Literary Disappointments

No, not a list of all the books that let me down, either after early promise or inexplicably good reviews or even books that were bad right from the start.  That would take far too long.  I think perhaps the single book that failed to live up to the hype was Kingley Amis's Lucky Jim, which I really disliked.  I thought Proust was grossly over-hyped.  I found a few things of value from it, but not worth reading that many 1000s of pages to get to those nuggets.

Rather I found out there are two literary events in Toronto, and I found out about them too late, and they are both sold out.  I am not going to link to them on the off chance that a ticket or two turns up, and I will grab them.  One was some author's salon over at Paradise where the main guest of honour is Margaret Atwood.  I think the odds she would be signing anything are extremely low, but I would like to hear her talk anyway.  In this case, I may just show up anyway and see if there are rush tickets.  Interestingly, it is on the same night as a TPL Salon night, which I do have a ticket to, so I may just go to Paradise first and see if there is any chance of getting in, and if not, head over to TPL.

The second is over at Tranzac and it is almost a month away, but I guess because there are 10 or so poets reading, they all scarfed up the tickets for their friends and family.  Again, things can be a bit loose over at Tranzac, so I will just swing by and see if I can get in in the end.  I mostly want to go to hear Laurie Graham, who has a new collection out.  I liked her Fast Commute quite a bit, so would like to see what she has been up to lately.

I guess I won't know for a few weeks, or almost a month, just how disappointed I will be in the end.

Early May catch-up

I'll probably circle back and fill in a few more details, but this is what I have been up to over the weekend.

Sat. ended up being a very busy day.  I didn't get to the gym at 9:30, as I had hoped, but I did make it there by 10 (a recent record) and was home (with the groceries) by noon.  I left the house again to swing by some art galleries just before 1.  I went to Canadian Fine Arts and put down the cheque for the Brandtner piece.  It was too big to fit in my pannier, so I'll have to go back later, probably next Sat.  I went north and checked out Gallery Gevik, which I haven't been to in a while.  I came back south to get to 401 Richmond and ran briefly into Robarts to pick up a book on hold.  I saw that the cherry blossoms had all fallen.  Ah, transcience...

I didn't stay too long at 401 Richmond, though I was able to get into Gagne this time around and talked briefly to John.  Then I had about an hour at the OCAD GradEx.  I probably could have spent another 15 to 30 minutes there, but I think I got the essence of this year.  I think Chimemelie Okafor was probably the most interesting painter, for my tastes at least.

I then biked over to Carlton and was able to catch the 3:45 showing of Spirited Away.  I'll try to catch Howl's Moving Castle next weekend, maybe right before going over to Canadian Fine Arts, so hopefully they have a fairly early showing.

Then I swung by Union and picked up some sushi, hit the office for only about 10 minutes, then went to the Soundstreams concert.  I got there about midway through the pre-show talk.  I was not happy to find out that they had added a piece and an intermission, and now the whole concert was going to take just about 2 hours, up from the originally scheduled 90 minutes.  However, the piece I was probably most interested in (Britten's Lachrymae) was in the first half, so I decided I would leave at intermission and head over to the Rex.  So I ended up catching about half the first set of Don Byron in a large band setting.  Glad I caught this in the end, though Don was far more restrained than he has been on previous occasions.  I also stuck around for the late night set, though it was harder to focus and write in my journal, as this group was very heavy on the vocals.  The singer was quite good, however.

Sunday didn't get off to a great start when the bus wouldn't show up.  There were actually 2 headed south travelling in pairs, and there were 2 buses in pairs about 15 minutes away heading north.  Just terrible service, and the TTC seems to have completely abandoned any attempts at keep buses reasonably spaced.  It was particularly frustrating as the weather was good, and I easily could have biked, but then I was heading all the way out to Old Mill for a Bach motet concert, and that was too far to bike.  So I abandoned my attempts to swim, and will do that tonight instead, and just read for a while, waiting on the bus to take me up to Pape station.  

I got to Old Mill with over an hour to spare, and I walked down to the Humber.  It turns out that the canoes and kayaks are now available to rent (this was the first weekend in fact) but there were no canoes available (they were doing some sort of clean up on the Humber).  It was tempting to rent a kayak, but I've never been in one, and I really didn't want my stuff to get wet.  Maybe some other time, esp. if my son is back in town, though that would probably mean renting a canoe again. 

Then I walked over to the church. I've definitely never been in this part of town before, as this is where the Kingway is (which is apparently still a nice movie theatre but run by a terrible grump, making it not worth going to, aside from the fact it is ridiculously far from my house...).

The concert was fine, but it's pretty clear that I am just not that into Bach's motets, and I think I will stop trying to force myself to appreciate them.

