Two Very Busy Days

I'm going to go ahead and post my calendar for April, which is quickly coming to an end. 

 
As always, I stay busy, but this is taking it to the next level.  Just listing some of what I have done is a bit exhausting, though I have few regrets.  Now it looks like I had the 27th and 28th free, but I added a poetry reading at Cavendash Booksellers on Monday (and an unsuccessful attempt to swing by Bau-Xi right before they closed, but they closed early!) and then moved the play* I was seeing with a friend from Wed. to Tues. because she was working on the 29th.  That sort of freed up the 29th (for me) on paper at least, but it ended up being an extremely busy day, as I'll explain in a moment.

For now, I will just go into what happened last Sat. and then on the 29th.  I wanted to get an early start on things and get to some art galleries before coming back to see Mary Mary Mary Mary at Crow's Theatre.  I think I finally left around 10:30.  I'd actually managed to ride in to work all that last week (20-24th), which was surprising.  (It looks like I might manage it this week as well, which is perhaps even more surprising, given that they were forecasting quite a bit of rain.)  

Anyway, last Sat. it was raining in the morning, so I was back at the mercy of the TTC.  I did make a major goof in that I went over the bridge, thinking I would take the streetcar to the Riverdale Library.  It was only when I was about halfway up the bridge I remembered that it was only a digital hold that had come in, so there was no point in going to the library.  I should have turned around, but had somewhat over-committed myself.  Then I got to the streetcar stop; it was 15 minutes to the next streetcar, so I just walked to Carlaw and caught the next Pape bus, so that was a huge waste of time.  

I took the subway to Yorkville (the Bay stop) and looked in at a few galleries.  There was a pretty interesting Basquiat at one of the galleries I don't usually frequent, so that was cool.

Jean-Michel Basquiat, Phooey, 1982

I was actually there to see the Canadian Fine Arts Gallery, as there was an exhibition on Fritz Brandtner, one of the first Canadian modernist painters, that was ending that weekend.  I liked this exhibit quite a bit and was very taken with one of the pieces (though I will not post it here until I make up my mind whether to buy the piece).

This was a companion piece that had just sold.

Fritz Brandtner, City

They also had a few other interesting pieces, including a pretty nice Rita Letendre (which was a bit out of my price range).

Rita Letendre, A traverse l'espace, 2004

I was looking around for the Yorkville Library to drop off a book but just couldn't find it, and I was starting to worry a bit about the time.  I was going to take the Spadina streetcar down to 401 Richmond, which should have been simple.  However, as we neared College we heard that there was some accident ahead and all streetcars were going to divert down College to Bathhurst and then back on Queen.  This was incredibly frustrating.  I think maybe if they had decided to go down McCaul instead, which should have been possible, I would have stuck it out, but it seems kind of absurd to go over to Bathhurst, so I walked from College down to Richmond.  I suspect it took just as long to walk, but it felt a bit more productive, at least as far as exercise.  

Anyway, I went into the city-owned gallery (which has replaced Abbozzo), and my friend Andrea was working there.  We talked a bit about what was happening, and I reminded her that we were going to see How to Catch Creation the next week.  It had completely slipped her mind!  I tried to get into Gagne, but it was closed for some reason.  Maybe it's just as well, as it was definitely getting late, and if I had chatted with the owner, it would have really messed up my schedule.  I had just about 45 minutes to get back across town.  It would have been easy on a bike, and it should have been fine on the streetcar, but the Queen streetcar is making two diversions (one at Bay and then also between Parliament and Broadview -- the second is infuriating because they have finished the work near the Queen St. bridge and streetcars should be able to be using it, which would also improve the functioning of the King streetcar).  I started watching the minutes tick by.  We finally made it to Carlaw with just over five minutes before the play at Crow's started!  I had to run/jog/walk quickly up to Dundas.  (I really am not in shape to run, despite all the other exercise I get.)  I was 2 minutes late, but they let me in, and the play started a few minutes after that.  It took a while for me to get my heavy breathing (and coughing!) under control, but I finally did.  I won't go into great detail here, but this is simply a bad play.  I don't think I have any special grudge due to how hard it was to get back to it; indeed, the critics are pretty unanimous that this is a stinker.  I think word had gotten around as very few seats were filled.

After this, I ran over to Gagne's Leslieville outpost (basically a garage between Pape and Jones just off of Dundas).  It was kind of cool, comix-influenced art.  I also dropped off the overdue library book at the Jones library, then did just a bit of shopping at Gerrard Square.  I had a short stint of rest, and then I was off to see a jazz concert at Koerner Hall (Danilo Perez).  The second half of the concert was a big band concert with local musicians, including Kevin Turcotte and Allison Au (and in fact I mostly went to this concert for the big band portion).  As it happens, I documented this a bit already in this post.

If anything, April 29 was even more crammed!  I spent a huge part of the day finishing taxes.  I had done my son's about a week previously and my wife's wrapped up at some point over the weekend (possibly even after I had recovered from everything I got up to on Sat.).  I was not at all sure how they would go.  In years when my investments do well, then I often owe taxes.  On the other hand, I ended up taking far more unpaid leave than I normally do, and actually made less last year than the year before!  As I crunched through the numbers, it turns out I get a decent sized return (large enough that I feel I can go ahead and buy the Brandtner piece I liked at CFA Gallery).  I am nervous that the CRA seemed to have gotten something fairly wrong with my capital gains loss that I was carrying forward to this tax year, and I'll have to get on the phone to straighten that out at some point.  I also thought I was completely done, then learned that Box 85 on my T4 can get added to my uncovered medical expenses, which suddenly meant that my personal credits were a bit higher, and I ended up getting back another $75 or so in my refund.  So exhausting to go through everything, but so glad it is done for now, even if I do end up reaching out to the CRA in a month or so.

Anyway, as the work day was wrapping up, I scanned all the tax forms for my records, then got them mailed off at the post office near Union Station.  Then I went up to the Eaton Centre.  I picked up an additional hard drive from Best Buy, and picked up my glasses from Lenscrafters.  (That has quite an interesting back story, but I will hold off for now.)  I swung by BMV but they didn't have what I was looking for.  

I then biked over to AGO, as it was open late.  I finally managed to see the Paul McCartney photo exhibit.  It was fine, though something my parents would have appreciated a lot more.  His photos of New York in the early 60s were pretty nice.

Then I went back through the Edna Tacon exhibit, and then I headed home.  I made it back around 7:30.  It was starting to rain a bit, but the rain was pretty light, so I decided to force myself to go back out (on the bike).  I grabbed some cat food at Walmart, then biked down to Jimmie Simpson.  I was going to go a bit easy on myself, since I was relatively pleased with myself that I hadn't given in to temptation and went swimming after all, so I was going to do 20 laps.  However, once I got started (and I saw the pool was largely empty), I went ahead and put in 23-24 laps, so that was terrific.  I'm glad that I didn't dawdle because the Thai place I like at Queen and Logan was only open until 9:30 (not 10 as the website said!).  I ordered something and finally made it home.  I really was pretty exhausted (and I forgot to tune in to the last few minutes of Robyn Hitchcock's broadcast -- perhaps unfortunate, as he actually played my request, though I can catch it on repeat now).  And I finished the last few chapters of Maria Reva's Endling.  So yeah, a very busy, productive day.

