So the main one has to be successfully getting the kids into fall programs at the nearby community centre. I wasn't quite sure how hard it would be. It looks like it is somewhat easier than Chicago, where the server more or less crashes the first day the Chicago Park District classes go live.
The good news was that I had gotten the kids into one week of summer camp, so they were in the system, but I had absolutely no idea of my user id or pin. So I decided to walk over right after breakfast. What I didn't know was that some people had been camping out since 3 am to get that first spot in line. I was #65 (fortunately most people in the neighbourhood either signed up via computer or telephone or simply thought that you showed up at 7 am like a normal person). I will say that the community centre folks held up pretty well under the strain, largely of having to deal with people who were frustrated because they couldn't read English well enough to understand what the various options were or why their low-income status hadn't been verified in time. I know that sounds snarky, but it isn't intended to be. It is extremely difficult to be a migrant where you are constantly struggling with the language (for about a nanosecond I had considered moving to Berlin but I have no facility in German at all). At the same time, it isn't really fair for city staff in mixed communities like Leslieville to constantly be expected to be translators, as well as social workers.
I was quite sure that the swimming would be totally booked, or that the only option would be something on the other side of the city, but when my number was called, I managed to get the two programs I wanted without any trouble. Total time waiting around was roughly 40 minutes, so I read through the morning papers. Next time I will try to do it on line, and in fact I may test out the system tomorrow, as the sports clubs can already be booked for the winter, though swimming will require another round of registration for the winter. I do hope my daughter is finally ready to pay attention in the swimming lessons. She wasn't the last time around, though that was over 2 years ago. I think the fact that she wasn't allowed to do any swimming activities in summer camp this year and last really bugged her (see--actions do have consequences) and will make more of an effort.
The weather was pretty threatening, but I thought I would be able to bike to work and back before the evening rain. (As it turns out I was wrong.) I will say that biking to work, while quite stressful in a few sections, allows me to pretty much guarantee I will be at work in 30 minutes or so. Transit can be 30-35 minutes on a very good day but it has been over 50 on a bad day. I basically was able to make it back in a short lull in the rain, and it only started raining on me again by the time I crossed the Don Valley and was nearly home. So it could have been a lot worse, as it rained very hard the rest of the evening. Biking in three days in a row is quite an accomplishment (given my general fitness level), and I am feeling it right now. If the weather lets up, I'll probably bike in on Friday as well. That would be great.
Today I actually have to come home a bit early and meet the teachers at the school, and then go back out for a play (Tartuffe) at Soulpepper. So a lot of travel. Hopefully the buses and streetcars will be mostly normal. I will say I am pretty disappointed at Soulpepper's season, particularly compared to last season when I definitely would have subscribed. Tartuffe is really the only thing I expect to see there, unless they end up doing one more revival of Angels in America...
While there is always too much work and too many optimistic promises about wrapping up projects (the life of a consultant), I am actually fairly close to being caught up except for wrapping up the TransLink documentation. If I can get another solid day to work on this (and not be distracted by a dozen other issues) I might actually be able to reclaim my evenings for some family time. I did make sure to read another chapter of Alice in Wonderland to them last night, but we haven't played any board or card games in a long while. I'll aim to do at least a bit more of that in the coming weeks.
I guess in some ways that is the main accomplishment of the week -- just staying afloat. I don't feel as squeezed as I did the previous two weeks, and a few more meaningful projects are starting up. So, all in all, I'm feeling pretty hopeful about the fall.
Oh, and this blog has now had 20,000 views! (Though probably 2-300 were just my edits when the browser kept counting my visits.) So that's a pretty cool accomplishment, even if the "real" date for getting to this threshold is a couple of weeks away.
Thursday, September 11, 2014
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
Blurred lines - work and play
So maybe a bit of a misleading title, but there is no question that I have very thin line between work and home life, not only because I take work home too often, but because the things that interest me and that I studied in university (urban studies essentially) are vaguely tied back to my job. About the only things that are clearly separate are the "high culture" books I read, along with the theatre and concerts I go to. So in a way, engaging in this culture chase* does keep me slightly more balanced. At least it provides certain time points where I have to disengage from thinking about work.
There are really a number of ways this post could go, but I find most of them are not really that interesting as I try to get them down into words. It would be nice to have clearer lines and more time at home when I am not thinking about work, but that would mean being a different person essentially. For all the ups and downs at work, I have the fortune of doing one of those high end intellectual jobs that supposedly will remain after everything else has been off-shored (symbolic analysts in Robert Reich's terms) and it means it engages my brain most of the time, even when I am off work. But the flip side is that I take work far too seriously and when a project isn't going well, then my sense of well being also suffers. In terms of those personality tests, I come out as one of those deep blue analysts who basically do feel that their work and work products are an extension of themselves. It's a tough way to be. I see flashes of it in my children, but I don't know how to steer them clear of the rocky shoals. I'm sure they get mixed signals from me about how important grades are, for instance, where my words are belied by the stories I tell about how I did at school.
