolled up at 10:03, and they hadn't quite gotten started, so I grabbed a seat.  The morning slot was a bit of a challenge for Ms. Lubrin as well...

She read a short passage from Code Noir, her latest book, and then the rest of the time was an interview/conversation with the moderator.  I hung out and picked up a copy of Code Noir at the signing table and had it dedicated to my son.

I debated getting a graphic novel, but the cost was just too high.  It turned out that it was available on Amazon for much less, though in the end this set off a whole chain of events leading me to upgrading my Kindle software and then giving up and deleting this (because it essentially disabled Kindle completely) and finally finding a slightly older version of the software that does still work.  Had I known everything, I would not have bought the graphic novel; it certainly wasn't worth the hassle.

While I still debated getting the Morley Callaghan stories, I ended up just getting a bunch of poetry collections (mostly by Roxana Bennett but also Night Lunch by Mike Chaulk) from Gordon Hill Press, as they as one of the few presses that refuses to have anything to do with Kindle or e-books, so the only way to read the work is to read it in hard copy.

I think the next thing I did was head back to Regent Park to go swimming.  And I perhaps went to Gerrard Square to get a new pair of dress shoes and headphones for my daughter, and then I had a concert at Tafelmusik (actually playing at Koerner Hall).  So it felt like I went in circles a lot that day...

I'm making decent progress on Billy Budd now.  Not sure when I will get around to any of the other books I bought that weekend, though I am expecting to bring DuPont's long novel along with my on the next Stratford trip, which is coming up soon.

Book (Sale) News

It's not like I need more books.  In many ways it is a sickness that I have so many, but I will say I've been getting better at picking up cheap books that are not for me but for the Little Free Library out front.  This sort of satisfies the urge to hunt for books and have them in my hand (temporarily) and still not end up with one more book on a stack that I won't get to for years.  Or at least that's what I tell myself.

It turns out that I missed the UVic book sale.  It was Sept. 19-23.  Now the 21st, I was in Stratford all day, and then I was getting ready for a trip out to Vancouver.  But I probably could have stopped by on the 20th had I known about it.  I just didn't really see any signs about it and haven't been going to the UT campus (and definitely not UVic) as much lately.  This site helps keep track of the book sales, and presumably it will flip over to 2025 sale dates at some point.

I guess the St. Michael's book sale was the same time as University College's sale.  I didn't find out about the sale at St. Mike's in time, and this was the first time I dropped in to the one at University College.  Incidentally, I found out about University College due to a small notice pasted onto a Little Free Library in Leslieville!  It just so happens that University College's sale (and St. Mike's) are on at the same time as Word on the Street in Queens Park, which may be intentional or just a quirk of the calendar, as the book sales generally are all scheduled very early in the new school year.  I'll come back to a short report on the University College sale and Word on the Street shortly.  I haven't missed the one at Trinity, which is at the end of Oct., but the only day I can go check it out is the 24th, right before a concert I am attending, so I'll just have to hope this place doesn't have a strict bag policy...  (Or maybe I'll leave work early, go to the sale, drop books off at home and come back downtown.  A bit daft, but I've done odder things before.)

Generally most (non-rare) books at these sales are $3 to $5, which is certainly good, but not as amazing (for stocking up the Little Free Library) as the $2 books at St. Andrews.  I can't find a listing on-line.  They usually have one book sale that runs at the same time as the TIFF festival, but then there are other book sales throughout the year.  Perhaps one in the spring and one in summer.  I usually find a few things of interest there, so I'll try to figure out what sort of schedule they really are on.

I mentioned before that I had stopped off at the Toronto Reference Library for their rare book sale back in Sept. and picked up a few art books but passed on a John Marin book.  They said that the Winter book sale was the one with all the cheap, cheap books, so I'll try to go back to that.  This is supposed to be Nov. 14-6.  Now as it happens, I am debating going to NYC on Nov. 13, and if I do that, I would perhaps take the train to DC for a day, so I might not actually make it back by the 16th, but we shall see.  This is mostly about stocking up with books for outside, so it isn't completely essential that I go.

I also mentioned that I gave up on Powers's The Gold Bug Variations.  It was ultimately not sufficiently interesting for me to overlook how much Powers needed to show off to the world how clever he was.  I liked Joy Williams's The Quick and the Dead much more, though it was quite episodic, and I didn't think the ending made a lot of sense.  These shortcomings will probably keep it from being one of the best books of the year, though there have been a lot of generally disappointing books this year (2023 was generally a better year for reading).

That said, I am tackling Powell's The Golden Spur next, and this should be tres amusant.  I reread the last few pages of The Wicked Pavilion to help me get back into the right frame of mind.  And right after that, it will be Kilometer 101 by Maxim Osipov (from NYRB).  These should be pretty interesting, and neither is terribly long.  

I'm off to Stratford next weekend (to see Something Rotten in fact), and I'll be taking DuPont's The American Fiancée with me.  The following weekend I should be travelling to Raleigh, and I'll likely finish that book and take something I can leave behind with me (maybe Manu Joseph's Serious Men).  And then I fly the week to Edmonton immediately after that.  I have a few options, but probably I'll take Oliver Twist, though I'm wondering if perhaps I should consider Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles.  As I said a bit before, I definitely want to tackle Atwood's The MaddAdam Trilogy soon, but it doesn't actually work as well as the others as a long travel read.

I see I have run out of time (largely due to the many, many times I had to try to restart the computer to upgrade Kindle, which still isn't working quite properly).  I'll try to fill in a bit more about Word on the Street when I get back.