 

* This was How to Catch Creation over at Soulpepper, which was actually a co-production with Nightwood and Obsidian Theatres.  It was very strong play and much funnier than I was expecting.  (In fact, I was expecting a fairly serious and/or experimental political play, but it was far more enjoyable.)  It runs for about three more weeks, and it might be extended if it becomes the hit it deserves to be; I'll try to do a bit of a review soon.

I Can't Feel My Lips!

Only a very slight exaggeration.  I was heading out to see Danilo Perez at Koerner Hall, and, per usual, I left a bit late.  I had thought I might stop in at Slab Burger, just off Bay, and indeed was starting to look up the number (to place an order for pick up) and finally decided I just wouldn't have time for even that.

Since the rain had stopped, I decided to bike over.  I make it to campus with about 30 minutes to spare and decided to take another look at the cherry trees, now in bloom, next to Robarts.

It's just so much nicer going here, rather than High Park!

Anyway, the jazz concert was good, though not amazing.  There was a guy next to me whose phone kept going off.  So frustrating.  I generally liked the big band portion the best, though could definitely have done without the sung text, which was pretty lame.  Also, Danilo clearly needs to learn how to set up sing-alongs.  The audience was all set to do participate on a line like "Oya oya oya" but then there were 3 more lines in Spanish on top of that, and we collectively decided that was not going to happen.

I stuck around for a bit to see the post-concert, which was a trio led by drummer Evyn Berridge.  I'm almost certain the pianist was Nathan Tran, but they didn't introduce the band or any of the pieces they were playing!

It was 10:45 or so by this point.  There was an Indian place on Sherbourne I had considered trying, but it closed at 11.  There was a South Indian place around the corner of College called Madras Curry, and it was open until midnight, so I stopped in there and picked up something to go.  It was good, but so, so spicy to the point I don't think I will go back after all.

Last Minute Reviews

These will be incredibly short reviews, as there is almost no time left for anyone to actually act on them.

Knife over at Theatre Centre.  There should be a show this evening (7:30?) and then a matinee on Sunday.  I thought this was solid.  Actually one of the better shows I've seen so far in 2026.  The set-up actually was very similar to Annie Baker's The Aliens (which was at Coal Mine 8 or so years ago).  The playwright told me he indeed took Annie Baker as an inspiration but hadn't managed to see that show. 

I've mentioned Bonnes Bonnes at Factory already.  Very interesting take looking at Genet's The Maids through a Chinese-Canadian lens.  There are only two performances left of the French version of this show.

Same deal with The Book of Mormon over at Mirvish - two performances left.  A stunningly funny (though often very crass) show.  Glad I had the opportunity to check it out again, after seeing it in Chicago, probably close to 15 years ago.

I am sad to say that Mary Mary Mary Mary by Erin Shields at Crow's Theatre is a disappointment at basically every level.  Dont go. 

That's truly it, as I have to run now.

 

Carpe Diem (Photos)

Just the other morning, I was coming in to work and saw that one of the elevators was out of service and a repairman was working on it.  It was actually a pretty incredible image, and if my phone had been in my pocket (instead of buried in my pannier), I would have stopped to get the shot.  As I went up in a different elevator in the (elevator) bank, I found my phone and went back again, but of course, the shot was gone.  These are still interesting, but nowhere near as cool. C'est dommage. 

That evening, I was over at Factory Theatre to see Bonnes Bonnes (an interesting reworking of Genet's The Maids from a Canadian-Chinese perspective).  I may be able to write more about this production, including the intriguing fact that the same cast is performing it in English and then following up with performances in French!  (The English performances are over, but there is still a week to catch it in French.  More info here.)  

On the way in, I spotted what looked almost like a religious icon, but was a stuffed bunny on the wall.  I decided I should document this (and not do it later, when in fact it would be dusk by the time the play ended and the shot would look completely different, even though the bunny is not likely to keep moving and spoiling the shot like the repairman...).

I'll try to be better about capturing these fleeting moments, but there is always too much going on to capture everything, and I don't want to let it get to me too much if something slips by, undocumented.

Super Busy Day

Friday was quite productive, though I had to work extra hours.  I finally got through my US taxes in the wee hours of the morning.  I still have a handful of the 8938 forms to fill in, but they won't impact the overall tax liability.  Indeed, I don't owe any US taxes and get some back that were withheld.  This isn't a huge surprise, but there are so many forms to fill out to get to that conclusion!  It's much more likely that I owe the CRA something, and after taking a few days off to recover, I will plunge into these as well.

I also delivered a final draft of a very long report to a client (in California).  I had promised I would get it over on Friday, and thus I had to keep working, along with some colleagues in Vancouver, long after everyone else had gone home.  I did make one weird mistake, moving the final chapter into the Appendix, but I decided that wasn't really a substantive problem, given they were still going to provide comments, so anyway that is a pretty big burden off my shoulders.

I had tried to finish up reading these George Szirtes poetry collections (and it is likely I would have finished up if I was stuck on the TTC, but I've been biking even in some less-than-ideal weather).  One issue is that Szirtes writes very long poems much of the time, so you don't have the situation where you can just flip through the pages.  (He also is quite committed to various rhyme schemes, which is a bit disconcerting.)  I had dropped in at Robarts on Wed. after a trip to the Rex.  It was just before 11, so the stacks were closing, but I was able to download some academic articles, and I turned in one of the collections.  I probably should have returned the other two.  They were due on Thurs., but there is usually a one day grace period before the fines kick in.  I had planned on reading more of them and turning them in before the Tafelmusik concert, but between taxes and report writing, I only just made it to the concert a few minutes before it started.  By the time it finished, the circulation desk was closed.  Given that I will now pay the late fee, I figured I might as well borrow them one more evening and see how far I get.

So tonight I have to try to push through these books and finish the very last of the IRS forms.

In the morning, I will need to get them signed and scanned, drop by the gym (as early as feasible) and do the main grocery shopping, though I am out almost every evening next week as well, so the grocery list will be on the short side.

Then I want to bike in to work, stopping by the Riverdale Library to pick up a book on hold.  Then I will spend a bit more time at work, then find a downtown post office open on Sat. (there is one on King near Blue Jay Way that I'll probably go to).  Assuming it isn't too late, I'll probably swing by The Well for lunch, then go up to 401 Richmond, then probably continue up to Bloor to see if I can sell off some stuff at BMV.  I may just come back to the office to crash for a while, as I have a concert at the Horseshoe that starts around 8.  I also should see about calling a bike shop and seeing if I can book a repair slot for Monday.  

Sunday should be a bit simpler, though it will be best if I can ride my bike.  I plan on getting some swimming in, then there is a concert at 2, and then there is the cold reading event starting around 7.  It is pretty important I go to this one, partly because they are reading a chunk of my script and I need to see how many actors the director has recruited and if this Fringe play is going to get off the ground or not.  I would say we will probably pull it off, but I am definitely a bit stress about it.

So no rest for the weary...  I better see if I can take a cat nap now... 

