Still Sick

I'm still definitely under the weather, and the actual weather isn't cooperating very much.  It was supposed to rain Mon. and Tues., and then mostly clear up.  Instead it barely rained on Tues., and now the rain is supposed to be a drizzle most of the day and then heavier showers from 7-9 pm just when we are out at Budweiser Stage to see the B-52s.  Lovely...  I'm sure that will do wonders for my overall health.  However, I think at this point I just need to be upright to have the rest of the junk drain out of my lungs.  I think my nose is just about finished running, so I am close to getting over this cold or whatever it was.

I forgot to mention the other day that there were a few very frustrating incidents over the weekend.  First, Sat. morning I found out that because of some last-minute scheduling changes, there was no lap swimming at Regent Park, either on Sat. or Sun.  And I guess it is their annual pool clean-up, but Matty Eckler's pool is completely closed all week (and this week as well).  Unfortunately, the times just didn't work for Jimmie Simpon, though I had planned on doing late night laps there on Mon., which I am starting to really value as the lanes are nearly empty, but I just was not up to it.  I might have attempted to go on Tues., but that is the only day they don't have evening hours, and I still wasn't feeling all that well.  So I am short one swimming session with no obvious time to make it up.  Not very happy about that.

Also, on Sunday, I somehow failed to lock my bike up properly at Trinity-St. Paul's.  (They have some of the stupidest bike racks I've ever seen.)  When we came out from the concert, my bike was lying on the ground.  Someone apparently had locked up on the other side, saw the bike fall over and just left it there.  What an asshole!  I think this fall somehow messed up the derailleur, as I was having lots of slippage in the upper gears.  So I dropped it off at a bike shop to have them look it over, and I am hoping to have it back on Thurs.

I did find that, even on the home scale, I have lost another 5 or so pounds, which often happens when I get sick, so now I need to just keep on with the better eating habits.  If it turns out I can finally squeeze into a smaller size of jeans that will also help me stay motivated and not completely backslide...

Off topic, I am really very frustrated at not being able to find these photos from the Georgia O'Keeffe show in 2017.  I clearly went twice (in April, then May) or even three times and would have taken some photos on each visit.  I clearly remember taking photos of her last paintings at Ghost Ranch, but none of these seem to be archived on the 10 or so external hard drives I have lying around!  I spent some time (back in the day) organizing my 2017 and 2018 photos, but they aren't there.  About the only lingering possibility is I left them on my (work) iPhone for a very long time and so the datestamp is off, but this seems unlikely.  This is quite upsetting actually, though I don't think there is anything I can do about it.  I will see if I can track down the catalog from that show and borrow it from the library at least.

 

Edit (9/25): Well, it's not as good as squeezing into a size 34 loose fit pair of jeans.  (I'm still trying to track those down, but they should be somewhere in the house.)  But I am able to fit comfortably in a straight size (that was too tight a month or two ago.)  So real progress, which is about the only thing that can motivate me to stick to a diet.  Progress is much slower than it was pre-Covid, but I am starting to see it.

Busy Sept.

I've been quite busy throughout Sept.  I actually had a bit of a rest day today, and I promptly got sick.  It could be the changing of the seasons or stress.  I suppose it could have been worse, as I could have gotten sick on the way to (or back) from Ottawa.

Let me back up a bit and see if there is anything I haven't covered at least a bit.  Maybe I'll start with books.  I wrapped up The Scarlet Letter and then was mostly alternating between Denis Johnson's Angels and Zevin's Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, which I thought was great.  However, there were a couple of concerts (James and Pulp) I was going to where I couldn't take a large bag, so I took one of the smaller paperbacks towards the top of my list, Canetti's Auto-da-Fé, and read that before the shows started.  (I actually didn't have much time at the Pulp show but had a bit of time before James started.)  Then I wanted to take something slightly shorter than a doorstop book up to Ottawa, and I opted for Russo's Empire Falls (over McCullers's The Heart is a Lonely Hunter).  As it turns out, I was able to get more work done on the bus than I expected, and only read about 75 pages, so I could have taken anything and perhaps I should have just finished Kundera's Ignorance (though I am not enjoying this much at all and just wish it was over...).  