I'll just end with some thoughts on shorter books.  I am mostly done with Freud's The Question of Lay Analysis and should wrap that up this weekend with a bit of a push.  I had planned on tackling Kennedy's Ironweed as the next very short book, but actually I picked up Melville's Billy Budd combined with The Encantadas for $1 from the University College books sale.  I have read a fair bit of Melville (including both The Confidence Man and Moby Dick twice!), but never Billy Budd.  So I'll read that next and then put it outside.  After this (from the "short list"), probably a collection of Orwell's lesser known essays and then perhaps Huxley's The Devils of Loudun.  I should be able to squeeze in Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 in there somewhere.  And then maybe Forster's Howard's End.  The only issue with that it is in an omnibus with A Room with a View, so it doesn't particularly feel like a short read.  Well, first world problems and all that.  Time to run.  Ta!

Sad Art Day

I thought about calling this Bad Art Day, but that would be unfair.  I just wasn't moved by a lot of what I saw on Sat., both during the day and at Nuit Blanche, but I don't think much of it was bad art, though I might make an exception for what is on at the Market Gallery, where almost everything on view is a bit of a rip-off of Norval Morrisseau's style.

Sat. did get off to a bit of a rocky start, when I turned up at the Regent Park pool and because nearly all the life guards had called in sick at the last minute, the hot tub wasn't open (sigh) and we had to wait in line until enough other people had left the pool, so that was quite annoying.  And even though there were slightly fewer people swimming laps than usual, the medium lanes were just as congested as ever.  I managed to get in 19 laps and finally bailed before I got even more frustrated.  It wasn't a complete disaster, but it wasn't ideal.

I ran over to the TMU Image Centre, since I hadn't seen this since the main exhibit switched over to one featuring Lee Miller.  Most of the images are fashion-oriented and not very interesting to me, though there is a room of her WWII images, some of which are grim indeed.  But this exhibit mostly feels like a missed opportunity.  They surely could have found a space for Lee Miller taking a bath in Hitler's tub on the day his death was announced, which is generally read as a way of mocking him.  (More on that story here.)

But her connection to the art world, particularly Picasso, is turned into nothing more than a footnote, and none of the 1000s of images she took of him and his work (or any of the published Vogue spreads) are included.  This seems like a very poor decision on the Image Centre's part.  Anyway, more on Miller and Picasso here.

After this, I tried unsuccessfully to buy a mango lassi, then went over to The Powerplant.  I wasn't particularly interested in the exhibits.  I ran next door and saw some of the exhibits there.  That paid off, as the Power Plant wasn't going to participate in Nuit Blache and the building next door was closing quite early (8:30!).  This is a far cry from the glory days of Nuit Blanche when many museums participated all night long (or at least that's how I remember it).

I went over to the St. Lawrence Market and ran upstairs to the Market Gallery.  As I already indicated, this was very disappointing, and I ran back home, stopping along the way to pick up some groceries.

I had real work to do in the afternoon and early evening, and I didn't actually head out for Nuit Blanche until 9:15 or so!  My path this time was the Lee Daniels Lightbox in Regent Park, then the Bentway (though I actually overshot it and ended up in Liberty Village!).  I think I actually saw a coy-wolf skulking around but didn't manage to get a picture.

It really did look almost exactly like this, however, and I did wonder if it was a wolf, though a coy-wolf (or Eastern Coyote) is certainly more likely.

The Bentway art was ok but nothing particularly spectacular.  There weren't all that many people around either.  I was disappointed that there was nothing in Fort York proper (and I guess there wasn't last year either), though there was an inflated light bulb (sponsored by Toronto Hydro) near Fort York.

It was quite challenging to get back to Stackd Market (because drivers on Bathurst were so terrible!) but that was perhaps the most interesting site of the night.  

There was some DJ playing as I biked past The Well, but it didn't look like there was actually any art on view, so I kept going.  I should have hooked right on Spadina, but the traffic was insane, even worse than Bathurst, so I went on to Blue Jay Way and finally got over to Harbourfront.  I guess I probably should have backtracked to the Music Garden, but I just didn't feel like it.  There wasn't all that much art where I was, but there was a great big space filled with multicultural food vendors.  At least there was quite the buzz of people out at night, having a good time.  (I also guess there was some stuff on at 401 Richmond, and I do regret not going back for that, but again it would probably have involving having to deal with Spadina traffic...)

Then I went over to Union and saw a few things, though again one exhibit had closed early.  There was something going on at King and Bay, but it was indoor art and the line to get in was far too long.  I was astounded that there was nothing going on at Nathan Philips Square, which is usually kind of the heart of Nuit Blanche.  There certainly wasn't much on on Yonge St., particularly compared to last year when Yonge was sort of the spine of the whole thing (pre-pandemic Spadina was more of the heart of things).  There was one last outdoor exhibit at Yonge-Dundas Square.  It wasn't all that interesting.  What was more interesting was I was there at the same time as the cyclists doing their own sort of art parade showed up, then they went to King and Bay and I went home.  

I think I spent roughly 2.5 hours out and about, which is probably a bit less than most years.  

I guess there were a few things of interest that I did miss, including some billboards that were "talking" to each other (not quite sure where that was), but I felt this time around things were too spread out and not very well coordinated.  I was really disappointed in how few art hubs and/or spines there were this time around, aside from the waterfront sites, maybe because the city didn't want to pay even more overtime to deal with traffic control (and deal with even more complaints from suburbanites who already hate driving around the city).  As far as I can tell, no streets were shut down for Nuit Blanche, and they usually are.  It was also a major disappointment that no or nearly no major art institutions or civic centres (with exception of Union Station) were participating.  I definitely found this a real missed opportunity.  So, as I said, a fairly sad day for art in the city...