Edit (4/13): Sat. basically went the way I expected, though I left the house late and ultimately skipped lunch.  It was great to mail in US taxes four days early (not quite a record for me, but still a major accomplishment!).  I was glad that BMV bought a decent amount of stuff from me, so my bag was lighter, though they didn't want a fair bit of the poetry.  I wandered over to Seekers, but they had a huge sign saying that they were not buying anything at all, so I biked over to Robarts, though not before an upsetting period when I thought my phone was lost.  I actually went back into BMV and looked around, though it turned up totally buried at the bottom of my pannier!  I spent the late afternoon reading Szirtes in Robarts and finally dropped them off.  I had two choices: either to be early to the Hitchcock show at the Horseshoe but have the pannier (and work laptop) with me or drop that off at the office and be a bit late (for doors opening).  I chose the latter approach.  I grabbed some curry at an Indian place nearby and then went into the Horseshoe.  All the seats were taken, and I ended up leaning on this counter for pretty much close to 3.5 hours!  I'm really getting too old for this nonsense, and in particular I don't care for the Horseshoe because they have a pool table pretty close to the concert area.  I think unless there is someone that I just have to see, I will avoid it from now on.  I would say in terms of overall concert-going, it is worse than Lee's Palace!  The concert was good.  However, I don't think Robyn is mixing up the set lists very much now, unlike his solo gigs or his home shows on Bandcamp.  Here is the Toronto show, which looks identical to the Minneapolis and Chicago gigs.  (The Chicago show was at the Athenaeum, which means I could have sat down!  There were two people that collapsed during the show, so this approach to live music definitely needs to be rethought!)  Robyn is pretty lively for a guy in his 70s!  Anyway, the show didn't end until 12:15, so I got home late. 

Sunday I somehow did pull myself together.  I actually ran over to the mall and got some straggling grocery items I overlooked on Sat., and I bought a new door lock from Home Depot.  I had replaced the lock a while back, but the key needs to be pushed in so hard to unlock the door that one of these days we will break a key off in the lock.  I'm trying to do some preventive maintenance, even though I don't feel like I have a lot of free time these days.  Unfortunately, I didn't get to the pool until 12:20 when I had planned to start swimming by noon!  (I think the light rain did slow me down a bit, but the rain didn't prevent me from getting around the city, which was good.)  At least the fast swim lanes were pretty empty, and I managed to get 20 laps in.  I had planned on making it to 24 (and then 22 when I realized I had such a late start), but I also didn't want to be late for the ARC Ensemble Concert.  In the end, I had almost 20 minutes to spare, so I could have done at least two more laps.  Oh well.  It's just yet another reminder to stop trying to fit so much into each day.  After the concert, I swung by work and got a bit done, though not as much as I had hoped...  I then biked up to Queen, ate a quick meal at Ginger, then biked over to the social club where the readings happen.  Somehow it was double booked!  We waited around for a while, then went into the basement while a comedy show went on upstairs.  I wasn't thrilled about this, but the event itself was super productive.  I talked to a couple of the actors about casting people they knew, and then finally Jamie, who will be the director, showed up and said he was quite sure we could cast the show and he was going to take a bigger role in the casting.  So it looks like not only will we be going up during the Fringe, but we might have a couple of ringers (i.e. Equity or former Equity members).  Pretty outstanding turn of events!  Jamie did give me a few more notes and told me to rethink things more so there was more action and movement.  He thought the piece was far too static for a farce.  I don't love being pushed this way, but I need it, and I think the piece could really be fantastic if I make these changes and Jamie puts his secret sauce on as well.

Go Blue!

I don't usually indulge in getting worked up over college sports, though I do remember when it mattered to me in my late teens and possibly early 20s.  After that, my interest waned a lot.  Nonetheless, I was fortunate that the Michigan Wolverines were quite good at football and basketball.  1989 was one of the all-time great years, starting off by winning the Rose Bowl and then also winning the men's basketball championship!!!  (As mentioned elsewhere, I am so glad that the recruitment scandals and subsequent wiping away of the team's accomplishments didn't touch the championship title.)

Anyway, lately Michigan athletics are again on an upturn, becoming national football champions for 2023 (winning this at the Rose Bowl, no less) and just over a week ago winning the men's basketball championship.  So cool.

(And it was also cool to be a grad student at Northwestern the year they ran the table on the Big Ten and made it to the Rose Bowl, losing unfortunately.) 

I'm not even sure if I still have any U Michigan gear (or anything that fits still) whereas I have a few Northwestern shirts and a UToronto shirt and sweatshirt.  So I decided I would break down and buy a shirt to show my (very faint) school spirit.  I just ordered it.  It should look a lot like this, though without the little Jordan silhouette.  (They also had it in black, which looked cool, but this is so much better, being close to the school colors.)

It's not the best time in the world to proclaim any sort of allegiance to a US university, but I'll risk it anyway.  Most people that know me will understand, and I can't worry about people who don't know me, can I?  Perhaps the more interesting question is how many of these players, assembled from a lot of transfer schools will stick around another year.  Not that many would be my guess, and some may not even have any years of eligibility left.  They made their mark and now have dramatically improved their odds in the NBA lottery.  College sports fans (and I don't even consider myself within their ranks) can't really ask for anything more than that these days.

Spoiled Fruit (and Fringe)

While this is not such a big deal in and of itself, it shows that I am operating at much less than my best these days, surely due to a combination of spreading myself too thin, being stressed over taxes and whether I will actually be able to get my Fringe play cast in the next two weeks and just not sleeping enough (and the state of the world, which is always pretty dire).  Hopefully things will turn around, though I'm not expecting much until both Putin and Pres. Agent Orange are both underground.

Anyway, I had a meeting in Toronto's East End, so I just worked from home until the meeting.  Afterwards, I thought I might as well drop by work to get the results of an overnight run and ship them off to a junior who is processing them for me.  I also had an event at the Toronto Reference Library (though it would have been almost as easy to get there from home as from work).  I thought I should take the opportunity to take some frozen fruit I had bought and drop it off at work, but when I got to work I was so distracted by things (and randomly opened the "wrong" side of my bag) and it was still in the bag when I got to the library hours later, so I tossed it.  I'm rather fortunate that the bag of fruit didn't leak, but it was all pretty frustrating.

I was over at the library to see Yann Martel.  The event had been sold out for ages, but the previous evening I took a look and a few tickets had been returned, so I grabbed one.*  That meant a long look through boxes in the basement, trying to track down a copy of Life of Pi.  While I was there, I was also looking for my copy of Zadie Smith's The Autograph Man.  I may or may not own a copy of White Teeth, but I am sure I have The Autograph Man.  (I totally forget to look for Teju Cole's Open City, since he is going to be the interviewer at a TPL event next week, and I'm almost sure he will sign books.  So I guess I will go through this whole process again.)  I haven't decided if I will go see Zadie Smith when she comes to Massey Hall.  The tickets are quite expensive for an author reading, and I am pretty sure she won't be signing anything.  But I am still taking it as a bit of a sign that if the book(s) turns up, I'll go see her.  I'm starting to wonder if I should just replace the 3 shelf book case downstairs in the storage area with a 6 shelf bookcase, as I probably could display these books and not have to go hunting all the time for them.

I'll definitely want to go into more detail about the TPL event itself, as Yann is definitely a curious character.  In the end, I bought a copy of his new book Son of Nobody and a new copy of Life of Pi for him to inscribe to my son.

I'll close out by showing the Fringe blurb I put together.  I actually took a new set of photos for the Fringe poster, which I'll start working on.  

As can be seen, I had to go with the actors that have committed so far, though apparently in the on-line version, I can keep adding names.  The dates and times (over at Alumnae Theatre) are actually really good, and I certainly hope that helps me sign up the remaining actors!  More on this soon, I promise!

 

* Interestingly, I had also been trying to snag a ticket to Tampopo at Paradise, but it was sold out.  My plan had been to go and get in the rush line, but then the Yann Martel ticket opened up and I switched my plans.  Hopefully, it will turn up at the Revue (or I guess even the Fox) though my preference would be if it screens at Carlton, as that gives me the most flexibility.  I have seen it, though never on the big screen.