I then took the train back to Dundas West and spent a little time in the bookstores there, which were still open.  I debated going to the Indian place, but by the time I was finished with the book shopping, I only had time for pizza after all.  Then I watched Malle's Zazie Dans the Metro.  I didn't like the book that much because the little girl is such a brat.  The movie is essentially Tati on crack (though actually it predates Playtime by 7 years, though it came out a couple of years after Mon Oncle): non-stop visual gags and lots of camera tricks.  In the end it was a little too much.  Here is an interesting piece on the movie, and here is an essay from Criterion where they are flogging the film.  I'll have to decide at some point if I want to reread the book (which didn't do that much for me on first reading) and/or rewatch the film, but it is a relatively low priority.  I'm much more likely to rewatch Godard's Masculin féminin, which grabbed me more (right around the time I was thinking I didn't like any of Godard's films that much!).

I managed to make decent progress on Nabokov's Ada, and I will probably finish it tonight.  Somehow I need to read Shteyngart's Vera or Faith and then still find time for Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness before the end of the month (as we are reading this for book club).  I looked several times and just couldn't find it, so I ordered the LOA set of her Hainish novels, which at least has the advantage of having some interesting additional material added to the novels and stories (even though I don't like buying stuff I already own or believe I own).  Then there are several other things I wanted to read, but this will probably end up getting pushed off until June (and of course I will have far less free time with Fringe roaring up!).  For instance, I ordered the remaining Blu-Rays of Breaking Bad, but I don't expect to get to any of them before the fall...

Ciao for now! 

Edit (05/12): I was able to get over to Jimmie Simpson and got in 23 or possibly even 24 laps, so that was positive.  I'm going to try to get over to the gym tonight, though I do need to swing by Robarts on the way home, and potentially swim on Wed.  (It's somewhat likely to rain on Wed., so maybe it is worth going to Matty Eckler instead if biking looks iffy.)  I also finally managed to finish Nabokov's Ada!  In general, the second half isn't quite as strong as the first half (and there is a somewhat painful 20 pages on space and time where Van more or less argues against Einstein's relativity theory because it isn't aesthetically pleasing), though the last 30 or so pages when Ada and Van are quite old (and reunited) recaptures some of the zany wordplay from the first half.  I may get around to writing a post just on this, but perhaps not.

May disappointments

The cats have been intensely watching this spot in the kitchen behind the garbage can and trying to pounce.  I hope it is just some hapless bug they found and not another mice invasion, which would be truly disappointing.  On the other hand, I am pretty sure without the cats we would definitely have more mice.

I guess it isn't a full-blown disappointment, but if I had perfect fore-knowledge, I would have gone to Hirut last Friday, as was my initial intent.  Instead, I went to the Rex two days in a row to see Rez Abbasi.  He and his group were very good, but they are such a young group that they just don't have that much to play, since they mostly want to play originals.  The standards they did play (Alone Together and Monk's Let's Call This) were the same on both nights, as was the encore (Ornette Coleman's Humpty Dumpty) and even some of the between song patter!  So I could definitely have gone off to see Ellington tunes at Hirut on Friday instead.  I did have the extra cash on me on Sat., and I picked up a couple of Abbasi's CDs and had him sign Snake Charmer (which has such a cool cover!).

What was a clear disappointment was that Toronto Hydro had scheduled a power outage Sat. evening -- and hadn't gotten around to telling all the building owners.  I asked the guy at the door, and he hadn't heard anything about it, and they finally got the owner to get in touch and, yes, the Rex was going to be impacted.  So they had to cancel the late night act and try to reschedule.  (They were very glad that I had warned them, however.)  I went over to the office for a bit.  I decided to leave my bike locked up on the street, since I wouldn't be able to get it out of the garage if the power did go out.  Anyway, I was able to get about 45 minutes of work in and then left for home.  Either our building wasn't impacted by the power outage, or Hydro just didn't actually start whatever they were doing that necessitated a power cut on time.

Monday was generally ok, though my phone acted up again and wouldn't record this underground concert I was at, which was super frustrating.  I did talk books with this young woman sitting next to me.  She was reading Kiran Desai's The Inheritance of Loss and was a bit disappointed to find out (only now) that she was in town doing a book talk for TIFA.

Tues. was the most frustrating day so far.  There was free pizza from Pizzaola for lunch, which was good, though it then had this weird cascading effect.  I was off to see Tokyo Drifter at the Revue, and most days I eat at Pizzaola on Roncy.  However, I didn't want to do that, since I had eaten this for lunch.  I also was answering emails and trying to call RCM to move tickets (more on that in a moment), so I had to really run to catch the 6:04 train and didn't have time to grab anything at Union.  I find it astonishing how few take-out restaurants there are at Bloor West/Dundas, aside from a McDonalds and the Pizzaola and another pizza place (Pizza Nova).  There was one decent-looking Indian place on Bloor itself, but it was going to take too long (and there is a better Indian place on Roncy anyway).  I actually went two blocks west on Bloor and there just was so little, compared to how many restaurants there are between Dufferin and Ossington, to say nothing of between Bathhurst and Spadina!  (While overall I like the Roncy, the eating choices on this street are actually fairly limited, aside from pizza and one Indian place.  Otherwise, there is a terrible Thai place down the street and generally not much else that appeals to me.) 