What is somewhat intriguing is how engineering, even more than planning, has changed. The math behind it (while generally not that difficult) is still too hard for most people, and the shortage is essentially filled by students and then later young adult immigrants, primarily from China and India. This brain drain has been going on for so long that there is finally a bit of a reverse movement for some enterprising souls to go home and try to apply what they learned in the U.S. and Canada to their home countries. The bottom line is that engineers are going to work with and be friends with people from a more varied background (at least if we are talking about country of origin) than most social scientists, though on the other hand, engineers tend to share a fairly pragmatic, slightly conservative world view (and they may even discount the fact that they know people from a variety of cultures). It's a bit of a paradox. In some ways I am sorry that I didn't work for RAND in the U.S. for at least a couple of years, since it would have been quite interesting to see such a collection of intellectual talent organized under different principles.
As ever, I do need to sign off and catch up on at least a few things and then catch another cat nap. I am kind of depressed that I have not managed to read much these past few days, but on the other hand, I rode my bike to work twice, and I might even ride in today. It's been months and months since I rode 3 days in a row. I figure I have to try to get back into it before it starts getting dark and cold. If I am at least somewhat in shape by then, I'll be more willing to keep biking later in the season.
* A weak reference to The Paper Chase, which features a law student who is torn between his workaholic ways and his personal, indeed love, life. What I never understood is how he seems about to chuck it all away at the end of the movie, but then he makes it through the Harvard grind in the TV series. Was this a parallel universe essentially?
There are really a number of ways this post could go, but I find most of them are not really that interesting as I try to get them down into words. It would be nice to have clearer lines and more time at home when I am not thinking about work, but that would mean being a different person essentially. For all the ups and downs at work, I have the fortune of doing one of those high end intellectual jobs that supposedly will remain after everything else has been off-shored (symbolic analysts in Robert Reich's terms) and it means it engages my brain most of the time, even when I am off work. But the flip side is that I take work far too seriously and when a project isn't going well, then my sense of well being also suffers. In terms of those personality tests, I come out as one of those deep blue analysts who basically do feel that their work and work products are an extension of themselves. It's a tough way to be. I see flashes of it in my children, but I don't know how to steer them clear of the rocky shoals. I'm sure they get mixed signals from me about how important grades are, for instance, where my words are belied by the stories I tell about how I did at school.
What is somewhat intriguing is how engineering, even more than planning, has changed. The math behind it (while generally not that difficult) is still too hard for most people, and the shortage is essentially filled by students and then later young adult immigrants, primarily from China and India. This brain drain has been going on for so long that there is finally a bit of a reverse movement for some enterprising souls to go home and try to apply what they learned in the U.S. and Canada to their home countries. The bottom line is that engineers are going to work with and be friends with people from a more varied background (at least if we are talking about country of origin) than most social scientists, though on the other hand, engineers tend to share a fairly pragmatic, slightly conservative world view (and they may even discount the fact that they know people from a variety of cultures). It's a bit of a paradox. In some ways I am sorry that I didn't work for RAND in the U.S. for at least a couple of years, since it would have been quite interesting to see such a collection of intellectual talent organized under different principles.
As ever, I do need to sign off and catch up on at least a few things and then catch another cat nap. I am kind of depressed that I have not managed to read much these past few days, but on the other hand, I rode my bike to work twice, and I might even ride in today. It's been months and months since I rode 3 days in a row. I figure I have to try to get back into it before it starts getting dark and cold. If I am at least somewhat in shape by then, I'll be more willing to keep biking later in the season.
* A weak reference to The Paper Chase, which features a law student who is torn between his workaholic ways and his personal, indeed love, life. What I never understood is how he seems about to chuck it all away at the end of the movie, but then he makes it through the Harvard grind in the TV series. Was this a parallel universe essentially?
Sunday, September 7, 2014
Time with the kids
So I can report back that we did use up the rest of the City Pass tickets. Yea. We went to Ontario Science Centre on Saturday and the Toronto Zoo today. (Of course, we had to rent a car to visit the zoo, somewhat negating the savings from the passes, but I would have
eventually gone and still needed to rent a car. We had a pretty simple
ride on the bus to the Science Centre.) I actually was completely in charge of the kids both days, partly to make up for how little I see them the rest of the week. I don't think I'll always be working quite as late as I did last week, but it will probably be a fairly regular occurrence. As ever, time spent with them is a bit of a mixed blessing, as they never completely conform to how I expect them to act and what I think they should enjoy or at least pay attention to. (How unreasonable that they are autonomous beings!) I suppose it would have been a bit better had my wife joined me, as there were moments that I basically lost my patience, as well as a brief moment where I was separated from each child (on the two different days). My son basically had a melt down, whereas my daughter was cool as a cucumber.
They had a good time at both, though my daughter did have more sit down protests at the zoo when she got tired. It is true you had to walk so far, particularly if you wanted to see the Canadian animals (go figure). Still, I think in general the zoo was more to my taste, though it was just a bit hotter than I would have liked (and we were overdressed). That meant that many of the animals were sleeping most of the time we were walking around. We actually did circle back and saw the pandas a second time (it was the first place we went at the zoo and one of the last). The first time both of them were sleeping, but the second time we saw one of them pretty up close and it was eating bamboo leaves, naturally. I saw pandas decades ago when they were at the D.C. zoo, and this was a much closer view, so that was cool. I think the Toronto Zoo only has them for about a year, so hopefully the kids will remember the visit semi-fondly.