Finished (Almost) with First Pass on (US) Taxes

It really has crept up on me, but US taxes are due in just over a week.  What makes it particularly challenging is I have a chunk of investment income that just is "foreign income."  This is relatively easy to capture on CRA forms, but not the US forms, so I have asked for some clarification.

Anyway, I was up for hours getting downloading everything, and I think I have pretty much everything except I have to clarify a large dental bill my son incurred (and which insurance wouldn't cover).  This only really matters for the CRA, so I don't have to panic about it.

Nonetheless, because investment income was higher than usual, I will have to work my way through the Canadian taxes in order to get an estimate on what I paid in order to claim this as a tax credit against my US taxes.  So that means the next few days will get a bit hairy.

I did manage to get my Fbar form filed.  While the form itself is not that complicated, getting the information together to figure it out takes forever.  For some reason, the first time through it was rejected, likely because I was using a knock-off Pdf viewer and not Adobe, so it wasn't digitally signed correctly or something like that.  But I went back through and now it has been filed successfully.  This is the one with the highest penalties for non-compliance (potentially up to 10% of the foreign assets not declared!), so it is always the first thing I submit!

And now back to the rest of the tax forms.  Sigh...

A Few Positive Events

I definitely dwell mostly on the negative side of things, and there is certainly a lot to be negative about!

But I'll list a few positive developments, though a few are minor indeed.

I have had a few abstracts accepted to conferences recently.  It's nice to know I haven't lost my touch, even though I don't really have enough time allocated to this sort of thing at work, which means tackling it in the evenings, along with all the other things I am trying to juggle.

While I seem to be missing a lot of the Sun Ra music that I have downloaded or ripped in the last year or so, I did come across a folder of 8 albums and I have another 2 on another hard drive.  I know I have far more than that, so, hopefully, I will come across that fairly soon.

I have been filling in some gaps in my jazz collection.  For some reason I am interested in relatively early 1950s jazz from France.  Recently I picked up some CDs by Hubert Fol and Guy Lafitte.  I also managed to locate a re-issue of a rare LP called Jazz Boom No 1.  

I had assumed I had ripped this previously, but that doesn't seem to be the case, so I just ripped it now, which greatly increases the odds I can listen to it while at work!  I'm partway through ripping 2 box sets from Vogue records, and in a few cases trying to track down some of the sessions that weren't issued in the box sets.

I actually have quite a long ways to go with the ripping, and I probably should try to finish ripping several classical box sets I have lying around, but before too long, I would like to re-rip the Jazz in Paris box set.  (I ripped it back around 2005, but at a fairly lossy level, and I don't think I even captured song titles or the key performers.)

Between the original box and a bunch of follow-up re-issues, there are something like 120 CDs involved, which will clearly mean going to get another hard drive to back things up properly in multiple locations!  I have no idea what I paid for the set, though likely around $250.  I see the few complete sets on the market are running close to $2000!

We had quite a rain storm in the early evening, though it was just about done raining by the time the movie (The Dead Zone) ended.  The streets were, in fact, flooded, and I was very glad that our basement was fine, as I was half-expecting water to be seeping in.  

The last thing that has gone better than expected is that our dehumidifier in the basement had stopped working because the filter was jammed up with lint (and cat hair).  I cleaned this off and put it back together, but it wouldn't run.  I tried all kinds of resetting buttons and even just leaving it off for a day to let it cycle back to normal, but nothing worked.  I was very close to calling a repair man for a quote (though realizing it was probably just as cheap to buy a new one!), when it started working again spontaneously.  It's been running ok for a week now, and hopefully we won't have any other issues for a while.  It's certainly unusual for an appliance like that to self-repair, but it was definitely good news for me.

Bubblings of Trouble

While I am definitely getting a bit nervous about various things, most notably whether I can actually participate in Fringe (as I'll get to in a moment), the weather is improving and my mood is lifting at least a bit. It was a long tough winter, particularly all of Jan.  But the weather was great on Monday and I biked a fair bit.  I did skip out on going to the gym, mostly because I stayed at work a bit longer than expected, I did so much biking over the weekend, and I am just generally depressed about things going on at home (to say nothing of the Orange One’s global tantrums).

Working backwards from that, Sunday was pretty good.  I managed to get in 16 or so laps at Jimmie Simpson, then had to bike to Little Italy.  I made it in 35 minutes, which was pretty good.  I was a bit early, though the bar at the Monarch Tavern wasn't open before the show and the line at intermission was moving so slowly.  Fortunately, the play itself – Galatea by John Lyly – is fairly short, and we were done around 4:30, even with the extra long intermission.  It is a weird play, with two young maidens, both disguised as young men, falling in love. Then at the end, the goddess Venus says she'll change one of them into a male, so they can marry (naturally), but they won't know who is transformed until they get to the church door!  So wild.

I had really wanted to rope in Steven Ho into my Fringe play (as Jasper), but he is directing another Fringe show, which rules him out.  I approached an older actor (with ties to Video Cabaret and their history plays) who might make a solid Frederick, and he said he would email and I would get him the script, but radio silence. I suspect he has decided he is not free during Fringe, but still it would be nice to hear directly and not just be ghosted.

I am getting very antsy at this point, and I am starting to wonder if I will have to pull the plug. I guess I’ll email Jamie over the weekend and try to have him put out a casting call, as this is just getting ridiculous…

After this, I was quite hungry, and I had planned to grab an eggplant Parmesan sandwich next door, but that restaurant closed permanently, which is a real shame.  The other Italian place across the street is nowhere near as good, so I biked off in search of an early dinner.  I found a pretty decent Thai place on College, though the service there was also slow.  I was definitely getting worried, but I biked hard and made it to the Paradise to see Foxy Brown (a notorious Blaxploitation film starring Pam Grier) with about 5 minutes to spare.  All I can say is they would never get away with this today, though the fashions were pretty great and over the top.  Then I biked home, so I was a bit worn out.

Sat. was considerably simpler.  I put in a fairly solid workout at the gym and brought home the groceries.  I then biked across on Dundas to the TMU Image Centre.  They have a good exhibit on early photos from Magnum Photos, which runs through this Saturday.  I went over to 401 Richmond and briefly dropped in at a couple of galleries.  It was already 5 by this point.  I then went over to The Well.  As my bag was pretty full, I just ate there rather than carrying it off anywhere.  Then I dropped in at work for an hour or so, trying to compile all the tax info, particularly the donations I made last year, as tax season is sneaking up on me!  (Especially my US taxes!)  Then I saw a TSO concert where Joshua Bell played Bruch's Violin Concerto and also conducted the orchestra.  Not only the Bruch, but Beethoven's 7th Symphony.  Then I went back to the office for about three more hours and tried to download all the account info I will need to do my taxes, though I didn't actually start in on them.  Then I finally went home.

Ok, I have to get at least some rest now…

Cutting Things Too Close (Yet Again)

Always a constant problem with me, as I just try to fit too much in.  And it is a weird time when I've done a bit of biking, so have reset my mental clock to remember how much of the city I can cover on a bike -- but then not being able to bike and being stuck on the TTC instead.