On Sunday, I was at Trinity-St. Paul's seeing a short Tafelmusik concert for subscribers.  It was fun, though I do wish they had program hand-outs or done a better job in announcing the pieces they were playing.  They ended with Purcell's Air from Timon of Athens, which I liked a lot when they played it back in 2024.  It is possible that I was starting to come down with whatever I have now, as I was feeling pretty draggy and didn't really want to bike home.  I did, however, and I didn't think much of it, though whatever I had came back with a vengeance today.  The main reason I bring this up is that I was reading a bit of Angels before the show started and then tucked it next to me in the pew rather than putting it back in my backpack.  Big mistake.  When I got home, I was organizing everything and realized that I must have left it in the church!  Wow.  I'm considering giving them a call, but I was probably just going to give it away anyways (though I would have tried once selling it at Seekers' Books), and the irony of a dark book about criminals (called Angels) in the church book corner (I'm pretty sure they have one) appeals to me.  I was quite close to the end of this book and found an on-line pdf and just powered through the final chapter today.

So the tail end of Sept. will be me trying to finish Ignorance and then perhaps alternating chapters of Empire Falls and Auto-da-Fé, with Empire Falls being much more to my taste.  I will probably read some shorter novels as well, such as Gibbon's Ellen Foster, Kaysen's Asa, as I Knew Him and Jelloun's The Last Friend, though clearly this pushes me into October.  There is a small chance I will read a few stories from How to Pronounce Knife by Souvankham Thammavongsa, as I need to dig it out from a book pile before her reading at TPL.  I will also have to decide by late Oct. if I am definitely going to read Austen's Persuasion in Nov. (probably) and then Nabokov's Ada and Shteyngart's Vera, or Faith in Nov. or Dec. (less likely).

I saw quite a few movies over the month.  Out of Sight and Midnight at the Revue with Naked Lunch in a few more days, assuming I beat this cold.  I saw Kajillionaire at Paradise, and I enjoyed this a lot.  I think I must have seen a very different trailer, as I didn't realize how central Gina Rodriguez was to the plot.  I do think it was a bit unlikely that the parents would have enlisted her in the first place, risking bringing an outsider into their endless scamming and grifting, as they don't seem the type to really plan out far enough for the long con (that ended the movie).  Gina was just so beautiful and patient with Old Dolio (what an insane name for a daughter!).  I barely follow tv so didn't realize that she was pretty much a star by this time (after several seasons of Jane the Virgin), so I'm glad she agreed to do the movie.  What I didn't realize is that the writer/director was Miranda July, who is now much better known as the author of All Fours.  They actually had a completely offbeat video introduction by Ms. July, apparently shot on a camera in an airport bathroom!  If the Tafelmusik concert on Sunday had been shifted by half an hour or Pearls of the Deep (at the Paradise) had been half an hour later, I would have gone to that as well, though probably it is just as well I didn't try to do that as well.  

On Sunday I had also gone to the gym, bought groceries, then biked over to Carlton to see The Matrix, then stopped by work and put about an hour in on a proposal and picked up the tickets to the show, then biked up to Bloor to see Tafelmusik.  So it was a lot, even without trying to see one more movie.

In terms of $5 movies at Carlton, I saw The Breakfast Club earlier in the month and then the Matrix yesterday.  I see that Kiki's Delivery Service is coming back, but I think I'll pass, having seen this twice.  I probably will see Howl's Moving Castle again, assuming it is in rotation for Oct. or Nov.  It wasn't a $5 movie, but I saw Honey Don't! at Carlton, which I enjoyed, and then This is Spinal Tap II at Market Square on Sun.  My wife actually came along, and she hasn't been in a movie theatre in years!  I thought Tap II was good, though it is very much aimed at Boomers and Gen X who are starting to feel (along with Marvell) "Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near" and specifically that there are more grains in the bottom of the hourglass than at the top...  This picture is aimed at the aged still trying to recapture a bit of their former glory (and some of the shots of the actors from 40 some years ago are just painful to see what has happened to them; it's the same though even worse with Tim Curry post-stroke).  The younger generations complain about Tap II and just don't think the old geezers are funny enough...