The kangaroos and the moose were both big disappointments (too far away and basically just sleeping). The rhinos and hippos were a bit better. The best (in terms of viewing opportunities) were probably the bison, the camels, the white lions, the young polar bear, the Arctic wolves, the giraffes and the tiger. (If I can ever get the photos off my phone, I will post some.) My daughter decided that bats were her favourite animal and the visit to the bat house went pretty well, though it was dark in there. At the end, she wanted a pony ride, and I decided that she doesn't take all that many risks, so I should indulge her. Next time around I might let my son do the camel ride. Generally it was a good visit, though stressful at times, particularly when my daughter was grousing about her feet. The drive back was also more stressful than the way in, but we made it back safely, and that is ultimately what matters.
I don't think I will try to pack in nearly as much next weekend, particularly if it does rain as threatened, but I might take the kids to the AGO. But it really ought to be a weekend of rest and maybe catching up on my Russian reading. And then the weekend after that, assuming the weather is ok, we'll probably do Fort York, as it is supposed to be free to visit the newly reopened visitor centre and learn about the War of 1812. At some point, perhaps in Oct., we'll rent the car and drive up to Kleinberg to see the McMichael Art Museum. I'd like to go when the leaves are changing, as it can be quite nice to be a bit out of the city at that time. I think that is basically it for today. I still need to do a bit more unwinding from the day, and at some point I have a bit of work work to do.
They had a good time at both, though my daughter did have more sit down protests at the zoo when she got tired. It is true you had to walk so far, particularly if you wanted to see the Canadian animals (go figure). Still, I think in general the zoo was more to my taste, though it was just a bit hotter than I would have liked (and we were overdressed). That meant that many of the animals were sleeping most of the time we were walking around. We actually did circle back and saw the pandas a second time (it was the first place we went at the zoo and one of the last). The first time both of them were sleeping, but the second time we saw one of them pretty up close and it was eating bamboo leaves, naturally. I saw pandas decades ago when they were at the D.C. zoo, and this was a much closer view, so that was cool. I think the Toronto Zoo only has them for about a year, so hopefully the kids will remember the visit semi-fondly.
 |
| Panda sleeping |
 |
| Panda eating bamboo - the money shot |
The kangaroos and the moose were both big disappointments (too far away and basically just sleeping). The rhinos and hippos were a bit better. The best (in terms of viewing opportunities) were probably the bison, the camels, the white lions, the young polar bear, the Arctic wolves, the giraffes and the tiger. (If I can ever get the photos off my phone, I will post some.) My daughter decided that bats were her favourite animal and the visit to the bat house went pretty well, though it was dark in there. At the end, she wanted a pony ride, and I decided that she doesn't take all that many risks, so I should indulge her. Next time around I might let my son do the camel ride. Generally it was a good visit, though stressful at times, particularly when my daughter was grousing about her feet. The drive back was also more stressful than the way in, but we made it back safely, and that is ultimately what matters.
 |
| (White) Lions |
 |
| And tigers |
 |
| And bears |
 |
| And bison? Oh my! |
I don't think I will try to pack in nearly as much next weekend, particularly if it does rain as threatened, but I might take the kids to the AGO. But it really ought to be a weekend of rest and maybe catching up on my Russian reading. And then the weekend after that, assuming the weather is ok, we'll probably do Fort York, as it is supposed to be free to visit the newly reopened visitor centre and learn about the War of 1812. At some point, perhaps in Oct., we'll rent the car and drive up to Kleinberg to see the McMichael Art Museum. I'd like to go when the leaves are changing, as it can be quite nice to be a bit out of the city at that time. I think that is basically it for today. I still need to do a bit more unwinding from the day, and at some point I have a bit of work work to do.
Thursday, September 4, 2014
Thumbs down for TIFF
I don't know how controversial this is, but I am so unimpressed by what TIFF has become. A large proportion of the films will be getting mainstream release in North America, many within a few months. In fact, some critic (granted for a free daily) said that of the 12 films to watch, every one of them had a major movie star and thus will get wider release. Unbelievably lame. And the fact that so many people seem to basically lose their mind just to see some of these Hollywood stars? That would never happen in New York and not even at the Chicago International Film Fest, which is much more pleasant. I would actually rank the Vancouver International Film Fest as better than TIFF, both in the scope of international films, particularly by obscure directors, and certainly in the ease of getting tickets and actually watching films.
I happened to go over to Metro Hall, which has more or less been taken over by TIFF. While it is kind of nice for King Street to be free of cars, this is causing a lot of traffic havoc downtown, given all the other construction. It has definitely led to a lot of encroachment on the bike lanes on Adelaide! That wasn't my main problem, but the fact that I had legitimate business in Metro Hall (going to The Source, Rexall Drugs and the food court) and they hassled me, assuming I was trying to cut into the ridiculously long box office lines. So that put me in a pretty bad mood. Then on the way out, I took a look at the board and roughly 90% of the films (and the couple of ones I was vaguely interested in) were all sold out. How crazy to make people stand in line for probably an hour when there is essentially nothing left. Everything about this leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and I think I will just boycott on principle from now on. I will admit that the rest of the year, TIFF Lightbox is really nice, even a bit nicer than the Ebert Film Center on State Street in Chicago. But I am just going to completely avoid the Lightbox and TIFF more generally over these two weeks. It's just a shame I work so close that I am negatively impacted by TIFF, even if I choose to pretend it doesn't exist.