This was definitely an issue last Sunday when I didn't have much on the calendar except for a Mooredale concert at 3:15.  I did some work and tried to get caught up on a few things and didn't make it to Jimmie Simpson until just after 1.  I had really thought I would swim 30+ laps, but in the end I was really struggling to get about 25, and it took me pretty close to 50 minutes.  Then there were quite a few delays on the TTC, and of course they had closed down Line 1 (when I really needed to get to the Museum stop!), so I literally ran from St. George to Walter Hall and made it with only 3 minutes to spare before the concert.  So frustrating.  The concert was fine though.

I had to drop off stuff at St. Mike's, so I did that after the concert, then walked back across Queen's Park to Robarts and dropped off the other Buñuel DVDs and did a small bit of research.  Then I decided to head over to BMV (though I didn't have anything with me to sell).  Once again, I cut things too close (and didn't have time to grab food), and I made it to Carlton Cinema as the trailers were rolling.  I was there to see Project Hail Mary.  On the whole I enjoyed this, but the faster-than-light travel really grated at me, particularly when the author wants to be so serious about the science behind his anthrophages, etc.  Most fans of the book are totally devastated that this isn't The Martian Pt. 2 with the whole movie spent on scientific experiments etc., but that just seems like it would have been intolerable.  They also didn't like that the main administrator wasn't the all-powerful pan-governmental agent who nukes the Antarctic in the book but not in the movie.  I think that was a change for the better.  Anyway, not really a hard science fiction movie, which was fine by me.

Tonight I will be facing the same sort of thing, and again the weather is just not right for cycling (too cold this morning).  I am off to the Jazz Bistro to see Kirk MacDonald and Pat LeBarbara play, but I am probably going to run off to the Paradise right after work, and I may end up regretting it, esp. if the TTC does not behave.  (It was quite bad last night, where a "medical emergency" at Castle Frank shut down St. George to Broadway yet again, and I waited around for a while, finally giving up and heading south to catch the streetcar.  It was only when I got to Museum that they said service had resumed!  Then the Carlton streetcar I was on decided to go down to Queen for some reason, so not good at all.  I was also extremely frustrated that my camera battery had died on me and spoiled some of the video and photos I was trying to take.  I think I needed only 5 more minutes of battery!  So overall not a great night.*)  I do hope tonight goes a bit better.

Edit (03/28): Last night actually worked out surprisingly well.  I made it to the Paradise and saw Petzold's Miroirs No 3, which I enjoyed, and then I ran back downtown to see Pat LeBarbara and Kirk MacDonald (and Neil Swainson!) doing their annual tribute to John Coltrane.  This is the first year it's ever been at the Jazz Bistro, but I certainly hope it goes back to the Rex next year.  It was great, and this time around my phone camera didn't break down.  After the gig, I saw a Carlton streetcar.  I actually had to run a couple of blocks, but it was not going very fast, and I managed to board it, so the trip back was surprisingly smooth.

* It really was frustrating not having a working phone while I was having these major TTC issues, and I was particularly annoyed that if Esprit had stuck to its original program (with only 1 and not 2(!) intermissions) this probably wouldn't have been nearly as much of an issue.  Also, right at the start of the viola concerto, the violist broke a string, so they had to change it and restart!  Not something you see every day, and this also pushed the concert end time even further out.

Frustrating Trip to Tarragon

For once the TTC travel wasn't so bad, but the lead-up was definitely annoying and then the station had lots of construction that forced all the passengers to make long detours.  Anyway, I'll get to that in a moment.

What really grates is that I ran up to Bloor with a moderate pile of stuff to try to sell off at BMV.  As I was getting closer, I wondered if it was too late to try to sell to them.  And indeed, they are only open until 7 pm on Mon-Wed., which seems frankly silly when they are open until 11 pm(!) on Friday and Saturday.  I could have checked, but 7 just seems so early for a Tues.  Then I thought well at least there is a decent chance Seekers will take the books, though not the CDs or DVDs, and they were closed for inventory!  Grrrr.  So that was really frustrating, and I am not sure when I will be able to haul all this stuff back with me for another go at BMV.

Not only was a huge chunk of the station off-limits, forcing everyone to cross Spadina and Dupont, but this section had been closed off for a few months before and now it is closed again?  The sign said it would be another 6 weeks, and indeed, I will probably try to avoid making the trip to Tarragon until this is resolved.  Then some condo construction forced a closure of a traffic lane and the sidewalk, and the pedestrians were forced into another lane of traffic.  It just was really annoying.

Anyway, I got to Tarragon not in the best of moods.  I thought Icarus did a good job with their production of Julie, which is an update of Strindberg's Miss Julie.  I'm pretty sure I saw Miss Julie (in a slightly modernized adaptation) at the Chopin Theatre in Chicago decades ago.  As it happens, I have a copy of Miss Julie, which I browsed after I got home.  I would say Miss Julie is still a fairly pathetic lost soul in this version, but she is a bit less passive this time around.  Also, I think there was a slightly larger role for Katerina the maid.  It's a fairly downbeat piece, however.*

I'm going to see an early Strindberg work, Creditors, at Canadian Stage next season.  Paul Gross is in it, which was one of the main draws.  I toyed with the idea of seeing Dance of Death at Stratford close to 10 years ago, but didn't go.  I can't remember if the travel was too much of a hassle or the reviews were poor.  I actually saw A Dream Play at Northwestern back in 1997, but I don't remember anything about it.  I suppose if it ever comes through, I would see A Dream Play again.  I would like to see The Ghost Sonata some day, and that might be enough Strindberg.  I am not a massive fan of his work.

There are quite a few other things I was going to discuss, but let's keep this post reasonably short... 

* And this is after a very downbeat movie, Fassbinder's Veronika Voss, at the Paradise on Monday, so back to back misery.  I sort of think of Veronika Voss as Sunset Boulevard but with morphine addicts.  It morphs into a neo-noir film about halfway in.  As I was thinking about it, I don't believe there is a single Fassbinder film with a truly happy ending, though Ali: Fear Eats the Soul has a somewhat open-ended ending that isn't completely miserable.  Just as with Buñuel (or Petzold for that matter), I've gone from seeing virtually none of his work to getting up to 5 films (almost all at the Paradise), though there are several key ones I still need to see (where I feel I've seen all the core Buñuel's).

Follow-Up on Art

It's looking less and less likely that I will run over to the gym for a cardio session.  I need to get over to Jimmie Simpson around 12:30 and the weather is pretty miserable (cold rain), so I will be trying to figure out how to do this all by TTC.  Probably head down to Queen, and then after swimming just take the Queen streetcar downtown.  I'm hoping there is enough time to drop in at work and pick up more printing (only a few pages printed after all), then go up to St. Mike's and drop off DVDs, see the concert, go to Robarts and drop off the rest of the DVDs and do a bit of research, then maybe see about selling some stuff to BMV (though this will only happen if I do manage to make it to work), and then perhaps see Project Hail Mary.

I did decide not to bother with the TO Bach Festival pass.  While there is some modest price savings, that is only if you go to all 4 concerts.  I am definitely skipping one and probably a second one of motets.  But I would like to finish booking everything else today.  I am very tempted to buy tickets to Penderecki Quartet on May 21, but I remembered just in time that I have tickets to see Hillary Hahn on that date at Koerner Hall.  It's a bit of a waiting game, as her recovery is not going that well unfortunately, and she's cancelled a lot of concerts, and I expect she will probably cancel this one as well, but hasn't done it officially yet.  I'd probably slightly prefer the Penderecki Quartet, but I'll just wait and see how it plays out.  Also, I don't think they let you cancel concerts just on a whim or the worry that an artist will pull out.  (I'm still a bit annoyed that they rescheduled the Music of Golijov concert so that it overlapped with the Amici concert they are also presenting, but I ended up using the price of the ticket to a jazz concert coming up at Koerner Hall.)