On Sat. I also managed to see a documentary about Georgia O'Keeffe (overall very good but probably a few too many talking heads going on about her work).  I would say O'Keeffe is quite an important figure for me, in part because she was so important to my mother.  One of the very first major exhibits that I went to was the O'Keefe retrospective at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1988.  My father decided to pick up the catalog as a gift to my mother, and I eventually inherited it.  Over the years, I saw some smaller O'Keeffe exhibits, including one focused on her skyscraper paintings (might have been at AIC or the Whitney, but I can't recall), then an exhibit sponsored by the Tate that hit Toronto's AGO in 2017 (a little surprised I didn't mention it here at that time*), and then the O'Keeffe-Calder joint show in Montreal in 2024 (some photos of that here).  My mother would really have enjoyed that show.  I know that my mother enjoyed spending time in the U.S. Southwest, and I'm almost certain that she went to the O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, NM.  I think it's a museum I probably ought to visit, though who knows when I will be willing to travel south again.

I didn't see all that much theatre.  I did see The Welkin, which I thought had strong acting but I really didn't like the script and I checked out midway through the second act when there was just one too many plot twists (to say nothing of the endless sobbing over the strains of 'Running Up That Hill').  I was going to see Waiting for Godot this upcoming weekend, but pushed it back a week (and in fact am seeing The Green Line at Buddies earlier that same day!).  And The Public Enemy at Alumnae just before that.  It looks like I saw almost no theatre in Sept., though a fair bit in Aug. and then a fair bit is upcoming in Oct.  Instead, I mostly saw movies or went to the Rex or to other concerts.  I saw Haim quite early in the month, then James and Pulp in the same week.  (James was the best of the bunch, and if they had played 'Born of Frustration' it would have been the cherry on top...  They apparently are playing all the songs off of Laid at most stops on the tour!)  And The B-52s are this Wednesday, assuming I am healthy, so I really had better get off to bed now...

 

* What is particularly odd is that I clearly remember taking photos, particularly of her last paintings of Ghost Ranch, but they aren't in the folder with other 2017 photos.  Instead, I have photos (including some O'Keeffe paintings) taken in DC and Chicago on trips we took in 2017.  I even have looked in the 2018 folder, but nothing so far.  So strange.

Georgia O'Keeffe, The Shelton with Sunspots, NY, 1926

 

A Tale of Two Scales

An interesting (for me) thing happened the other day.  As hinted at occasionally I have been struggling to lose weight, like most middle-aged people, where the biggest problem is too much late night snacking.  I have definitely cut back on that, though I still slip up now and again (not at all helped by Kawartha Lakes Dairy up on Danforth with their evening summer hours...).  But my clothes are generally fitting well, and I perhaps can even get into one smaller size of jeans.  I'll try that soon enough.

I actually had a dream that the doctor told me my blood sugar had dropped, so I was particularly anxious after doing another blood test last week.  When I went in for the results, at the weigh-in, I had definitely lost some weight and indeed my blood sugar level is now at an acceptable level, though I can't afford to just cut loose and do whatever I want.  I don't even need a follow up for several more months.*  This is all fantastic news. 

But when I got home, the home scale said I was still over my target weight, which was hugely discouraging.  I had gotten below that weight -- on that scale -- but now I was above it.  I think there must be a 5-8 pound difference between the two scales, with the doctor's scales being more favourable to me.  At the end of the day, the blood sugar levels are what really matter.  Despite the frustration, I will double down and make sure that even the home scale** reports progress over the winter, when it is so easy to slip up and gain weight.  That certainly happened to me last winter.  I really am on the right track, so I just need to keep it up.

Maybe the worst thing about trying to celebrate losing weight is you can't treat yourself to a piece of cake.  However, I did have a samosa at lunch (whereas in general I am cutting even further back on breakfast and lunch) and then had an ice cream cone at Budweiser stage, though this was partly to counteract the spicy Indian food I had on the way to the venue.  It was from a roti place on Queens Quay, and I probably won't go there again.

 

* Apparently, the doctor is having his own struggles getting his PR card, which seems unfair (or at least short-sighted on the part of immigration officers in not giving even more "points" to doctors willing to move to Canada).  I think going to the press is probably the right thing to do to get some lower level minister involved in his case, as Canada is so desperately short of family doctors.  As he said, if they don't eventually fix his status, 8000 or more patients in Toronto (including me) will lose their family doctor!  So I am very much wishing the best for him to get this straightened out.

** What I wish is that the gym would bring back the scales they had (the same type that doctors use) as they seem a bit more reliable to me.  I asked a couple of times to restore them, but it just seems easier for them to keep blaming COVID and not actually do anything about it.  Sigh.