I happened to go over to Metro Hall, which has more or less been taken over by TIFF. While it is kind of nice for King Street to be free of cars, this is causing a lot of traffic havoc downtown, given all the other construction. It has definitely led to a lot of encroachment on the bike lanes on Adelaide! That wasn't my main problem, but the fact that I had legitimate business in Metro Hall (going to The Source, Rexall Drugs and the food court) and they hassled me, assuming I was trying to cut into the ridiculously long box office lines. So that put me in a pretty bad mood. Then on the way out, I took a look at the board and roughly 90% of the films (and the couple of ones I was vaguely interested in) were all sold out. How crazy to make people stand in line for probably an hour when there is essentially nothing left. Everything about this leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and I think I will just boycott on principle from now on. I will admit that the rest of the year, TIFF Lightbox is really nice, even a bit nicer than the Ebert Film Center on State Street in Chicago. But I am just going to completely avoid the Lightbox and TIFF more generally over these two weeks. It's just a shame I work so close that I am negatively impacted by TIFF, even if I choose to pretend it doesn't exist.
Concert at Casa Loma
While yesterday was pretty nice weather-wise (or at least good enough to bike in to work), I planned to go to Casa Loma in the evening for a concert where the Toronto Concert Orchestra was going to play Schubert's 8th Symphony (Unfinished) and Dvorak's 8th Symphony. That meant I took the streetcar again and saw another unfortunate incident where some old geezer started shouting at the woman next to him that "It wasn't alright" that she asked him to stand up (or at least move over) so she could get off at her stop. Honestly, if it is going to be like this I am going to try to bike through most of the winter, assuming there is no snow or sleet or ice. I am biking in today, but Friday looks like another thunderstorm.
Anyway, after a somewhat difficult day at work, I was running slightly late, and I was a bit winded and sweaty from climbing up all the stairs to get to Casa Loma. I managed to get in on time, but there were very few seats. I finally sat on the concrete ledge near the corner of the band shell. That would have been fine, but the couple on the actual bench near me gave up their seats for a mother with her two children. Even the older of the two was only about 7 and not into the music, while the younger one was maybe 3 or 4 and was a real handful. I just found her a selfish person for taking children into a setting that wasn't right for them and then even more so when she so blatantly sided with the young one who kept going over and pushing his brother. She struck me as a pretty sad excuse for a mother. But there was a lot of selfishness on display, including an older woman just slightly further away who took a seat reserved for a blind man and then tried to put her bag on the only remaining space.
All this is to say that I was fairly distracted from the music for long stretches. While the setting is beautiful, they have basically set this up as a 19th Century concert experience where there are lots of people on the lawn eating (and talking) through the concert and the audience claps after every movement. I guess you do have the eating on the lawn at Ravinia and other summer festivals, but the clapping in between the movements is a definite throwback. Now this was a semi-professional orchestra, but they were so much better than the Vancouver Philharmonic. It would have been far better to have the Vancouver Phil in this relaxed setting where the music didn't matter quite so much, and to put the Toronto Concert Orchestra in a church where people would focus more and be better behaved.
When it became clear that the woman actually expected to come back after the intermission and inflict more music on her children, I decided to go up to the ledge overhanging the garden. Unfortunately, that meant standing through all of Dvorak 8. And just as the music started, the woman turned up right next to me again (apparently having lost her seat on the bench). It just seemed so unfair, though since there was nowhere to sit, she only stuck it out for a few minutes and then left with children in tow. I really am not a child-hater, but I firmly believe that children should be introduced to culture gradually and not put into settings where they have to act mature beyond their years. I also don't believe in keeping children up past their bedtime just so that adults can get out of the house. Consequently, my children are only now getting to venture out and do more of these adult things, and I still try hard to keep it down to about an hour, which is basically their limit.
As far as the music (when I could focus on it) I thought Schubert's 8th was played well. I recall a musician from university who said that it was perfect the way it was, but I found that the piece really needed a stronger ending to close. And I did enjoy Dvorak's 8th. I've probably heard it live 3 or even 4 times now, and it has become clearer in my mind. It's creeping up there but still hasn't overtaken (nor likely ever will) Dvorak's 9th Symphony as my favourite Dvorak symphony.
I'm still working my way through Demons and enjoying it, though there is such a huge cast of characters. The action has shifted away from something akin to Turgenev's A Month in the Country to more of a novel of ideas -- and quite dangerous ones at that. I'll try to make a push to read another large chunk this weekend. When I am not taking the kids around to the zoo and the Science Centre of course.
Anyway, after a somewhat difficult day at work, I was running slightly late, and I was a bit winded and sweaty from climbing up all the stairs to get to Casa Loma. I managed to get in on time, but there were very few seats. I finally sat on the concrete ledge near the corner of the band shell. That would have been fine, but the couple on the actual bench near me gave up their seats for a mother with her two children. Even the older of the two was only about 7 and not into the music, while the younger one was maybe 3 or 4 and was a real handful. I just found her a selfish person for taking children into a setting that wasn't right for them and then even more so when she so blatantly sided with the young one who kept going over and pushing his brother. She struck me as a pretty sad excuse for a mother. But there was a lot of selfishness on display, including an older woman just slightly further away who took a seat reserved for a blind man and then tried to put her bag on the only remaining space.