As a brief overview, yesterday I biked downtown.  I stopped in at the BMV near Yonge-Dundas Square.  I was mostly looking for Howl's Moving Castle, though there are a couple of Criterions I am always looking for.  I suppose there is a small chance I would pick up Buñuel's Él, as the bonus features are really good.  (I have a DVD on hold at TPL, but this is fairly recent release and it will take quite some time to work my way up the queue.)  Anyway, I saw Breaking Bad on Blu-Ray, the complete seasons 1, 3 and 4, so I got those.  Why not.  If I do make it to the BMV on Bloor, I'll have to see if they have season 2 or 5.  I was almost out the door, when I saw an interesting Max Beckman and Paris book for only $15, so I got that as well.

I went over to the AGO right after that, though I didn't have much time and decided to skip the Paul McCartney photo exhibit.  I saw the Edna Taçon exhibit instead (where the Naoko Matsubara exhibit had been , and this was definitely more up my alley.  Her early works are quite similar to early Kandinsky, and her later works are akin to Klee with perhaps a touch of Miro.  I'll definitely want to check this out a few times, and it runs through late August.  I'm not quite sure I want to pay $45 for the catalogue, as nice as it is, but the library appears to have a few copies, so I will check one out and decide then.

Edna Taçon, Untitled, 1941

Edna Taçon, Ecstasy (Black Accent), 1944

 

Edna Taçon, Improvisation No. 2, 1946

Edna Taçon, Green Organization, 1943

I also had a chance to stop by the contemporary sculpture garden by Ranbir Sidhu and take some photos, as the previous batch was lost.

Then I ran over to Gagné Contemporary where they have a new show called Mona Lisa with Moustache, which only runs one more week.  I think this piece, which involves cut-outs and interesting shadow play, was perhaps the most interesting.

 

I had a bit more time so I ran upstairs to the Red Head Gallery as well.  Then I grabbed a banana chocolate loaf slice and walked back over to No Frills.  Since my bag was completely full, I actually went to work to drop some stuff off, then biked back to The Well and grabbed Thai food, but ate it at work.  I didn't have a lot of time, but I did update a few things.  I would have finished my time sheet, but I haven't been given some of the codes, which is very frustrating.

I went to the concert at Soundstreams.  I liked some of the pieces a fair bit, though there were just too many pieces (9 premieres in total), and the quartet went offstage to retune between many of them, so the concert lasted well over 2.5 hours!  In the end, it was a bit too much.

I will close by saying this is the very last day to catch Jeff Wall at MOCA.  I was tempted to go again.  Though I went at least twice, and maybe a third time.  I probably would have if the weather had been better or if I could have scored a free pass through the library or if it had extended one more week, since I would have bundled it with a trip west to see Shakespeare Bash'd at the Monarch Tavern.  Anyway, here are a few of my favourite photos from the show.  (I'll circle back and label them tonight, but I'm running late again...)

 

Detail from Insomnia

 

 

 

 

 

Come Through the Other Side of Disappointments

If I had gotten around to it, I'm sure I would have written about how disappointing I was in myself, letting one thing or another keep me from swimming.  It's certainly true that I don't push through to exercise as much as I used to, particularly when it is cold and/or I am wet.  (And I got hit with snow out of nowhere on the bike ride home on Monday.)  But things have generally taken a bit of a turn for the better at work, though I need to press one guy to see if he did the extra tasks I assigned him.  And I was really disappointed to hear that a few senior staff had been let go (though nothing like last year) and that the woman in charge of our Social Equity team had been let go, esp. as I was trying to do more work on the technical side of supporting equity analyses.  I think it is incredibly short-sighted and shows just how cowardly U.S. based companies are.  Sigh.

But the weather may have finally gotten to the point where boots are no longer necessary, and we probably won't have any snow that sticks.  Famous last words of course.  I was able to bike on Thurs., though it rained a fair bit Friday morning, so I was back on the TTC.  I'm making pretty decent progress on this mega-projects book for the review, though I've decided it just isn't a very good book, which is a shame of course.  I'm still only a bit further than 1/4 of the way through Ada, but I'll try to read another big chunk this weekend.

I don't have too many library books out, though I do need to get to Murakami's The City and Its Uncertain Walls, right after I am finished with Ada.  In addition to the other books I have planned to read, I decided I should read Kathy Acker's Don Quixote (and probably before I get that much further with my play, which has Don Quixote and other fantastical dreamers as a running subplot).  I've certainly read excerpts of her works and probably some short stories, but I don't think I've ever read an entire novel, though I may just be forgetting.  She is certainly one of the most transgressive authors out there, along with the Marquis de Sade and Henry Miller!  I think I would pair this with Coover's The Public Burning, and, while I hope my copy sitting in North Carolina, makes it here in time, I may just borrow a copy from Robarts.  This is all probably happening late April/early May.

I have sat down and watched several more Buñuel films, so between the Revue and TIFF (and Ann Arbor ages and ages ago) and home viewing, I have gone through the following:
1929     Un Chien Andalou
1930     L'Âge d'Or   
1953     Él
1961     Viridiana
1962     El ángel exterminador (The Exterminating Angel)
1964     Le journal d'une femme de chambre (Diary of a Chambermaid) 
1965     Simón del Desierto  (Simon of the Desert)
1967     Belle de jour    
1972     Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie (The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie)
1977     Cet obscur objet du désir  (That Obscure Object of Desire)

In addition to being influenced by The Exterminating Angel, I think Gilliam was clearly cribbing from The Obscure Object of Desire with all the explosions when he started work on Brazil (and also the radical openness/uncertainty at the end of Belle de Jour).

I think this is quite a good overview of Buñuel's work (up from only seeing Un Chien Andalou prior to this year!), though it looks like I can (and probably will) borrow the following from the library (though I am no longer in such a rush):
1969     La voie lactée  (The Milky Way)
1970     Tristana    
1974     Le fantôme de la liberté  (The Phantom of Liberty)

I won't write a lot about it, as I am already pretty late for the gym, but I am leaning towards ordering a Rita Letendre piece from a gallery in Montreal.  It's on the small side but surprisingly affordable.

Anyway, today I am off to the gym, will need to help my daughter with some math homework, and then I should have just enough time to get to 401 Richmond (and possibly the AGO).  Then I'll grab some Thai food at The Well, drop in at work to pick up some printing and then go over to a Soundstreams concert in the evening.

Tomorrow, I plan on swimming a bit longer (30+ laps) to make up for missing out last week, going to see a Mooredale concert at 3, and dropping off the Buñuel DVDs I have borrowed from Robarts.  I will see if it is feasible to catch Project Hail Mary at Carlton, but it isn't urgent.  But overall, it should be a slightly less frenetic weekend than usual, even though I am off to a late start, per usual...

Ciao!