New Glasses

I'd been holding off fulfilling a new prescription for glasses for some time.  To some degree it is just laziness but also I don't use glasses that much, and I don't really define myself as a person with glasses.  It was quite a shock when the optometrist said that I should consider progressive lenses with a portion that would be for close up viewing.  I really rebelled against that, though it is true I have more difficulty with really fine print, and just in general reading is tougher in the early mornings or when I am quite tired.

I ended up picking up some off-the-counter reading glasses at Walmart or Shoppers.  While I almost never use them, they do make a huge difference when trying to thread needles, and maybe this will be the spur I need to return to that long-abandoned quilt...

Anyway, what really spurred this on was Sunday I had been rushing around as usual.  I was running late after the gym and groceries to the point that I fixed soup and then just abandoned it in the fridge in order to get over to Mazzoleni Hall for a mid-day concert.  I was sure I was going to be late, so I really pushed my limits on the bike.  I ended up making it in 22 minutes, which is close to a record, and I made it to the venue right before it started.  In fact the concert was only an hour long, so I briefly debated going home before the James concert.  As I didn't want to deal with the bag check, I just had everything in my pockets: book, phone, work pass, glasses.  (Which will be the same deal tonight at the Pulp concert.)

Everything seemed fine, but between the 3 o'clock concert and the 8 pm concert, I lost my glasses.  I have absolutely no idea what happened to them.  They could have fallen out at BMV or Robarts (where I hung out and read a bit of Canetti's Auto-da-Fé).  Most likely they simply didn't make it back in my windbreaker's pocket at Mazzoleni Hall, and I am trying to find a number for the lost and found there.

But in the end, it didn't matter much.  It was too late to retrace my steps by the time I figured this out, so I just went to the James concert and accepted that the band was a bit blurry.  It was a fun concert, and I'll write a bit more about this in the future. 

So Monday, I ran over to Hakim just after 9, but they no longer make glasses in the store, and they said it would be 5 or so days to get them back!  So then I went to the Eaton Centre, but I had to wait until 10:05 until Lenscrafters opened.  My prescription isn't a strong one, and they were able to have one set of glasses made.  They said it would only take an hour, and I could pick them up around lunch, but they weren't ready until 2:30 or so, but still pretty good service.  I would have had a second pair made, but there was some huge mix-up with my insurance, which I need to straighten out.

I'll try them out tonight at Pulp and hopefully that will be the last I really have to think about this.

New UK Fall Books

This is simply an extension of this post, but with a UK slant.  I'm kicking myself as there was some recent post in the Guardian that really was just a puff piece to stir up interest in the writer's new novel, which was coming out on an impossibly obscure press; it seemed up my alley but wasn't in the library catalogue (to put in an advance hold), and I didn't tag this, so it has probably slipped through the net...  C'est dommage.

But there are three other books from the Guardian that have caught my eye.

Salman Rushdie's The Eleventh Hour, which is comprised of 5 fairly long stories.

Then another short story collection, by Graham Swift this time: Twelve Post-War Tales.

Finally, Jeanette Winterson's take on the story of Shahrazad from One Thousand and One Nights.

All look pretty interesting, though the Winterson is apparently not actually going to be available until Jan., which makes it a winter book.  

I'm not as sure about Rachel Cusk's Parade, so I may have to wait for some proper reviews to understand what it is about...

I have no idea when I will actually get to these books (probably not this fall), but I'll just have to see what I can do once they pop up in libraries.

 

Grey Day

It looks like it might sprinkle a little bit today, but basically it will be overcast most of the day.  I generally consider this "Vancouver weather," and I am willing to bike in it.  I don't have a lot of plans for the day, but still it will be better to have the bike than not (and rely on the TTC).

In brief, I didn't have anything on my event calendar for today but decided that wouldn't do.  I checked and it turns out that "Honey Don't!" has just showed up at Carlton (the lesbian B movie by one of the Coen Brothers and his lesbian wife), so I will hit that.  Over at Market Square, they have started showing Aronofsky's Caught Stealing, which I think I will pass on, having seen enough of it from the trailers (though I will say that Matt Smith (former Doctor from Dr. Who) is almost unrecognizable as a mohawk-ed punk, which might be sort of droll to see, but as I said I've seen a lot of him in the trailers), but also This is Spinal Tap II.*  My wife also wants to see this, so we'll try to catch it next Sat., or then the following Monday or Tuesday after work.