All this is to say that I was fairly distracted from the music for long stretches. While the setting is beautiful, they have basically set this up as a 19th Century concert experience where there are lots of people on the lawn eating (and talking) through the concert and the audience claps after every movement. I guess you do have the eating on the lawn at Ravinia and other summer festivals, but the clapping in between the movements is a definite throwback. Now this was a semi-professional orchestra, but they were so much better than the Vancouver Philharmonic. It would have been far better to have the Vancouver Phil in this relaxed setting where the music didn't matter quite so much, and to put the Toronto Concert Orchestra in a church where people would focus more and be better behaved.
When it became clear that the woman actually expected to come back after the intermission and inflict more music on her children, I decided to go up to the ledge overhanging the garden. Unfortunately, that meant standing through all of Dvorak 8. And just as the music started, the woman turned up right next to me again (apparently having lost her seat on the bench). It just seemed so unfair, though since there was nowhere to sit, she only stuck it out for a few minutes and then left with children in tow. I really am not a child-hater, but I firmly believe that children should be introduced to culture gradually and not put into settings where they have to act mature beyond their years. I also don't believe in keeping children up past their bedtime just so that adults can get out of the house. Consequently, my children are only now getting to venture out and do more of these adult things, and I still try hard to keep it down to about an hour, which is basically their limit.
As far as the music (when I could focus on it) I thought Schubert's 8th was played well. I recall a musician from university who said that it was perfect the way it was, but I found that the piece really needed a stronger ending to close. And I did enjoy Dvorak's 8th. I've probably heard it live 3 or even 4 times now, and it has become clearer in my mind. It's creeping up there but still hasn't overtaken (nor likely ever will) Dvorak's 9th Symphony as my favourite Dvorak symphony.
I'm still working my way through Demons and enjoying it, though there is such a huge cast of characters. The action has shifted away from something akin to Turgenev's A Month in the Country to more of a novel of ideas -- and quite dangerous ones at that. I'll try to make a push to read another large chunk this weekend. When I am not taking the kids around to the zoo and the Science Centre of course.
Wednesday, September 3, 2014
First day back at school
So both the kids seemed quite happy about their new school. They liked the fact there was going to be separate music and art classes (where they would actually travel to these rooms), and my son thought it was cool that gym would be first thing in the morning. About the only thing they weren't crazy about was the very small, overcrowded lunch room. We probably won't know how things are actually going until a few weeks in when we meet the teachers, but this seems to be a good school, basically equivalent to the local magnet school they went to in Chicago and definitely a step above their school in Vancouver. Speaking of Vancouver schools, I think the strike/lockout is going to run at least two more weeks and perhaps longer. The premiere is really determined to break the back of the union, and that is going to take time. All I can say is that the people of B.C. in their wisdom voted the Liberals in (though not Clark's home riding), and this shouldn't come as a huge surprise. Were I still a teacher, I would be far more disappointed in the union leadership, which seems totally incompetent to me.
I experienced an unfortunate incident on the Queen streetcar where a full-fledged fight broke out in the front, and then the man who stayed on the streetcar after the other one fled insisted on filing a police report and having the driver as a witness. So the streetcar went out of service and it was quite a long wait until the next one. What really irks me is that the weather was dry enough in the morning and late afternoon for me to have ridden my bike (avoiding this scene and getting much-needed exercise) but it was going to rain in the early afternoon (and indeed it just poured around lunchtime). Since I don't have a sheltered place to leave my bike, I really couldn't ride. I just have to figure this out, since it is going to be an on-going issue.
On a more positive note, we have all the paintings hung (sans one more in the basement) and the boxes are basically stashed away. I will need to make one more cardboard run to get a bunch of empty boxes out of the kitchen (and this might be a Saturday-type task if I don't end up working in the suburbs Thurs or Friday), but otherwise the progress feels quite real. So two months in, this has finally gotten to be a liveable house. So on to the basement, which definitely has a long way to go, simply because it is so hard to maneuver around the boxes that are still filled with stuff to get more stuff onto the shelves.
I experienced an unfortunate incident on the Queen streetcar where a full-fledged fight broke out in the front, and then the man who stayed on the streetcar after the other one fled insisted on filing a police report and having the driver as a witness. So the streetcar went out of service and it was quite a long wait until the next one. What really irks me is that the weather was dry enough in the morning and late afternoon for me to have ridden my bike (avoiding this scene and getting much-needed exercise) but it was going to rain in the early afternoon (and indeed it just poured around lunchtime). Since I don't have a sheltered place to leave my bike, I really couldn't ride. I just have to figure this out, since it is going to be an on-going issue.
On a more positive note, we have all the paintings hung (sans one more in the basement) and the boxes are basically stashed away. I will need to make one more cardboard run to get a bunch of empty boxes out of the kitchen (and this might be a Saturday-type task if I don't end up working in the suburbs Thurs or Friday), but otherwise the progress feels quite real. So two months in, this has finally gotten to be a liveable house. So on to the basement, which definitely has a long way to go, simply because it is so hard to maneuver around the boxes that are still filled with stuff to get more stuff onto the shelves.