Artistic Disappointments

It doesn't really upset me, as it doesn't affect me (and it isn't as disastrous a choice as Driving Miss Daisy or The Green Book) but I am disappointed that One Battle After Another won best picture.  I would really have liked to see The Secret Agent get it (which was then shut out of Best Foreign Film as well), though Sinners would have been an ok choice.  This year I saw a surprising number of Best Picture films.  In addition to OBAA and The Secret Agent, I also saw Hamnet and Marty Supreme.  And I did manage to see the animated short films.  I think The Girl Who Cried Pearls was probably the best of the bunch, but any of them (aside from this mawkish Christian fable about a bear and a pine tree) would have been fine.  There's no point in belabouring it, but the only thing I liked about OBAA was Benicio del Toro (and certainly not Sean Penn's (frankly cartoonish) role, which lurches into Jason territory as the (almost) unkillable monster).  Oh well.

The weekend was very mixed in terms of artistic positives and negatives.  I managed to get to the gym early on Sat. and then took the cat over to the vet.  Unfortunately, they want a follow-up visit and think the cone should stay on a few more days.  Sigh.  Then I had a fairly empty day, so I went around to a bunch of galleries.  I probably shouldn't have bothered with Corkin and Thomas Landry as nothing had changed.  I then dropped in at work and set off another long run (though I was extremely frustrated as the computer had crashed early into the Friday night run).  Then I went up to Yorkville and saw a few things there before going up to Davenport to Gallery Gevik.  I had sort of resolved in my mind to pick up one of the Letendre's that they had.  Little did I know that they had a Letendre show in Dec. and the pieces I was considering had sold.  (The newspapers do a terrible job in reporting on these smaller shows, and I generally don't check routinely, though after they moved from Yorkville I probably wouldn't have gone anyway, as it is pretty inconvenient to go except by bike.)  Then I asked about another piece I had considered purchasing, coming back a few times to look at it.  It also had sold.  I guess it was just not meant to be.  They do have some other Letendre pieces, though I wasn't crazy about the works on paper and the canvases were enormous and way outside my price range.  Too bad.

There is a Yorkville gallery that has a couple of Letendre works for sale, including this one.

They have another one I like a bit better, but probably not enough to buy it, so I may just wait and see if anything more to my taste comes on the market.  It's not like I have any open space anyway.

I had a bit of time, so I went to the original Bau-Xi gallery, though not the AGO.  Then I made it to 401 Richmond.  It was a few minutes before 5.  Red Head Gallery was basically shut up, and I was very disappointed that another gallery I had planned to see (and which is supposed to stay open until 6 on Sat.) was closed!  So I will have to try to hit 401 Richmond next Sat.  I think all in all, I probably should have skipped the detour to the Distillery and then I would have had enough time at 401 Richmond, but the real disappointment was the pieces I was interested in at Gevik were gone.

I saw The Herald at Buddies in Bad Times.  There were some elements in it that were interesting, but overall it didn't do a lot for me.  That's pretty typical for the experimental stuff that gets put up at Buddies.

Sun. there was a bit too much snow, but it didn't stick.  Still, I decided not to bike to the swimming pool, and I guess I'll try to go tonight and possibly Wed.  I was a bit delayed by the St. Patrick's Day parade but managed to make it to a Bach concert at Mazzolini Hall.  It was terrific.

Then I went back to work for a bit, though it was a fairly short trip before I had to head out for the cold read thing.  I think they really should have picked a different night.  There were few actors around, and I ended up reading some small roles.  The guy I had hoped to tackle the Frederick role in my Fringe piece decided to pull out.  I did get a bit of a lead on two other actors who might sign on and potentially a stage manager, though one with limited experience.  And I think next Sun. I should round up a few more, and then we'll see how many parts remain.  So on the whole, Sunday was a better day, artistically-speaking, and didn't have as many disappointments as Saturday held.

Planning Ahead (Mid March 2026)

I went from having a fairly open couple of weeks in mid-March to cramming in a bunch of things and will be out most of the time until April.  Even April is starting to get busy, as I saw several nights that I might stop by Hirut if nothing else is going on.  I do hope that most of these nights I can just bike over, assuming that the weather holds and we don't get any significant snow.  The Rex hasn't even posted its shows for April, and there will surely be a few things I want to see there.

Anyway, I found out from a blurb in The Star that Assembly Theatre hosts a George F. Walker play called Syndrome.  This appears to be a world premiere.  (I think Walker has retired his blog and now seems to focus on Substack, so it's harder for me to keep track of his productions.)  It is another play about the crisis in urban education.  This one appears to be written for teens, so may pull back a little from some of the nihilism of his darker pieces, though several of his recent pieces have ended on an upbeat note.  Anyway, I am looking forward to seeing it (and not finding out that I just missed it, as happened to me a few times).  It runs through this week at Assembly Theatre, with more info here.  Assembly has another play happening in late March into very early April called Anywhere, which was a big Fringe hit in 2018.  I don't remember seeing this, though I might have.  2018 was the year I put on my own play at the Fringe (Final Exam), and while I did see quite a few shows that summer at Fringe, my attention was on getting my work up and running.  Anyway, Leroy Street Theatre is involved and Cass Van Wyck is directing (she actually played one of the roles during the Fringe run, making me think I didn't go, as I probably would have remembered seeing her).  So I think I will go.  The actors are actually alternating roles, which is an interesting idea.  I guess if I love it, I might try to see it with the roles reversed, but I somehow doubt I'll have the time.

Thurs. I am off to see the puppets of Little Willy at Canadian Stage.  This has been on the books (my books) for some time.*  If the show is extremely short (apparently there is a lot of improvisation and it can run from 45 minutes to nearly 2 hours!), then I will be tempted to go to Bad Dog for a comedy show that's part of Sketch Fest, though I suspect I won't, esp. as it means backtracking significantly.  I am debating between two different comedy sketch shows for Friday night, both over at the Theatre Centre.  I wish they had the schedule set up so I could do both, but that just doesn't seem to be the case.  I have not booked that as of yet.

Sat. I have to bring my kitten back to the vet for a quick look to see if all went well from her surgery.  (I had her spayed.  She seems to be recovering quite well.  Surprisingly, she has been much more affectionate lately, often trying to sleep next to me when I am crashing on the couch.  Just like her brother, she managed to knock her cone off.  I'm glad that will be coming off for good on Sat., as I can put the covers back on the litter box.)  I have to figure out where I will fit in the gym or swimming, though I am leaning towards going to the gym early on Sat., but I will actually have to commit to getting over on time, and then swimming at Jimmie Simpson on Sunday around noon.  (This will work out reasonably well if I can bike, but I see they are forecasting possible snow on Sunday, which would really throw a wrench in those plans.)  I don't have a lot planned for the afternoon, but I would like to try to get to some of the art galleries like 401 Richmond and then one or two in Yorkville.  I am off to see The Herald at Buddies in the evening, which looks like it should be pretty wild.

Interestingly, I overlooked the fact that had a Bach concert scheduled at Koerner Hall for Sunday, and then overbooked myself with Imm-Permanent Resident at Factory.  (I think this was something I had tried to see at Theatre Centre on an earlier run, but it should be a bit more polished now.)  They were gracious enough to move the ticket to next Thurs., so that week is starting to fill up a bit now...  Then I will need to head over to Dovercourt for the Warm Reading event.  (I have the next chunk of my play going up in April, but I will use the time this Sunday to try to finish casting!)

