We're supposedly going to get about a foot of snow today. I actually had planned to be out much of the day (and relying on transit), so this is a little worrying. One option will be to skip the follow-up activities and just focus on going swimming and then to a 2 o'clock concert. I already did grocery shopping and a somewhat shortened gym visit on Sat. And I did cook chili for the week, even though I will be out most evenings (mostly trying to see various movies). Still, I would like to see One Battle After Another at Carlton, and today is a fairly convenient time.
On the other hand, I really need to finish writing up this play, and I keep falling asleep instead of doing that (or booking cultural events in Feb. and March, and time is getting tight!) I also said I would take the first shift of shoveling, though there is only a dusting so far. I will probably be out most of the rest of the time. So maybe I will just come home instead.
It was certainly cold out yesterday, but actually not as cold as Friday was. Friday was bone-chilling. We were fortunate that we caught the 72 Pape bus right away as we were heading down to Queen to the Red Sandcastle to see short plays with a horror twist. They were fun and not particularly scary, and indeed the first play about a girl who has a witch for a mother (and hangs out with a boy named Hansel) wasn't scary at all.
Sat. I was criss-crossing the city, so I was very glad there was no snow to totally mess my journey up. I decided to go across on Line 2 to Dufferin rather than take the Queen streetcar the whole way (I think it is still diverting onto Dundas for a stretch!). (I also dropped off a few books at the library.) I was fortunate that I caught the Dufferin Express down to Queen. For all my griping about the TTC, it wasn't too bad on Friday and Saturday. Fingers crossed that it won't be too bad today, though once I am downtown, Line 1 shouldn't be too impacted by the snow. Famous last words...
Anyway, I made it in time for Sondheim's Company at the Theatre Centre. I thought they did a good job, though a local critic wasn't that impressed. The problem is that this musical and indeed most musicals leave me pretty cold. I'm not sure I've ever seen such a navel-gazing musical about straight New Yorkers (and indeed from a time when young married professionals with children still lived in Manhattan and not Brooklyn!). About the only song that really captured my attention was "The Ladies Who Lunch." I thought it was a terrific piece, though the critic didn't agree. I did agree with the critic that the kiss between Robert and one of his male friend just confused things, and I imagine Sondheim would have pitched a fit over this, since he explicitly said that Bobby's problems weren't due to latent homosexuality. Anyway, this piece should have been 60 or 90 minutes, since there was zero character development or plot arc, and thus didn't merit coming back for more after the interval. (Reading some thoughts, it's pretty clear that some of the musical's defenders come across as so condescending. Oh you'll understand it some day. But I don't think getting older will rescue an extremely shallow plot and a cypher for the lead character! That said, some of the music and songs are interesting. But everyone has different tastes. I was astounded at the number of people fleeing during Prokofiev's Symphony #5 on Thurs., whereas I was only there for that and could easily have skipped out on the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto #2.)
I decided I should swing by Robarts and drop off a DVD that was due, even though I could have done this today, as I'll be at Koerner, which is just around the corner... This did mean a little backtracking and then having to cross back to Bloor-Yonge, since Line 1 was closed between St. George and St. Andrew this weekend, which is a drag.
Then I went and saw the final Naruse film over at TIFF: Daughters, Wives and a Mother. I didn't realize this is a relatively late film (1960) and is in colour. I enjoyed it a fair bit. While I think it's relatively unlikely anyone will watch it anytime soon, I will discuss with SPOILERS...
SPOILERS
This film, like every other Naruse film I've watched (with partial exception of Floating Clouds), is centered on a family (or just an older woman) going through a financial crisis, either caused by external forces like the supermarkets coming in in Yearning or due to death in the family (Scattered Clouds) or a male bread-winner more or less abandoning the family (The Sound of the Mountain). In Daughters, Wives and a Mother, one of the sons is pressured by his wife into loaning huge sums of money to his wife's uncle, who then goes bankrupt, ruining them. And as it turns out, he mortgaged the family home to do so (without telling his mother)! At this point, the adult children begin to panic and try to figure out what to do with mother, and a few of them reluctantly agree to bring her to their smaller house. One of the older sisters is pressured into a loveless marriage because her potential groom is willing to bring her mother to Kyoto. The mother doesn't want this and is leaning towards moving into a retirement home, though it isn't clear if she actually will have the funds to do so. (There are heavy echoes of Make Way for Tomorrow here, though I've never been able to make my way through this film, as it starts off with such appalling poor judgement on the part of the parents. It is much easier to swallow here, as the financial crisis comes much later in the film and it is more plausible and the mother is taken unaware by all these financial transactions.) The final scene is a bit of a cop-out where she plays with a neighbour's baby and doesn't actually reveal what she is doing next. This reminds me of Umberto D. (A very good film but one I probably can't bear to watch again...) Anyway, it was really interesting watching a colour film made by Naruse, and this one holds up a bit better than Scattered Clouds.
I'm making my way through several poetry collections, as well as just launched into Gide's The Immoralist (which in some ways seems like an inversion of Camus's The Stranger). It's very short, so I expect I will finish it today or tomorrow. I haven't really decided what is next but one possible plan is Amis's The Information, Faulker's The Wild Palms and then Thien's The Book of Records. I should have Russell Smith's Self Care in from the library soon, and will fit that in somewhere.
I've pretty much convinced myself to just go swimming and then to the concert and skip the movie. I'll see if there is another time I can go see it, but I just need to finish my play (and also book Stratford/Shaw and some other upcoming concerts and plays). I can't always be running around town, especially in this sort of weather, particularly while I have a cough I can't shake...
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