Tuesday, September 2, 2014
8th Canadian Challenge - 3rd review - The Tin Flute
The edition of Gabrielle Roy's The Tin Flute that I have (New Canadian Library) has a quite useful Afterward. It indicates that Roy planned on centering the entire novel on the love story between Florentine and Jean, but that Florentine's mother Rose-Anna entered the story and more or less took over. The introduction sort of suggests that Florentine and Jean are pushed to the side, though I didn't find that to be the case. Nonetheless, the mother does become a central character, and she struggles to keep her family housed and fed. Her husband, Azarius, while not the typical "brute" one encounters in stories about the poor, is simply not capable of hanging onto a job for any length of time. Apparently the only thing he was good at -- and could stick to -- was carpentry, and the demand for his services completely dried up during the Depression. But his mental outlook did not help either, fatally attracted to silly "get rich" schemes and simply too proud to stick it out at the somewhat menial jobs that he did get, typically through Rose-Anna's intercession. It seems that the family's main source of income is actually the salary (and tips) that Florentine gets from her job as a waitress.
This is actually an important link because Jean meets Florentine through her job at the lunch counter at a Five and Dime (so a bit more down-market than a stand-alone restaurant). She is a fairly efficient waitress, but she is too inexperienced to be particularly good at fending off men. Indeed, she is intrigued by Jean, who acts a bit stand-offish and mysterious but who still flirts with her a bit. She decides to see if Jean is serious when he asks her out. As it happens, he is torn between his conflicted feelings for her (partly aroused & intrigued in spite of himself and partly pitying of her under-nourished childlike frame) and his burning desire to better himself and escape from the poverty he was born into. (When we get a glimpse of his self-improvement regime, it comes across as even more crazed than Jay Gatsby's...) He also saves up to eat out once a month at a much nicer restaurant in a better district.
Jean mostly holds himself apart, definitely from the men he works with and even to some extent from the young men in the neighbourhood. He's a bit of a loner and definitely feels himself to be better than the men in Saint-Henri. However, he still stays in some contact with a slightly better-off young man, Emmanuel, who has actually voluntarily enlisted in the Army. (Canadian troops are being mobilized for WWII.) This mobilization ends up proving quite important for the Lacasse family in somewhat unexpected ways. While one the one hand, one can argue that it acts essentially as a deus ex machina, altering the likely trajectory of the Lacasse family (and for that matter Paul Tallard's fortunes in Two Solitudes), WWII really did completely change the face of Canada and the U.S., pulling these countries out of the Great Depression. (To me those revisionists who say otherwise seem completely misguided.) I just saw some quite powerful images of Toronto from 1904 (when it had its own Great Fire), then a bad breakout of influenza in the late 1910s and then basically a decade of Depression. It really was quite a tough period to live through!
I'll return to this topic (of Canadian mobilization) after the spoiler break.
Anyway, the Lacasse family's lot is a particularly hard one. They seem to get behind on the rent every year, and have to move, often in a huge rush, due to the inability of the father Azarius to hold a steady job. It shouldn't be a huge surprise that he messes up all the time. One of the most disappointing events is when he decides to show off a bit and borrows a truck from work so the family can make a trip to the countryside where Rose-Anna's family lives. The trip doesn't go as planned (to say the least) and it leads to him losing another job in disgrace. But what is even more upsetting to Rose-Anna is that her mother sees through them immediately, and realizes just how poor they really are. She probably would have been better off staying in the country, and this is a tough thing for her to swallow. Of course, what really would have helped Rose-Anna out is access to birth control and not being under the spell of the Catholic church. She has a baby every year, and each one is generally sicklier than the last, though none are quite as bad off as Daniel. While her mother is (quite properly) critical of Rose-Anna's husband, what is astonishing is that her husband's own mother warned her that he was an incurable optimist with his head in the clouds and that they would likely be poor! Just wow.
We meet a few additional people in the Saint-Henri neighbourhood, which is home to the Lacasse family. Most of these people are somewhat down on their luck and drink their problems away. Azarius is a bit of a big talker in the taverns (he reminds me a bit of Gabriel from Tremblay's The Fat Woman Next Door is Pregnant, though even a bit softer in the head). Jean interacts to some extent with a slightly edgier crowd of disaffected youth, though he does have a passing acquaintance with Emmanuel, whose family is fairly well-to-do by the standards of Saint-Henri.
Now, Saint-Henri was fairly close to Le Plateau-Mont-Royal, which is where Michel Tremblay sets most of his semi-autobiographical writings. Both were densely settled and largely working class. The general impression I get from the two books is that Le Plateau-Mont-Royal had just a slightly higher social standing, perhaps because a portion of it was "mixed", that is to say partly Anglo but mostly French. Interestingly, Mordecai Richler was also from Le Plateau-Mont-Royal. At some point, I will just have to read Richler's The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, which I think I've owned and parted with (unread) twice now. (I'm probably better able to appreciate it and put it into context now.) I do have the impression that the "Tremblay family" wasn't struggling to nearly the same degree as the Lacasse family was. In general, The Tin Flute is a moving yet often depressing book.
Now for some SPOILERS -- some quite significant SPOILERS in fact. So do not read on if SPOILERS bother you.
There are two (or even two and a half) moments that I find particularly hard to swallow. First, while Rose-Anna fully recognizes what a pushover she is when it comes to the men in her life, she keeps letting them get away with it (and while she feels guilty about relying so much on Florentine, she still keeps doing it). She really does not lay into her husband the way he deserves. What may be even more painful for me to read is when her eldest son Eugene enrolls in the army and gives her his signing bonus. Then he comes back around and takes it when she needs it for rent money and blows it on a floozy. She definitely needed to have stood her ground then. Down the road she does get Eugene's army salary, as well as her husband's. Going off to war seems to be the only way he can think of to provide for his family. While Roy seems to suggest this will be good for him (a place he finally can fit in and even thrive as he is apparently on the road to promotion to sergeant), I can also envision a future where he starts bucking authority and ends up in a great deal of trouble. But let's stick with the more optimistic ending, as the family certainly did have its share of tragedy.