I have written on and off about my new Fringe play.  I did a pretty substantial rewrite, collapsing two couples into just one, collapsing this down to 4 scenes (from 8 or so) and elevating one character to be a second focal point.  In general, the feedback has been good.  While it can definitely still be improved, I feel that this is now something that actors can sign on for without any reservations, which helps me in recruiting the rest of the cast and a stage manager, though I am also hoping the director can help a bit with that...)  Interestingly, there is an opportunity to have a script developed by the Coal Mine team, but they only want scripts with 5 actors, and most of what I write nowadays is 7+ parts, so not economical at all!  I'm debating doing a deep rewrite on a piece that I wrote back in Chicago called Corporate Codes of Conduct (or sometime Corporate Codes of Contact), but I always really wanted to call it Yellow Fever Dream, though I didn't dare.  This is after the second half of the play where the main character is sick and his new Asian girlfriend (that he met through work, as one does, naturally, despite it being against company policy) keeps dropping by.  The first half was supposedly all this clever stuff about code-breaking and cryptography, heavily inspired by Stoppard's Arcadia.  I think the only way this would work would be to start from him being sick in bed (the way the 2nd act started) and then take anything that actually worked from the first act and have it be these distorted flashbacks.  I think this would make it much closer to Miller's Broken Glass, though maybe I am confusing this with a completely different Miller play, After the Fall.  (It looks like there is a revival of Broken Glass going on in London right now, but I managed to see this in North York in 2017, though clearly my memory is a bit spotty.  I saw Eclipse Theatre doing After the Fall in Chicago even earlier than that, though I seem to not have scanned my program sadly...)  I don't really have the time to rework this (with a deadline in early April), but it is a bit of an interesting challenge, so I'll probably at least make the attempt.  Famous last words...

I may have mentioned that I did finish up Faulkner's The Wild Palms.  It was overall pretty good with a strong focus on people just trying to get by, buffeted by much larger societal forces.  Almost none of the plot about the young couple makes sense in a society where abortion is legal (though we will now start getting a bunch of tragic novels about life for women in post-Roe America due to the contemptible Supreme Court justices).  Tess Slesinger's novel, The Unpossessed, came out in 1934, beating Faulkner's The Wild Palms slightly to the punch (1939) in terms of being an early and somewhat daring novel in tackling abortion when it was not legal in the US.  I'm actually a bit surprised that I hadn't heard more about this aspect of The Wild Palms, though I suppose I wasn't really searching for anything along those lines.  I did finally watch Varda's La Pointe Courte, which was inspired by The Wild Palms, though mostly in terms of its formal structure and not much about its story line.  I'm now sort of in the final stretches of reading all the core Faulkner.  I probably will skip his first novels, as well as Pylon, but later this year I will probably read Sanctuary and the follow-up Requiem for a Nun.  At that point, I would only have The Hamlet, The Town and The Mansion left to go, and I may aim for 2027 to read the Snopes Trilogy.

I'm trying to watch a few Bunuel films before I need to get them back to the library.  Interestingly, I ordered a copy of Diary of a Chambermaid, and the copy I got was from the VPL collection.  I double-checked that this was not supposed to be in circulation.  Unfortunately, I can't seem to find this copy.**  It's not with the French or the Spanish DVDs on the shelves.  This isn't one of the ones I had pulled out to watch (and are currently MIA).  I think what I probably should do is just pull down all the books in front of the DVDs, and take photos so that I can keep track of which DVDs I have (and start working my way slowly through them, as it is absurd that I own this huge film library and watch so little of it).  As it happens, I saw Diary of a Chambermaid at TIFF, so I don't need to watch it immediately, but I want to know where it is in case I want to watch it a second time.  I need to watch the other Bunuel films I have borrowed before Sun. when I will be returning everything to Robarts (and possibly donating a few DVDs by Chabrol, Rohmer and Godard (the last one was support to replace a damaged DVD in the TPL system, but they stupidly will not accept it and all donations go into their book sale)).

I did manage to finish the Winterson book but wasn't that impressed by it.  Then I moved on to Nabokov's Ada, or Ardor.  This is perhaps the most playful Nabokov novel I have read, heavily inspired by Joyce's Ulysses.  The early Russian novels have largely left me cold, and I didn't think Pnin was nearly as hilarious as a lot of people do.  (The same is definitely true for Amis's Lucky Jim, which I didn't like at all!)  I could sort of appreciate Lolita but didn't love it, for sure.  But I really am digging Ada.  It's quite quirky that this is set in an alternative universe where Russian influence over Alaska and the Yukon and perhaps even further south is unbroken.  I have no idea if Chabon's Yiddish Policemen's Union was directly inspired by Ada, but certainly Chabon is an admirer of Nabokov, so quite possibly this is where the seeds were planted.  My march through Nabokov has been fairly slow, but the fact that this novel is on my wavelength gives me a bit more push to keep going.  Given that Transparent Things is very short and seems very much in the same vein as Ada, I think I will try to read it in the very near future.  I probably am just going to skip Glory.  I'm a bit torn between going back to his first "English" novels or just going to Pale Fire, which is probably the most "important" of the novels that I haven't read.  I'm not sure I ever will reread Lolita, but I might in my 70s, and, if so, I will read The Enchanter first (which was a "warm up" to Lolita and which has the benefit of being fairly short).  I'm going to skip Look at the Harlequins!  I suppose there is a reasonable chance I'll try to read his memoir, Speak, Memory someday, but it is quite a low priority.

Anyway, my immediate reading looks like this: alternating between Ada and this book on mega-projects which I promised to review for an academic journal, when I hit Part 2 of Ada, I will take a detour and read Shulz's The Street of Crocodiles, then finish up Ada, Murakami's The City and Its Uncertain Walls (which will probably be overdue from the library by then and I can't renew it any more), O'Connor's A Good Man is Hard to Find, McCullers's The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Shteyngart's Vera or Faith, Nabokov's Transparent Things, Sorokin's The Queue, Offill's Weather, Ghosh's The Calcutta Chromosome, Narayan's The Vendor of Sweets and Reva's Endling.  Even this is probably planning out too far (esp. as my reading time on the TTC will be drastically cut by then), but it's good to have a bit of a plan, even if I do depart from it frequently.  For instance, if I decide to skim Miller's After the Fall and Broken Glass for good measure...

So that's what I expect to get up to in the next while... 

Edit (03/13): So glad I didn't change my ticket to Little Willy.*  I was worried about being in the front row and having to crane my neck up, but the stage was eye level and I had a really close look at the puppets to the point I could see the strings and when they even got tangled!  But it was a long show (2.5 hours with no break, and there was a talk back after that.)  Anyway, I had been low-key planning on watching the Oscar Nominees in the Animation category, and I guess I just missed out on seeing the slate at Paradise and the Revue.  It turns out it is playing Sat. evening and Sun. morning at The Fox, though I have conflicts with both dates.  Then I turned to TIFF, and they are showing the animations at 5:45, so I can slip in just after work.  (I've checked, and there are tons of tickets left, which is often a problem at TIFF.)  I'll probably just hit No Frills and come home, but if the timing works out, I might see something at the Toronto Sketch Fest, though I'll be on the streetcar, not biking, as it is probably going to snow today and early next week.  Nooooo!

* I briefly looked into switching Little Willy to next week and going to see Tafelmusik's program of Bach cantatas.  (And indeed I had a free ticket to a different Bach cantata program put on by the Toronto Consort, but had to give it back because it conflicted with Warm Reads.)  But it ultimately seemed to much of a hassle, and I find that I just don't care that much for cantatas.  I am possibly going to go to one cantata concert at the Toronto Bach Festival, but that is probably more than enough.

** I finally tracked this down.  Yea!  One small win against entropy...