I'm going to head out in about 15 minutes to go swimming in Regent Park; the pool is supposedly open today...  Then "Honey Don't!"  If the weather is still about the same, and not pouring, I will hit the downtown No Frills on Richmond and then 401 Richmond.  (Hopefully, the galleries are open today!)  Then drop off something at work and come home and rest a bit (and maybe finally start typing up some of my copious notes on planners).  I might also finally watch the remaining section of The Leopard.

Speaking of creative writing, I had expected to have a few more pages to scan (and eventually transcribe), but it was not to be.  I decided to go check out Hirut, as Eric St.-Laurent was playing in a group led by Doug Wilde.  This was very much a last minute decision.  I wanted to make sure I could find the place and sort of scope it out, as I think I may drop by once in a while.  It turns out it is indeed very close to Coal Mine Theatre; it takes 25 minutes to get there by bike, and about 20 going back (as much of the route is downhill!).  The website had indicated that the cover was cash, though I had a bit of trouble believing it.  Nonetheless, I showed up, and it was pretty packed (it's a somewhat similar set-up to The Only Cafe on Danforth, which often has live music though I don't really keep up with their calendar), and they said they didn't think they could squeeze me in.**  And indeed the cover was supposed to be cash only, which is so strange as everywhere just adds it to the tab.  So good information to know for the future, though it was obviously pretty disappointing last night.  I will say that Doug Wilde is sort of smooth jazz, at least based on his Rhymes with Reason CD, which they were also selling at the door, featuring most of the players on stage last night.  So I'm sure it would have been fine, but it isn't a date that I am going to agonize about missing.  Going forward, I will need to make sure to have more cash and try to show up more like 30 minutes before the show starts.

 

* It seems there is a real generational divide with Spinal Tap II with Gen Y/Gen Z just thinking it is a bunch of tired old men who aren't that funny anymore, and Boomers/Gen X really feeling the pathos of getting older.  I think I'll like it, but it's hard to predict.

** In fact what the guy said was "I don't know if I can accommodate you," which is pretty high-highfalutin...  I might have pressed my luck a bit, but I didn't have any cash on me anyway.

Edit (9 pm): The day went pretty much as planned.  Indeed, it cleared up in the late afternoon, and I was able to read outside for close to an hour.  I'm getting quite close to the end of Zevin's Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.  Some people didn't like the middle section, but it is holding up for me at any rate.  I think I'll be able to finish this tomorrow and Kundera's Ignorance shortly after.  I did find it fairly challenging to get my laps in at Regent Park Pool, and I ultimately had to move over to the fast lanes, where someone was swimming in the wrong direction and ran into me twice!  But I did get my laps in and even soaked in the hot tub area a couple of times.  

I really enjoyed Honey Don't!, which I think is a much better film than Drive Away Dolls, though I do have some questions about the final twist at the end, which doesn't really make a lot of sense.

I didn't find a lot going on at 401 Richmond, but at least a few galleries were open.  I do need to go back on the 27th when there is a new opening.  It turns out it is an evening opening (6-8 pm), and I'll have to sneak away around 7:30, as the Rex has changed their times and the evening show starts at 8 pm now.  Probably it is just as well I switched things up because if I was going over to Coal Mine on that Sat., I probably couldn't spend any time at 401 Richmond.  Overall, it was a pretty good though somewhat exhausting day.  I'll have to try to pace myself tomorrow.

Quick Ottawa Trip

As I mentioned a few days ago, once in a while, there is just too much going on.  I'm trying to throw in a few book readings here and there (in fact there is one next Monday), and I saw that Madeline Thien will be at Queen Books in Nov., but this is the same date as The Beaches concert.*  It's a bit of a toss-up, but I think The Beaches will be more interesting/appealing overall, though of course more expensive (even assuming I bought a hard cover and had Thien sign it).  But it is a close thing, and I wish somehow I could do both, for instance if the reading is shuffled to a different day.

One of the droller instances of this was that I had booked a ticket to see the TSO playing Korngold (on a Thurs. I believe) when I had really wanted to go to the North York venue because of the scheduled pre-show concert, but it was completely sold out.  Eventually, I checked again and seats had miraculously opened up, but I just bought a new ticket and didn't transfer the old one.  That was a mistake of course.  