To return to Daniel, he is a sad case of a child who cannot thrive under these slum or near-slum conditions. If I recall from the book, Rose-Anna really was so poor that she couldn't even keep the children properly dressed and started keeping the younger ones home from school! Talk about misplaced priorities, i.e. it isn't only her husband who is sabotaging their future. Anyway, Daniel really wants a toy tin flute, and Rose-Anna comes close to buying one for him instead of some other necessities, but she resists. It almost seems like this will become Daniel's "Rosebud," but actually his condition worsens to the point where he is taken away from the family to a clinic where he gets to play with a tin flute and other toys. He bonds very closely with an English nurse, which is fairly heartbreaking to Rose-Anna when he calls out to the nurse (Jenny) more than to his own mother. But he doesn't pull through. I guess this is believable but still tough to read.
Perhaps the most annoying plot point is that, despite everything, Florentine keeps dating Jean in a somewhat desultory fashion and has him come over to her house when her family goes to the country. They have sex just one time, but that is enough. I mean, yes, this does occasionally happen, but it is such a lame (and even slightly misogynistic) trope for a girl to get knocked up the one time she slips up. But I guess like mother, like daughter, and the Lacasse women are hyper-fertile. What is an interesting twist is that Roy doesn't take this opportunity to turn this into a public service announcement about why it is always better to save oneself for marriage. Emmanuel has been kind of sticking around in the background and is quite enamoured of Florentine for some reason. Florentine realizes that she doesn't have a passionate love for him, but he is a caring person that she could come to appreciate and (perhaps) be a good wife to. She manages to date him briefly, and he rushes to marry her before he is sent overseas. It is even hinted that he knows Florentine is actually pregnant (my half objection), but I just find that extremely hard to believe, particularly in that era, though I will allow that he may be aware that Florentine is not actually a virgin, which is in its own way pretty enlightened. So Florentine appears to have lucked her way out of poverty, provided Emmanuel comes back from the war. It isn't as clear about her mother, who still has far too many children but finally a steady source of income. I'm not aware of Roy ever returning to any of these characters to see how they were doing after the end of the war, but it is hard to imagine them being left off any worse, again provided the menfolk returned from Europe.
For me, The Tin Flute is the better novel with characters that made more believable, if somewhat unfortunate, choices. The depth of Florentine and Rose-Anna, particularly in their various disappointments, was greater than anything I found in Two Solitudes, though Athanase Tallard was occasionally an intriguing figure. The Tin Flute wasn't just a sociological exploration of the poor of Montreal and the way WWII impacted them, whereas Two Solitudes sometimes felt like it was too wrapped up in explaining why Anglo and French Canada just didn't understand each other.
This is actually an important link because Jean meets Florentine through her job at the lunch counter at a Five and Dime (so a bit more down-market than a stand-alone restaurant). She is a fairly efficient waitress, but she is too inexperienced to be particularly good at fending off men. Indeed, she is intrigued by Jean, who acts a bit stand-offish and mysterious but who still flirts with her a bit. She decides to see if Jean is serious when he asks her out. As it happens, he is torn between his conflicted feelings for her (partly aroused & intrigued in spite of himself and partly pitying of her under-nourished childlike frame) and his burning desire to better himself and escape from the poverty he was born into. (When we get a glimpse of his self-improvement regime, it comes across as even more crazed than Jay Gatsby's...) He also saves up to eat out once a month at a much nicer restaurant in a better district.
Jean mostly holds himself apart, definitely from the men he works with and even to some extent from the young men in the neighbourhood. He's a bit of a loner and definitely feels himself to be better than the men in Saint-Henri. However, he still stays in some contact with a slightly better-off young man, Emmanuel, who has actually voluntarily enlisted in the Army. (Canadian troops are being mobilized for WWII.) This mobilization ends up proving quite important for the Lacasse family in somewhat unexpected ways. While one the one hand, one can argue that it acts essentially as a deus ex machina, altering the likely trajectory of the Lacasse family (and for that matter Paul Tallard's fortunes in Two Solitudes), WWII really did completely change the face of Canada and the U.S., pulling these countries out of the Great Depression. (To me those revisionists who say otherwise seem completely misguided.) I just saw some quite powerful images of Toronto from 1904 (when it had its own Great Fire), then a bad breakout of influenza in the late 1910s and then basically a decade of Depression. It really was quite a tough period to live through!
I'll return to this topic (of Canadian mobilization) after the spoiler break.
Anyway, the Lacasse family's lot is a particularly hard one. They seem to get behind on the rent every year, and have to move, often in a huge rush, due to the inability of the father Azarius to hold a steady job. It shouldn't be a huge surprise that he messes up all the time. One of the most disappointing events is when he decides to show off a bit and borrows a truck from work so the family can make a trip to the countryside where Rose-Anna's family lives. The trip doesn't go as planned (to say the least) and it leads to him losing another job in disgrace. But what is even more upsetting to Rose-Anna is that her mother sees through them immediately, and realizes just how poor they really are. She probably would have been better off staying in the country, and this is a tough thing for her to swallow. Of course, what really would have helped Rose-Anna out is access to birth control and not being under the spell of the Catholic church. She has a baby every year, and each one is generally sicklier than the last, though none are quite as bad off as Daniel. While her mother is (quite properly) critical of Rose-Anna's husband, what is astonishing is that her husband's own mother warned her that he was an incurable optimist with his head in the clouds and that they would likely be poor! Just wow.