That meant I was even more crunched for time before the movie started.  I ran into this place that said it had bahn mi sandwiches.  They didn't have any tofu, but they had a lemongrass mushroom one, so I ordered that and then waited impatiently.  I started eating it, while crossing the street to the Revue, but it had such an extremely weird texture that I thought it must be the chicken.  I went back in, and the guy swore up and down this was mushroom, but I simply didn't believe him, so I threw it out.  This put me in a foul mood, and the only thing I managed to eat before the movie were the substandard nachos.  The movie was good, however.  I had seen it a couple of years ago (I believe at TIFF) but had forgotten a lot of it.  Getting home was a drag.  The 506 had been completely blocked due to a bad traffic accident on Howard Blvd., but fortunately that had cleared up and I caught the streetcar back and finished a couple of poetry books (Krisztina Tóth's My Secret Life and Ronna Bloom's In a Riptide) and made decent progress on Nabokov's Ada.  (I really will need to post soon on the poetry I read recently for Poetry Month...)  But even though the sign said the streetcar was going to Main, somewhere around Parliament they said we would have to exit at Broadview, which pissed me off.  Then after waiting for the next one, it was crawling along Gerrard, stuck behind two different garbage trucks.  So definitely not the best evening.  Also, it didn't rain at all, so I could have biked, and instead it is raining this morning, which complicates my plans a bit.  Sigh.

But I also was frustrated at how difficult it is to switch tickets at RCM.  The Tafelmusik switch won't be too hard, though there is a $4 fee, which I think is bogus.  Second, if I switch the Hillary Hahn ticket, I can only get credit for another show this season, which I think is even more bogus.  If this is the case after talking to the supervisor, I guess I will just leave that ticket as is.  I'm sure Hahn will be fine (and indeed she may end up not touring much after this season), even though there is a different concert with Schubert's Quintet that I know I would enjoy more.  I had thought I could switch the Hahn ticket to Cassandra Wilson in late June, even though those tickets are more expensive than I really want to pay.  However, that date is the last full run through of the Fringe play, and I really ought to be there for that.  So this overall is pretty annoying.  

I also learned that I had double booked myself.  I had a Soundstreams concert for this Sat., but they hadn't sent the actual ticket to me until pretty late, so I thought Sat. was open, and I booked a ticket to see Don Byron at the Rex.  I think I will go to Soundstreams after all, and then just bike as fast as I can to the Rex and catch the second set at 9:30 and perhaps stick around for the late night set.  Obviously not ideal, and it just shows how I really need to cut back on some of these extra-curriculars.  Anyway, I've got to get going to work now.

Edit (05/08): I forgot one of the other disappointments.  On the previous Sunday, we saw this interesting mash up of zombie movies (with strong ties to Night of the Living Dead particularly) and the Breakfast Club at Red Sandcastle.  This was quite entertaining and it runs one more weekend, so rush out to see it if this horror/comedy thing is your bag.  Tickets here.  But the day was still young, and even after grabbing a few things (cat litter mostly) at the mall, I still had time to get back out to Carlton to see Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris.  This isn't my favourite Allen movie by a long shot (and I'm really not a fan of Owen Wilson), but I was up to see it again.  I was on the fence about biking, but it was rather damp and chilly and I thought it would rain, so I ended up taking the TTC.  For once, the 72 bus picked me up without a super long wait, and I got on the subway.  Then we got to Chester, and they said there was a medical emergency and all trains were turning back at Broadview.  There was really no reasonable way to get to Carlton in time if I tried to take the King replacement bus (streetcar service still not restored even though it certainly could be!) to the Carlton car.  And the replacement buses would take forever to arrive.  I was thoroughly annoyed and just stayed on the train at Broadview to go east instead.  To make matters worse, when I got to Chester (again), the blockage had cleared and the trains were going west again.  Had they just held the train for a couple of minutes, things would have be fine, but at this point I was pretty sure I would be late if I exited at Chester and got on the subway back west again.  So utterly frustrating.  I went to Donlands instead of Pape and had Ethiopian food and got some ice cream at the Kawartha Dairy shop.  I suspect had the movie been Manhattan or Crimes and Misdemeanors or even Sleeper, I would have been a lot more keen to get there (and probably would have made the decision to bike it in the first place).

Two Very Busy Days

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

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

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

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

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

Jean-Michel Basquiat, Phooey, 1982

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

This was a companion piece that had just sold.

Fritz Brandtner, City

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

Rita Letendre, A traverse l'espace, 2004

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

I Can't Feel My Lips!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Last Minute Reviews

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Carpe Diem (Photos)

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

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

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

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