Anyway, I was looking through the TSO booklet to see if there was another concert to go see instead, I saw that NAC Orchestra was coming to town in Feb., and they were playing Morlock's "My Name is Amanda Todd" (which I've seen one but would like to see again) and Beethoven's 3rd Symphony.  This sounded like a pretty good concert, and I was getting ready to call the TSO when I decided I really ought to check first if I already had something booked for that day.  It turns out that is when I am seeing The Cowboy Junkies, so that ruled the NAC Orchestra concert out.  I still haven't settled on what I will see instead, though possibly Beethoven's 5th, which weirdly enough is only playing up in North York!

Then I started looking around to see what were the other dates in the NAC Orchestra's national tour.  If for instance they were playing in Hamilton or Kingston, but it is surprisingly hard to track this info down.  Eventually I was redirected to their shows in Ottawa, and I saw that next week they have a couple of concerts where they are playing the Morlock piece, as well as Shostakovich's Violin Concerto #1 and Sibelius's Symphony #2.  I debated it for a while and decided that I could get a fair bit of work on the train, so I would run up to Ottawa to see the concert!  As a bonus, my son and his girlfriend decided they would go as well, so that sort of makes the trip worth it.

Coming back, I will be on the Red Arrow bus.  (If you get the cheapest ticket with no exchanges possible, it is only $25!)  I probably will get much less work in, though there is one work call I can take.

I'll probably stop by the National Gallery, though there are a couple of exhibits that don't open up until mid Dec., so I'll probably have to go again (in the winter!) to check those out before they close.  Presumably, this trip will be over some weekend...  I had started thinking about what I would read.  If I had the luxury of reading in both directions, I would probably take Skvorecky's The Bride of Texas (and then Fontane's After the Storm in the follow-up winter trip), but I'll pick something a bit shorter (and with bigger print, which rules out Canetti's Auto-da-Fé) for the bus ride back.  I'm sort of torn between Russo's Empire Falls (which has been waiting for a while) and McCullers's The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (which I picked up only a few days ago).  I might read just a few pages of each and decide which grabs me more.

Anyway, it is completely silly to drop everything and run up for a concert, but I decided to do it anyway.  I will need to try to hit the Rex either on the Friday after I get back or more likely on Sat.  Then I realized that the following week is booked absolutely solid so that I can't see Pat LaBarbara, Kirk MacDonald and Neil Swainson doing some Coltrane tribute concert.  I think I'll have to switch my tickets for Waiting for Godot to the following week and see the Sat. set.  I'll probably do that, assuming Coal Mine doesn't hassle me too much over the ticket exchange.  For whatever reason, Sept. is insanely busy, but Oct. and Nov. are much more reasonable.

 

* I actually swung by Scotiabank Arena to see if I could stop in at the box office and avoid some fees (for that Beaches concert).  However, their ticket windows are only open on the days when there are events, which then means there are enormous lines of people trying to see the show.  Basically, it is a way of claiming to have an alternative (to TicketMaster) but then not actually following through.  Plus, most venues don't mess around with paper tickets anyway, so they still funnel you through TM even if you are standing right in front of them, and you still pay all the fees.  Last night happened to be a Lady Gaga concert, and the lines were so long (despite the fact that there has been almost no advertising of this concert) that I just gave up.

On the other hand, just before this I was able to deal with getting a refund on a Via ticket by going over to Union Station, and the woman said that this had to be handled in person, despite their website saying to call some customer service number!

Edit (9/12): Maybe it is just as well that I held off, deterred by the long lines.  I probed a bit more into The Beaches back catalog and listened to a couple of their live performances, and it is all a bit flat to me in the sense that most songs sound like the others; I think I probably would be better off at the Thien reading after all. 

I have booked the Ottawa getaway.  Naturally a bunch of work meetings popped up at the last minute, and I will see how many of them I can do on the train or hanging out at the Via station in Ottawa.  Otherwise, I will just have to miss them.

I did get my ticket switched for Coal Mine, so will go to the Rex instead on the Sat.  I'm pretty sure it's going to sell out.  I had hoped to get the cheaper seat behind a post (the view is actually fine surprisingly) but those seats were gone, so I reserved a seat off to the side where I normally sit.  It's just that it was a bit more than I had hoped to pay...  I'll see about going to Barry Elmes as well at the tail end of next week, but I don't plan on reserving, as I don't think these shows will completely sell out.  Hopefully that's the right decision...