We meet a few additional people in the Saint-Henri neighbourhood, which is home to the Lacasse family. Most of these people are somewhat down on their luck and drink their problems away. Azarius is a bit of a big talker in the taverns (he reminds me a bit of Gabriel from Tremblay's The Fat Woman Next Door is Pregnant, though even a bit softer in the head). Jean interacts to some extent with a slightly edgier crowd of disaffected youth, though he does have a passing acquaintance with Emmanuel, whose family is fairly well-to-do by the standards of Saint-Henri.
Now, Saint-Henri was fairly close to Le Plateau-Mont-Royal, which is where Michel Tremblay sets most of his semi-autobiographical writings. Both were densely settled and largely working class. The general impression I get from the two books is that Le Plateau-Mont-Royal had just a slightly higher social standing, perhaps because a portion of it was "mixed", that is to say partly Anglo but mostly French. Interestingly, Mordecai Richler was also from Le Plateau-Mont-Royal. At some point, I will just have to read Richler's The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, which I think I've owned and parted with (unread) twice now. (I'm probably better able to appreciate it and put it into context now.) I do have the impression that the "Tremblay family" wasn't struggling to nearly the same degree as the Lacasse family was. In general, The Tin Flute is a moving yet often depressing book.
Now for some SPOILERS -- some quite significant SPOILERS in fact. So do not read on if SPOILERS bother you.
There are two (or even two and a half) moments that I find particularly hard to swallow. First, while Rose-Anna fully recognizes what a pushover she is when it comes to the men in her life, she keeps letting them get away with it (and while she feels guilty about relying so much on Florentine, she still keeps doing it). She really does not lay into her husband the way he deserves. What may be even more painful for me to read is when her eldest son Eugene enrolls in the army and gives her his signing bonus. Then he comes back around and takes it when she needs it for rent money and blows it on a floozy. She definitely needed to have stood her ground then. Down the road she does get Eugene's army salary, as well as her husband's. Going off to war seems to be the only way he can think of to provide for his family. While Roy seems to suggest this will be good for him (a place he finally can fit in and even thrive as he is apparently on the road to promotion to sergeant), I can also envision a future where he starts bucking authority and ends up in a great deal of trouble. But let's stick with the more optimistic ending, as the family certainly did have its share of tragedy.
To return to Daniel, he is a sad case of a child who cannot thrive under these slum or near-slum conditions. If I recall from the book, Rose-Anna really was so poor that she couldn't even keep the children properly dressed and started keeping the younger ones home from school! Talk about misplaced priorities, i.e. it isn't only her husband who is sabotaging their future. Anyway, Daniel really wants a toy tin flute, and Rose-Anna comes close to buying one for him instead of some other necessities, but she resists. It almost seems like this will become Daniel's "Rosebud," but actually his condition worsens to the point where he is taken away from the family to a clinic where he gets to play with a tin flute and other toys. He bonds very closely with an English nurse, which is fairly heartbreaking to Rose-Anna when he calls out to the nurse (Jenny) more than to his own mother. But he doesn't pull through. I guess this is believable but still tough to read.
Perhaps the most annoying plot point is that, despite everything, Florentine keeps dating Jean in a somewhat desultory fashion and has him come over to her house when her family goes to the country. They have sex just one time, but that is enough. I mean, yes, this does occasionally happen, but it is such a lame (and even slightly misogynistic) trope for a girl to get knocked up the one time she slips up. But I guess like mother, like daughter, and the Lacasse women are hyper-fertile. What is an interesting twist is that Roy doesn't take this opportunity to turn this into a public service announcement about why it is always better to save oneself for marriage. Emmanuel has been kind of sticking around in the background and is quite enamoured of Florentine for some reason. Florentine realizes that she doesn't have a passionate love for him, but he is a caring person that she could come to appreciate and (perhaps) be a good wife to. She manages to date him briefly, and he rushes to marry her before he is sent overseas. It is even hinted that he knows Florentine is actually pregnant (my half objection), but I just find that extremely hard to believe, particularly in that era, though I will allow that he may be aware that Florentine is not actually a virgin, which is in its own way pretty enlightened. So Florentine appears to have lucked her way out of poverty, provided Emmanuel comes back from the war. It isn't as clear about her mother, who still has far too many children but finally a steady source of income. I'm not aware of Roy ever returning to any of these characters to see how they were doing after the end of the war, but it is hard to imagine them being left off any worse, again provided the menfolk returned from Europe.
For me, The Tin Flute is the better novel with characters that made more believable, if somewhat unfortunate, choices. The depth of Florentine and Rose-Anna, particularly in their various disappointments, was greater than anything I found in Two Solitudes, though Athanase Tallard was occasionally an intriguing figure. The Tin Flute wasn't just a sociological exploration of the poor of Montreal and the way WWII impacted them, whereas Two Solitudes sometimes felt like it was too wrapped up in explaining why Anglo and French Canada just didn't understand each other.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)